For Keeps from Conflict Resolution for Holy BeingsW.W. I frequently refer my audience the Academy of American Poets (poets.org), the creators and sponsors of National Poetry Month, for a more official poem-a-day email list. At certain points, the narrator encounters Monahwee on the page, and he becomes more than just a symbol of the past. 17And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know, 19Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another. Harjo's works often include themes such as defining self, the arts, and social justice. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Joy Harjo. Your email address will not be published. [42], Harjo is married to Owen Chopoksa Sapulpa, and is stepmother to his children.[43][44][45]. Learn more about the history of the Muscogee Creek Nation, of which Joy Harjo is a member. The repetition of the phrase She had some horses underscores the limitless variety of horses the speaker has encountered or has embodied themselves. I feel her phrases, All of this can be applied to humanity as a whole, but its clear the speaker is honing in on the plight of Indigenous tribes in particular. Feeling connected to everything and a "part of" instead of disconnected and feeling separate from everything also keeps us present in the moment and in the proverbial loop of life. The analysis of Harjo's poem called What I Should Have Said demonstrates that the horse there is the creature that exists between two worlds. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. August 29, 2019. We have seen it. 11Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light. Divided into four sections for the four sacred directions of American Indian ontologies and the four phases of life, Harjo's poetic offerings bring us the lessons she has learned that have brought her to spiritual maturity as an elder, a seer, a mystic, a singer, which brings us to healing and wholeness. [26] Harjo has since authored nine books of poetry, including her most recent, the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise (2019), which was a 2020 Oklahoma Book Award Winner; Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), which was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association; and In Mad Love and War (1990), which received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. She had horses who danced in their mothers arms.(). When reading her poems, she speaks with a musical tone in her voice, creating a song in every poem. Watch your mind. Related Poems Apprenticed to Justice. Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038. Of these, memory is at the forefront, whether appearing, as it does, as an abstract obsession, or personified, slipping into a dress and red shoes. A Hamilton Stagehand on Telling Stories with Lights. the car sped away he was surprised he was alive, no bullet holes, man, and eight cartridges strewn. She eventually left home at a young age. In this section, they give further examples of the sometimes contradicting and free-wheeling assortment of people that she has known. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma as a member of the Muscogee or Creek Nation. shared a blanket. On the grassy plain behind the houseone buffalo remains. Her methods of continuing oral tradition include story-telling, singing, and voice inflection in order to captivate the attention of her audiences. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. In addition to writing books and other publications, Harjo has taught in numerous United States universities, performed internationally at poetry readings and music events, and released seven albums of her original music. When you meet me in 811, no prior poetry experience is required! Pettit, Ronda (1998). Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. I understand how to walk among hay baleslooking for turtle shells.How to sing over the groan of the county roadwidening to four lanes.I understand how to keep from looking up:small planes trail overheadas I kneel in the Johnson grasscombing away footprints. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms (after Robert Pinsky). [36][37] Harjo reaches readers and audiences to bring realization of the wrongs of the past, not only for Native American communities but for oppressed communities in general. I lean into the rhythm of your heart to see where it will take us. [13], Harjo has played alto saxophone with the band Poetic Justice, edited literary journals, and written screenplays. Her first memoir, Crazy Brave, was awarded the PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Non Fiction and the American Book Award, and her second, Poet Warrior, was released from W.W. Norton in Fall 2021. Shes the first Native American to hold that position. Joy Harjo was appointed the new United States poet laureate in 2019. She didn't have a great childhood. Joy Harjo is a major American poet who was chosen as poet laureate of the United States. But, elsewhere, her control falters. Anaphora is crucial to the poems theme and its articulation of it. PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. More juxtapositions of tone occur as the speaker follows that image of celebration with the dreary mention of horses who cried in their beer. The speaker also reveals the horses capacity for hate and prejudice (spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves) against those they violently other; their profession of fearlessness (which can be read as both arrogant or in a more sympathetic light); their ability to lie (possibly about being not afraid); and their willingness to tell the truth even at brutal cost (stripped of their tongues). Central Message: People vary greatly to the