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Featured highlights ...
An Audible Anthology
An archive of Atlantic poetry from 1995 to the present, read aloud by the author.
Soundings
An innovative series of poetry readings in which three or four contemporary poets are invited to record a reading of the same classic poem.
John Updike, "Pygmalion" (July 1981)
"He could not know the world, was his fear, unless a woman translated it for him."
Kay Ryan has been awarded the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for 2004.
Read and listen to four of Ryan's poems that originally appeared in The Atlantic: "Hailstorm" (2003), "Among English Verbs" (1998), "This Life" (1993), and "Emptiness" (1993).
Charles Dickens, "George Silverman's Explanation" (January, February, March 1868)
"My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infant home was a cellar in Preston."
Henri Cole has received the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the country's largest prize for a single work, for his collection Middle Earth. Two poems from the book, "Landscape with Deer and Figure" and "Black Camellia," originally appeared in
The Atlantic.
Paul Theroux, "The Johore Murders" (March 1977)
"If the second victim had not been an American, I probably would not have given the Johore murders a second thought, and I certainly would not have been involved in the business."
The Difficult Grandeur of Robert Lowell
Writings by and about Robert Lowell offer insight into the life and poetry of a tormented legend.
Jane Smiley, "Long Distance" (January 1987)
"In the five months that Kirby knew Mieko in Japan, and in the calls between them since, she has never shed a tear, but now she weeps with absolute abandon, in long, heaving sobs."
Can Poetry Matter? (May 1991)
Poetry has vanished as a cultural force in America. If poets venture outside their confined world, they can work to make it essential once more. An article by Dana Gioia, who was recently nominated by George W. Bush to direct the National Endowment for the Arts.
Eudora Welty, "A Worn Path" (February 1941)
"Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied in a red rag, coming along a path through the pine woods. Her name was Phoenix Jackson. She was very old, and small, and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows."
A Notorious Trifler
For Ogden Nash, humor was "a shield, a weapon, a survival kit." Herewith a small selection, previously unpublished. By Gary Cohen.
Tim O'Brien, "The People We Marry" (January 1992)
Magic was his life. His marriage was a trick he did not want to explain.
Those Who Make Poems (March 1942)
In 1942 Carl Sandburg offered his thoughts to would-be poets.
Edith Wharton, "The House of the Dead Hand" (August 1904)
"The hand was a woman's—a dead drooping hand, which hung there convulsed helpless, as though it had been thrust forth in denunciation of some evil mystery within the house, and had sunk struggling into death."
Poetry Out Loud
One of the biggest changes in modern poetry is its escape from the page to the performance. By Peter Davison.
Edith Wharton, "The Long Run" (February 1912)
"'In our case there was no dividing line between loving and liking.... Ours was a robust passion that could give an open-eyed account of itself, and not a beautiful madness shrinking away from the proof.'"
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Americans today are finding new inspiration in Julia Ward Howe's anthem—originally published in The Atlantic in 1862 to rally Union troops.
Mark Twain, "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" (June 1876)
"The door opened, and a shriveled, shabby dwarf entered.... This vile bit of human rubbish seemed to bear a sort of remote and ill-defined resemblance to me!"
Madness in the New Poetry (January 1965)
"Is it only coincidence that poetry in the last two decades has come into the full uses of madness as of an instrument?" By Peter Davison.
Vladimir Nabokov, "Father's Butterflies" (April 2000)
"The last important unpublished fiction by Nabokov." Translated from the Russian by Nabokov's son, Dmitri.
Billy Collins, Poet Laureate
Several of Collins's poems have appeared in The Atlantic over the past few years—"The Iron Bridge," "Snow Day," "Man Listening to Disc," and "Invention." All of them can be heard read aloud by the author.
Vladimir Nabokov, "Cloud, Castle, Lake" (June 1941) and "The Aurelian" (November 1941)
In 1941, The Atlantic Monthly became the first English-language magazine to publish Vladimir Nabokov's fiction and poetry. As a companion to the April, 2000, issue (see the editors' introduction) here are the first two short stories by Nabokov to appear in The Atlantic.
Flashbacks: Henry James
A selection of pieces by and about Henry James, including his first short story to appear in the magazine (in 1865) and the first installment of Portrait of a Lady, which was serialized in the magazine in 1880-81.
