Since the publication of our premiere edition of Narrative last September, we’ve taken a bit longer than we expected to bring out a new edition. The delay occurred for reasons typical of a literary magazine: much work, few hands. But we apologize for keeping readers in suspense, and we promise to bring you new things more frequently in the future.
As editions come together, it is a side sport for those behind the scenes to view the linkage of one piece to another, the conversation, if you will, from story to essay to story, from writer to writer. This edition of Narrative presents complementary pieces by and about poets. “Eleven Days,” an excerpt from Donald Hall’s forthcoming memoir, The Best Day The Worst Day, recounts the death of his wife, Jane Kenyon, who in 1995 lost her battle with leukemia. Hall has previously written poems about Kenyon’s death, and now in his memoir he balances life and death in the plainspoken intimacy of his and Kenyon’s marriage, their shared work as poets, their circle of friends and family, and their courage and modesty in accepting fate.
