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The Bellingham Review – Summer/Fall 2003

Volume 26 Number 2

Summer/Fall 2003

Mark Cunningham

With its introspective and lyrical qualities, the writing in Bellingham Review invokes the brief northern daylight and drizzly afternoons of the little bayside town, just south of the British Columbian border, which is its namesake. But don’t misunderstand: this unassumingly slender journal (which must be one of the country’s most beautifully designed) is neither slack nor unadventurous; its pages contain all the great weight and mass of true literature. While the 22 poems tend to induce a mellow and reflective state of mind, they are never staid, never complacent, and are nearly always—whether on a grand or quotidian scale—breathtaking.

With its introspective and lyrical qualities, the writing in Bellingham Review invokes the brief northern daylight and drizzly afternoons of the little bayside town, just south of the British Columbian border, which is its namesake. But don’t misunderstand: this unassumingly slender journal (which must be one of the country’s most beautifully designed) is neither slack nor unadventurous; its pages contain all the great weight and mass of true literature. While the 22 poems tend to induce a mellow and reflective state of mind, they are never staid, never complacent, and are nearly always—whether on a grand or quotidian scale—breathtaking. Consider these haunting lines from “Blown Glass” by Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis: “Your hand went through the church window . . . I held two petals of your skin together with both hands. Blood, purple-throated, operatic sang through my fingers.” Ann Veronica Simon’s wry, rhapsodic essay on sleep and insomnia charms and disturbs, and the three short stories here are no less impressive. Brian Leung’s “Drawings by Andrew Warhol,” a snakelike narrative packed with surprises, is bound to compel readers to devour it whole. And June Unjoo Yang’s “Revival,” concerning a mother bewitched by her demon-daughter, is by far one of the most provocative and poetic I’ve read in a great while. [Bellingham Review, MS-9053, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225. E-mail: [email protected]. Single issue $7.00. wwu.edu/~bhreview] – MC

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