Conjunctions: 79 / Onword

Fall 2022

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sylph Set
Fred Moten

Smog City
Can Xue, Translated by Chen Zeping and Translated by Karen Gernant

Poker Night at the Elks Club 1938
John Crowley

Three Unpublished Poems
C. D. Wright

Readings in the Slantwise Sciences
Sofia Samatar

Name Your Body
Leah Newsom

Song of the Andoumboulou: 344
Nathaniel Mackey

The Four Notes
Alyssa Pelish

Five Poems for David Langowski and His Own Song
Shane McCrae

Knot
Forrest Gander and Jack Shear

Bakersfield
Yxta Maya Murray

Kidnapped
Russell Banks

Uncrowd the Planet
Deb Olin Unferth

Four Poems
Rae Armantrout

The Iris Migration and Other Poems
Cole Swensen

The Everyday Invisible
Barrie Jean Borich

Lilavati’s Fire
Jai Chakrabarti

Two Poems
Peter Gizzi

Clutch and Paper Theater
Karla Kelsey and Nancy Kuhl

City of Paris
Melissa Pritchard

Four More Stories
Peter Orner

Julia
Minna Proctor

Naked Eye
Yannick Murphy

Seven Cambridge Lockdown Poems
G. C. Waldrep

Three Pantoums
John Yau

After
Martine Bellen

The New Spirit
Andrew Mossin

Two Stories
Bonnie Nadzam

Zeaz, Soldite, and Nephosa
Vi Khi Nao

Evanescence
Carole Maso

Three Poems
Julia Alvarez

Marmalade
Fred D’Aguiar

Description

Conjunctions: 79, Onword

Edited by Bradford Morrow

Cover art by Erin O’Keefe

We titled this issue Onword so it could work either as a farewell—onward and upward, as we say when bidding goodbye—or a celebratory continuing forward—on with the words. Deep gratitude goes to all who helped make the latter the true meaning of the title.

Like many endeavors in the arts, literary journals are quixotic undertakings, and no matter how vigorous are the idealism, resilience, and stubbornness that sustain them, they are fragile enterprises. Fragile and yet crucial constituents in the literary ecosphere. I have noted before that when I started Conjunctions in my late twenties, my hope was that it might last for a few years, offer a serious platform for the innovative voices that I felt were changing how we wrote and read. That with the help of many amazing colleagues and supporters it has stayed alive over the years—with vibrancy, I believe—is astonishing to me.

If the title was ambidextrous, the theme was nonexistent. Our organizing principle was simply great writing by great writers. Yet commonalities, shared themes, did arise over the course of putting the issue together. Survival threads its way through these works—overcoming existential smog in Can Xue’s story; Yxta Maya Murray’s depiction of a woman’s struggle to overcome drought that’s killing her orchard; Russell Banks’s haunting novella about people, good and evil, trying to survive each other on the Canadian border. Migration figures into works by Fred D’Aguiar, Cole Swensen, Martine Bellen. The twin themes of loss and renewal are central to the narratives of Melissa Pritchard, Minna Zallman Proctor, Shane McCrae, and others. Evolution of mind and place, reimagining and rebuilding are explored by Leah Newsom, Karla Kelsey and Nancy Kuhl, as well as in Barrie Jean Borich’s essay about our efforts to define our very identities. And, as with so many writers in these pages, Bonnie Nadzam eloquently explores stillness, how to live with disappointment, how to move onward through difficult spiritual terrains.

This issue is dedicated with fondest memories and love to Peter Straub. He is deeply missed and will live on in his unique work.

—Bradford Morrow, September 2022, New York City