This issue’s nonfiction gives us a cinquefoil of contemporary, lyrical, and incisive essays. Jason Prokowiev’s “Why We Stole” is a sort of forensic essay that moves back through a chain of consequences at once personal and familial and historical. Cassie Rubico’s “Playing Solitaire” is a beautiful and deep reflection on caring for a parent with failing cognitive abilities. Ulrik Andersen’s “Weight” is a tightly-focused and psychologically alert self-inquiry about becoming a father. In her essay “If I Knew Then What I Know Now,” poet Susan Rich remembers an abortion that stays with her more than 30 years later, in the midst of a battle to defend the right to choose. Alexis Rizzuto clearly loves everything about birds, and in “Just a Robin”, she shows us that the more we know, the more we wonder; and the more we wonder, the more we learn.
Enjoy.
Richard Hoffman is the author of nine books, including the memoirs Half the House and Love & Fury; the story collection Interference and other stories; the essay collection Remembering the Alchemists and other essays; and five books of poems: Without Paradise; Gold Star Road, which won the 2006 Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Motton Book Award; Emblem; Noon until Night, winner of the 2018 Massachusetts Book Award for poetry; and People Once Real.
