Project MUSE®: Appalachian Review - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Appalachian Review.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (1973) through current issue (with gaps in vols. 3 and 27)Latest Articles: Appalachian ReviewTWOProject MUSE®Appalachian Review2692-92872692-9244Latest articles in Appalachian Review. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Editor's Note
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989396
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In "Rites of Spring," a poem by writer, arts journalist, and photographer Kevin Nance from his recently released poetry collection Smoke, a cat—"the neighborhood tabby and her annual litter"—is on the prowl. Squirrels are leaping in the trees and bees are buzzing among the foxgloves. In the woods nearby, ferns unspool their fronds in cirinate vernation. The reader can feel the warming between the lines, the world as it awakens. And then things turn bloody. The cat pounces—and the squirrel becomes her "supper."I've been thinking about Nance's poem as the seasons change, how all the world around us is thrumming with beauty and violence. Literary writing, of course, is rooted in the real world, and in this issue of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallEditor's Note2026-05-06text/htmlen-USEditor's Note2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®33932026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-062024 Denny C. Plattner Awards
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989397
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The annual Plattner Awards were established in 1995 by Kenneth and Elissa Plattner to honor their late son and his love of writing. The awards are given to the finest pieces of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that appeared in Appalachian Review during the previous year. Winners receive a $200 prize, and both winners and honorable mentions are awarded a handsome piece of handmade ceramics designed and manufactured by Berea College Crafts.Winner: Jennifer Dickinson, "Mallwalkers"Honorable Mention: Jenn Blair, "Pound"Winner: Skylar Bensheimer, "Louder Than Bombs"Honorable Mention: Courtney Hill Gulbro, "After Jimmy"Winner: Ryan Harper, "Pittsburgh (Fabrications)"Honorable Mention: James Long, "Dress
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmall2024 Denny C. Plattner Awards2026-05-06text/htmlen-US2024 Denny C. Plattner Awards2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®19022026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06Survival Sounds Like a Song
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989398
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The Ford station wagon tore through the corn stalks on Old Louisville Road, just five minutes from our front porch—metal shrieking, husks flying, the afternoon sun catching on broken glass like a warning.Dad stepped out to survey the damage, muttering as he knelt to tug the shredded stalks tangled in the undercarriage—his hands more tired than angry, like he already knew the corn would win. He looked up at me, squinting through the haze, as if to say, Fuck me, running. No lecture followed. Just the sound of insects humming and the engine ticking hot behind us.That was the summer I learned how silence can feel like permission.Years later, I'd catch myself gripping a wheel with the same drunken certainty, swerving
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallSurvival Sounds Like a Song2026-05-06text/htmlen-USSurvival Sounds Like a Song2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®223112026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06The Floods
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989400
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I stood with Mamaw on the porch of her double-wide trailer, the rain beating a rhythm on the tin roof above us."Are you sure you still want to go?" I asked her."Course," she said matter-of-factly, her eyes wide behind gold-rimmed glasses. "This might be my last chance, no matter how bad the weather is."I reached for the Walmart bag at her feet. She had been saving the bunches of plastic flowers within it ever since last Memorial Day, to lay on her parents' graves.This wasn't Memorial Day, it was my fall break, the time I always promised Mamaw I'd use to go to the mountains with her, but usually ended up planning a different trip with friends instead. This year I'd decided to make my thesis writing project about
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallThe Floods2026-05-06text/htmlen-USThe Floods2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®263922026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06Angel Island, and: Ossuary, and: Decentration, and: Mr. Cultivar, and: Ritornelle, and: Vista Farm, and: Tomato Gerontology, and: Time-Lapse Portraiture, and: Prosopagnosia
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989401
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BROKEN CROWN OF NOT-SONNETS TITLEDMY DAD'S IN THERE HE'S LIKE GOD TO ME,MY GOD'S IN THERE HE'S LIKE A DAD TO