point of contradiction, Emotions Evoked: Empathy, Frustration, Terror, This poem creatively uses anaphora with impressive effect, employing arresting imagery and uses of figurative language. Images of isolation and silence (whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak) are juxtaposed with ones of frenzied terror (screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives). But by shifting the focus at the last minute from the Church to a single, troubled man, Joyce keeps "Grace" from turning into a diatribe. She Had Some Horses is about mirroring the many, many ways humanity is both alike and unlike itself. Harjo founded For Girls Becoming, an art mentorship program for young Mvskoke women and is a Founding Board Member and Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation. "She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo". This trade language, as she later calls English, is weak, insufficient. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Oakland PEN, Josephine Miles Poetry Award, "Tobacco Origin Story, Because Tobacco Was a Gift Intended to Walk Alongside Us to the Stars", List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas, "Meet Joy Harjo, The 1st Native American U.S. I will draw parallels between Harjo's life and three pieces of work -"I Give . Some will never laughas easily.Will hide knivessilver as fish in their boots,hoard namesas if they could be stolenas easily as land,will paper their wallswith maps and broken promises,scar their fleshwith this badgeheavy as ashes. Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 9, 1951 (Napikoski). How, she asks, can we escape its past? [30], As a musician, Harjo has released seven CDs. Her latest collection, An American Sunrise, continues that theme. In a prefatory prose statement Harjo explains the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which expelled tribes from their land, making explicit connection between past and present: "The indigenous peoples. Today's poem by Joy Harjo is for Amanda and Chase, who got engaged over the weekend; and for everyone else who has found their "for keeps" whatever forms that might take. Once the World Was Perfect Summary & Analysis. She is a writer, model and actor. Perhaps the World Ends Here. By Joy Harjo. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace. (), The speaker seems to continue this idea of resurrection by mixing it with a desire for salvation. She is the author of several books of poetry, including An American Sunrise, which is forthcoming from W. W. Norton in 2019, and Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W. W. Norton, 2015). We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. A member of the Muskogee tribe, she uses American Indian imagery, folktales, symbolism, mythology, and technique in her work. (I have fought each of them. Her books include Poet Warrior (2021), An American Sunrise (2019), Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), Crazy Brave (2012), and How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 19752002 (2004). Its subject matter is at the same time the story of Harjos people, the poets personal story, and the human metanarrative; it is life and the lessons we each must learn and pass on to future generations. [14], In 1995, Harjo received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. And, Wind, I am still crazy. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time. [29] She started painting as a way to express herself. Its the language of the American story, and it comes freighted with all of that storys history, atrocity, and false hope. Trochaic pentameter is an uncommon form of meter. Remember by Joy Harjo - Poetry Analysis Remember when you were little and you couldn't wait to grow up, but now that you are older you wish you were little again? From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Hello Friends, Do you ever feel like the birds are singing the sky into place? Mn Rules Of Criminal Appellate Procedure, The poet Joy Harjo, who was recently named the U.S. Birds are singing the sky into place. She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.She had horses who cried in their beer.(). Horses were vital to many Indigenous American tribes and, as such, make a moving and convenient, if not intentionally jarring, stand-in for people. Since she published her dbut collection, in 1975, she has produced eight books of poetry, a memoir, and childrens books; received just about every prominent poetry award that the literary world can offer; and embraced the universal in her work without being burdened by it. In 1972, she met poet Simon Ortiz of the Acoma Pueblo tribe, with whom she had a daughter, Rainy Dawn (born 1973). Poet Laureate, and who is the first enrolled member of a Native American tribe to hold the position, has said: I feel strongly . Refine any search. "For Keeps" by Joy Harjo Joy Harjo, one of our favorite Native American authors, sets this love poem in the majesty of the outdoors. From In Mad Love and War 1990 by Joy Harjo. [36], Much of Harjo's work reflects Creek values, myths, and beliefs. If Im transformed by language, I am often She didnt have a great childhood. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easyas honey. The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more. Sign up to unveil the best kept secrets in poetry. Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you. Grandma potted a cedar saplingI could take on the road for luck.She used the bark for heart lesionsdoctors couldnt explain.To her they were maps, traces of home,the Milky Way, where shes going, she said. