Amsterdam Review

Spring 2024

Poetry

Two by Geoffrey Babbitt
Three by Karen Elizabeth Bishop
The Side-Show by Iain Britton
Two by Amy Catanzano
Two by Matthew DeLuca
Decadence by Elisa Gabbert
Exploding House by John Gallaher
Ah! by Kathleen Hellen
Two by Katharina Kiening
Three by Raisa Tolchinsky
Rituals of Language by Nur Turkmani

Fiction

My Friend, Hamlet by Jennifer McCormack
Elevator Music by Dimitris Passas

Translations

Three by Marin Sorescu (transl. Daniel Nemo)

Interviews

To Capture Thinking over Time
In conversation with Elisa Gabbert

Writing on Impulse
Andrei Voznesensky in conversation with Marin Sorescu (transl. Daniel Nemo)

Lines at the Crossroads of Uncertainty
W. S. Merwin in conversation with Marin Sorescu (transl. Daniel Nemo)

Shades of Language
Adele Bardazzi in conversation with Elisa Biagini (transl. Caroline Maldonado)

To Capture Thinking over Time

in conversation with Elisa Gabbert

Elisa Gabbert takes us to the strange edges of art and culture in her new essay collection, Any Person Is the Only Self (FSG, 2024). The New York Times poetry columnist talks about the complementarity of nonfiction and poetry, and the latest influences on her work.

Read the full interview

Any Person Is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert

Three
by Karen Elizabeth Bishop

i thought we were trees, / shrieking, dense, millenial. / but no, we were hands, / fleeing, ignorant. unknowing ...

Two
by Geoffrey Babbitt

in the dissenter’s graveyard, time’s / erasing headstones’ sharp outlines / and unchiseling inscriptions—grass / overgrown, moss spreading ...

Three
by Marin Sorescu
(translated from the Romanian by Daniel Nemo)

My soul is heavy as if God himself / hung from it like a boulder / on a well sweep. I am the darkness / with which he pulls out miracles ...

Two
by Amy Catanzano

In the green room of the poem / an artificial intelligence flexes / its wings. Protesting, the surrealist /
logs out forever ...

Writing on Impulse

Andrei Voznesensky in conversation with Marin Sorescu

Romanian poet and playwright Marin Sorescu in conversation with Andrei Voznesensky about the representative power of poetry and carrying a people's spirituality through words.

Ah!
by Kathleen Hellen

I think I see / clearly now / the squirrel that’s digging up the bulbs. The iris hailing. / The deer eye to eye before they startle ...

Two
by Matthew DeLuca

Hart Crane wrote to the tune of Ravel’s Bolero, / perhaps entertaining a notion / of disentangling from that joyous fray / the subtle caprice of passion ...

The Side-Show
by Iain Britton

the fog clears the phoenix palm / scratches for more space / pushes books into the body of a memoir / time’s transparency / feels tampered with the morning ...

Decadence
by Elisa Gabbert

My parents didn’t listen to the Beatles / in my life. I don’t know / which albums go with which songs— / not too late to learn, but will I? ...

W. S. Merwin in conversation with Marin Sorescu

Marin Sorescu talks to W. S. Merwin about bringing the force of innocence into the modern world and "slicing more deeply into the great reality."

Three
by Raisa Tolchinsky

No matter / how many times / I tell it, I tell it / like someone in / the story who / begs the writer / to make it end ...

Elevator Music
by Dimitris Passas

As I press the button to call the elevator down, I mentally recite the words I need ...

Shades of Language

Elisa Biagini in conversation with Adele Bardazzi and Roberto Binetti
Translated from the Italian by Caroline Maldonado

Adele Bardazzi and Roberto Binetti of the Non Solo Muse project talk with Elisa Biagini about shades of language in her work, feminism, translation, and poetry as tapestry of the world.

Exploding House
by John Gallaher

It’s raining in Colorado, just outside Denver. We’re driving, / and then the truck in front of us hits a highway pool, / and our windows turn a smeary gray-silver ...