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Forklift, Ohio – Fall 2009

Number 21

Fall 2009

Biannual

Sima Rabinowitz

It sounds huge – Forklift. It’s subtitled as if the description was written after a night of heavy drinking – A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety. It’s quirky – for example, section titles from the TOC: A Precaution in Planting; Fresh from the Nursery; Animals in the Garden; Sprinkling vs. Watering; and so forth. It looks fun, with whacky illustrations and graphics. It feels small – Forklift fits in one palm. It’s all of these things. And none of them. And you should take it seriously, even if it does its level best to dissuade you from doing so, at least at first glance.

It sounds huge – Forklift. It’s subtitled as if the description was written after a night of heavy drinking – A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety. It’s quirky – for example, section titles from the TOC: A Precaution in Planting; Fresh from the Nursery; Animals in the Garden; Sprinkling vs. Watering; and so forth. It looks fun, with whacky illustrations and graphics. It feels small – Forklift fits in one palm. It’s all of these things. And none of them. And you should take it seriously, even if it does its level best to dissuade you from doing so, at least at first glance.

Heavy lifting worth paying attention to includes sudden fiction by Jenn Scheck-Kahn, “Uncorked (“Food cramps Franklin. He is hungry before he paints, but after it, he’s full. If he eats early, there’s no space for painting. It’s that simple.”), a poem by Nicholas Gulig, “Traveling” (“How could one not want this if it is / real this particle of sparrow / light this metal / fence between the shadow of / the city and the field if we are listening”), a translation of a poem by the prolific and much-admired Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun from Michael Thomas Taren, “The Work on a Platform”; and several poems by Adam Clay and by Cynthia Arrieu-King.

Much of the work in the journal (though not the pieces cited above) are, indeed, quirky, and there is an equal measure of fun and drama – “the world’s no longer really ours,” concludes poet Thera Webb in “One Way the World Will End.”

And, yes, there are recipes: Melissa Barrett provides her versions of Vegetarian Pink Bean & Red Pepper Stew, and Easy Australian Lemonade Scones; and Cate Peeble gives us Sunday Lentil Soup Redux. These featured alongside Matthew Pitt’s story “Appetites,” a mock restaurant review.

Matt Reeck’s short story, “The Undertow of the World,” a series of short numbered fragments, epitomizes the journal’s sensibility and captures its tone precisely: “Seven cars pass through one gate. They contain thirteen nations. Each nation owns one vegetable. One vegetable is bountiful in its nation. To seize each vegetable. To cease each nation.” Seize your fork and dig in.
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