Posted October 19, 2005
580
Split
Issue 7
2005
Annual
Experimental poetry can be a challenge: of the
pieces you enjoy, it's difficult to say what moved you so. Of the
pieces you don't like, you want to ask why nobody's telling the
emperor to put some damn pants on. The poetry of 580 Split
left me feeling a bit of both, but is sure to be enjoyed by those
who appreciate avant-garde literature. A sampling of what you'll
find: C.S. Carrier's "To Leave Then Return," which includes the
enigmatic lines: "In a past life the baseboard / crouched in the
belly of a giant raven that flew only / when magnets said it was
time." Steve Davenport's "Another Hundred-Line Drunken Cowboy
Sonnet": "The family you're building with me is a yodel / jumping
with blood noise, liquor through my veins [...]" My personal
favorite, Lisa Jarnot's lovely "Birthday Poem," has winter saying
"hello to the sparrows and their tiny / hearts rise like the sunrise
to be seen / climbing up out of the staircase as it / says hello to
me my better self, my / better self in spring." Of the issue's
fiction, Karina Fuentes's "Committing Sin," is particularly well
done. It concerns a woman who has been institutionalized by her
bible-thumping, wife-beating husband. She takes comfort in delusions
of being married to Elvis Presley and having his baby. If it sounds
over the top, well, it could have been, but Fuentes makes good work
of it. [580 Split, P.O. Box 9982, Oakland CA 94613-0982. E-mail:
editor@580split.com. Single issue $7.50.
www.580split.com] –Jennifer Gomoll
The
Baltimore Review
Volume 9 Number 2
Summer 2005
Biannual
“The Weight of Bones”
I read first because the short story jumped out at me, or rather the
skull did, the skull being the main character Ellen finds in her
“charred garage.” All I will say is that Ellen took me by surprise
from the first moment we met. Then came the nonfiction and equally
engaging “My Wild Ride” that taught me how to welcome an unwelcome
surprise. To summarize, the mother of two little girls under the age
of five receives news that her life is about to change on more than
one level. The eight poems are quietly seductive. As I was
experiencing their power, I allowed the words time to soak in, take
up a life, a meaning of their own. Soon they did, as in the
translation “I Refuse To Write About My Heart.” “I can describe
anything easily” begins the first line of the first stanza.
Continuing in stanza three, line three, “one can go anywhere one
chooses / enter any dwelling, any room without a trace, / get into
contact with Proust, Ibsen, Madonna…” yet in the last line the heart
remains true to the title, it will not allow the narrator access to
its words. Seven other poems have the same dream-like quality to
them...or perhaps it was me instead who entered another world as I
read them. There are five short stories, two essays, an interview
with author Rebecca Skloot, who explains her views of the
publication process. Three book reviews are included, The
Secretkeepers, Little Criminals, and Jane: A Murder, each
one rendering a balanced critique. [The Baltimore Review, P.O. Box
36418, Townson, MD 21286. {Online contact form.} Single issue $10.
www.baltimorereview.org] —Donna Everhart
The
Carolina Quarterly
Volume 57 Number 1
January 2005
The Carolina Quarterly has great short
fiction going for it; I expect to remember at least four of the
seven stories here long after I've put this issue on the shelf. I
was most impressed by Jean Colgan Gould's "The Queen of October," in
which a woman on the verge of 70 shoots hoops in her driveway. She's
recently had a showdown with neighbors who didn't appreciate the
basketball noise and suggested she ought to do everyone a favor and
move out of her big, empty house, sparking her anger and a
determination not to be forced to while away the rest of her days in
"a nice condo." Excellent! A much younger protagonist experiences
rebellious feelings in Kurt Rheinheimer's "Spray Man." Kyle Minor's
"Snow Fell in Florida" is a short but dead-on look at a family
trying to move on and feel secure again after a break-in and, for
the woman who narrates, rape. If you're coming to the Carolina
Quarterly in search of poetry, you'll find twelve poets; most
have a distinctly MFA-in-Creative-Writing feel to their work. I most
enjoyed the imagery of Scott Brennan's "The Queen Establishes," in
which a queen bee leads her entourage to start a new hive in a
willow tree, where "the living wave [of bees] will come to rest, to
suspend the unliving wax / as though on a nail of black and gold."
[The Carolina Quarterly, Greenlaw Hall CB #3520, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3520. E-mail: cquarter@unc.edu.
Single issue $6.
www.unc.edu/depts/cqonline] –Jennifer Gomoll
College
Literature
Volume 32 Number 2
Spring 2005
Quarterly
As a beginning instructor, I invested a few
days reading into College Literature, and I cannot say I
regretted one second. Beginning with professor Michael Payne’s essay
discussing psychoanalytic theory past and present and ending with
professor Steven Salaita’s article which asks, among several
questions, how the Arab American community as well as the social
climate in which they live has changed or remained the same since
9/11, I felt the same excitement as when I was a student sitting in
the classroom. Each contributor to this issue teaches at various
higher educational levels; their research is thorough, complete with
a works cited at the end. Particularly fascinated with psychological
and cultural ideas as they intersect with language and literature, I
experienced a better understanding prompted by an approach that is
scholarly yet friendly. A resource to become acquainted or more
engaged in a discipline, each essay explores historical, modern, and
possible future directions in the specific theory or subject matter.
Equally interesting in this issue: “Memory and the City: Urban
Renewal and Literary Memoirs in Contemporary Dublin”; “Desire on
Ice: The Menace of Albertine’s Mimicry in La Prisonnière”; “Comment
peut-on être Péruvienne?: Françoise de Graffigny, a Stragic Femme de
Lettres”; “Evolutionary Biological Issues in Edith Warton’s The
Children”; “Consumption, Addiction, Vision, Energy: Political
Economies and Utopian Visions in the Writings of the Beat
Generations”; and “Receptacle or Reversal? Globalization Down Under
in Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life.” Several reviews are included
of books published by university presses. Over 200 pages of welcome
discourse. [College Literature, 210 E. Rosedale Ave, West Chester
University, West Chester, PA, 19383. E-mail: collit@wcupa.edu. Singe
issue $10.
www.collegeliterature.org] —Donna Everhart
Fourteen
Hills
Volume 11 Number 2
Summer/Fall 2005
Biannual
Published by the creative writing department of
San Francisco State University, Fourteen Hills might just as
aptly be titled “Fourteen Styles,” such a broad spectrum of
approaches to narrative and poetics does it present, at least in
this summer/fall issue. In the realm of fiction I found myself very
taken with the short story “Three Girls” by Anne Clifford, which so
deftly utilizes first, second, and third person perspectives,
shifting from one to another and back with a spot-on rhythmic
agility. “They call this a group home,” the story begins, “but we
aren’t a group and none of us think for a minute that this is home.”
Also impressive is Aurora Brackett’s story “Cold War,” set a few
decades back, in which a young girl temporarily obsessed with the
Soviet Union begins to comprehend the precarious, often reckless
nature of her parent’s—namely her mother’s—hippy drugs&sex
lifestyle. A funny-sad-meditative story by Jack Pendarvis called
“The Golden Pineapples” gives good reason to anticipate his
forthcoming story collection, “The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable
Treasure.” Mitch has been laid off, and has become inexplicably
bewitched by a pair of squirrels in his yard: “The next day began
Mitch’s raking period, as well as his disregard of, casual amusement
about, growing fascination with, comforting by, sneaky dread of,
unpleasant feelings around, glum resignation to, eventual
disillusionment with and cold disgust over the punctuality of the
squirrels.” Experimental poetry abounds in this issue too, as well
as some pleasing black and white photography by various artists and
a glossy full-color mini portfolio of urban pen drawings by artist
Spain Rodriguez, whose work is also featured on the cover. [Fourteen
Hills, c/o The Creative Writing Dept, San Francisco State
University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco CA 94132-1722. E-mail:
hills@sfsu.edu. Single issue $9.
www.14hills.net] –Mark Cunningham
Green
Prints
"The Weeder's Digest"
Number 63
Autumn 2005
Quarterly
"To dig one's own spade into one's own earth!
Has life anything better to offer than this?" So muses Beverley
Nichols in Down the Garden Path. An excerpt of this 1932
gardener's delight, along with a variety of inspirational and
humorous stories for the green-thumbed, appear in this issue of
Green Prints. If Nichols's sentiment matches your own, put down
your spade and take out a subscription, because this unique journal
is all about the delights (and frustrations) of gardening.
Thoughtful essays offer insight into the rewards of seemingly
pointless garden work, as in Becky Rupp's "To Rake", which posits:
"To rake is to defy the cold months. We're looking ahead to spring
here, building a bridge through the blizzards between past and
future gardens." Simone Martel's "Yellow Quinces," in which the
author goes into labor in her garden, is a lovely think piece about
the work, faith, and forces of nature that are needed to bring
thriving plants as well as children into the world. On the lighter
side, Jeff Taylor offers "The Return of Gomer, Part II" a (you
guessed it) garden-themed whodunit; Mike McGrath fights the lawn in
"Field of Green"; and over-abundant fruit trees shower a family in
apples in Karen Kirkwood's "No Fruit, Please!" Short humor, poems,
and readers' tales round out the issue. [GreenPrints Enterprises,
P.O. Box 1355, Fairview NC 28730. E-mail: patstone@atlantic.net.
