The Bellingham Review – Fall 2005

The Bellingham Review, produced by Western Washington University, offers an outstanding selection of poetry in its fall issue. A number of the poems are inspired by visual art, such as Diane LeBlanc’s “Bardo,” Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s “Brujula,” and Matt Donovan’s “Guernica, First Draft”: “May 1, 1937, four days after the fact, / Pencil lead on blue notepaper, / contours, skeletal whorls.” Melissa Kwasny’s bold and sprawling poem, “The Waterfall,” is also a standout. The prose is strong as well, with a preference for straightforward, earnest narratives in fiction—

The Bellingham Review, produced by Western Washington University, offers an outstanding selection of poetry in its fall issue. A number of the poems are inspired by visual art, such as Diane LeBlanc’s “Bardo,” Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s “Brujula,” and Matt Donovan’s “Guernica, First Draft”: “May 1, 1937, four days after the fact, / Pencil lead on blue notepaper, / contours, skeletal whorls.” Melissa Kwasny’s bold and sprawling poem, “The Waterfall,” is also a standout. The prose is strong as well, with a preference for straightforward, earnest narratives in fiction—I particularly enjoyed Anthony Varallo’s “The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckelburg”— and several excellent nonfiction pieces, such as Julie Danho’s “As Coffee”: “Coffee trees believe in beauty. They refuse to grow anywhere but the earth’s heat—from 25 degrees north to 25 degrees south of the equator—where temperatures hover between 70 and 80 degrees year round.” This issue also includes three impressive reviews with Gary Snyder, David Suzuki, and Gretel Ehrlich. A magazine well worth checking out. [The Bellingham Review, MS-9053, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225. Single issue $7. www.wwu.edu/~bhreview] –Laura van den Berg