Like many writers, I feel centered when I write, or it might be better to say, when I don’t write, when I can’t write for whatever reason, I feel, frankly, de-stabilized. It’s dangerous for me not to write.
—
Sigrid Nunez
Three Poems by Elena Alexander
- Eliot Weinberger and Forrest Gander by
- Lionel Shriver by Jenefer Shute
- Lincoln Perry by Ann Beattie
- Jennifer Bartlett by Elizabeth Murray
- Arturo Herrera by Josiah McElheny
- Yinka Shonibare by Anthony Downey
- Noah Baumbach by Jonathan Lethem
- George Lewis by Jeff Parker
- David Rabe by Evangeline Morphos
Interviews
- American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman
- Three Poems by Peter Gizzi
- The One Marvelous Thing by Rikki Ducornet
- Three Poems by Laurie Blauner
- Chroniques de L’Algérie Amère Algérie 1985–2002 by Anouar Benmalek
- Three Poems by Elena Alexander
- Three Poems by Brenda Shaughnessy
- Two Poems by Tomaž Šalamun
- Teachable Moment by Pierre Hauser
First Proof
- Gedi Sibony by Anthony Huberman
- Stanley Whitney by Mimi Thompson
- Jon Kessler by Saul Ostrow
- Clarence Morgan by Jan Estep
Artists On Artists
- Mary Ellen Caroll’s Federal by Charles Renfro
- Cannon Hudson by Rachel Kushner
- Stephen Vitiello’s Buffalo Bass Delay by Paul Pfeiffer
- Eri Morita’s Home Drama and Stuart O’Sullivan’s How Beautiful This Place Can Be by Allen Frame
- Andrew Benjamin’s Disclosing Spaces: On Painting by Saul Ostrow
- Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman by Victoria Miguel
- James Frey’s My Friend Leonard by Marc Joseph
- Aimee Bender’s Willful Creatures by Melissa Sandor
- Adam Curtis’s The Power of Nightmares by Linda Hoagland
Editor's Choice
The Lady A
I will arrive on your doorstep penniless,
old after vaulting the King
of Araby.
You always told me
to go screw a rich man.
I ran splay-legged that’s how
I went heedless under my own
steam in a room
of gold I wove into straw,
wore in my hair. Spare days spent sideways
galloping choking mountains
of garnet red dust casting
hot shadows mounted
on a mare’s back
sliding beneath her belly like Belle Starr.
New scars impressed themselves
upon my lips.
Materialized each morning,
disappeared, ach breakfast—
jam-and-tea. All the perfumes
on my hands sweet, then dark,
commanding days:
“Down, Erebus. Cerberus, play
dead. Sit. Stay.”
Bending the king’s embrace
I faltered, could not change
the air—rust obtained my fingernails, corroded
my skin
in patches I thought only of you.
Armor grew furry with neglect. Could not fill
days or ewers.
Cerberus bit
Erebus
ran away in circles.
The vast quiet.
The empty cell.
A chambered heart,
the riches.
Crystal knocked echoed bones.
Solemn beasts roamed bleating, haunting
rocks, dying leaves vermilion.
There was some keening.
A dry cough.
Pebble in the singular.
Particles exhibit
awareness.
In My Garden
There was never a God
in my garden. (Hydrangeas.)
I am the first of me and the rest
came as I—singular;
alone—except of course twins
and such. From my spit of land, spirit level,
I looked out.
None were admonished.
Frictive bracts, gusts; hear?
None warned not to pick
the tree. The vine, fair game;
the game, all fair and fatty.
If l am to understand you talk in tongues.
Lobes urge poetry and troops.
Ancient stars depart, locusts arrive.
Only the craziest believe themselves
God. (Horseflies.) (Hydrangeas.)
If doubt is heresy I
(a buzz) then (silence)
and more—Silence!
No rattle. No hiss.
speak
The Physics of a Wish
We blow frantically against small flames
to make them go—
out.
Crisped wicks, naked, deposit
wax on icing;
creamy roses.
Other evenings, stunned by loneliness,
we idly note lapse
between lung and spark.
Time is wave, the fire dancer.
Space jiggles.
Collide sugar and eggs.
—Elena Alexander is a poet and writer. Her recent work has been published in American Letters & Commentary and Rattapallax 11. She is the author of Footnotes: Six Choreographers Inscribe the Page (Gordon + Breach, 1998) and her short story, “Sic Transit” (BOMB, 1996) received Honorable Mention in Prize Stories, The O. Henry Awards, the Best of 1997. Alexander’s translated writing appears frequently in the Serbo-Croatian journal Album, and has also been featured in Mentor (2000), a collection of Slovenian writing. She currently teaches at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark. She has just completed a poetry manuscript, “Head Shots.”
Originally published in
BOMB 93,
Fall 2005
Featuring interviews with Arturo Herrera and Josiah McElheny, Jennifer Bartlett and Elizabeth Murray, Lincoln Perry, Anthony Downey and Yinka Shonibare, Eliot Weinberger and Forrest Gander, Lionel Shriver, Noah Baumbach and Jonathan Lethem, George Lewis and Jeff Parker, and David Rabe and Evangeline Morphos.