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean. She had an abusive father and stepfather with a mother who was not strong enough. Joy Harjo was born on May 9, 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cut the ties you have to failure and shame. 31st Annual Reading the West Book Award for Poetry, Inductee, Native American Hall of Fame (2021), Designation as the 14th Oklahoma Cultural Treasure at the 44th Oklahoma Governor's Arts Awards (2021), Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, National Book Critics Circle (2023), American Academy of Arts and Letters, Elected Member, Department of Literature (2021), American Philosophical Society, Elected Member (2021), American Academy of Art and Sciences, Member Appointment (2020), Chancellor, Academy of American Poets, Member Appointment (2019), Poetry included on plaque of LUCY, a NASA spacecraft launched in Fall 2021 and the first reconnaissance of the Jupiter Trojans. 25 Nixon, Angelique (2006). each muscle, I ask the strength of the gesture to move like a poem. Poem Solutions Limited International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct,London, EC1A 2BN, United Kingdom, Discover and learn about the greatest poetry ever straight to your inbox, Discover and learn about the greatest poetry, straight to your inbox. That night after eating, singing, and dancing, WHEREAS when offered an apology I watch each movement the shoulders, high or folding, tilt of the head both eyes down or straight through, me, I listen for cracks in knuckles or in the word choice, what is it. Craig Womack Joy Harjo Analysis 1931 Words | 8 Pages. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program. She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo is a poem that projects the variety of human personality and experience onto a symbolic collection of horses. Buy From a Local Bookstore. Now you can have a party. This contributes to the poems attempt to accentuate the paradox of finding diversity cohabitating within the same species of thing (i.e., horses, people). These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor. This book is as precise as a ceremony and just as serious. Just as with the descriptions of the horses as parts of nature, the speaker catalogs indiscriminately and without condemnation a complex variety of personas. The book begins with land stolena passage about the Indian Removal Act and a map marking one of many trails of tearsand ends with thanks for a land ravaged but reborn. Representing the immense scope of people that the speaker omnisciently gleans as belonging to or rather, known by the unnamed she., She had horses who were bodies of sand.She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.(). 2015. The Poem Aloud Get the entire guide to Once the World Was Perfect as a printable PDF. [33], In addition to her creative writing, Harjo has written and spoken about US political and Native American affairs. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. In this volume, Joy Harjo reaches her full maturity as a poet and as a human being, a teacher for us all. Along the highways gravel pitssunflowers stand in dense rows.Telephone poles crook into the layered sky.A crows beak broken by a windmills blade.It is then I understand my grandmother:When they see open landthey only know to take it. The Old Ones will always tell you, your ancestors keep watch over you. To feel and mind you I feel from the sensesI read each muscle, I ask the strength of the gesture to move like a poem. Every single person that visits Poem Analysis has helped contribute, so thank you for your support. Her activism for Native American rights and feminism stem from her belief in unity and the lack of separation among human, animal, plant, sky, and earth. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. with salt crystals she metaphors as her tears. The theme is told throughout the story by the use of figurative language, sound and imagery. Poetry. Her signature project as U.S. Whitman placed his vision of humanity within his vision of America. A poet writes deafness as a form of dissent against tyranny and violence. We gallop into a warm, southern wind. [38] Harjo believes that we become most human when we understand the connection among all living things. There is nowhere else I want to be but here. One of the things was that her everyday life in Saigon changed from the starting of the war. Harjo keeps referring to a map in her poem, but a map was not meant for the creator of that map to use. Joy Harjo reads the poem aloud and briefly discusses her inspiration for it. Then theres the symbolism of the horses themselves, which is used as almost a euphemism for humans (and at times, especially near the end of the poem, Indigenous women). 25And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children, 26And their children, all the way through time. Tiny green plants emerge from earth. Using the repeated phrase thats also shared by the title, the speaker catalogs a collage of different horses owned by an unnamed she. At first, these horses are described solely in abstract terms as reflections of nature or impressions of moments and feelings. Birds are singing the sky into place. Harjo believes that when reading her poems, she can add music by playing the sax and reach the heart of the listener in a different way. The poems theme is arranged around two ideas the speaker implies about people: their vast and oftentimes contradictory nature. She was the first Native American to be so appointed. There is nowhere else I want to be but here. W. W. Norton & Company. We lay together under the stars. Call upon the help of those who love you. [7] Harjo was inspired by her great-aunt, Lois Harjo Ball, who was a painter. Pages are cavernous places, white at entrance, black