Single issue $6.
www.greenprints.com] –Jennifer Gomoll
Iodine
Poetry Journal
Volume 6 Number1
Spring/Summer 2005
Biannual
It’s the fifth anniversary for this Charlotte
magazine and the focus is simple: less talk, more poems. For one
thing, that means no contributors’ notes: after you close the book,
you’re on your own. At least one contributor who needs no such notes
is R.T. Smith, from whom “Parade at VMI” is a breath of wisdom.
Smith meddles in war and history but settles for no easy targets:
his model is a bridge at Antietam Creek whose erection proved to be
unnecessary during the bloodiest single-day battle of the Civil War.
With the reminder of the “cold algebra of sorrow” that seeps through
the news daily, history’s message cuts us deep, “like an axe opening
native cedar to free / the heart-dark rose of the fragrant tree.”
The message is clear and refreshing, since I encountered more than a
few pieces in Iodine addressing the subject of death, usually
involving deceased parents or ancestors, mixed in with a few pieces
employing war imagery to make some vague statements on politics or
relationships—as if such vagueness showed uncertainty of self more
than uncertainty of the times. It’s refreshing again that Frederick
Zydek gets the last word, if only because the authors in Iodine
are alphabetized, but his introspective breeze, “Writing the Year’s
Last Poem,” is fitting: “It should be composed of music / so ancient
even the spaces between / its metaphors and messages reverberate /
with songs mountains and stars remember.” [Iodine Poetry Journal,
P.O. Box 18548, Charlotte, NC 28218-0548. E-mail: iodineopencut@aol.com.
Single issue $6.
www.iodinepoetryjournal.com] –Christopher Mote
Journal
of New Jersey Poets
Issue 42
2005
Annual
If I were to dare make a blanket statement
about New Jersey poets, I'd say they're a tough, witty lot with good
stories to tell. There is little frippery in this journal's pages.
What we get is more like Stanley Marcus's "My White Teeth," a poem
on aging and alienation, which includes: "I would like to extract /
[my false teeth] from my face one morning on the / bus / I take from
Upper Montclair to the city / so all the lawyers could see them and
puke." Like Marcus, many of the poets here display a certain
subversive maturity which I found thoroughly enjoyable. "Geography
Lesson at the Middle School Planetarium," by John Bargowski, recalls
a field trip in which a girl touches his thigh in a darkened
planetarium as their teacher, a nun, gives a lesson. A much
different lesson was learned by Edwin Romond in "What I Would Say to
My Eighth Grade Classmates," an anti-eulogy for a nun who ran her
classroom with terror and humiliation: "she [. . .] dug her nails /
into my face and twisted them like razor / pliers when I didn't have
my homework / the morning after my father's funeral." The issue left
me eagerly awaiting the completion of Michael Burke's
work-in-progress, "Visitors." This excellent piece recalls parties
in the author's childhood home, attended by William Carlos Williams
and Ralph Ellison. [Journal of NJ Poets, The Center of Teaching
Excellence, County College of Morris, 214 Center Grove Road,
Randolph, NJ 07869-2086. Single issue $10.] –Jennifer Gomoll
Journal
of Ordinary Thought
"Twenty Four Hours"
Spring 2005
“A job is like / Being without a shadow,” goes
the first line in “Being Without.” A little further on, in alleyways
with children there is “More purpose and meaning to their play /
Than you with your wheelbarrow.” Meaningless spreads endlessly in
poems, essays, oral histories, discussing life without work. But if
I had missed the poem’s title, the misreading would have been closer
to the other truth, persisting in that sometimes the wrong job is
worse or just as depressing as being without one. In “The Place Of
Work (Plight),” the work environment is “...a grace trap, / like a
fly, trapped in honey, / Like a people without a secret name /
...Every day / is a different stage / Reflecting walls without
shadows, / responding to voices without images.” In “Twenty-Four
Hours,” the new issue of JOT, people share intimate moments
and concerns. JOT, published quarterly, includes photographs,
translations, welcomes all faces, views and voices, as “Everybody
has a story and deserves to be heard.” Stories, poems, oral
histories from Chicago workers, no two narratives are alike. From
lines at unemployment offices where “people often have to help each
other get through this process, learning the ins and outs of the
bureaucratic rules,” to the 73-year-old who once wore three jackets
on the coldest day to show up for the strike, to the stay-at-home
women and men taking care of the children, the level of the spoken
word is from one heart to the other: we’re all in this together is a
common theme, like Johnny King, who learned that “if I took my
problem down to city hall alone, the Mayor would laugh at me. But if
I took ten people, he’d say, ‘This is ten votes.’ And if I took a
hundred people, he’d sit up straight...”[Neighborhood Writing
Alliance, 1313 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637. E-mail: editors@jot.org
or authors@jot.org. Single issue $10.
www.jot.org] —Donna Everhart
Kaleidoscope
Number 50
Winter/Spring 2005
Biannual
Nik Hospodor’s “sophisticated flourenscentism”
visual work, featured in “Landscape,” captures attention on
Kaleidoscope’s front cover with a magical, surrealistic,
fairytale world. Equally captivating is artist SylviAnn Murray’s
“surreal -expressive” style. Painting is one literary venue through
which people with disabilities have found expression and healing.
Both painters share the love of their works and explain the
techniques that they use to create the desired effect. But what
struck me most is the vision that comes through the eyes of the
person without the disability. “Taking Hits,” a personal essay,
shows the inevitable hurt from the counselor’s point of view. “Even
though I had been in similar mind-states,” she says, “I got that
flash of frustration that family members and friends feel for the
mentally ill: Look! You’re not fucking bleeding from the head! I
don’t see a wound. You’ll be fine, if you just snap out of it and
put a smile on your face.” A number of insights about the healing
process and the power of art, fiction, poetry, and personal essays
to help with that process are shared. And Mind Riot, by Gail
Waldstein, M.D. shares a gripping excerpt from a forthcoming novel.
Fiction, essays, poetry—every contributing author has published
elsewhere, teaches, or is highly involved in the literary and
artistic community. [Gail Willmott, Editor-in-chief, 701 South Main
Street, Akron, OH, 44311-1019. E-mail: kaleidoscope@udsakron.org.
Single issue $5.
www.udsakron.org/kaleidoscope.htm] —Donna Everhart
Lilies
and Cannonballs Review
Volume 2 Number 1
Spring/Summer 2005
Biannual
If you pick up this issue of Lilies and
Cannonballs Review, I encourage you to read the last essay,
Arthur Saltzman's "In Praise of Pointlessness," first. There is no
point in my asking you to do so, other than that it's not your usual
strain of existentialism ("Let our gratitude [for the pointless]
extend to the frivolous and the tentative, omitting not a single
empty yard of large intestine nor vast tracts of uninhabited
Canada.") The journal's poetry and fiction tend toward the punchy,
the cocky. Eileen Hennessy's "About Eating" is a fine poem on the
way each of us feeds off others. In "Selling the Boy," Jeb Burt has
a father sell his dullard son to the devil, and the teen seems
better off for having a job in hell. Jonathan Barrett recounts a
brawl in "Violence: In a Pizza Hut Parking Lot on Christmas Night,
1994" using ironically beautiful imagery for its subject matter:
"Shards of glass stick to his skin / and flake off in his beard /
Booze pours down his face / eyes blurring with blood / lashes
dripping with winter drizzle." Although some pieces come off a
little too angry-twenty-year-old, I commend Lilies and
Cannonballs for having a unique style and variety of voices.
[Lilies and Cannonballs Review, P.O. Box 702, Bowling Green Station,
NY 10274-0702. Email: info@liliesandcannonballs.com. Single issue
$12.
www.liliesandcannonballs.com] –Jennifer Gomoll
The
Manhattan Review
Volume 11 number 2
Winter/Spring 2005
Biannual
A good publication to consult for fine
contemporary poetry, The Manhattan Review here offers a
special double issue for the 2005 Winter/Spring volume. It caused me
some admiring surprise to deduce that The Manhattan Review
is, so far as I can tell, unaffiliated with any university, because
the non-poetry contents featured in this issue flex a peculiar
intellectual muscularity—which is not to say they come off as
collegiate or stuffy; they consist entirely of material devoted to
the life and work of the late British poet Peter Redgrove, and are
shot through with delightful and discursive smartness. In a
fascinating lengthy interview with Manhattan Review editor
Philip Fried (conducted in 1982), Redgrove’s discussion meanders
brilliantly through Jung and Freud, Plath and Hughes, Joseph
Campbell, Rimbaud, Baudeliare, Boris Karloff, Turgenev, Tolstoy,
Lewis Carroll, Robert Lowell, and beyond. Among the banquet of
poetry by some 23 poets in this issue are a great number of moving
and memorable passages that alone recommend The Manhattan Review
as being worthy of constant and considered perusal. This from Polly
Clark’s unique and affecting love poem, hinging on a wonderfully
unlikely metaphor, “You Are My America”: “I land exhausted, with
only / a suitcase, broken open, / and at your feet I begin / my book
of declarations / that will be our history, / that will make us
brand new people.” [The Manhattan Review, c/o Philip Fried, 440
Riverside Dr. #38, New York, NY, 10027. E-mail: phfried@earthlink.net.
