Lisa Fetchko | Mount Saint Mary Los Angeles (original) (raw)
Papers by Lisa Fetchko
Ploughshares, 2015
The Winter 2015-16 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing... more The Winter 2015-16 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Two out of each year’s three issues are guest-edited by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles, with the Winter issue staff-edited.The stories, poems, and essays that comprise this staff-edited issue of Ploughshares are diverse and timely. Visit a South African laundromat in Laurie Baker’s short story, “Here I Am, Laughing with Boers”; fly over the American midwest in George Bilgere’s poem, “Way Above Illinois”; and read about life as a border patrol agent in New Mexico in Francisco Cantú’s essay, “Bajadas.” The pieces jump from Manhattan to China to Idaho, but the common thread of humanity is never lost.Read new prose from Meng Jin, Ryan Ruff Smith, and Joan Murray, and poetry from Matthew Lippman, Natalie Shapero, and more. The winners of our Emerging Writer’s Contest appear here, along with the announcement of our Zacharis Award winner.This issue is dedicated to William H. Berman (1936-2015), an advisory board member and Emerson College overseer.
Ploughshares, 2015
In 1988, when I went to Uruguay for the first time, the country was emerging from a long military... more In 1988, when I went to Uruguay for the first time, the country was emerging from a long military dictatorship, and the capital, Montevideo, was a quiet, gray city that reminded me of Central Europe. The arts have always been important in Uruguay. You feel their presence everywhere-from the striking modern architecture that invigorates the stately old nineteenth-century houses on the streets of Montevideo to the constructivist murals-on public buildings and in people's backyards-in the style of Uruguay's most famous painter, Torres García. There's a strong literary tradition as well. When I was first there, however, books were not abundant. Imports were prohibitively expensive, there were few public libraries, and Uruguay's small, struggling publishing houses produced rudimentary editions on cheap, grainy paper-precariously bound paperbacks that were inevitably faded, dusty, crumbling from use or age, and stained by the omnipresent humidity that makes the climate of Uruguay such a challenge, especially in the wintertime. But the man I' d gone to visit, an architect I later married, had some books lying around-he' d had a first-rate education in the public schools, read, among other things, Poe and Melville in excellent translations. And his mother, a schoolteacher who, like most Uruguayans, was a diehard fan of Borges, had a decent collection of Uruguayan literature, some of which I tried to read while I was there. At the time, my Spanish was not good enough to catch the subtleties, but some things stuck: the loose, introspective plots; the fresh, modern tone; the underlying fatalism, alleviated by a dark and human humor. Like Argentina, its larger, more populous neighbor to the west, Uruguay, whose 3 million or so inhabitants are mostly descended from Europeans, has a strong, vibrant culture, an unprecedented mix of European influences-Spanish, Italian, British, and French-and local references, most particularly the grassy, cow-speckled plains (known, in Argentina, as the pampas) and the Río de la Plata, the wide, ambling
Ploughshares, 2015
The Winter 2015-16 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing... more The Winter 2015-16 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Two out of each year’s three issues are guest-edited by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles, with the Winter issue staff-edited.The stories, poems, and essays that comprise this staff-edited issue of Ploughshares are diverse and timely. Visit a South African laundromat in Laurie Baker’s short story, “Here I Am, Laughing with Boers”; fly over the American midwest in George Bilgere’s poem, “Way Above Illinois”; and read about life as a border patrol agent in New Mexico in Francisco Cantú’s essay, “Bajadas.” The pieces jump from Manhattan to China to Idaho, but the common thread of humanity is never lost.Read new prose from Meng Jin, Ryan Ruff Smith, and Joan Murray, and poetry from Matthew Lippman, Natalie Shapero, and more. The winners of our Emerging Writer’s Contest appear here, along with the announcement of our Zacharis Award winner.This issue is dedicated to William H. Berman (1936-2015), an advisory board member and Emerson College overseer.
Ploughshares, 2015
In 1988, when I went to Uruguay for the first time, the country was emerging from a long military... more In 1988, when I went to Uruguay for the first time, the country was emerging from a long military dictatorship, and the capital, Montevideo, was a quiet, gray city that reminded me of Central Europe. The arts have always been important in Uruguay. You feel their presence everywhere-from the striking modern architecture that invigorates the stately old nineteenth-century houses on the streets of Montevideo to the constructivist murals-on public buildings and in people's backyards-in the style of Uruguay's most famous painter, Torres García. There's a strong literary tradition as well. When I was first there, however, books were not abundant. Imports were prohibitively expensive, there were few public libraries, and Uruguay's small, struggling publishing houses produced rudimentary editions on cheap, grainy paper-precariously bound paperbacks that were inevitably faded, dusty, crumbling from use or age, and stained by the omnipresent humidity that makes the climate of Uruguay such a challenge, especially in the wintertime. But the man I' d gone to visit, an architect I later married, had some books lying around-he' d had a first-rate education in the public schools, read, among other things, Poe and Melville in excellent translations. And his mother, a schoolteacher who, like most Uruguayans, was a diehard fan of Borges, had a decent collection of Uruguayan literature, some of which I tried to read while I was there. At the time, my Spanish was not good enough to catch the subtleties, but some things stuck: the loose, introspective plots; the fresh, modern tone; the underlying fatalism, alleviated by a dark and human humor. Like Argentina, its larger, more populous neighbor to the west, Uruguay, whose 3 million or so inhabitants are mostly descended from Europeans, has a strong, vibrant culture, an unprecedented mix of European influences-Spanish, Italian, British, and French-and local references, most particularly the grassy, cow-speckled plains (known, in Argentina, as the pampas) and the Río de la Plata, the wide, ambling