Recollecting Longfellow
In The Atlantic's early years, he was the poet of the age. But was he a great poet? David Barber introduces a selection of Longfellow's poems that were originally published in The Atlantic.
Flashbacks: Louisa May Alcott
Four Atlantic short stories demonstrate Alcott's little-known penchant for romantic fantasy.
Robert Frost in The Atlantic
The first three poems—and one that got away—introduced and read aloud by Peter Davison.
Emily Dickinson (Un)discovered
In 1891, shortly after the posthumous publication of Emily Dickinson's
poetry, Thomas Wentworth Higginson recalled his correspondence with the
reclusive poet and reproduced many of her letters and early poems.
Reminiscences of Walt Whitman (February 1902)
A memoir of the author's friendship with the bard from Brooklyn, which considers Whitman's unique place in American literature. By John Townsend Trowbridge.
Volume One, Number One (November 1857)
These poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier, appeared in
The Atlantic Monthly's first issue.
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Recently ...
POETRY
Half Moon, Small Cloud
By John Updike.
POETRY
Strange Tales of the Kingdom of Fife
[with audio] By Mark Jarman.
POETRY
Everyone Was In Love
By Galway Kinnell.
POETRY
Little Hat
By Suzanne Cleary.
POETRY
Lottery
[with audio] By John Skoyles.
FICTION
Night Bus
The treacherous route to Lagos. By Ada Udechukwu.
FICTION
Whitmore, 1969
Back from Vietnam, seeking salvation in Bob Dylan. By Dominic Smith.
FICTION
Horseman
“Oh, you’ll succeed just fine,” he told her. “You’ll just never be any good.”. By Richard Russo.
FICTION
What Happened to the Baby?
Uncle Simon was crazy about words. Really crazy. By Cynthia Ozick.
FICTION
L. Debard and Aliette
A love story. By Lauren Groff.
FICTION
The Safe
A junkyard mystery. By Tim Gautreaux.
POETRY
Squeezebox
[with audio] By James Reiss.
POETRY
Rue Family
By Christina Pugh.
POETRY
Nightfall
By Brad Leithauser.
POETRY
Sing-Along Messiah, Disney Hall
By Adam Kirsch.
POETRY
Datura
By Brooks Haxton.
POETRY
Bright Shadow
By Linda Gregerson.
POETRY
A Mile Down the Road From Home
[with audio] By Brendan Galvin.
Arabic
By Alexander Nemser.
POETRY
Samson in Love
By Elizabeth Cox.
POETRY
Bambino Sutra
[with audio] By David Barber.
POETRY
Meditatio
By Mary Karr.
POETRY
Pyracantha and Plum
By Jane Hirshfield.
POETRY
The Anthem
If famous poets had written "The Star-Spangled Banner" By Garrison Keillor.
POETRY
North and South
Selections from the notebooks of Elizabeth Bishop.
New fiction
The Accidental by Ali Smith. By Joseph O'Neill.
New Fiction
Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes. By Elizabeth Judd.
NEW FICTION
A Close Read
Leaving Home, by Anita Brookner. By Christina Schwarz.
POETRY
Two Poems
By C. K. Williams.
POETRY
Small House Torn Down to Build a Larger
[with audio] By X.J. Kennedy.
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FLASHBACKS
So You Want to Be a Writer
Wallace Stegner, Francine Prose, John Kenneth Galbraith, and others offer advice to aspiring wordsmiths. Introduction by Shan Wang.
INTERVIEWS
Poet in Residence
David Barber, The Atlantic's poetry editor, talks about the writing and teaching of poetry, and about his new collection of poems, Wonder Cabinet By Sarah Cohen.
POETRY
Eulogy for an Anchorite
A poem by David Barber, from his new book Wonder Cabinet By David Barber.
INTERVIEWS
Reading and Writing
Novelist and critic Francine Prose talks about creativity, literary craftsmanship, and her new book, Reading Like a Writer. By Jessica Murphy.
Out of the Darkness
Ada Udechukwu, author of the short story "Night Bus," discusses art, writing, and the politics of her troubled homeland. By Jennie Rothenberg.
