NEW TITLES
Conquering Gotham
"Once done,
these tunnels proved
to be anything but stable.
They moved hither and yon,
scaring the hell out
of Jacobs and the other engineers
for the Pennsylvania Railroad."

Cutting for Stone
"The musty ammoniacal
reek of liver failure came
with yellow eyes and
in the rainy season;
the freshly baked bread scent
of typhoid fever was
year-round and then the eyes
were anxious,
porcelain white."

Sex Work and the City
"She also states,
finally, and without comment,
'that some activists in
the area of sex work
maintain that marriage itself
is a form of
sex work.'"

Legend of a Suicide
"Discretion suggested.
The author is merciless,
will be demanding
too much of you.
Some call it art.
I call it
reader abuse."

The Inner History of Devices
"He tells of
video poker players who
wet their pants because
they don't want to take the time
to go to the bathroom,
and of those who
doze while playing,
dream about video
poker machines."

Retreat
"Wars are holocausts.
Those who run governments in
wartime are hell-bent on
the ruination of generations.
They have created a machine
that will chew up and
spit out the young
and the beautiful."

The Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009
"He takes the ladies on,
falls for one of them ---
Huong --- and off they go.
Into the sunset.
To Metuchen.
Even (perhaps) Rahway."

Songs of Love, Moon & Wind
"Reading in the heat of noon
I grow sleepy, put my head
On my arms and fall asleep.
I forget to close the window
And the warm air blows in
And covers my body with petals."

Great Reviews of the Past
Out of Your Mind
"If you want to find it,
you won't find it;
if you don't care,
it will probably come;
if you don't reach out,
it will probably be there,
waiting for you,
what you have been seeking,
all along."

LETTERS
DADA Disability
Alan Furst
Blood of Victory

MORE LETTERS
Dynamite and
Abortion

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Bipolar Forceps

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
Cryptic Letters of the Month
Franka
Rubi Bra
Tattoo Machines

ARTICLE
Great Articles of the Past
Uneasy Listening
"I had just
gone through an operation
when I picked this one up.
My doctor had warned me to
lay off the booze,
get tucked in at nine,
not permit myself
to get overexcited
during recovery.
I ignored his directive
by reading right through
Uneasy Listening."

READINGS
Looking for The Evental
"St. Paul would
be at home here.
His father was
a tentmaker.
He probably sold
a few tents that
made their way
across this desert."

Dialysis
"The repetition of dialysis
teaches the sufferers to
recognize the same kind of
suffering on the faces
of their fellow patients.
Beyond this,
for dialysis patients,
a new kinship
is based on sharing
a cyborg-like life."

Great Readings of the Past
Evangelical Schools Scholars
"His body of knowledge
is that of a street-car motorman
or a movie actor.
But he has learned
the clichés of his craft,
and has got him
a long-tailed coat."

POETRY
The Bees Are Inside
"Eyes clear blue, hair like light,
he said it all through the night
that he died. The bees, he said,
the bees are inside. The bees are in my head."

Backwoods
"You'd go back to him, then,
your swaggering full-bird
second husband, fragged in Korea
and now hunkered down
here in this backwater?"

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
All the back-issues of RALPH,
including titles of books under review,
along with author, subject, and publisher,
plus links to readings, articles, and poems
that have appeared on-line
since 1994.

A PITHY SAMPLE
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"

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