Deep River: Memoir of a Missouri Farm (2001), editor David Hamilton's nonfiction account of a river-bottom farm in west-central Missouri, uncovers the layers of history—both personal and regional—that have accumulated at the site. This land was part of a late frontier, passed over, then developed through the middle of the last century as the author's father and uncle cleared a portion of it and established their farm. Deep River is available from The University of Missouri Press.

Hard Choices (1996) is a retrospective anthology of almost 400 pages covering the first quarter century of the Review. Rediscover the first instance of Galway Kinnell's phrase, "the book of nightmares," the first version of Robert Coover's fugitive classic, "Spanking the Maid," prelude in form to his recent Briar Rose, early and later work of Jane Kenyon, Pattiann Rogers, Marianne Boruch, and James Tate, Donald Justice's emblematic "Poem," "Power" by Audre Lorde, James Alan McPherson's "The Problem of Art," an early Iowa poem by Marvin Bell, and much more. 

Transgressions (1994) collects twenty-nine instances of "innovative fiction," introduced by William H. Gass with a concluding essay by Robert F. Sayre. The stories are by Gass, Rikki Ducornet, Robert Coover, Patricia Eakins, Eurydice, Kathy Acker, John Barth, Stacey Levine, Laura Gerrity, Susan Daitch, Ben Marcus, Ron Sukenick, David Foster Wallace, John Hawkes, Curtis White, Diane Williams, Julie Regan, Cris Mazza, Mary Capenegro, and others. 

Both Transgressions and Hard Choices are available from the University of Iowa Press through their Web site.

Art on this page by Tom Wegman