INTERVIEWS
You Bet Your Life
Poet Gail Mazur on Robert Lowell, "the textural richness of the ordinary," and the value of artistic community. By Tess Taylor.
ROBERT FROST IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
The First Three Poems and One That Got Away
An Atlantic editor snubs a poet and lives to regret it.
INTERVIEWS
Paper Trail
Alice Quinn on the delicate task of piecing together the unfinished work of poet Elizabeth Bishop. By Tess Taylor.
FLASHBACKS
Appalachian Hardship
In the wake of the Sago mining tragedy, a look back at an 1861 tale that brought the plight of impoverished West Virginia workers to national attention. Introduction by Jeff Biggers.
INTERVIEWS
Zadie, Take Three
The author of White Teeth and The Autograph Man talks about her new comedy of manners-cum-campus novel and the pitfalls of literary celebrity. By Jessica Murphy.
INTERVIEWS
Aural Argument
Adam Haslett talks about the rhythm of language, studying law, and "City Visit," his short story in the fiction issue. By Kathryn Crim.
INTERVIEWS
The Art of the Unconscious
Joyce Carol Oates talks about modern science, the writing life, and "*BD* 11 1 86," her short story in the fiction issue. By Jessica Murphy.
INTERVIEWS
The Man Behind the Stories
C. Michael Curtis, The Atlantic Monthly's fiction editor, discusses short stories, discovering new writers, and his long tenure at the magazine. By Mary Ann Koruth.
On Fiction
A compendium of literary interviews and Atlantic classics.
FLASHBACKS
Poetic Justice
Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow champion the cause of freedom in the pages of The Atlantic. Introduction by Mary Ann Koruth.
INTERVIEWS
Write What You Like
Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of Prep, on literary page-turners and the problem with too much cleverness. By Katie Bacon.
INTERVIEWS
Myths and Metaphors
Kazuo Ishiguro on Jane Austen, adapting his work for film, and his latest
novel, Never Let Me Go By Jennie Rothenberg.
IN MEMORIAM
A Life's Work
Remembering Peter Davison. By David Barber.
SOUNDINGS
Ezra Pound, “Lament of the Frontier Guard”
Read aloud by Robert Pinsky, Wen Stephenson, and Charles Wright. Introduction by Wen Stephenson.
IN MEMORIAM
Peter Davison (1928-2004)
A partial collection of Peter Davison's essays, reviews, travelogues, and poems for The Atlantic Monthly.
INTERVIEWS
Poetry's Chairman
Dana Gioia, who famously pronounced poetry moribund in 1991, now heralds its surprising comeback. By Joshua J. Friedman.
INTERVIEWS
Details, Details
The poet Thomas Lux talks about rendering the unruly stuff of life into metaphors that stick. By Peter Swanson.
INTERVIEWS
Character Is Action
Margot Livesey talks about her new novel, Banishing Verona, and her commitment to writing literary page-turners. By Jessica Murphy.
INTERVIEWS
Gilead's Balm
Marilynne Robinson talks about her long-awaited second novel and the holiness of the everyday. By Jennie Rothenberg.
INTERVIEWS
Veiled Optimism
Christopher Buckley, the author of Florence of Arabia, talks about women's lib, exploding camels, and the making of the modern Middle East. By Benjamin Healy.
INTERVIEWS
Stories to Break Our Hearts
Bret Anthony Johnston talks about the fiction of grief and loss, skateboarding, and choosing a hometown setting for his first collection of stories. By Curtis Sittenfeld.
INTERVIEWS
Grappling With Haiti’s Beasts
Edwidge Danticat talks about reconnecting with her homeland—and coming to terms with its legacy of violence—through fiction. By Dana Rousmaniere.
INTERVIEWS
From Toronto With Love
David Bezmozgis talks about his sudden literary success and his first collection of stories, a wry and intimate portrait of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family. By Adam Baer.
INTERVIEWS
Hookers, Guns, and Money
Dennis Lehane talks about Mystic River, Hollywood, and "fiction of mortal event"
FLASHBACKS
Transcripts of a Troubled Mind
The short, sad life of Breece D'J Pancake, whose writings in The Atlantic brought to life the dissipated Appalachian world in which he was raised. Introduction by Tim Heffernan.
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