Project MUSE®: Ploughshares - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Ploughshares.daily12026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 37, (2011) through current issueLatest Articles: PloughsharesTWOProject MUSE®Ploughshares2162-09030048-4474Latest articles in Ploughshares. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Editor's Note
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987898
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Approaching the deepest, wildest terrain of this editorial process, mid-correspondence with many of the writers whose work appears here, I opened a pivotal email. A poet asked whether I was seeking work around a particular theme. I replied: "I'm looking for poems in which structure and meaning are so tightly woven they can't be separated—structure fully realized," then paused, waiting for the image to arrive, before adding, "and expressed like the shape of a flower."As metaphors that are allowed to take their time often do, this one brought new clarity. The poems and stories I was choosing bloomed into flowers. Their interweaving of structure and meaning, content and form, emanated from deep within—distinct yet
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallEditor's Note2026-04-14text/htmlen-USEditor's Note2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®90802026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Are You Ready?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987899
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"Even if you are not ready for the day / it cannot always be
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallAre You Ready?2026-04-14text/htmlen-USAre You Ready?2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®32542026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14I Hear Her Singing in My Sister Tongue
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987900
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Us, we are morphemes. There's no Maltese without Arabic—like one kidney couched beneath the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallI Hear Her Singing in My Sister Tongue2026-04-14text/htmlen-USI Hear Her Singing in My Sister Tongue2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®51392026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Sophiatown Symphony
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987908
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Fourth
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallSophiatown Symphony2026-04-14text/htmlen-USSophiatown Symphony2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®35282026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Anhedonia as Water
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987909
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Anhedonia is a subset of depression.It is the inability to feel
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallAnhedonia as Water2026-04-14text/htmlen-USAnhedonia as Water2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®36682026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14The Clarity the Prodigy the Woman the Disobedient the Penitent
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987927
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From Sor Juana: A Canticle, a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallThe Clarity the Prodigy the Woman the Disobedient the Penitent2026-04-14text/htmlen-USThe Clarity the Prodigy the Woman the Disobedient the Penitent2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®69822026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14You're Not Alone
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987929
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The circus wouldn't have liked anyone Sid married. He could date, yes, he fell in love sometimes, but not showily, nothing alarming, and not for long. While many of his employees were married and whole families formed and grew and shifted in his circus across the years, Sid himself had all their lives to stand at the edge of; he would not attend to them in the same way as a married man. He would soon turn fifty. He looked not much younger than his age. Lana came to him.The circus didn't want to know about Lana. Sid wanted to learn her. She loved plants and color, she loved music, tea, and a well-organized shelf of books. She had come to Sid to get help for her friend, and he knew right away that help wasn't
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallYou're Not Alone2026-04-14text/htmlen-USYou're Not Alone2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®128462026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Palais Idéal
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987932
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built 1879–1912 by Ferdinand Cheval, mail carrier and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallPalais Idéal2026-04-14text/htmlen-USPalais Idéal2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®28902026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14An (Updated) History of the Modern World
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987953
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It was an early September afternoon, the air stagnant with rare New England humidity, when the girl came to the island. She arrived with her father, the physician, from Boston. She was the first child ever allowed. An exception, The Council said, as they blew the conch shell like a horn, signaling the boat's arrival. The new doctor was desperately needed; Dr. Potswitch had passed suddenly a week earlier, and the midwife was on the brink of exhaustion, between a salmonella outbreak from imported poultry, a set of newborn twins who decided to make an early appearance, and a pesky cough she'd caught.We were curious, gathering at the water's edge, our backpacks at our feet. School had let out minutes earlier, and we'd
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallAn (Updated) History of the Modern World2026-04-14text/htmlen-USAn (Updated) History of the Modern World2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®325432026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Rondo
