Home » Newpages Blog » Green Mountains Review – Fall 2003

Green Mountains Review – Fall 2003

Volume 16 Number 1

Fall 2003

Jeannine Hall Gailey

The sizeable, glossy Green Mountains Review is filled, as always, with fresh and interesting work; this time many of the pieces have a metaphysical bent, but with a twist, such as poems that meditate on the true holiness of the phrase “Holy Shit,” that imagine Mary Magdalene’s conversations about Jesus at the tomb, and that consider explanations of mortality to a little boy at a crematorium. Half tongue-in-cheek, Charles Harper Webb’s poem “In Unromantic Times” bemoans our contemporary cynicism, and the death of romance, with an edge of real grief at the end:

The sizeable, glossy Green Mountains Review is filled, as always, with fresh and interesting work; this time many of the pieces have a metaphysical bent, but with a twist, such as poems that meditate on the true holiness of the phrase “Holy Shit,” that imagine Mary Magdalene’s conversations about Jesus at the tomb, and that consider explanations of mortality to a little boy at a crematorium. Half tongue-in-cheek, Charles Harper Webb’s poem “In Unromantic Times” bemoans our contemporary cynicism, and the death of romance, with an edge of real grief at the end:

“Our young gentlemen…don’t sip sorrow // Like plum wine snatched by corsairs on the China / Sea. They don’t give up titles and lands, / Then dash off into rain hard as grapeshot / To die in some glorious foreign war. There are / No wars worth dying for. There’s no true rain.”

In a lighter vein, this issue features a lively interview with Mark Halliday, who talks about the importance of playing with words and with poetry. This journal delivers a pleasing mix of writers and styles. [The Green Mountains Review, Johnson State College, Johnson, VT 05656. Single issue $7. ] – JHG

Spread the word!