By G.G. HARROW
Eastern Kentucky
After Terrance Hayes and Wanda Coleman
Attachment 1
country music is Black — indigenous — immigrant — almost successfully paved over — i made these poems from 36 common words in top-selling country songs since the ’90s according to a concert ticket corporation
By D.S. WALDMAN
Kentucky, United States
64-West
After Calvino
When you ride a long time in the private
night of your pickup cab
you enter eventually
into a desire you cannot name a greater dark
that wants only what
By BEN SHATTUCK
I was seventeen when I met David, back in 1916. Now I don’t very much care to count my age. It’s April 1972 here in Cambridge. White puffballs that must be some sort of seedpod have been floating by the window above my writing desk for days, collecting on the sidewalk like first snow.
With Kayla Rae Whitaker
How long have you lived here: One year. Still feels very new.
Three words to describe the climate: Because it’s July, humid – on some days, the air feels like drinking cotton. In the winters, damp. But in the fall – particularly the long falls – and the spring, it feels forgiving.
Best time of year to visit? NOT DERBY. May is a beautiful time in Kentucky, but Derby snarls Louisville traffic in the worst possible way. I say this as a newcomer to the city (while I wrote about Louisville, I had never lived there until this year). It only took one Derby weekend for me to see some of the most ridiculous displays of driving I’ve ever seen. Early summer is a good bet. Fall’s nice too.
We decided we’d stop for the night in Denver while eating at a Taco Johns in North Platte, Nebraska, and scanned the Expedia app on my phone. There was a 4-star hotel in the suburbs northwest of the city on sale for 86 bucks, so I reserved a room because it was the same price as the Best Western.
The second-place horse in the 2008 Kentucky Derby, Eight
Belles, collapsed with shattered front fetlocks just after
crossing the finish line. She was euthanized on the track.
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