Straight Forward – June 2012

Straight Forward is a newer mag that includes both poetry and photography. While I wasn’t impressed with most of the photography—but that’s really a matter of opinion because I know nothing about the art—several of the poems stuck with me.

Straight Forward is a newer mag that includes both poetry and photography. While I wasn’t impressed with most of the photography—but that’s really a matter of opinion because I know nothing about the art—several of the poems stuck with me. I enjoyed the first poem of the issue, “On Jeans Vs. Skirts” by Meg Eden, for the interesting concept it provided about how women are now expected to wear tight jeans and leggings instead of skirts and about how much more freeing skirts are. I was easily entertained by David M. Harris’s skeptical view of Disney in “The Great Mouse” in which he ends the poem, “Mickey looms, exaggerated, / over my daughter. / She is terrified. / Unsurprised, I try to comfort / us both.” And Changming Yuan ends her poem “Phonism” with two excellent lines: “Are you listening to what you have heard / Or can you hear what you are listening to?” Although there weren’t any in this issue, the magazine also publishes “guest blog entries and academic essays about poetry.”
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