{"id":143070,"date":"2020-02-25T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T18:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=143070"},"modified":"2020-02-24T16:18:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T21:18:24","slug":"redux-pull-the-language-in-to-such-a-sharpness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/02\/25\/redux-pull-the-language-in-to-such-a-sharpness\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: Pull the Language in to Such a Sharpness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Maya Angelou.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This week at The Paris Review<\/em>, we\u2019re celebrating Black History Month by highlighting African American writers in our archive. Read on for Maya Angelou\u2019s Art of Fiction interview<\/a>, Edward P. Jones\u2019s short story \u201cMarie<\/a>,\u201d and Toi Derricotte\u2019s poem \u201cPeripheral<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0and read the entire archive? You\u2019ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. And don\u2019t forget to listen to\u00a0Season 2<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0The Paris Review Podcast<\/em>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maya Angelou, The Art of Fiction No. 119<\/a>
\nIssue no. 116 (Fall 1990)<\/em><\/p>\n

I try to pull the language in to such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It must look easy, but it takes me forever to get it to look so easy. Of course, there are those critics\u2014New York critics as a rule\u2014who say, Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it\u2019s good but then she\u2019s a natural writer. Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work<\/em> at the language.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marie<\/a>
\nBy Edward P. Jones
\nIssue no. 122 (Spring 1992)<\/em><\/p>\n

Every now and again, as if on a whim, the Federal government people would write to Marie Delaveaux Wilson in one of those white, stampless envelopes and tell her to come in to their place so they could take another look at her. They, the Social Security people, wrote to her in a foreign language that she had learned to translate over the years, and for all of the years she had been receiving the letters the same man had been signing them. Once, because she had something important to tell him, Marie called the number the man always put at the top of the letters, but a woman answered Mr. Smith\u2019s telephone and told Marie he was in an all day meeting. Another time she called and a man said Mr. Smith was on vacation. And finally one day a woman answered and told Marie that Mr. Smith was deceased. The woman told her to wait and she would get someone new to talk to her about her case, but Marie thought it bad luck to have telephoned a dead man and she hung up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Peripheral<\/a>
\nBy Toi Derricotte
\nIssue no. 124 (Fall 1992)<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s a bat\u2019s wings
\nat the corner of your eye, right
\nwhere the eyeball swivels
\ninto its pocket. But when
\nthe brown of your eye turns
\nwhere you thought the white saw,
\nthere\u2019s only air & gold light,
\nreality\u2014as your mother defined it\u2014
\n(milk\/no milk) \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like what you read,\u00a0get a year of<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u2014four new issues, plus instant access to everything we\u2019ve ever published.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, we\u2019ve lowered the paywall on Maya Angelou\u2019s Art of Fiction interview, a story by Edward P. Jones, and a poem by Toi Derricotte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31006],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedux: Pull the Language in to Such a Sharpness by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, we\u2019ve lowered the paywall on Maya Angelou\u2019s Art of Fiction interview, a story by Edward P. 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