Redivider – 2004

The second issue of the newly relaunched journal out of Emerson College in Boston includes poetry, fiction, interviews, art, and a fistful of short book reviews. One of the highlights of this issue was the interview with the always-entertaining Nancy Pearl, my own hometown’s (Seattle) celebrity librarian who has her own action figure! Her wit and passion for books are palpable.

The second issue of the newly relaunched journal out of Emerson College in Boston includes poetry, fiction, interviews, art, and a fistful of short book reviews. One of the highlights of this issue was the interview with the always-entertaining Nancy Pearl, my own hometown’s (Seattle) celebrity librarian who has her own action figure! Her wit and passion for books are palpable. An interview with lyric poet Gregory Orr was also enlightening, and discussed the transformative potential power of the lyric. I also loved the art work by Chris Hutson – his surreal and symbolic etchings are powerful, moving, hauntingly beautiful. Some (not, certainly, all) of the poetry in the issue had an off-putting “faux-tough-kid” edge that jolted me when I first read it; poems that seem to be oozing some kind of machismo/insecurity about being a writer – I couldn’t tell if these poems were being ironic, trying to be funny and I just wasn’t getting it, or what – poems like “alibis and false reasons,” “If School Was a Person,” and then there was the just plain not-very-interesting or well-crafted “Twenty-five ways to make love without having sex.” Shock value for shock value’s sake isn’t very interesting to me; this felt like a porn textbook description. The first issue of Redivider had a lot of poetry I enjoyed, so perhaps this issue was a bit of an aberration. Looking forward to seeing in which direction this journal moves next. [Redivider, Department of Writing, Literature, and Publishing, Emerson College, 120 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116. Single issue $9. E-mail: [email protected]. http://pages.emerson.edu/publications/redivider] – JHG