Single issue $7.50.
www.themanhattanreview.com] –Mark Cunningham
The
Massachusetts Review
Volume 46 Number 2
Summer 2005
Quarterly
The Massachusetts Review is the perfect
antidote to beach reading, a cultural exploration that enriches us
and at the same time reminds us that we are all connected to and
responsible for the world we inhabit. If we are to believe it, Kevin
Simmonds’ essay, about his experience as an African-American,
classically-trained singer who finds himself teaching gospel music
in an ancient Japanese town, may well be one of the more
entertaining accounts of culture shock on record. “[A]ny
non-Japanese person who moves to Japan,” notes Simmonds, “and has
the audacity to live in a small town, will gain undeserved celebrity
just for showing up.” Catherine Reid’s essay is more pressing: when
same-sex marriage is legalized in Massachusetts, she takes the big
step and enters into union with her longtime partner, only to find
the battle far from over. As much as her argument is steeped in
civil rights, Reid ultimately implies that the key to equality lies
not merely in changing laws but in changing hearts and minds. On
another right note, MR has committed itself to the unheralded
visual arts, featuring the work of two Northampton-based painters.
And the underground publishing tales—banned books, cult
favorites—are plenty. Seems there are also three separate stories
about American expatriates in Paris in this issue—never a dull
venue, but a bit too repetitive from a diversity standpoint. It’s in
these cases that MR risks making multiculturalism look too
monolithic. That said, this is still top-notch material and can’t be
found anywhere else. [The Massachusetts Review, South College,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-7140. E-mail: massrev@external.umass.edu.
Single issue $8.
www.massreview.org] –Christopher Mote
The
Midwest Quarterly
Volume 46 Number 3
Spring 2005
Rare is the poem that combines senses,
emotions, and intellect, that contains ability to ease in and out of
natural worlds, both internal and external. But in this issue of
The Midwest Quarterly, all thirteen poems, to be exact, have
this power. Take this stanza from “Stations of the Cross,” written
by Steve Wilson: “the warm lull of the field, a farmer rests /
beside his wagon. Light in a drawer. Light, by / children remembered
at the edge of the bay.” And sometimes two or three other worlds
merge, as in this line from “Subterranean,” by Rebecca Aronson:
“What trips you is an arbor or an aphid, cow’s blood as it blossoms,
after rain, into footprints.” When you have had your fill of poems,
turn to the handful of essays, varied in subject matter. A modern
tragicomedy, whose characters are drawn from Shakespeare’s King Lear
and Sir John Falstaff, teaches us in the present day about coping.
Or read how the great author Poe’s death connects with his views on
democracy and his several writings which bring up mob activity,
voters, drunkenness. Or learn about the unreliability of
hypothetical cases thrown out to the public in an attempt to use as
evidence our acceptance of one moral theory or another. Then, what
do or should we look for when admiring somebody, such as Orwell. And
you will not want to miss Flannery O’Connor’s humor, how it was used
with a social purpose, which was correction. In the back, three book
reviews are balanced with analysis and insight. Provided is a
summary, so you can decide which essay to read first. [The Midwest
Review, 406b Russ Hall, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg
Kansas, 66762. E-mail: jschick@pittstate.edu. Single issue $5.
www.pittstate.edu/engl/mwq/MQindex.html] —Donna Everhart
Pearl
Number 34
Spring/Summer 2005
Biannual
I always enjoy uncovering a journal with a
history that I had never known existed before. Pearl has a
history (34 volumes now) that includes an impressive devotion to
special issues. This all-fiction issue marks the eighth time
Pearl has committed itself to the genre, and it doesn’t
disappoint. Of the 19 stories included, most are under 1,500 words
and immediately accessible; they can be tried on by all sizes to see
which fit the best. It would be enough to laud Pearl for
taking chances with them, but the longer fiction turns out to be the
winner. I was glad to see Stephanie Dickinson, having reviewed her
work previously, receive her dues for a story well done. “Road of
Five Churches,” winner of the Pearl Short Story Prize, is a
throwback to the ingenuities of Southern Gothic as it follows the
plight of a girl bound by the dogma and deceitful trades of her
controlling guardian. “I’m not sure how old I am,” she says.
“Twelve, thirteen, maybe fourteen or fifteen. I could be sixteen.
Virginia doesn’t believe in three hundred and sixty-five days making
up a year. It’s ridiculous to think that calendars and clocks could
divide up the Creator’s infinite present.” Also noteworthy: Fred
McGavran’s “Confessions Without Culpa,” an outlandish but hilarious
story about the most crooked lawyer imaginable, a guilty pleasure
just in time for the Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Keep the
gems coming, Pearl. [Pearl, 3030 East Second Street, Long
Beach, CA 90803. E-mail: PearlMag@aol.com. Single issue $8.
www.pearlmag.com] –Christopher Mote
Red
Hills Review
Volume 1 Number 2
Spring 2005
Biannual
The limestone formations rise up out of the
bay like... How a dragon legend was ever connected with them, I
can easily understand. They inspire, thanks to Stephen Buel, who
provided the image on the cover of Red Hills Review, a drop
of the mouth reaction, similar to the one a dragon might inspire (I
have to say might because I’ve not yet seen a dragon). Safely past
the red paperback cover, drop of the mouth is also fitting when
discussing more than thirty days of reading material, poetry,
fiction, memoir, and essay. I have to admit, though, that my main
attraction before receiving the journal was Light on the Northern
Shore: Homage to Noam Chomsky, a theorist whose work I’ve only
partially understood. I wanted a deeper understanding of the
theorist, and I came to one with the assistance of David Baker. By
then, dragon or not, I could not put the journal away. The interview
with Scots Poet Gerry Cambridge and his comparison and contrast of
the poetry scene in Scotland and America is interesting, to say the
least. This led me to the poems, three of which Cambridge provides.
Humor and seriousness walk hand in hand through the poetry, memoirs,
and essays: “Never concentrate on the second hand. Time becomes a
glacier.” And this line: “Who will I be without my anxiety? It has
defined me for so long that I am frightened to let go.” Or in
Fundraising, when the narrator thinks of all that he could
purchase with the raised funds, this line: “I’m reminded / of my
life’s slightness, / how it’s just a sliver.” Also a reminder of
uncertainty in lessons, how they can be painful acceptance for one
and a change of character in another. [Red Hills Review, Stellar
Media Group Inc. 3215 J Encinal Ave., Alameda CA, 94501. E-mail
redhillsreview@aol.com. Single issue $5.
www.redhillsreview.com] —Donna Everhart
Sentence
A Journal of Prose Poetics
Number 2
2004
If it has ever occurred to you to wonder where
exactly one might draw the line between poetry and prose, you’ll
undoubtedly find yourself engrossed by Sentence, amongst
whose litany of stated objectives you’ll find: “to explore the gray
areas around the prose poem,” and to “publish work that extends our
perception of what the ‘prose poem’ is or can be.” And even if it’s
never occurred to you to worry about “the distinction between the
prose poem and poetic prose,” you’ll still find yourself engrossed—I
can practically promise. What I find most admirable about
Sentence (in addition to its refreshing physical format and
inviting design) is the fact that, despite its ostensible scholastic
objectives, Sentence is simply dedicated to celebrating good
work, be it genre-defying or genre-demonstrative. If categorical
ambiguities abound, so be it; rigid academic definition becomes
highly irrelevant, as does boundary-pushing, and then—beauty of
beauties: boring theory gives way to rabble-rousing creativity!
Somehow, this potentially didactic journal has avoided all the
pitfalls of its, perhaps more grimly cerebral, brethren. Even the
“Colloquium on the Prose Poem” featured here runs amok against the
dread (i.e. oh-no-not-more-graduate-school-blather) inspired
in this reader when an essentially creative journal detours into
pedantry. “I, like most prose poem makers,” says Deanna Kern Ludwin
in that part of the journal, “am less interested in nomenclature
than in the wild prose poem ride.” And instead of useless labels,
what her “(Mostly) Personal History” on the prose poem has given us
is the edifying first-hand insight of a word-practitioner. There’s a
regular bounty of brilliant work in this issue too. To mention but
one, Robert Lowes’ piece “The Unity of a Paragraph,” which begins:
“The topic for this paragraph is the need for one topic per
paragraph,” and devolves happily into complete comic metafiction…er,
meta-prose-poem…er, meta-who-cares-because-it-works! “This paragraph
is a tombstone bearing a name. A row of tombstones is a chapter. A
cemetery of tombstones is a book. Lay down your flowers and walk
away.” Sentence may be a journal that thrives in the “gray
areas” of creative writing, but its contents are far from colorless.
It’s a vibrant, vital publication. [Sentence, c/o Firewheel
Editions, P.O. Box 793677, Dallas TX, 75379. E-mail: info@firewheel-editions.org.
