Gunpowder changed everything. Curtain walls of stone gave way, literally, with the shock of shot. Of course, it was Michelangelo who turned Florence into a star. Leonardo’s Palmanova became the ideal city. The names for all the parts were like poems, little poems, like the parts of a poem. The Bastion and the Ditch. The Glacis, that grassy inflection. Horn works! Crown works! Dead zones now became deadly with intersecting fields of fire. Redoubts and Ravelins! Lunettes! Tenailles and Tenaillons! Counterguards and Cordons! Faussebrayes! Banquettes and Barbettes! Scarps and Counterscarps! They scan! They meter! Formal and beautiful! A Golden Mean! A raised ratio! Michael Martone
Read more by Michael Martone in Eckleburg No. 22.
Michael Martone’s newest book is Table Talk & Second Thoughts (Cornerstone Press, 2025), a memoir in flash. Martone has won two Fellowships from the NEA and a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation. His stories and essays have appeared and been cited in the Pushcart Prize, The Best American Stories and The Best American Essays anthologies. He received his Master of Arts in Writing from Johns Hopkins University where he studied under John Barth. Recently retired after teaching creative writing at four universities including the University of Alabama, he now lives in Tuscaloosa, below the Bug Line, where he putters in his gardens and works on his new book, Fort Fort Wayne. Read more at fourforaquarter.com.