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987954
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For David
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallRondo2026-04-14text/htmlen-USRondo2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®48502026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Feedback Loop
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987957
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I'm triggered by being triggered, my pain pains me, I'm upset to be upset, frustrated by my frustration, grieving over grief, outraged by my outrage, disgusted by disgust, elated by my elation, exhilarated by the exhilaration, ruptured by rapture, disbelieving disbelief, rejecting rejection, calmed by calm, having qualms about qualms, repulsed by repulsion, thinking my thoughts, passionate about passion, indifferent to indifference, open to being open, hostile to my hostility, wary of being wary, elated by elation, caring about caring, pitying pitiless pity, forgetting forgiveness, charmed by charm, harmed by harm, willing to be willing, called by my calling, slipping on slips, mistaking mistakes, suffering my
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallFeedback Loop2026-04-14text/htmlen-USFeedback Loop2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®34892026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Jubilee
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987960
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Allison's mother's favorite piece of advice was "Be nice to people who aren't obviously useful to you." One doesn't need religion to understand that, Allison thought, but she didn't follow the advice. Her mother said the Torah was there in case of emergency. "In case of emergency, break glass." It was funny to hear her say this since the house was full of glass, dark smoky glass, dark glass coffee table, dark mirrors. Her mother liked everything to be black or white. Allison's mother gave Allison lots of advice, but then, when Allison said she was separating from Doug after only two years of marriage, the advice stopped.The rain started and Allison opened her umbrella, steadying the wine in the plastic bag between
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallJubilee2026-04-14text/htmlen-USJubilee2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®339702026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Ways of Being
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987968
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At the Bronx
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallWays of Being2026-04-14text/htmlen-USWays of Being2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®33472026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987972
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Ploughshares is pleased to present Barbara Lock with the fifteenth annual Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction for her story "Keep You Safe," which appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Ploughshares, guest-edited by Victor LaValle. The $2,500 prize, sponsored by acclaimed writer, guest editor, longtime patron, and member of the Ploughshares advisory board Alice Hoffman, honors a short story published in the journal in the previous year. Of 'Keep You Safe,' Hoffman writes:
"Barbara Lock's extraordinary story 'Keep You Safe' is a voyage into the perils of motherhood, and of the fear and love that is as overwhelming and as deep as any body of water. Beautifully written, it's the examination of family mythology and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallAlice Hoffman Prize for Fiction2026-04-14text/htmlen-USAlice Hoffman Prize for Fiction2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®91102026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14New Books and Recommendations from Former Guest Editors
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987973
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Robert Boswell recommends The Plan of Chicago by Barry Pearce (Cornerstone Press, November 2025). "Like James Joyce's Dubliners (Grant Richards, 1914), this collection of stories accumulates a strange, cohesive power, and the city itself becomes a character—an arbiter, a friend, an inspiration, a tough customer. The stories are beautifully crafted and carefully written, and while the book is utterly unsentimental, a deep love of place bleeds through the prose. In a culture increasingly bent on the infantilization of its citizens, it's rare to find a book that's genuinely written for grown-ups—a dark, honest probing of what it means to be human and to live, right this moment, in the city of Chicago."Rosellen Brown
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallNew Books and Recommendations from Former Guest Editors2026-04-14text/htmlen-USNew Books and Recommendations from Former Guest Editors2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®94492026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14Contributors' Notes
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987974
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Austin Allen is the author of The Travels of Blad J. Garamond (Measure Press, 2025) and Pleasures of the Game (Waywiser Books, 2016), winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry, the Yale Review, the Sewanee Review, Smartish Pace, and other publications.Keisha-Gaye Anderson is a Jamaican-born poet, artist, and author of three poetry collections: A Spell for Living (Agape Editions, 2020), Everything Is Necessary (Willow Books, 2019), and Gathering the Waters (Jamii Publishing, 2014). Her writing has been widely published in outlets like Academy of American Poets, Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner, Langston Hughes Review, SX Salon, and others. She is a recipient of fellowships or
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/542/image/coversmallContributors' Notes2026-04-14text/htmlen-USContributors' Notes2026-04-142026TWOProject MUSE®319862026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-04-14