Single issue $10.
www.firwheel-editions.org] –Mark Cunningham
The
Sewanee Review
Volume 113 Number 1
Winter 2005
Quarterly
Officially this country’s most time-tested
literary quarterly (it was founded in 1892), The Sewanee Review
is one in that very small number of old-school American journals
that just can’t be messed with, the kind of publication that can
successfully sport an antiquated, unembellished cardstock cover
without seeming quaint or stodgy. A reviewer feels, while reading a
publication whose founding date stands more than a century back,
that any inspired high praise will seem inordinately past its
deadline. This is the journal, after all, about which T.S. Eliot
wrote more than 50 years ago: “[It] has now reached the status of an
institution.” In fiction, this winter issue (like most SR
issues, I believe) features a single short story, a glorious piece
by none other than the inimitable Wendell Berry. Berry’s “Mike,”
about a family’s beloved hunting dog and the manner by which the
canine creature pries at the stolid heart of the narrator’s reticent
father, is reason enough to own this edition. Five poets are also
here featured in a handful of short poems. Otherwise the contents of
this decidedly scholarly journal are devoted to book reviews,
critical essays, and creative nonfiction presented under the
unifying concern of “Explorations in Autobiography”—including an
interesting reassessment of the career of the late genius of
American reportage, Joseph Mitchell. (Mitchell’s first-hand account
of his relationship with the erudite Bohemian Joe Gould, published
in 1964 and entitled “Joe Gould’s Secret,” was adapted to an
eponymous film starring Stanley Tucci a few years back.) Also of
note is new nonfiction by writer Floyd Skloot (a favorite of the
litmag world), and a long profile of the legendary editor Albert
Erskine, whose legendary authors included William Faulkner, James
Michener, Robert Penn Warren, and Ralph Ellison. [The Sewanee
Review, 735 University Avenue, Sewanee, TN 37383-1000. E-mail:
Lcouch@sewanee.edu. Single issue $8.
www.sewanee.edu/sreview/Home.html] –Mark Cunningham
Southern
Humanities Review
Volume 39 Number 2
Spring 2005
Quarterly
Southern Humanities Review has respect
for the questions of moral fabric that challenge a classical,
essentialist universe, but it is not strictly a religious journal.
It is, by all accounts, Southern, and there’s no better place to
start than the “stew of religion and sex” of Melissa Delbridge’s
memoir, “Family Bible.” An authentic bible is as much a genealogy of
this world as it is a guidebook for reaching the next, and Delbridge
delivers in her humorous, plaintive, sometimes raunchy and always
sincere narrative on her youth. “I was the most frequently baptized
child in the state of Alabama,” she says. “The devil did not stand a
chance.” Elsewhere, for the morally studious, seek and ye shall
find: from the archives, Austrian critic Alexander Lernet-Holenia
examines the dimensions of good and evil in a forgotten Italian
classic, Manzoni’s The Betrothed, courtesy of John S.
Barrett’s English translation. Read the editors’ introductory
comments to get an idea of the plot and you may be just as tempted
to find out more about Manzoni’s novel. If that’s too lofty, at
least one story in SHR is within reach, Sarah Esser’s
“Chop-Chop Block.” It begins with an image of a public execution
ground—“hazy yellow-brown like a photograph of an old Southern town
square where the lynchings took place”—only to take us into a
different world, a frighteningly realistic Saudi Arabia where a
normal American soldier becomes capable of doing the unspeakable—and
the question of evil comes full circle. High-ordered, but worth it.
[Southern Humanities Review, 9088 Haley Center, Auburn University,
AL 36849. E-mail: shrengl@auburn.edu. Single issue $5.
www.auburn.edu/english/shr/home.htm] –Christopher Mote
Thema
Volume 17 Number 2
Summer 2005
Biannual
If you don't already know, Thema is a journal
whose every issue is based on a different premise, upon which the
poetry, fiction, and photography reflect. This issue's theme is
"Hey, Watch This!" From a neglected boy looking for attention from
atop a slide in Lynn Stearns' "Anybody," to a match-making ghost in
"Who Dares, Wins," by Peggy Tabor Millin, to Jennifer R. Hubbards's
story of teenage bravado and emotional turmoil in "The Train
Tracks," the theme evokes a variety of different responses. Some
tend toward a subtler exploration of the premise, as in James
Penha's poem, "Venetian Love Song," in which a young man steers his
gondola as though it were an art form. For the most part, Thema's
works are more breezy than provocative (though Serena Alibhai's
excellent "New World Water," in which an ambitious young Indian man
is made aware of his country's sufferings, is an exception.) All of
the stories here are enjoyable to read, but often seem just one
draft away from their full potential. Even so, as I finished the
issue's final piece, Carol V. Paul's "Birth," in which the speaker
witnesses a doe giving birth to a seemingly stillborn fawn, I was
left awed by the beauty of nature's wonder and of tragedy averted. [THEMA,
THEMA Literary Society, Box 8747, Metairie LA 70011-8747. E-mail:
thema@cox.net. Single issue $8.
http://members.cox.net/thema/]
–Jennifer Gomoll
West
Branch
"Poetry Issue"
Number 56
Spring/Summer 2005
Biannual
The poets of West Branch have something
to say, and though the imagery may be beautiful and the lines
carefully crafted, there is nothing excessive, artsy, or difficult
for difficulty's sake. This observation hit me as I read Yona
Harvey's wonderful "Turquoise," in which the poet bluntly tells a
young female student that "wearing turquoise jewelry & Frida Kahlo
skirts / doesn't make women artists." Another straightforward voice
I liked was that of Roger Mitchell, whose long poem, "Grise,"
recalls Mitchell's sabbatical in Ellesmere among the Inuits, who
"long ago said to the world / they were through playing noble or
happy savage / in the West's tales of necessary innocence." The
always sharp Charles Harper Webb enjoys the adventures of Melville
in "The Last Chapter of Moby Dick," wondering: "Why waste time
discussing Marxist / feminist, queer, post-structuralist theories /
their logic tangled as harpoon lines / crisscrossing a whale's back
/ their barbs just sharp enough to irritate?" The poetry essays are
notable for not simply being fawning advertisements for favorite
poets' work. In particular, Karen Kovacik's "Observations on the
American Soul: Notes from Warsaw," is a thoughtful exploration of
spirituality in poetry. I smile even now, rereading: "Maybe in this
postmodern world, the ‘self’ or ‘language’ (or the ‘self as
language’) is all we have to believe in, but if this is the case, I
choose to remain a skeptic." [West Branch, Bucknell Hall, Bucknell
University, Lewisburg, PA 17837. E-mail: westbranch@bucknell.edu.
Single issue $6.
www.bucknell.edu/westbranch] –Jennifer Gomoll
Posted October 1, 2005
32
Poems
Volume 3 Number 1
Spring/Summer 2005
Biannual
32 Poems could have taken a more
minimalist approach to poetry, as its design and layout would
suggest, but instead it touches on every fundamental poetic
theme—life, sex, change, death—with the varied imagination of the
finest journals around. With a book binder’s precision, each poem is
designated to one page, never longer. Length ranges from Frances
Justine Post’s “Nocturne,” which implores the reader to “Wake up
from your sleep,” literally, and experience the middle of the
night on a small island, to Eric Reeny’s “Graveyard Pharmeceuticals,”
an extended metaphor complete in ten lines. Each poem makes an
observation not quite like the ones before and after it: a eulogy
for a dragonfly; a Platonist in a mini-mart (“She used to refer to a
hot dog / as a ‘Soul on a roll.’ Ergo, I replied: // Who wouldn’t
want a soul?”); and a fine take on the false hope of spring via
The Waste Land, in Stan Sanvel Rubin’s “Marmot Lake,” where
“After a season of snow, a season of thaw / comes like a history of
regret.” For all its personal tomes, 32 Poems remains
staggeringly close to nature…and with more than enough soul to go
around. [32 Poems, P.O. Box 5824, Hyattsville, MD 20782. Single
issue $6.
www.32poems.com] — Christopher Mote
Alaska
Quarterly Review
Volume 22
Numbers 3 & 4
Fall & Winter 2005
Biannual
This issue of AQR
devotes 80 pages of photo-essay to: "Chechnya: A Decade of War," by
Heidi Bradner. "A Chechen woman holds photographs of her missing
sons [. . .]." For those not au courant, Stalin deported the
Chechen nation to this desolate area during World War II.
Deborah A. Lott's "Fifteen," a moving account of her father's legacy
of insanity provides this remarkable insight: "That I made the
mistake of aligning myself with the parent who was crazy because I
confused his intensity with love." John Fulton's novella, "The
Animal Girl," recounts the summer of discontent of a grieving girl
who takes desperate and, finally, criminal steps to reconnect with
reality. Four interesting short stories: The inexplicable grief in
"Errands of the Broken-Hearted," by Robert Vivian is followed by
Linda McCullough Moore's domestic travail in "A Night to Remember."
