Air Fare: Stories, Poems, and Essays on Flight

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Overview

From takeoff to landing and everything in-between, this anthology is about flying and the culture surrounding this precarious method of transportation. From the awe of being airborne to the shrink-wrapped airplane meals, from the phobia of flying to the very real reason for that fear, everything is explored.

Contributors include: Diane Ackerman, Margaret Atwood, Sharon Bryan, Andrea Hollender Budy, Kelly Cherry, Alain de Botton, Richard Garcia, Lise Goett, Albert Goldbarth, ...

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More About This Book

Overview

From takeoff to landing and everything in-between, this anthology is about flying and the culture surrounding this precarious method of transportation. From the awe of being airborne to the shrink-wrapped airplane meals, from the phobia of flying to the very real reason for that fear, everything is explored.

Contributors include: Diane Ackerman, Margaret Atwood, Sharon Bryan, Andrea Hollender Budy, Kelly Cherry, Alain de Botton, Richard Garcia, Lise Goett, Albert Goldbarth, Jeffrey Harrison, Brenda Hillman, Peter LaSalle, Philip Levine, Lee Martin, William Matthews, Ian McEwan, Campbell McGrath, Carol Muske-Dukes, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shahib Nye, Barbara Ras, Sherrod Santos, Bruce Smith, Susan Stewart, Terese Svoboda, James Tate, Jean Valentine, Arthur Vogelsang, Charles Harper Webb, Jan Wesley, Colson Whitehead, Gary Young

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
The poems, essays, short stories and novel excerpts Brown and Taylor have collected capture the glory of air travel while acknowledging the perils of flying. The selections range from works by well-known authors, such Ian McEwan's account of a ballooning accident from his novel Enduring Love, to the musings of more obscure writers, like flight attendant Rosemary Griggs's inventive story "Isoka, a Northern Province of Zambia, 1999." Whether observing life lessons garnered from flight classes, as in Diane Ackerman's "On Extended Wings," or arriving passengers embracing in Ellen Bass's poem "Gate C22," the contributors take an eclectic approach to flight. The most haunting entries deal with the fears and realities of death associated with flying. Terrifying images may linger in readers' minds after perusing the chilling excerpt from Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, which details a death at the hands of hijackers. Of all the pieces, Jeffrey Harrison's poem "Pale Blue City" is most poignant. He describes New York City viewed from the air in 2000: "I want it all to stay/ just like this.... But the plane/ is moving on, the city slips away...." As if in response, Ackerman writes, "[T]he only and ultimate fright is of trusting, releasing yourself to the present." This well-chosen anthology will delight, surprise and haunt anyone who takes to the air. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781889330990
  • Publisher: Sarabande Books
  • Publication date: 8/1/2004
  • Pages: 224
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.70 (d)

Meet the Author

Taylor is the author of two collections of poetry, Selected Dreams from the Animal Kingdom (Zoo Press, 2003), and Curios (Sarabande Books, 2000) as well as a chapbook, Burning, for which she received the Portlandia Prize. Taylor is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She currently teaches literature and writing classes in Los Angeles, and is the editor of POOL: A Journal of Poetry. Brown recently graduated from the M.F.A. at VT College and is working on a collection of short stories with grant help from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She studied English Literature at Oxford University as an English Speaking Union Scholar and was the editorial assistant for Hunter S. Thompson in 1997. Her work has been featured in The Writer's Chronicle and Mammoth Books' 2003 Sudden Stories anthology. She currently lives in Louisville where she is the Director of Development and Marketing at Sarabande.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Introduction
Flying blind 1
From On extended wings 2
39,000 feet 8
Night travelers 11
From John Henry days 14
Low planes 24
Ode to the air traffic controller 27
Helicopter wrecked on a hill 29
From Enduring love 31
Pale blue city 48
Reservations confirmed 50
Untitled ("he was drinking ...") 52
Gate C22 53
From On love, "romantic fatalism" 55
De-icing the wings 66
The flying cat 68
Symmetry breaking 70
Sensual disaster 72
Delta flight 1152 73
The flight 75
Letter to Shakespeare 88
Flight 90
This is so not me 91
Would you know a snook, or a large-eyed whiff, from a goggle-eyed scad, should the necessity arise? ... I thought so 103
Men without women 106
From On extended wings 108
Amelia Earhart 113
Dive from 49,000 feet 114
How bluegrass saved my life 116
1945 138
The lost pilot 140
Lonely eagles 143
Uncle Cy is building a plane 147
From Cat's eye 149
Lt. Col. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova 155
Grissom Way 158
Space age 162
Isoka, a northern province of Zambia, 1999 164
The mutual UFO network 166
Aerial view 183
Those who wrestle with the angel for us 185
Pilot stars 188
Night flying 191
Salt 211
Wings 213
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Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 22, 2004

    Great Discovery of New Writing Talent

    I truly loved the collected works in ¿AIR FARE¿. Not only for it¿s celebration of flight (my passion) through stories and poems, but also for setting before me a host of fresh writing talent I would otherwise not normal read. Though the whole collection was enjoyable, two works of note stand out in my mind: Rosemary Grigg¿s ¿Isoka¿ and Kim Ponders¿ ¿How Bluegrass Saved My Life¿. Grigg¿s one-page simple honest explanation of a trip to the Moon to an African villager is disarmingly beautiful and striking in it¿s reflections on humanity. Kim Ponders¿ stunning short story of a female Air Force pilot¿s combat and personal struggle during the First Gulf War, was an outstanding read. The grace of her prose took me not only into the cockpit, but also into the mind for an all too human aviator. The writing was full, rich and passionate. I recommend ¿AIR FARE¿ to anyone who loves flying and more importantly to anyone who love to discover new talent. It encourages me to find additional works by these artists.

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