But writers such as Mairs and Knapp and Dubus make a subject of their afflictions and return to that subject. I have called them "agonists" because they seem to embody all of the original meanings of the Greek word that came down to us as agony: the struggle, the public contest, the anguish. These writers are performing their struggle with suffering; by writing they make public the pain that is ordinarily invisible and always located within the single self.

Michael Cohen is professor emeritus of English at Murray State University. He is an essayist who divides his time between western Kentucky and Tucson, Arizona. [2009]
Featuring work by M.C. Armstrong, John W. Evans, Benjamin S. Grossberg, Becky Adnot Haynes, Nathan Hogan, Jonathan Johnson, Devin Murphy, Wade Ostrowski, and Sharon Solwitz... and an interview with Natasha Trethewey.

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