Brian Turner - The Kiss: Intimacies from Writers

A book on kissing wouldnt be complete without a page filled with kisses for all who made this great assembly of meditations on kissing possible...

To you, who hold this book in your hands: Thank you. I hope it surprises and delights you. May all of your kisses be profoundly meaningful, forged in joy.

Im grateful for the generosity of spirit shown by all of the writers who contributed to this anthologyas they have not only helped to create a wonderful book, but they have made the following donations possible... In honor of my late wifes wishes to support the work of inventor Boyan Slat and his efforts to remove plastic from the worlds oceans, 50 percent of the proceeds from this book are being donated in her name to the organization The Ocean Cleanup (https://www.theoceancleanup.com). The remaining 50 percent will support the editorial internship program at Guernica magazine.

This project began online at Guernica magazine with the creation of a bimonthly series called The Kiss. As one of the cofounders and former editor-in-chief of the magazine, Michael Archer supported and encouraged the series, teaming me up with the truly phenomenal Ed Winstead. Ed and I have worked together ever since to bring Guernicas readers the most breathtaking literary kisses possible, rain or shine. Im thankful to the publisher and director at Guernica, Katherine Rowland, for all that she has done to see this project through.

Im grateful to all at W. W. Nortonespecially my editor, Alane Salierno Mason. Her great patience and belief in this project have remained steadfast and true, and her guidance has, at every step, aided me in the pursuit of a profound and necessary book, one worthy of a readers eye and ear. I send kisses and thanks to all at W. W. Nortonfor believing that this world needs the sexy and the spiritual, the profane, the bewildered, the beautifully incandescent and transcendent, the many layers of intimacy and connection that kisses bring.

Many thanks go to my agent, Samar Hammam at Rocking Chair Books, who kindly donated her time on this project. Ive been blessed by our many years of friendship and our conversations on art, life, and all that matters most. My hope is that we will shepherd many more books toward the rare high shelf, and that our conversations will deepen and brighten as we go.

To Alison Granucci and to all at Blue Flower Arts: Thank you for creating the journeys that have opened up a wider world for me and have given me the gift of friendships, year after year. Much love, always.

Im indebted to the polymath genius and artistic vision of Benjamin Busch. Hes not only written a beautiful meditation for this anthology, but he also served as an early eye for many of the essays and stories that appear in this book. The original artworks he created for some of the early essays that appeared online are superb and set the bar for the field. His friendship is a compass fixed on all that is luminous.

Special thanks to Tony Barnstone, Stacey Lynn Brown, Kim Buchheit, Skip Buhler, Matt Cashion, Russell Conrad, Sarah Cossaboon, Roel Daamen, Nathalie Handal, Patrick Hicks, Didi Jackson, Major Jackson, Lois P. Jones, T. R. Hummer, Christian Kiefer, Krista and Henk, Benjamin and Serena Kramer, Jared Silvia, Bill Tuell, and to all in the Retro Legion. To each of you, and to all of my friends and family and teachers: Thank you for the light and love you bring to this world.

Most of all, I would like to thank Ilyse Kusnetz. This book would not have been possible without her unconditional love and encouragement, as well as her keen and unerring editorial eye. Behind the scenes and from the very beginning, she pored over each meditative essay for the series at Guernica; her insights and edits are at work throughout this anthology, sentence by sentence, word by word.

Ilyse

I will meet you at the great door when my time has come
as you have traveled, so brave and beautiful and brilliant,
into the unknown ahead of us...

My love, if there is a vault of kisses within the human frame
housing my soul, then you are the key to unlocking them.

All of my kisses are for you.

ALSO BY BRIAN TURNER

My Life as a Foreign Country

Phantom Noise

Here, Bullet

AS EDITOR

The Strangest of Theatres:
Poets Writing Across Borders

Kim Addonizio is the author of several books of prose and poetry, most recently Mortal Trash, a collection of poems (W. W. Norton, 2017) and a memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life (Penguin, 2016).

Kazim Alis most recent books include Sky Ward, Resident Alien, and Wind Instrument. He teaches at Oberlin College. A new collection of essays, Silver Road, and a new collection of poems, Inquisition, will both be published in 2018.

J. Mae Barizo is the author of The Cumulus Effect (Four Way Books, 2015). A prizewinning poet, critic, and performer, recent work by her appears in AGNI, Bookforum, Boston Review, Guernica, and Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from Bennington College, the New School, the Jerome Foundation, and Poets House. Recent collaborative work includes projects with artists such as Salman Rushdie, Mark Morris, and the American String Quartet. She lives in New York City.

Laure-Anne Bosselaar is the author of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (BOA Editions, 1997), Small Gods of Grief (BOA Editions, 2001), winner of the Isabella Gardner Prize; and of A New Hunger (Ausuable Press, 2007), selected as an ALA Notable Book. Her next book will be published by Four Way Books in early 2019. The editor of four anthologies and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, she teaches at the Solstice Low Residency MFA at Pine Manor College.

Kurt Browns (19442013) first book of poems, Return of the Prodigals, appeared from Four Way Books in 1999, and More Things in Heaven and Earth (also Four Way Books) in 2002. Fables from the Ark, which won the 2003 Custom Words Prize, was published by WordTech. Future Ship (Red Hen Press) came out in 2007, followed by No Other Paradise (also from Red Hen Press, 2010). Tiger Bark Press published Time-Bound in 2013, and Ive Come This Far to Say Hello: Poems Selected and New in 2014.

Nickole Brown received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, studied literature at Oxford University, was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson, and worked for ten years at Sarabande Books. Her first collection, Sister, was published in 2007 by Red Hen Press, and Fanny Says came out from BOA Editions in 2015. She was an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for four years until she gave up her beloved time in the classroom in hope of writing full-time. Currently she is the editor of the Marie Alexander Series in Prose Poetry and lives with her wife, poet Jessica Jacobs, in Asheville, North Carolina.

Benjamin Busch is a writer, filmmaker, and illustrator. He served sixteen years as a Marine Corps infantry officer, deploying twice to Iraq. Hes been a stonemason, sculptor, cartoonist, carpenter, and for three seasons he played Officer Colicchio on the HBO series The Wire. Hes the author of the memoir Dust to Dust (Ecco, 2012) and his essays have arrived in