Carolyn Welch Scarbrough's poems and short stories have appeared in Poet Lore, Sundog, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. She works as a Pediatric ICU nurse.

The Feral Issue

ns 73-74 | Fall 2009/Spring 2010

The "Feral Issue" presents work by a range of people, from those who have been doing animal studies all along to those newly exploring the field. If it has a leaning, it is to build a cultural materialist account of animals in our world. We hope that the writing here will give our readers a sense of what animal studies is and where it's going, and also add some new voices to its course.

Read this Issue

Published Fall 2006

Nurses in Spring

by Carolyn Welch Scarbrough | ns 67

There is a pause and the conversation turns
and we try to name the deaths so far this year.

The windows here are thick, industrial strength
and all we know of the season
is the glare of blue sky
and the silent blooming of pear trees
four stories down

and a few feet further, the white petals
rain tore free and dropped
a few hours ago.

MR BOOKS

Critics at Work
ed. Jeffrey J. Williams.

Critics at Work offers a guided tour through the central, sometimes confusing and frequently controversial developments in contemporary literary and cultural criticism. The tour guides, however, are not distant observers but have been primary participants in those developments, and they report on theory, cultural studies, the literary canon, the recent focus on race, sexuality, and other identities, the state of the univerisity, and the role of the intellectual. Throughout, they consider the not always easy negotiation of politics and culture.

Purchase Critics at Work.