in absorption. The line brings us back to the books center, a space of retrospection. She Had Some Horses is a 44-line poem comprised of eight stanzas separated by the repeated phrase (She had some horses). Poet Laureate, and who is the first enrolled member of a Native American tribe to hold the position, has said: I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to all the sources that I Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. The Past rose up before us and cried, Harjo writes in Song 7, of the Cannon poems. of Libraries", "Native Nations Poetry Anthology Wins PEN Oakland Award | Department of English", "Michelle Obama, Mia Hamm chosen for Women's Hall of Fame", "Joy Harjo, Kristin Chenoweth honored at Oklahoma Governor's Arts Awards", "NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE ANNOUNCES FINALISTS FOR PUBLISHING YEAR 2022", "2021 Newly Elected Members American Academy of Arts and Letters", "The American Philosophical Society Welcomes New Members for 2021", "Joy Harjo and Natasha Trethewey Named Academy of American Poets Chancellors | poets.org", "Letter From The End of the Twentieth Century - album by Joy Harjo", "Native Joy For Real an album by Joy Harjo", "Winding Through The Milky Way an album by Joy Harjo", "Red Dreams, Trail Beyond Tears an album by Joy Harjo", Joy Harjo, U.S. Her poetry is included on a plaque on LUCY, a NASA spacecraft launched in Fall 2021 and the first reconnaissance of the Jupiter Trojans. Where have you been? You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant. Toward the ancient encampment of our relatives. Joy Harjo (/ h r d o / HAR-joh; born May 9, 1951) is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author.She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. "For Keeps" by Joy Harjo For Keeps Sun makes the day new. Joy Harjo AnalysisA Short Biography of Joy Harjo Joy Harjo is a mother, activist, painter, poet, musician, and author. Lodges smoulder in fire, . The US poet laureate Joy Harjo writes, "The literature of the aboriginal people of North America defines America. [32], Harjo performs with her saxophone and flutes, solo and with pulled-together players she often calls the Arrow Dynamics Band. It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. NEH Summer Stipend in American Indian Literature and Verbal Arts, Arizona Commission on the Arts Poetry Fellowship (1989), The American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award (1990), Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of The Americas (1995), Bravo Award from the Albuquerque Arts Alliance (1996). Read the full text of Once the World Was Perfect. The horse that keeps being referred to throughout the text Is in fact Joy. See All Poems by this Author Poems. From this started her journey into the arts. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem. She taught us to shuck corn, laughing,never spoke about her childhoodor the faces in gingerbread tinsstacked in the closet. Have a specific question about this poem? Move as if all things are possible." Where in the body do I begin; Joy Harjo was appointed the new United States poet laureate in 2019. We witness this usage of the horse most clearly in Harjo's poem Explosion from her 1983 collection She Had Some Horses. 22The light made an opening in the darkness. While reading poetry, she claims that "[she] starts not even with an image but a sound," which is indicative of her oral traditions expressed in performance. Joy Harjo (/hrdo/ HAR-joh; born May 9, 1951) is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. "Once the World Was Perfect" was written by former U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and published in the 2015 collection Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings. She began writing poetry at twenty-two, and released her first book of poems called The Last Song, which started her career in writing. Sadness eating us with disease, she writes in one poem. "[40], In 1969 at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Harjo met fellow student Phil Wilmon, with whom she had a son, Phil Dayn (born 1969). Tiny green plants emerge from the earth. They sit before the fire that has been there without time. She Had Some Horses is characterized by the speakers diverse descriptions of many different horses owned by the unnamed she. The first eight lines ground much of the speakers vivid imagery in the physical appearances of the animals, which appear to mirror elements of the natural world. The sacred and profane tangle and are threaded into the lands guarded by the four sacred mountains in the poetry of Sherwin Bitsui. Grandma fell in love with a truck driver,grew watermelons by the pondon our Indian allotment,took us fishing for dragonflies.When the bulldozers camewith their documents from the cityand a truckload of pipelines,her shotgun was already loaded. We respond to all comments too, giving you the answers you need. 1. Harjo uses the poem to chronicle in a viscerally intimate manner a list of impressions shes gathered from other people and the world around her. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction. 