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallAngel Island, and: Ossuary, and: Decentration, and: Mr. Cultivar, and: Ritornelle, and: Vista Farm, and: Tomato Gerontology, and: Time-Lapse Portraiture, and: Prosopagnosia2026-05-06text/htmlen-USAngel Island, and: Ossuary, and: Decentration, and: Mr. Cultivar, and: Ritornelle, and: Vista Farm, and: Tomato Gerontology, and: Time-Lapse Portraiture, and: Prosopagnosia2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®164442026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06Borders of a Day
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989405
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The first thing Jeannine saw when she opened her eyes was her sister. The dead one. She had been awake for some time, letting the sun warm her eyelids through the curtains, and was certain it had not been part of a dream slipping over the line. No, it had been Ilyana, at some ambiguous age between the child she remembered best and the forty-two-year-old with breast cancer. The same cancer Jeannine had now at eighty-seven. It had caught up to them in the wrong order.Ilyana had been standing at the foot of Jeannine's bed gazing down at her, the image not at all spectral, but appearing to hold weight and change the pressure in the room like any solid body. Jeannine had asked her, "Am I going to die today?" because
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallBorders of a Day2026-05-06text/htmlen-USBorders of a Day2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®298422026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06Rafting the New River Gorge
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989407
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"…and if you do go in, lean back with your knees up, like when you were born."Fayette County, West Virginia. Sandstone and coal. Switch-backed down in a rain-fogged river bus. Spring exculpates, pattering the hood of my raincoat. Can just about hear the chatter in those proximate mines: the bare-knuckle cliffs, the descendant pine and hickory are its Southern accent.Don't skip your prayers across, plunk them in. Reverberations, your receipt. I've paddled the rivers out west, water pontificates wherever it flows.Names shouted from a laminated manifest. We piously shuffle, huddle our guide like herded ducks, lifejackets and paddles in hand. And launch our bouncy, garrulous craft.Don't think of the river as dangerous
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallRafting the New River Gorge2026-05-06text/htmlen-USRafting the New River Gorge2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®57542026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06Love Poem: False Spring, and: Love Poem: Hiking with Ophiophobia, and: Curriculum Vitae, and: Trout Lily, Tinker Cliffs, Friends, and: Ecdysis, Roanoke, August
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989408
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I point to waxwork petals / Brown-spotted yellow / The upcurled sun of a trout lily nooning / The forest floor's sky / I show them trillium, bloodroot, bluets / While Anna teaches us Ukrainian for butt and poem (popa, veersh) / We sweat / Spicebush turns us in circles, hunting new scent / There are so many stairs on this trail! / Anna's mind puts snipers in the trees / Joy sees my face and nods—She has these moments, since the war / Breathless, we debate turning back, but Anna insists she's okay / Plus Laura wants to sit on an edge, is chasing that high / A hawk wobbles past on the air underfoot / Joy bows to the blue hills, singing / A song some monks taught her / Going down, almost as bad! / We reacquaint with
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallLove Poem: False Spring, and: Love Poem: Hiking with Ophiophobia, and: Curriculum Vitae, and: Trout Lily, Tinker Cliffs, Friends, and: Ecdysis, Roanoke, August2026-05-06text/htmlen-USLove Poem: False Spring, and: Love Poem: Hiking with Ophiophobia, and: Curriculum Vitae, and: Trout Lily, Tinker Cliffs, Friends, and: Ecdysis, Roanoke, August2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®138322026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06Kevin Nance
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/989412
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In a world where many contemporary poets aim for the abstract, often requiring readers to work exhaustively in a search for meaning, Kevin Nance is refreshingly old school. The poems that make up Smoke, his latest collection, are constructed around clear, sturdy images that are conjured in unvarnished language. This is not to say that Nance's poems are simplistic. To the contrary, they are rich, full of depth and power.These qualities are no doubt due, in no small part, to Nance's lengthy career as an arts journalist and photographer, vocations that teach concision and discernment both on the page and through the camera's lens. Take, for example, his poem "Under the Hood," which recounts the narrator's father
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/383/image/coversmallKevin Nance2026-05-06text/htmlen-USKevin Nance2026-05-062026TWOProject MUSE®118762026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-05-06