In "Lake Moriah" by Howard Luxenberg, a father distracts his
thirteen-year-old son from going hunting—to hunt Nazis, the boy's
mother says. Five of the seven prose pieces deal with parent/child
relationships. Carol Ghiglieri's "Stella by Starlight," is a night
in a barroom with a happy ending; a feature shared by all the prose
in this issue—perhaps editor Ronald Spatz wanted to distract, for a
moment, from the pain and despair of the photo-essay, although
"Where Things Are," Steven Schutzman's bitter play loses yards in
the game between mother and son. Among work by twenty-three poets, I
especially enjoyed Thom Satterlee's "Wyclif Practices the Art of
Definition [. . .]" and Grace Paley's "Then," and noticed that while
most use short titles as nature intended, several, in addition to
Satterlee, resorted to lengthy prose. [Alaska Quarterly
Review, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Drive
(208 ESB), Anchorage, AK 99508. E-mail: aqr@uaa.alaska.edu. Single
issue $6.
http://aqr.uaa.alaska.edu/] — Anna Sidak
Alligator
Juniper
Number 10
2005
Annual
This issue is dedicated to the theme, “Scars,”
as evidenced from the dramatic black and white cover photograph of a
man whose chest becomes a screen on which is projected several black
birds in flight, their wings like the feathery reminders of what the
body endures. While a theme dedicated to the visceral remnant of
physical and emotional wounds could have solicited writing that was
affected, tedious, or even cliché, this issue illustrates anything
but. Instead, we read of the subtleties of pain, the nuances of
grief, the faint reminders of loss or dejection, though many of
these authors left me feeling hopeful — that glimmer of possibility
that encircles our aches like a silvery light. Of particular note
are Eliot Treichel’s poignant story “Procedure Four,” about a man
who “thinks about when he first heard his dog calling to him,” about
how that moment provided a vision that “would teach him something
about love”; Kathe Lison’s insightful essay “Need is Not Quite
Belief,” in which she measures her own desires against the limited
scope of society’s sexual taboos; and Will Roby’s poem “Cotton,”
which left me longing for my own sense of reconnection to the past.
A bonus of this issue is also the inclusion of all national and
student winners of contests in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction,
and photography; they illustrate a deep commitment to investigating
both the local and the exotic — a self-described hallmark of
Alligator Juniper. It’s no surprise to me that this journal has
received numerous awards, including the 2001 Content Award from AWP
and the 2004 AWP National Program Director’s Prize for Undergraduate
Literary Magazines. [Alligator Juniper, Prescott College, 220 Grove
Avenue, Prescott, AZ 86301. E-mail: aj@prescott.edu. Single issue:
$7.50.
www.prescott.edu/highlights/alligator_junper] —Jen Henderson
American
Literary Review
Volume 16 Number 1
Spring 2005
Biannual
This issue of
American Literary Review, edited by Corey Marks, is an
elegant collection of memorable fiction and poetry. Melissa
Hawkins's unforgettable story "Mary," too frightening to be true,
too compelling to be fiction, lingers in one's thoughts, as does
Sandra Jacobs's "The One Who Stayed." I'd still be reading Dulcie
Leimbach's totally enjoyable—the ambience captured despite the
difficulties depicted—"Float" if it hadn't ended much too soon. "On
the Funeral Trail," by Phil Graham, is the tale of an unlikely
friendship with an ultimate nerd who has the last word via one of
those websites routinely blocked by parents. Who hasn't echoed or
thought the gist of "Provenance" by Nicky Beer: "All our art is
dumb luck anyway. A morbid nursery rhyme / of diminishment; for
every one of our masterpieces, / there's one rotting to threads
behind a screen / in the asylum, one crushed to mortar in the
siege." I found the reviews—Mary DiLucia's review of Sharon Dolan's
Serious Pink and Kevin Grauke's review of Oh, Play that
Thing, by Roddy Doyle—interesting. But DiLucia's is repetitive
(perhaps I'm overly sensitive to overuse of the word epkhtasis).
Grauke's review leans toward the negative while commenting favorably
on Doyle's earlier books. [American Literary Review, PO Box
311307, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203-1307. E-mail:
americanliteraryreview@yahoo.com. Single issue $5 + $1 s/h.
www.engl.unt.edu/alr/]
— Anna Sidak
American
Tanka
Issue 14
2005
Annual
A concentration of metaphors, word play, and
unconventional thinking binds together the five line poems in
American Tanka. From the world of subtle nuances and concrete
images, I constantly had the sense of reliving a moment that had
never before belonged to me. Yet through my communion with each
poem, the shared joy, sadness, different perspective, that Aha
feeling, I was assured that the moment was in part my own.
Several authors are memorable, out of which only a few can be
mentioned here. Cindy Tebo’s “old lime kiln,” the first line in her
poem, is haunting. The sudden image of the kiln suggests travel,
perhaps an old country road. Merely driving by, the traveler pauses
in a chance meeting of past and present. The kiln “in the shadows /
of a cold afternoon” emphasizes the passing, of the kiln? the
traveler? Like Leonard D. Moore’s powerful seven stanza sequence “To
Find My Way Home,” Tebo adds additional layers to her poem through
careful word choice, placement of lines, absence of punctuation, and
juxtaposition. Tim W. Younce’s repetition of the line “folds and
unfolds” creates the feeling of nervousness from the perspective of
a soldier “at the airport / camo clad,” holding his “boarding pass.”
For a moment this soldier can stop time, fold it in his palms. We
are all three connected, author, soldier, reader — through a shared
awareness of both our power and powerlessness. These poems are for
readers who do not want to be told what to think, for those who
enjoy connecting the threads. We must compare images and/or ideas
and draw conclusions using hints the author provides and our own
resources. Because of the relationship we establish in the process,
the poems have the potential to live on. [American Tanka, P.O. Box
120-024, Staten Island, NY 10312. Email: editorsdesk@americantanka.com.
Single issue $12
www.americantanka.com] —Donna Everhart
Dislocate
Issue 1
2005
Annual
This first print
issue of the University of Minnesota's literary journal,
Dislocate—funded in part by Coca-Cola (?)—is deceptively slim,
unassuming, and beautifully formatted. Inside, among many fine
efforts, the creative nonfiction of "Caribou," and the timeliness of
"It's After the Hurricane That Most People Get Killed," by poet Jan
LaPerle. In fulfillment of the journal's premise to include in each
issue an essay linking other fields of endeavor to writing, "The
Emergence of Complexity Studies: How Complexity Theory Makes Sense"
by Allison Reed Miller and N. Katherine Hayles (with 26
references—including Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern
Intellectuals' Abuse of Science and Jurrassic Park)
offers this: "[. . .] explores and preserves the mysterious nature
of literary works and the multiplicities of meaning-making they
inspire." "Pitching In: One Author's Effort To Help Promote Her Own
Book" by Anna Cypria Oliver provides outstanding marketing advice
and practical information: "Not even a front-page review in the
New York Times Book Review, she said, would necessarily
translate into a significant increase in book sales, but if
booksellers are enthusiastic, any book can be a success." An
interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones (The Known
World) reveals his quiet dignity: "I don't know if it's specific
to this country or not, but people just find it hard to believe that
you can just conjure things up." [Dislocate,
Department of English, 207 Lind Hall, 207 Church Street SE,
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0134. Single issue
$7.
www.dislocate.org/] — Anna Sidak
Gihon River Review
Volume 7
Spring 2005
Biannual
The Gihon River Review’s spring 2005
issue offers a bountiful selection of stories and poems. Allan
Peterson's poem "Slight of Hands" I appreciate for his use of detail
and personification, and fresh way in which Peterson reveals a sense
of frustration: "The clock is holding its head in its hands," he
writes in the third stanza. Introducing the fourth, in which that
sense of frustration seems to have ended when a “gnat burns itself
crazy on the bulb." Similarly, Richard Ives’ "An Absence of Clouds"
bursts with one-liner surprises, and the lines in his poem are like
singing a song. "Wedding Day," by Barry Kitterman, is a short story
that is like watching a movie: the angles change; you may side with
one character and, as the story progresses, you may switch sides.
Preacher Gerald Micheals has lost his faith. When he soon
disappears, Grace with the "oily hair" and Orlando with his FFA
jacket, "a blue corduroy with a single patch,” come to the
foreground. In Kitterman’s concusion, Micheals has a brief but
momentous interaction with Orlando. Kitterman includes exactly the
right amount of detail to create memorable characters. This
excellent journal ends with "Ms. Goffer," a non-fictional work that
is both honest and sensitive in its reflection. Ms. Goffer, a
stereotypical character, is an instructor for the advanced riding
class at the military academy where she is at once resented and
cherished for her feminine influence and spontaneity. In his
writing, Darren DeFrain does not shy away from experience; he
explores it. And the effort that it takes for a writer to do so
makes the time spent with the journal worth the while. [Gihon River
Review, Johnson State College, Johnson Vermont 05656. Single issue
$5.
http://grr.jsc.vsc.edu/main%20page.htm] —Donna Everhart
Gulf
Coast
Volume 17 Number 2
Winter and Spring 2005
Biannual
Usually, I take a week to read a good literary
magazine, parceling out the pieces over long evenings sitting on my
porch or during my thrice-weekly ride on the stationary bike. It’s a
sign of respect that I don’t read it all in one sitting. Now I have
a new magazine to add to my weekly ritual: Gulf Coast. This
issue, a hefty 250-page tome, is filled with the kind of quality
writing I’d expect of a prominent journal; writers include well
known poets, novelists, and essayists, like Jocelyn Bartkevicius and
David Lazar, as well as new and emerging writers. This issue is, in
part, dedicated to those writers affiliated with University of
Houston, including a few wonderful pieces by Donald Barthelme, such
as “The School,” an ironic look at an unlucky group of elementary
school kids who are cursed to see most things dear to them die:
“They [the children] asked me, where did they go? The trees, the
salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar, the poppas and the mommas,
Matthew and Tony, where did they go?” Like this story, the journal
explores the salient moments in life: claustrophobia in the
Catacombs of France in Debra Marquart’s thoughtful essay “The Perils
of Travel”; a child’s innovation in Lance Larson’s eloquent poem
“The Apprentice”; or a poignant look at a girl growing up in spite
of her mother’s inadequacies in Natalie Serber’s wonderful short
story “Plum Tree.” Perhaps the superb quality of this magazine
shouldn’t be surprising given that the Executive Editor is the
distinguished poet, Mark Doty. [Gulf Coast, Department of English,
University of Houston, Houston TX 77204-3013. E-mail: editors@gulfcoastmag.org.
