Editor’s Note: What follows is composed from features published in The New Yorker between September and December 2010. No alterations beyond rearrangement were made to the texts, excepting those that ensured gender, tense and number agreement.

Mouth taking the form around like the moistening apple core which deforms peculiarly in the way of these things,

“All gone Quinn.” “Who sir?” “Shy Anne.” “You sure?”

The case for Anne Carson’s _Nox_ might begin with its box (that’s not binding): grey with white binding (that’s not binding) and a single silver sliver, in which stands a boy diver on grass maybe forty summers ago, wearing superhero goggles and flippers. The photo is just offset from a strip of beige paint and…

“This snowfall is my final fantasy. Once America the woman was coming on my dick, her flag pin a pinhole to a world without strife. But then—” he sneezes. “Let me begin again. Terrorism. The weeping willow lowers her hair and head in sorrow. The fireman and his wife die and die and are finally…

*Bright Star* starring John Keats John Keats rests his head as angular as two racially white blades of hay.

*Life Story* starring Jeff Goldblum The mystery has a name, Jeff Goldblum.