“Bam, Iran” by Michael Martone

Attribution: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Bam
Iran

There have been defensive walls at Bam for twenty-five centuries. Gigantic walls
surround the city that are then surrounded by a moat. The walls are over twenty feet
high. There are four gates and thirty-eight watch towers. There are sixty-seven “Stay
Awake” turrets for which Bam is famed. On the Silk Road, the Crossroad of Spices,
Bam is also still famous for its dates. The citadel of Bam was thought to be the largest
adobe structure in the world, fending off invasion after invasion, siege, and mining until
2003. On 26 December an earthquake centered directly below the city center, leveled
everything to the ground in a few seconds.

“Bastion Cities or Trace Italienne” by Michael Martone
“The Athenian Long Walls” by Michael Martone
“Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington D.C.” by Michael Martone

Contributor’s note: Michael Martone was born on August 22, 1955 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Since 1977, he has written nearly 30 books and chapbooks. Until his retirement in 2020, he was a professor at the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana; Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler’s List, and nearly 30 other books and chapbooks, many of them centered in the Midwest. Many of his works challenge accepted conventions of writing such as those found in biographical notes—like this one where Martone writes about himself.