Single issue: $8.
www.gulfcoastmag.org] —Jen Henderson
Indiana
Review
“Collaboration/Collage”
Volume 27 Number 1
Summer 2005
There is even a collaborative review of a
collaborative book in this fascinating issue of work conceived and
produced in collaboration (Mary Austin Speaker and Sara Jane Stoner
review Phoebe 2002. An Essay in Verse by Jeffery Conway, Lynn
Crosbie, and David Trinidad). Collaboration is broadly interpreted
and encompasses partnerships of all sorts between poets, between
prose writers, between writers and visual artists, between visual
artists, between reviewers, and between texts. The work in this
issue that is not collaborative in the formal sense is often of the
sort that reminds us that all art is a collaboration between creator
and reader or spectator, such as Ander Monson's poem, "Outline
towards an Antidote: II." (An outline, by its very nature, requires
the reader to collaborate on some level, to fill in the blanks, to
think past the skeletal structure.) The "Notes on
Collaboration/Collage Process" are almost as fascinating as the
works themselves. How did all this collaboration happen? One group
of well known poets was trying to kill time while waiting for a
poetry reading to begin; several teams created their pieces through
extended e-mail correspondence; Rick Moody and Gianna Commito put
together, at random, his stories and her pictures which were created
without seeing each other's work. This issue of the Indiana
Review demonstrates that collaboration is an effective means of
reaching beyond convention to create inventive ways of thinking,
reading, and seeing. [Indiana Review, Indiana University, Ballantine
Hall 465, 1020 E, Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405-7103. E-mail:
inreview@indiana.edu. Single issue $9.
www.indiana.edu/~inreview] — Sima Rabinowitz
Main
Street Rag
Volume 10 Number 2
Summer 2005
Quarterly
The preference in Main Street Rag is for
transparency, work with plain, strong language and a clear point of
view — Scott C. Holstad's "I Want It All," for example ("Fuck the
sweats, / I want the world. / No rhyming for me, / no structured /
bullshit, I want / to spread out, / feel the bullets / whistle
past."); or Nicole Lynskey's "Talker at the Café" ("The
extrovert-talker / could be a pit-bull on a cell-phone / for all
that her dark-haired friend / is allowed to speak, / in her
'this-funny-anecdote', / 'that-divorced-couple' conversation…"); or
Glen Chestnut's "The Pickup" ("Sometime in the 1950's / A
construction site / somewhere in the jungles of Colombia. / Work had
stopped for the day. / The mountains to the west / had swallowed up
the last rays of sun.") Two short stories, one by C.A. Rogers, the
other by David Plumb, fit perfectly with these poems, narrated in
casual, conversational voices. It's almost as if we are listening,
not reading. I can hear these voices laughing, ranting, grieving,
panicking, cajoling, lamenting, and, every so often, even praising,
as in "The Decency of Flowers" by Jennifer Gresham:
But every time we slip
into the cover of darkness,
the night blooming jasmine,
planted in the corner
of our lot, reminds us:
Be sweet. Be sweet.
[Main Street Rag, 4416 Shea Lane, Charlotte, NC
28227. E-mail: editor@mainstreetrag.com. Single issue $7.
www.MainStreetRag.com] — Sima Rabinowitz
MAKE
Issue 1
2005
Though the editors of Make magazine cite
Chicago literary patriarch Nelsen Algren as their inspiration, you
don’t have to be a Chicagoan to be in Make’s debut issue.
Interviewee Marvin Bell (the first Poet Laureate of Iowa) neither
resides in nor writes about the “City on the Make.” But he says he
loves it. In Aaron Michael Morales’s short story, “El Camino”, a
couple of Latin Kings grudgingly run to the rescue of a mother who’s
El Camino has caught fire, her baby still strapped inside. Sound
like a contemporary Outsiders? It’s better; more honest, less
sentimental. Frank Mort Jr.’s excerpt evokes the Outsiders as
well, by reminiscing about the delineation between Greasers (cool)
and Dupers (not cool). In Don DeGrazia’s indignant essay, “A Story I
was Telling Downtown Audiences a Couple Years Ago,” he sifts through
the complex web of racism in the city while witnessing a black
friend’s cousin’s innocence trammeled by the legal system. DeGrazia
gets racism from all sides: “Do I sound pissed? A black man tried to
murder my girlfriend because she was white.” Hillman’s bruised
poetry, “Hard knock streets, this city,” compliments Steffie Drewes
poetry-as-pun. Her “As far as we go” twists clichés and idioms and
buzz phrases, “The nineteen-eighties called it tickle-frown ebonics.”
Nearly flawlessly edited, Make’s blend of fiction, essay,
poetry, artwork and interviews reminded me of The Sun. Except
Make is grittier, hungrier and Chicago enough to accept
advertising. Makes this Chicagoan proud. [Make Magazine
PO Box 487353, Chicago, IL 60647. E-mail: info@makemag.org. Single
issue $3.
www.makemag.com] — Robb Duffer
New
Letters
Volume 71 Number 3
2005
Quarterly
From its attractive
table-of-contents pages to ads for the Missouri Review, Notre
Dame Review, and Shenandoah, New Letters is a
class act, including the inside-cover ads for books by and about
Peter Viereck as well as for New Letters itself. Robert
Stewart's "Allow Yourself to Say, Yes, An Editor's Note," includes
this quotation: "'This playfulness,' says scholar Richard Rorty, 'is
the product . . . of the power of language to make new and different
things possible and important [. . .].'" and, along with Don
Lambert's "Elizabeth Layton [1909-1993], Anniversary of the Public
Life" introduces the artist's exceptional work which appears
throughout as well as on the front cover. Leslie Ullman's "History
of Art in the 21st Century," contains this beautiful line: "'We only
think we know where we've been.' he says quietly, spilling us into
his version of time [. . .]." My appreciation of Jim Harrison's work
has increased since reading Angela Elam's interview, "Repair Work."
"How God and I Used to Get Along," Eric Gilbert's fine story
(translated from the French) tells of losing God and finding love in
Madame Martin's French class. This from "The Gulf" by Janice N.
Harrington: "Shallow and silty, the gulf spills its long seam. / How
to decipher its hue—sage or phlegm? Fence moss / or the green of a
parakeet brought home in a cardboard / box?" Of three fine essays,
Michael Waters's enjoyable "The Bicycle and the Soul," stands out.
Three excellent book reviews plus many poems complete the volume.
[New Letters, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 5101
Rockhill Road. Kansas City, MO 64110. E-mail: newletters@umkc.edu.
Single issue $10.
www.newletters.org/] — Anna Sidak
The
New Quarterly
Canadian Writers & Writing
Number 95
Summer 2005
Montreal-based poet Robyn Sarah served as guest
editor for what is called a "small anthology" of poems featured in
this issue. Sarah also contributes an essay on poetics in which she
defines a good poem: "it should transcend its own particulars; it
should be built to bear weight; it should have lift." The nearly
four dozen poets she's selected offer up work Sarah finds "attentive
to language, memorable, ponderable, convincing." Sarah clearly
favors plain diction, narrative impulses, strong, authentic voices,
and emotional integrity. The poems in this issue bring us close to
the heart of the (subject) matter, whatever the matter may be.
That's not to say there isn't also a certain degree of innovation
and invention, such as Jack Hannan's, "Any letter still standing and
floating," a hybrid form that makes this poem one of the most "ponderable"
in the issue. This issue also includes a delightfully inventive
hybrid of another sort — "Dramatis Personae — an archetypal cast in
paint and text" by Shannon Reynolds. These glossy pages resemble a
play bill with its cast of characters, complete with headshots and
bios. The playbill is followed by full-page paintings of the actors
depicted as "types" from famous literary works (the lusty woman, the
crone, the sage, etc.). This issue also includes several "behind the
scenes" essays about the theater, one with compelling black and
white photos. [The New Quarterly, St. Jerome's University, 290
Westmount Rd., N. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G3. E-mail: editor@newquarterly.net.
