An Interview with Christopher Merrill, by Rebecca McKay. An Interview with Christopher Merrill by Rebecca McKay I loved reading your new poems for the issue. Can you talk a little bit about your interest in the prose poem as a form? In the fall of 1989, which seems like a lifetime ago, I began to experiment with the prose poem, writing, sometimes automatically, the first draft of what by fits and... 

Introduction to Christopher Merrill, by Idra Novey. Christopher Merrill by Idra Novey I first met Christopher Merrill in India.  We’d both come to Calcutta as part of a U.S. Delegation of Writers to take part in one of the largest book festivals in Asia but which was cancelled at the last minute after we’d all arrived.   Our delegation took part in a number of readings and discussions... 

By Christopher Merrill On the first day the goat climbed to the top branch of the acacia tree and said, The ship sailing to the new world will sink before it leaves the harbor. He stayed there all night, counting the stars in three constellations that he had never seen before, and in the morning he cleaned himself up and said, The fishermen mending their nets will never take to the sea again. Leaves... 

By Christopher Merrill         for Jill Staggs For example, the crack widening in the window of the plane flying over Greenland: crazing is the word used by the safety inspector to describe the mesh of lines spreading from the bullet-sized hole in the plastic through which shine glaciers melting in the sea below—ridge upon white ridge gleaming in the sunlight of an autumn morning,... 

By Christopher Merrill for Tamera Luzzatto The canoe had sprung a leak, and so they had to portage to the sea, along a foot path abandoned to marauders from the city. When their guide could not identify the tracks in the mud, the cry of the bird perched in the dead tree behind them, or the markings on the boxcar rusting on the remains of the trestle destroyed in the last war, they set the canoe down... 

By Christopher Merrill for Michael New (1942-2006) You would have liked it here: in a small city along a river, with the spires of a Gothic cathedral looming above a castle and the burgher descendants of the margraves who raised the fortifications maintaining a decent respect for order, you can build things to last—cobblestone lanes, town houses, traditions. And you would have appreciated the court... 

By Christopher Merrill They keep the contestants in cold storage. Nothing worse than spoiled goods, they say. Yet the contestants hold a privileged position in our society. Less than one percent of the applicants, who number in the millions, survive the initial screening at birth. And those who do face constant scrutiny before the final selection is made, their features sketched by a battery of artists,... 

Rattapallax has the unique opportunity to meet with myriad internationally-renown poets and a staff that is deeply focused on promoting and publishing new work. Meet the staff and contributors to this, or first issue of Rattapallax Online. Ram Devineni is the editor and publisher of Rattapallax and a film-maker who has had films shown at the Cairo International Film Festival, San Jose Film Festival,... 

Field, Thalia. Bird Lovers, Backyard. New Directions, 2010. Introduction by Idra Novey Response by David Rohlfing Response by Rachel Zucker Response by Joel Brouwer Slow Read by Lytton Smith About the author, Thalia Field Jump into the conversation!   Introduction by Idra Novey Thalia Field writes in the canyons between genres. Her sentences are arranged in long paragraphs that read...