Valerie is an art worker in the big city. Literally the product of an American childhood in a small place where she learned to value objects and their promise, Valerie now lives and works in a storm of things, many of which are commodities—including herself. While unhappily but compliantly selling paintings at a high-pressure art […]

The hooker slips his shirt off. In the moment where he can’t see me I steal a glance at his chest. His ribs. The lines of muscle showing abdominals. Not an ounce of fat. I look away before I’m noticed. For years I’ve printed shirts in this shop for a man teetering on the edge […]

This essay also appears in print on page 211 in the Forum pages of Issue #40.   There is a form, that is not form, and that can be found in many collections of American poetry. This not-form is the arrangement. Rooted in the Romantic fragment, French prose poetry, palimpsestic modernism, Benjamin’s Arcades, Queneau’s Cent […]

The empty hallways were covered with worn-out carpet. A ventilator worked against the smell of fish, burnt fat, and sweat. I felt a pain behind my eyes, in my temples. Some of the cabin doors had numbers on them. A sign directed me to the cafeteria where the night workers were eating dinner. I could […]

Including Essays by FENCE Editors and Selected Articles and Interviews   In 2009, FENCE published a two-volume anthology entitled A BEST OF FENCE: THE FIRST NINE YEARS. They are available, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, through Small Press Distribution. The editors of FENCE up to that point in time contributed essays about their experiences working on the magazine, all of […]

When I was younger, I worked for some years as a tutor for a little boy who was the scion of a very wealthy family with its own peculiar culture and a whole battery of customs I never fully understood. I lived in a little cottage on the family property. Besides me and the boy, […]