Single issue $12.
www.newquarterly.net] — Sima Rabinowitz
Ninth
Letter
Volume 2 Number 1
Spring / Summer 2005
Biannual
There are literary magazines that you read and
enjoy, but end up piled in your closet amongst back issues of other
magazines. Then there are literary magazines that are so lovingly
put together and carefully designed that they demand prominent
placement on your bookshelf or coffee table. Ninth Letter is
one of the latter. This University of Illinois based publication
seeks to reinvent the literary magazine by infusing it with design
and art. In fact, the masthead lists more designers than editors and
assistant editors combined. At its worst, the design work is merely
pretty background material, but at its best the art and design
deepens the effects of the work. Phil LaMarche’s “In the Tradition
Of My Family,” is a perfect example of this and an excellent story
in its own right: “In the tradition of my family I was shot at the
age of thirteen. My father, lacking a zeal for the familial custom,
chose to send a small caliber round through the flesh connecting two
of my toes.” Thus the narrator is left with a scar hardly befitting
the prominent chest, cheek and shoulder scars of his relatives.
Although Ninth Letter’s attention to presentation is what
makes it stand out, there is no skimping on the written side. Robert
Olen Butler contributes four more pieces of his intriguing
“Severance” series, parts of which were previously published in
journals such as McSweeney’s and Glimmertrain. Howard
Norman translates three excellent poems by the Inuit poet Lucille
Amorak and Steve Almond gives a humorous account of his aborted VH1
appearance. I could go on, but it is a large and thick journal and
there is simply too much worth commenting on. [Ninth Letter, Dept.
of English, University of Illinois, 608 South Wright Street, Urbana,
IL 61801. E-mail: jrubins@uiuc.edu. Single issue $12.95.
www.ninthletter.com] — Lincoln Michel
Open
Minds Quarterly
Volume 7 Issue 2
Summer 2005
“What reader,” says Maureen D. Mack, “does not
search for a happy ending at the end of a love story? How many of us
yearn for a better ending to a human conflict or loss that we have
suffered in our lives?” Mack’s “A Better Ending,” which appears in
the summer 2005 issue of Open Minds Quarterly, recounts her
and her mother’s experience with depression. The power to create and
recreate stories, better beginnings or endings, is often taken for
granted by those who do not suffer from the symptoms of mental
illness. For those who do, a real sense of powerlessness, heightened
by the inability to find a place of value in society, and silence
heightens their struggle to cope. Open Minds offers a
selection of poetry, informative and reflective essays, fiction, and
book reviews, all of them first person accounts of experiences and
knowledge in dealing with conditions, mental health practitioners,
services, treatments, discrimination and even, yes, success. This
issue is portrayed in a warm, bright, inviting format, which is easy
to read in few sittings. Throughout the pages, alongside the pain,
thrives an atmosphere of celebration. Several lines in G. Michael
Miller’s poem “London Psychiatric Hospital Revisited” express the
reason for such a positive climate. “Love is stronger than
psychiatry,” Miller says; and of the reason for writing: “Real art
is stronger than a hospital.” Through art, these writers reveal not
only a voice but also a talent. Recounting her trip by bus to the
Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, after having been asked to
contribute one of her paintings, Jerome Frank, in “Mind at Ease,”
says that “Despite my OCD, depression and social phobia, I had
succeeded.” The magazine listed the winners of the 3rd Annual
Brain Storm Poetry and Short Story Contests as well as
information about other contests. Front and back artwork by Terry
Pretz includes “Butterfly Girl” and “Michael.” [Open Minds
Quarterly, 680 Kirkwood Drive, Sudbury, ON Canada, PSE 1X3. E-mail:
openminds@nisa.on.ca.
www.nisa.on.ca] —Donna Everhart
Other
Voices
Volume 18 Number 42
Spring/Summer 2005
Biannual
Art “lives on long after wars have ended and
townspeople have mended their ravaged homes and gone on with their
lives...” says the editor of Other Voices. Each of the 16
stories in the spring/summer issue contains the suggestion of
crossing a boundary, whether psychological, physical, social or
national. Dalia Azim’s “All of Me,” the title of which is borrowed
from a Frank Sinatra song, concerns political conflict that reaches
into the lives of two sisters, Mai and Ines, and the love they share
for Mahmoud, a neighbor boy, who turns his loyalties from his
country and, finally it seems, away from love. Like the title
suggests, “All of Me” explores the loss of identity, both political
and personal, and the power and powerlessness of language and
meaning. “Breathing” by Jay Baruch humorously involves the question
of language and meaning through the perspective of George: George
who is dying from emphysema and diabetes; George who imagines his
oxygen tank to be his late wife Helena. Baruch uses dialogue to give
us a rounded perspective of George and his family, who are torn
between the past and present, pain and acceptance. How far can we go
with the struggle to change our lives, to change other people? Where
do we stop? This story, as well as the rest, are asking. An
interview between Pam Houston and Toni Morrison offers writers and
readers alike encouragement and inspiration for hard times, and
“Other Voices Bookshelf” introduces a list of recently published and
to be published books. [Other Voices, 601 South Morgan Street,
Chicago, IL 60607-7120. E-mail: othervoices@listserv.uic.edu. Single
issue $9.
www.othervoicesmagazine.org] — Donna Everhart
Pilgrimage
Volume 30 Issue 2
2005
Biannual
I have never been disappointed by an issue of
Pilgrimage. In a world that is exceedingly desperate, both on
and off the page, this exquisite little journal never fails to
soothe and stimulate in equal measure, with intelligence, grace, and
authenticity. This issue's theme is "borderlands." Editor Peter
Anderson explains that stories "help us recognize those borders that
may be necessary" and "also break down the borderlines that get in
our way." This issue's "Words Along the Way" are from Jim Corbett,
an early leader of the Sanctuary Movement, and his words are more
apt in these post-Katrina days than they may have ever been: "…we
are all refugees in need of congregational sanctuary." If art has a
role to play in creating this sense of community, the current issue
of the magazine goes a long way toward doing just that. There are
powerful, moving poems here by Aaron Abeyta (who also contributes
the issue's only short fiction), Kim Stafford, Mitchell Clute, and
D.E. Steward, and finely crafted essays by Robert Branscomb, Ana
Maria Spagna, Gaynell Gavin, and Kent Annan, among others. There is
nothing self indulgent, ostentatious, sentimental, or arch in
Pilgrimage. In these days of great devastation, I can't help
quoting Kim Stafford, from his poem "Prescott Rain": "We are
gathered into a story, you and I, in the sheen and slash of hard
rain. / A story goes beyond us, my beloved— / shard, cob, figurine."
[Pilgrimage, PO Box 696, Crestone, CO 81131. E-mail: info@pilgrimagepress.org.
Single issue $11.
www.pilgrimagepress.org] — Sima Rabinowitz
Rattle
Volume 11 Number 1
Summer 2005
Biannual
Do lawyers write poetry? Well, if a tribute to
lawyers who write appears in the summer 2005 issue of Rattle,
the answer is a resounding yes: lawyers do write poetry. Lawyer
poems can often be just as sad, angry, or serious as non-lawyer
poems. They can even be humorous, like these lines taken from ‘“What
Is Your Idle Job?’” by Ace Bogess: “Then it’s back to the office for
coffee / tasting like gasoline, maybe a doughnut on the sly” he
writes. “If my boss pops over, checking my progress, / I greet him
with a good-natured pat on the back / to wipe the sticky glaze from
my fingertips.” Lawyer-poems can be philosophical, concrete, their
form may arise naturally or like Mark C. Bruce’s “Plea Bargain, June
29," they may borrow a classical shape, like the 19-line villanelle.
Over 100 pages are dedicated to poetry, written by both non-lawyers
and lawyers. The last 50-60 pages include reviews and essays
exploring poetry and poetry books, and two conversations by Alan
Fox, one with David St. John and one with Alan Shapiro, discussing
the experience of writing and reading poetry. The tribute page and
cover photo, by nationally recognized award-winning fine art
photographer Eric L. Hansen, reveals the side of a building and a
small window. A face barely discernible looks out from behind bars.
[RATTLE, 12411 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604. E-mail:
timgreen@rattle.com. Single issue $8.
www.rattle.com] — Donna Everhart
The
Reader
Number 18
Summer 2005
Triannual
Penelope Shuttle admits that she is a bookworm
while she talks (writes) about the importance of reading aloud, a
common activity of the past, less common in the present. She attends
author readings, the most memorable of which she describes. “It was
Pablo Neruda who made the very deepest impression on me. He read his
poems from memory, his arms lifted, his head thrown back, his Aztec
face stern with the power of his verse. It didn’t matter that I
didn’t understand Spanish; meaning and significance poured from him,
I didn’t need the translations that followed.” What Shuttle is
talking about, I believe, is passion. And passion is exactly the
feeling I have carried away from my experience with The Reader.
