The Sacred Feminine

If you are looking for something nourishing and cozy, consider reading the summer issue of The Kenyon Review. It's not nourishing like Grandma's afghan or an oatmeal cookie. More like a warm bath and a glass of red wine. If this imagery is decidedly female, that's because so is this issue of The KR.

The journal leads off with "Retrospective," Holly Goddard Jones's long short story about a woman confronting her past when she learns that her ex-husband has moved back to town. "Retrospective" is a fitting title for what turns out to be a collection of episodes that define a woman's life with an unsuitable man. Most startling is Libby's recollection of being raped in her own home by a dim-witted boy. Not only does her husband seem disinterested, he later wishes to preserve the floorboards where the attack occurred, citing the quality of the wood. Strangely, in the end, it is Libby who feels compelled to apologize to her ex-husband for their soured love. Has her retrospective given Libby a deeper understanding of her role in their bad marriage? Or does she simply have a penchant for masochism? Jones leaves us wondering.

In Aurelia Willis' "Wasps," the heroine is not nearly as likeable as Libby. Carrie is a well-to-do housewife who barks orders at her immigrant maid and admires the pretty housing units of the poor. However, Carrie is ultimately sympathetic. Like Libby, Carrie has a husband who is downright ghastly. Richard coldly suggests that pregnant Carrie ride the stationary bicycle because he notices she's put on weight. (In "Retrospective," Libby's ex observes that her hips are bigger than they used to be.) Richard angrily blames Carrie for the maid quitting, addresses her concern about a wasp nest by saying, "You deal with it," and has a mysterious job that is somehow connected to a citywide blackout. Carrie's inability to see the horror of her own situation (though the wasps slowly invading the child's nursery ceiling are a clue), and the apocalyptic mood of the story ultimately reveal Carrie's vulnerability and make her surprisingly tolerable, if not altogether likeable.

Meredith Hall's essay, "The Simplest Questions" is a dramatic true account of Ms. Hall's innovative writing program for at-risk girls, her deep attachment to a young girl named Aliana, and her desire to adopt the child against all cultural, societal and personal odds. Hall writes simply and to the point. Her story is profound and moving, the dialogue touchingly real. It sheds light on the foster care system, the horror of state-sponsored programs for at-risk youth and the bureaucratic nightmare that is our social services system. Hall deserves respect for the writing programs she's introduced and the challenges she's taken on as a writer, a watchdog and a mother.

Both the male and female poets in this issue deal with issues of domesticity, family, the body and nature. In "'Tis Yet to Come" Willard Spiegelman writes of what humans can learn from the shifting seasons. "What pattern can we find in autumn's change?/ From summer's green to stubble fields, Keats knew/ That harvest takes us all in by time." In "Sheltering Bough" along a similar vein, Joseph Campana writes, "Shelter won't come from the sky./ Look: how the trees sway to stand."

Keving Young's "I Shall Be Released," "Grievous Angel" and "Ode to Gumbo" are gentle, complex poems of love, loss and, well, gumbo. In "Ode...", Young takes comfort after his father's death in the family's time-tested gumbo recipe. "Food/ of the saints/ Gumbo will outlast/even us--like pity/ you will curse it/ & still hope/ for the wing/ of chicken bobbed/ up from below."

Nadia Herman Colburn has four poems, "In the Meadow," "Happiness," "Nothing We Say Is Ever the Soul," and "Speaking to a Friend Who Speaks of Suicide." In this series, the poet struggles with notions of happiness and home-making. We watch her in the beginning "with my hammer and nails" and later in a state of inquiry: "I built a house. Or, did not build it, but took out a loan...How had I arrived?" They are simple, soft poems that navigate deftly between personal experience and nature imagery to achieve a larger, symbolic resonance.

There are a few exceptions to the nurturance theme that dominates the journal. In "People in a Line" Steven Ray Smith writes of the depressing anonymity of standing in a line, waiting to fill out forms. "...to be assessed/ For what each hopes will be his own success/ But is, in truth, something very small."