2023 Cond Nast. But the abhorrence of religion as a means of control is nowhere as potent as the final line in this section. Womack emphasizes that critics misjudge Harjos poetry by presuming a heterosexual reading for her poetry and paying no attention to her intention, same-sex desire. It may return in pieces, in tatters. [31], Since her first album, a spoken word classic Letter From the End of the Twentieth Century (2003) and her 1998 solo album Native Joy for Real, Harjo has received numerous awards and recognitions for her music, including a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the year for her 2008 album, Winding Through the Milky Way. [41] She raised both her children as a single mother. For Keeps Joy Harjo - 1951- Sun makes the day new. She conveys how every person is different and has their own identities. Harjo, explains how everything in the world is connected in some way. I say, and Understand me, and I wonder.. One sends me new work spotted. Call your spirit back. Tiny green plants emerge from earth. Indeed, Whitman is a certain influence, but he and Harjo diverge in their sense of scope. Where the speaker explains how the horses who tried to save the unnamed she were also the same ones who climbed into her bed and prayed as they raped her.. Her father was a Muscogee Creek citizen whose mother came from a line of respected warriors, and speakers who served the Muscogee Nation in the . In stanzas that gradually swell to short paragraphs, Harjo creates a loose meditation on memory, full of chameleonic images in which familial scenes intermix with mentions of a fox guardian and Star Wars and the sax solo in Careless Whisper. The muddle is intentional; Harjos canvas is sprawling, complex, but she wants to make the act of seeing it challenging. Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs Listen to Joy Harjo perform I Am a Dangerous Woman/Crossing the Border Into Canada here. In 2019, she was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In the past week, we have been thinking a lot about this unprecedented moment and how poetry might help us live through it. [12], Harjo taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts from 1978 to 1979 and 1983 to 1984. And I think of the 6th Avenue jail, of mostly Native, and Black men, where Henry told about being shot at, eight times outside a liquor store in L.A., but when. In How to Write a Poem in a Time of War, from the new collection, she shows a deft manipulation of structure, her dramatic enjambment (What they cannot kill / they take) giving depth to narrative turns and images. Expectations a terse arm-fold, a failing noun-thing Dont worry.The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves. By Joy Harjo. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. The poem also highlights the struggles of Indigenous Americans (especially women) as they harbor hope against the equally varying ways theyve been subjected to abuse. New Horizon School Bahrain Fee Structure, Financial Statements For Pepsi Company For 2019, Springer Spaniel Rescues In Central Texas. You could cure amnesiawith the trees of our back-forty. Learn more about the history of the Muscogee Creek Nation, of which Joy Harjo is a member. (), As the poem continues, the speaker gives grows far darker in both tone and mood. Joy Harjo has received honorary doctorates from the following: SUNY Buffalo Honorary Doctoral Degree, 2021, UNC Asheville Honorary Doctoral Degree, 2021, University of Pennsylvania Honorary Doctoral Degree, 2021, Smith College Honorary Doctoral Degree, 2021, Institute of American Indian Arts Honorary Doctoral Degree, 2020, St. Mary-in-the-Woods College Honorary Doctoral Degree, 1998, Benedictine College, Kansas Honorary Doctoral Degree, 1992, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 16:36. Poet Laureate was called "Living Nations, Living Words: A Map of First Peoples Poetry", which focused on "mapping the U.S. with Native Nations poets and poems". Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them. 3Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind. Tiny green plants emerge from earth. Some of the horses refer to themselves exactly as they appear (called themselves, horse'). The concerns are particular, yet often universal." The poets and poems gathered here showcase both the universal and the particular approaches Native American authors have taken to writing about diverse . As the title suggests, the poem depicts a time when the world was "perfect" and human beings lived in harmony with each other and with the planet. Anger tormenting us. She earned her BA from the University of New Mexico and MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. The weight of ashes from burned-out camps. they ask.And what has taken you so long?That night after eating, singing, and dancingWe lay together under the stars.We know ourselves to be part of mystery.It is unspeakable.It is everlasting.It is for keeps. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Birds are singing the sky into place. I link my legs to yours and we ride together, Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Nation (Este Mvskokvlke) and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). People are only able to rebuild what they destroyed by treating each other with compassion and working together, constructing a metaphorical ladder that leads to the "light" of a better future. She has performed in Europe, South America, India, and Africa, as well as for a range of North American stages, including the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, the Cultural Olympiad at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, DEF Poetry Jam, and the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington D.C.[27], She began to play the saxophone at the age of 40. Instead, they begin to personify humans in appearance and character, specifically women. Listen to them.. Eventually, the horses start to express traits reserved for humans embodying both the best and worst in people. Harjo also begins each end-stopped line with an example of anaphora, repeating the same phrase throughout the poem. Insomnia and the Seven Steps to Grace. There is nowhere else I want to be but here. Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.