Padgett Powell is the author of two collections of stories and four novels, including his most recent, Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men. His debut novel Edisto (1984) received the Prix de Rome and a National Book Award nomination. Powell has also received a Whiting Award, as well as Pushcart and O. Henry Prizes. His work has been included in the Best American Short Stories and Best American Sportswriting anthologies. He teaches at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

Three Short Pieces

by Padgett Powell

Marbles

I am sitting here without my marbles together, envying other people sitting where they are sitting with their marbles together. I have in mind a certain poet in New York, seventy-five or so, in his apartment knowing all that he knows, arranging some lines on paper that advance evidence that he knows yet a little more than the prodigious sum we already knew he knew.

People on couch
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