Notre Dame Review Journal

Notre Dame Review:
Near and Far
Number 18
Summer 2004

When I first started flipping through the poems and short stories throughout the review I noticed that a lot of them had to do with physical places and the experiences in those places, hence the title. But after reading more I found that a lot of them also have to do with bodily and out of body experiences, personal experiences, which got me to thinking even more about the title. The way I see it, the "Near" part of the title has to do with those physical experiences that happen so close to the author, or even take place inside of the author; while the "Far" experiences are those that are either physically in other countries and parts of the world, or just experiences that seem so far out of the author's body and mind. One example that mixes both the Far and the Near is the short story by Michael Northrop titled "My Body" (pg. 157). He's running in the morning when he comes across a dead body washed up on the rocks that looks exactly like him, other people notice it too and he is baffled by it yet strangely intrigued. Another example of mostly the Far side is the poem "Email to the Year 2999" by Dick Allen (pg. 156). The title pretty much explains the whole distance theme.
One of the poems that really caught my attention was "The Presentation" by Beth Ann Fennelly (pg. 40). The poem is too long to post the entire thing, so I'll just put six stanzas from the middle that I really liked.

1. How many children do you have?
There's just one answer, and it's wrong.

2. How many children do you have?
Ann, I'm sending you this grid
of imaginary numbers,
whole notes.

3. How many children do you have?
We'll make a place where they can count.

4. How many children do you have?
Zero's always where you start
and though you never say it,
it's always there. The zero's there.
Zero at the bone. The zero counts.

5. How many children do you have?
I came across my school notes
on "The Waste Land," with
"the excised Fresca section,
the felt absence at the center
of the poem." And beside that,
I'd doodled a rococo question mark-
not yet understanding
how absence can define itself,
how, the more you put
behnd, beside, in front of it
the more pronounced its corners grow,
the edges sharper honed.
Touch them and you'll bleed.

6. How many children do you have?
The belly of the hole puncher
packed with paper cirlces,
byproducts, remainders, felt
felt absences.

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