This books was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner award in 1991 and as I read it I was amazed I had never heard of it before. It tells the story of Grace Brush, a girl trying to stay sane in a world of migraines, halucinations, and famliy secrets. The language is lush and carefully conceived, inviting the reader into the mind of a young child as recalled by a smart and generous adult. This is not easy going - the story is heart-breaking - but it is well worth the time.

An all-poetry anthology, featuring the very best established and up-and-coming contemporary American writers. CONJUNCTIONS:35 American Poetry: States of the Art

FALL, 2000 Edited by Bradford Morrow

Table of contents

John Ashbery, Four Poems

Lyn Hejinian, Two Poems

Myung Mi Kim, Siege Document

Brenda Coultas, Three Poems

Arthur Sze, Quipu

Jorie Graham, Six Poems

Michael Palmer, Three Poems

Mark McMorris, Reef: Shadow of Green

Susan Wheeler, Each's Cot An Altar Then

Ann Lauterbach, Three Poems

Clark Coolidge, Arc of His Slow Demeanors

Gustaf Sobin, Two Poems

Alice Notley, Four Poems

Tessa Rumsey, The Expansion of the Self

Anne Waldman and Andrew Schelling, Two Landscapes

Forrest Gander, Voiced Stops

Tan Lin, Ambient Stylistics

Marjorie Welish, Delight Instruct

Laynie Browne, Roseate, Points of Gold

James Tate, Two Poems

Honor Moore, Four Poems

Leslie Scalapino, From The Tango

Bin Ramke, Gravity & Levity

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Two Poems

Charles Bernstein, Reading Red

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Charles Bernstein, A Dialogue

Rosmarie Waldrop, Five Poems

Martine Bellen, Two Poems

Peter Sacks, Five Poems

Reginald Shepherd, Two Poems

Barbara Guest, Two Poems

Donald Revell, Two Poems for the Seventeenth Century

Paul Hoover, Resemblance

Elaine Equi, Five Poems

Norma Cole, Conjunctions

Jena Osman, Boxing Captions

Ron Silliman, Fubar Clus

John Yau, Three Movie Poems

Melanie Neilson, Two Poems

Robert Kelly, Orion: Opening the Seals

Nathaniel Mackey, Two Poems

C.D. Wright, From One Big Self

Peter Gizzi, Fin Amor

Carol Moldaw, Festina Lente

Charles Norton, Five Poems

Robert Creeley, Supper

Brenda Shaughnessy, Three Poems

Malinda Markham, Four Poems

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Draft 38: Georgics and Shadow

Nathaniel Tarn, Two Poems

Peter Cole, Proverbial Drawing

Fanny Howe, Splinter

Anne Tardos, Four Plus One K

Robert Tejada, Four Poems

Andrew Mossin, The Forest

Elizabeth Willis, Two Poems

David Shapiro, Two Poems

Camille Guthrie, At the Fountain

Susan Howe, From Preterient

Cole Swensen, Seven Hands

Susan Howe and Cole Swensen, A Dialogue

Keith Waldrop, A Vanity

Will Alexander, Fishing as Impenetrable Stray

Juliana Spahr, Blood Sonnets

Jerome Sala, Two Poems

Leonard Schwartz, Ecstatic Persistence

Catherine Imbriglio, Three Poems

Vincent Katz, Two Poems

Thalia Field, Land at Church City

John Taggart, Not Egypt

Renee Gladman, The Interrogation

Laura Moriarty, Seven Poems

Kevin Young, Film Noir

Jackson Mac Low, Five Stein Poems

Rae Armantrout, Four Poems

Anselm Hollo, Guests of Space

Set in a richly described but unnamed Western town, the lead character, Grant, comes home to visit his aunt and uncle who live there. He is in his early thirties, divorcing his wife, and looking for a place he can call home. His aunt and uncle have been receiving mysterious night visits by someone setting out to intimidate them, and the book's intention is to unravel this mystery.

The title, Giovanni's Gift, refers to a cigar box full of mementos that Giovanni, a friend of the uncle, leaves behind when he dies. The reader immediately suspects there was a murder.

The box is an allegory to Pandora's box and as Grant discovers the meaning of each item in the box, the story becomes more complex, especially since Grant falls in love with Giovanni's daughter.

The preservation of the land is another subplot and the author constantly veers off the story with poetic metaphorical language to make this point over and over again. I do have to applaud the author though for his skill with words and for having whatever it took to be recognized in the publishing world. I think he says a few important things about the environment. But I just couldn't stay awake.

One might wonder how it is that so elegantly contrived a novel might yield management secrets of the highest grade. And yet like an oilfield with its dark and bubbly secret lurking just beneath the earth's loamy crust this book fairly percolates with what most readers--myself included!!--tend to seek even in the most literary of beach reads: MANAGEMENT SECRETS. Now, I'm a girl who can't get enough of the info that helps make our world-beating corporations tick. And in this book Brent Morrow really goes all out. I know, I know: the guy has a highly literary reputation, he edits Conjunctivitis, pals around with Roger Daltrey, once wore his glasses on his forehead in New York magazine. And yet he is deeply, intimately in touch with the Manager Within. His characters act out a Platonic drama of sorts in which each character embodies a trait that managers find either infuriating or enchanting. As everyone knows, it's human nature that drives business, and these traits can mean the critical difference between success and failure. Morrow, too, is well aware of these pertinent facts and when he puts them into play with the willful mastery of the finest caliber prose stylist that he is, you know that the flakes are going to fly with all the whiz-bang excitement of a top-notch Hollywood thriller! I highly recommend Giovanni's Box!!

I loved Mr. Morrow's writing style and prose. Some people say it was boring, but I thought it was just enough to pull you into the book. I found it very suspenseful towards the end, and was somewhat surprised by the ending. I enjoyed the book immensely.