Bennington Review wins 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize

ISSUE TEN
Return to a Meadow

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos…

—Robert Duncan, 1919-1988

POETRY

DESPY BOUTRIS
This Meadow

JOANNA KLINK
A plain field
Porch Swing

CATHERINE CLEARY
Central Tendency
It Is Morning I Am Accidentally Drowning

STELLA WONG
Deportation
Outside Party Lines

JACK CHRISTIAN
Storm Approaching

BRADLEY TRUMPFHELLER
Storm door, shut

MARK LEVINE
Lark
Porfirio Díaz
Bantam

ANDREA INGLESE
from The Big Duck [What to me looks like
a duck]
from The Big Duck [We’re inside of a
cooked duck]
(translated by Johanna Bishop)

JAMES DAVIS
Ugly Duckling
Juvenilia

JOHANNES GÖRANSSON
from Summer [How can you think I’m
listening]
from Summer [How sick that the tree]

NICA GIROMINI
Thaw

KAMERYN ALEXA CARTER
from Eleven Addresses to the Lord
Antediluvian

SEBASTIÁN HASANI PÁRAMO Forgive Me, Brother

DUSTIN PEARSON
In Hell’s Ocean I Come Upon A Man
Wanting His Sons’ Approval

CATE MARVIN
Narcan
Violets

LAURA CRESTÉ
Overripe

D.C. GONZALES-PRIETO
American Haiku

JOHN SIBLEY WILLIAMS
Lazarus {Reprise}

LIGHTSEY DARST
The Weeds
Paradise

NORA CLAIRE MILLER
Chapter 21
Chapter 27

MARGARET HANSHAW
Prints Being Made, Unmade
Eyelids

JENNY GRASSL
Be What You See

SARAH GREEN
Water Bearer

V. JOSHUA ADAMS
Januaries

DIDI JACKSON
Nest

KASEY JUEDS
Not All the Animals Sleep

MELISSA GINSBURG
Whitetail in the Rain Moving About
Weren’t We Here Before When It Was
Warm

MAX WINTER
Swanning
Down by the Sea

ROBERT KRUT
The Forest

JOSH ENGLISH
Pastoral with Waiting Room

JAMES HENRY KNIPPEN
Night
Why Is a Wren

GINNY THREEFOOT
The Ballad of Narayama
The Ambiguities of Helen

WILL CORDEIRO
Kismet
Sunset with Spiderwebs & Animal
Remains

CYNTHIA CRUZ
Lodestar Lullaby

STACY GNALL
Transformation Sequence

EMILIE MENZEL
The Girl Who Became a Rabbit

PATRICK HOLIAN
The Dream of a Rabbit Friend

MARTHA SILANO
Elk Dreams, Horse Droppings

PHILLIP WEST
Ruminant

ELIZABETH ROBINSON
Possessed

SOPHIA GALIFIANAKIS
The Law of Buoyancy

CHARLES RAFFERTY
Salamanders
Disappointments

KEVIN PRUFER
A Body of Work

THOMAS PFAU
What Is Beauty

TRIIN PAJA
Braid
In the Vineyard

JULIA WONG KCOMT
Mournful One
The Rice Field
(translated by Jennifer Shyue)

DAVID BAKER
Echolocation

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

HEATHER SELLERS
Tuesday with Oars

LEILA CHATTI
What I Was, Then

ADAM CLAY
Black-Capped Chickadee: Original
Motion Picture Soundtrack

JOHN KINSELLA
Graphology Subtracter 4
Graphology Soulaplexus 13
Glasstown Peace Accord

MICHAEL ROBINS
During the Great Hummingbird Wars

ABBY RYDER-HUTH
My Snakes

JANUARY GILL O’NEIL
Woman Swallowed by a Python in Her
Cornfield
Driving Through Mississippi After the
Capitol Hill Riot

ROSALIE MOFFETT
Coal Keeps the Lights On

JOANNA NOVAK
Coal

DEAN RADER
Meditation on Remembering, or a Golden
Shovel for Sappho and Breonna Taylor
Meditation on Absolution

F. DANIEL RZICZNEK
Exponential Hound

JENNIFER FRANKLIN
Antigone’s Hubris
Antigone’s Decision

THOMAS FESTA
The Sculpted Radiance of What Remained

BEN SEANOR
What Remains

KATE LINDROOS
September Goes

TREVOR KETNER
[Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war]
[That time of year thou mayst in me
behold]

SARAH GHAZAL ALI
Litany with Hair

NATASHA RAO
Type to Learn

EMMA MURRAY
Bathing in Floodwaters

SARA LUPITA OLIVARES
Quieted the Meadow
Inattentive

MIRA ROSENTHAL
Anemone
Vantage Point

JAMES MCCORKLE
Tyrannicide

MIKE GOOD
Apple of Gold

JEFFREY SKINNER
Fronting

ROBERT OSTROM
You Changed Me
The Kingdom

TREY MOODY
Parable

EVAN WILLIAMS
Sexy Giraffes

JULIA THACKER
Conjoined Twins Plead, “Put Us Back
Together”: Brothers Unhappy Since
They Were Separated Forty-five Years
Ago
Curriculum Vitae

LAUREN HILGER
What Is the Knocking at the Door in the
Night?
Souvenir

NORA CURRY
The Fairy Made Word

HAL Y. ZHANG
expiration

ALISON PELEGRIN
Feast with a Mouthful of Bees
Doomsday’s Daughter

MARK NEELY
Selfie Death

AMISH TRIVEDI
Fawning

KYLAN RICE
35°50'08.3"N 78°57'48.4"W
42°34'53.4"N 87°49'18.9"W

MIKE WHITE
October
Noah

MOIRA WALSH
Self-Portrait with Envelope
Elemental

HANNAH LAMB-VINES
Please Retain Receipt in Case of Return

AIMEE WRIGHT CLOW
Afterwinds

WILLIAM VIRGIL DAVIS
Somewhere in Southern Ohio a River Has
Risen

BENJAMIN S. GROSSBERG
Ohio Mud
What is wrong with these people

MATTHEW NIENOW
After the Fire

CHARLES ROSSITER
Arresting Place: Ten Positions

CARRIE OEDING
A Bunch of Different Parts Can Make Up
Ekphrasis, Including a Scoff When I
Round the Museum Corner with My
Baby in the Stroller. Or the Invisible
Push to Keep Moving That Means Keep
Looking, Like Stop Looking. Or the
Things I Think of When I Look at Art
and Won’t Ever Explain, Even.

ALLAN PETERSON
Punctuation