Contents

STATE OF THE NATION

CAN THE PEOPLE RULE?
The Citizens of Porto Alegre
In which Marco borrows bus fare and enters politics     Gianpaolo Baiocchi

The Nation in a Room
Turning public opinion into policy
James S. Fishkin

Learning from Athens
Success by design    Josiah Ober

Ending Polarization
The good news about the culture wars    John Gastil, Dan M. Kahan, and Donald Braman

ESSAYS
On the Ground in Iraq
The roots of sectarian violence    Nir Rosen

The Crusader
Why we must take Osama bin Laden's writings seriously     Khaled Abou El Fadl

Freedom Reigns
But it isn't enough    Nick Bromell

NEW FICTION FORUM
Things That Went Wrong Thus Far  FICTION     Deb Olin Unferth

The Dreamlife of Rupert Thomson
Novels at the intersection of gothic and noir    James Hynes

ON POETRY
Neglected
Samuel Menashe rediscovered, for now    Kurt Brown

A Broken Place
Brenda Hillman's Pieces of Air in the Epic    Amy Newlove Schroeder

The Light in the Heart
Anne Carson's Decreation    Joyelle McSweeney

The Speaking Ear
Ronald Johnson's Radi Os    Dan Beachy-Quick

Microreviews

ON FILM
Happy Endings
Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice    Alan A. Stone

POEMS
Lost    Michelle Noteboom
Sonnet    Sarah Rosenthal
A Small Anatomy of Feeling    Anna Rabinowitz
Tu Fu Watches the Spring Festival Across Serpentine Lake    Frank Bidart
On the Phantom Estate    Geoffrey G. O'Brien
To Classes    Geoffrey G. O'Brien
Dream Job    Matthew Zapruder
Early    Mark Levine
A laborious wakefulness or was it a most unapologetic whistling in the ear    Shane Book
Fifteen Minutes    Ben Doyle
Poet's Sampler: F. Daniel Rzicznek     introduced by Larissa Szporluk