Jason Irwin won the 2006/2007 Transcontinental Poetry Award. His first full-length collection, Watering the Dead, was published in 2008 by Pavement Saw Press.

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 Winter/Spring 2009

Waiting

by Jason Irwin | ns 71-72

at the post office,
doctor's office, grocery store.
funeral home, the drive-thru,
the bank, for the waitress
to notice me, for a refill,
for lunch, supper,
another beer, a cigarette,
for my connection, for the next
paycheck, benefits check,
social security, income tax,
for the light to change,
the subway, to get my teeth
cleaned, to take a shit.
Waiting
for the winning numbers, for my ship
to come in, the mail,
newspaper, the commercial to end,
the movie to start, a haircut,
for someone to say I love you.
Waiting
for the neighbors to go inside,
the dog to stop barking,
the water to boil,
the phone to ring, to fall
asleep, get a job,
for quitting time,
for something better.
Waiting
for the hurricane,
the revolution,
for the president to be assassinated,
for tonight, tomorrow,
for spring to come,
for my wife to come,
the Messiah,
for the trumpets to blare.
Waiting
for the end of the world.

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.