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Burnside Review – Summer 2004

Volume 1 Issue 1

Summer 2004

Jeannine Hall Gailey

The slim, saddle-stitched new poetry journal out of Portland, Oregon looks like care and attention has been lavished on its design; it resembles a well-done chapbook, with its heavy cardstock paper and clean, clear typeset. And the poetry you’ll find won’t disappoint either. Many of the poems have a lyrical bent and pack an emotional punch. I particularly liked Virginia Mix’s piece, called “Boundaries,” which culminates in these eerie lines: “And I can also fast-forward five years, and / squat down in her tiny kitchen, 29 years / old and pregnant, whispering into the / goat’s silky coat after he spent the day / munching on toxic rhododendron. / I cover my ears as he moans and screams / while the poison rushes through his blood, / and hold him in my lap at four in the / morning, and the moonlight shivers off / the linoleum.” I am looking forward to more of Burnside Review after this promising debut. 

The slim, saddle-stitched new poetry journal out of Portland, Oregon looks like care and attention has been lavished on its design; it resembles a well-done chapbook, with its heavy cardstock paper and clean, clear typeset. And the poetry you’ll find won’t disappoint either. Many of the poems have a lyrical bent and pack an emotional punch. I particularly liked Virginia Mix’s piece, called “Boundaries,” which culminates in these eerie lines: “And I can also fast-forward five years, and / squat down in her tiny kitchen, 29 years / old and pregnant, whispering into the / goat’s silky coat after he spent the day / munching on toxic rhododendron. / I cover my ears as he moans and screams / while the poison rushes through his blood, / and hold him in my lap at four in the / morning, and the moonlight shivers off / the linoleum.” I am looking forward to more of Burnside Review after this promising debut. 

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