In addition to fiction, poetry, essays about fiction and poetry, and
opinion pieces, I felt a genuine love of reading and a desire to
share what one has read. Gwyneth Lewis’ “Sea Books” gives a
description of her sailing experience on the Jameeleh, a
voyage which led her toward the accumulation of several books, first
hand and fictional accounts of travels at sea. “It’s amazing,” says
Lewis, “how many lone sailors are good writers.” The sea image
appears in several accounts, stories, essays, poems in the summer
2005 issue of The Reader, even on the dark cover itself. The
silhouette of a figure reading a book would not be visible if not
for the light from a window looking out onto a beach. The
reading-writing connection Lewis mentioned reappears, too. As Sarah
Maclennan says, “During my non-writing years I read voraciously —
mainly prose — and now that I am brim-full of other people’s words
my own are forming.” This is the passion I have been talking about,
the passion that stays, that grows. A crossword puzzle for all the
word lovers out there waits in the back. Sorry, only the answers to
the last issue’s crossword puzzle are included! [The Reader, New
York Office, Enid Stubin, 200 East 24th Street, Apt. 504, New York,
NY 10010. E-mail: readers@liv.ac.uk.
www.thereader.co.uk] — Donna Everhart
River
Styx
69/70
2005
Triannual
An impressive 30th anniversary issue
featuring many prolific and well established writers, including
Dorianne Laux, Lucia Perillo, Sharon Olds, William Gass, Molly
Peacock, Louis Simpson, Richard Burgin, and Robert Finch, among
others, as well as many accomplished, but lesser known talents,
including Alison Pelegrin, Marcela Sulak, Allen C. Fischer, and
Jacbo M. Appel. The broad range of styles and subject matter is
especially appealing. I appreciated Cleopatra Mathis's lovely, quiet
tribute to "Stanley and Elise" (certainly when Provincetown appears
in the poem, we know the missing name is Kunitz) as much as Joel
Friederich's haunting poem "A Fairy Tale," and Len Robert's harsh
and beautiful family poem, "Indulgences for the Dead," as much as
Ira Sukrunguang's strange, sardonic poem, "Karma," about an argument
with a mynah bird who calls out "Hey fatty." Most unusual and
memorable is Lucia Perillo's essay, "Bonnie Without Clyde," an
analysis of the bad girl, "gun molls" of poetry, the "outlaw
personas" of verse (to which Perillo clearly aspires). The footnotes
are as clever as the essay, in particular one about the author's
short-lived career as a shoplifter of meat. Hard to believe Robert
Finch's small, lyrical essay about lion's mane jellyfish is tucked
away in this same volume. These sorts of juxtapositions make this a
truly splendid issue. [River Styx, 634 North Grand Boulevard,
Twelfth Floor, Saint Louis, MS 63103. E-mail: bigriver@sbcglobal.net.
Single issue $10.
www.riverstyx.org] — Sima Rabinowitz
Smartish
Pace
Issue Twelve
April 2005
Biannual
Eric Pankey and Jim Daniels, John Kinsella and
Denise Duhamel — there's no formula here, no template — the breadth
of poems in Smartish Pace is one of its key attractions.
Forty-two poets as different from each other as forty-two poets can
be. There is a pleasing balance here, too, of stars (Bob Hicock and
Lola Haskins, not to mention Rimbaud, Italian poet Giovanii Pascoli,
and Polish poet Jerzy Kronhold, in addition to the aforementioned)
and newcomers. I am sure I would have found Darren Jackson's poem,
"Pain Rents a Room Off Bourbon Street," one of his first to be
published, powerful had I read it last week or last year, but from
here forward, of course, it becomes an entirely new experience:
Faint odor like an
unemptied mouse trap.
It's not the trash
crawling through the den.
The final third of the journal is devoted to
the 2005 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize winners and finalists whose work
is also wildly different from each other's. It is gratifying to find
the finalists published along with the winners and I wish more
journals would follow suit. In "Ebay Sonnets," Duhamel (who seems
more prolific than ever these days) assures us: "A poem's worth can
triple in days." This issue of Smartish Pace, however, is
priceless. [Smartish Pace, P.O. Box 22161, Baltimore, MD 21203.
E-mail: sreichert@smartishpace.com. Single issue $12.
www.smartishpace.com] — Sima Rabinowitz
South
Dakota
Review
Volume 42 Number 4
Winter 2004
Quarterly
Published by the
University of South Dakota since 1963, this issue of South Dakota
Review contains many fine stories including James Jay Egan's
"The Hand of God," in which things go terribly wrong, Robert J.
Nelson's graceful memoir "The Music Teacher," Katherine L. Holmes
lyrical "Eggs in a Basket," and Christine Sneed's "Furious Weather."
The title of Samuel Maio's 27-page essay, "Deep Image and the
Aesthetics of Self: Robert Bly's Early Poetry," tells the story. Not
one to buck the current trend toward long titles, Michelle Bonczek
gives us this: "In an Effort to Pitch a Tent, Build a Campfire, and
Spend the Weekend Outdoors, This Instead," and includes: "Our tired
bodies fall like trees / into a motel queen where we sleep."
[South Dakota Review, Box 111, University Exchange,
Vermillion, SD 57069. E-mail: sdreview@usd.edu. Single issue $10.
www.usd.edu/sdreview/]
— Anna Sidak
The
Southern Review
Volume 41 Number 2
Spring 2005
Quarterly
Everything expected
of a journal co-founded by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks is
here in an issue commemorating Warren's 10oth birthday with his own
fine prose (three letters to friends) and six memoirs—including the
delightful "Places: A Memoir" by his daughter, poet Rosanna Warren.
In a season in which rereading All the King's Men for
dominant themes seems ever more relevant, the brilliant short
stories in this issue touch upon war in "Hot Coffee, Summer" by
Christine Grillo, in John Lee's perfect, first-published story
"Fires"—"[. . .] a thin blaze over the northern horizon, and we
heard that Seoul was about to fall when the pyobom, the
leopard, began to appear in the valley," and in Asako Serizawa's
memorable study of Alzheimer's Disease "Flight," astonishingly also
a first publication. The haunting "The Culvert" by Keith Lee Morris
and Rob Yardumian's "A Blue to the Shadow's Black" confront grief
while Roger Yepsen's "Suet Soot Suit" is a strange tale of
unexpected changes. David Graeme Baker's oils—reminiscent of Andrew
Wyeth's work in subject matter—are a beautiful six-page bonus. Like the
response to Peter Handke, assailed for writing about his mother's
suicide, you may find "Consenting to Love: Autobiographical Roots of
‘Good Country People,’" by Mark Busco, S. J., invasive of Flannery
O'Connor's privacy and equally sad, in that neither subject was
available to consent. Mark Royden Winchell's "Leslie Fiedler, Ahead
of the Crowd"—the critic critiqued. Among the many admirable poets
represented, Julianna Baggott's titles intrigue: "Sermon on the
Mount Today at my Failing Kmart": "If so blessed, then why does /
this dying store—its dusty sprawl— / why does it smell of bleach and
woe?" All in all, a wonderful issue. [The Southern Review, 43
Allen Hall, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5005. E-mail: jolney@lsu.edu.
Single issue $8.
http://appl003.lsu.edu/southernreview.nsf/index/] —
Anna Sidak
Swivel
Volume 2 Number 1
2005
The second issue of Swivel is a wry
collection of fiction, essays, poetry, and yes, even the occasional
comic strip, all written by women. “This time,” says editor Brangien
Davis, “the zeitgeist is littered with beasts,” meaning that
thematically, this issue seems inexplicably connected by animals —
including giraffes. Even the cover dons a slightly smirking goat,
his one eye winking, as if you were also in on the joke. While it
was difficult at times for me to figure out exactly how this journal
defines wit — writing that is funny, silly, dark, or perhaps even
naughty, like K. R. Copeland’s “dirty sonnet,” which suggests some
disturbing uses for zucchini — I did find myself chuckling out loud
at a few clever plots and puns. Perhaps the most notable writing of
this issue is the short story, “Reasonable Terms,” excerpted from
Hannah Tinti’s collection Animal Crackers, published by The
Dial Press in March 2005. In this delightful story, the animals at a
zoo set about making demands of the community, including a wider
variety of food, better housing, and more stimulating activities —
perhaps “[t]he possibility of ice cream.” When their demands are not
met, the giraffes stage a mock suicide that elicits both disturbing
and poignant reactions from all involved. Also worth a gander are
Tami Sagher’s essay “What I (really) do,” which is about hiding her
job as a writer for Mad TV — even from herself: “I scale
great heights of procrastination. I pick my nose [...] I call my
sister so I can whisper that I’m at work, I can’t really talk, I’m
swamped”; Deborah Stoll’s piece “Messages,” which makes one
reconsider the value of an answering machine; and Courtney Hudak’s
poem “Existentialism,” which is not so much witty as wonderfully
strange. Except for a few superficial pieces of writing I can only
explain as filler, this journal may well find a home on my shelf.
[Swivel, P.O. Box 17958, Seattle, WA 98107. E-mail: queries@swivelmag.com.
Single issue: $9.
www.swivelmag.com] — Jen Henderson
Yale
Review
Volume 93 Number 3
July 2005
Quarterly
In her thoughtful essay on Goya, novelist Siri
Hustvedt writes, "Goya is perhaps the greatest artist of nonsense —
that nonsense that we feel within us and recognize in the world
around us as frighteningly and brutally, sometimes unbearably real."
The Yale Review, however, is, and for this I am grateful, as
far removed from nonsense as it is possible to get. Serious, in the
best sense of the word, without being pretentious, the Yale
Review is reliably solid, but refreshingly readable. Essays in
this issue trace the history of places, analyze a painter's life and
work in the context of the times in which he lived, recount a
memorable personal experience among the famous and infamous public
figures of contemporary literature, interpret a literary
masterpiece, and introduce a contemporary French writer unknown to
American audiences. These are accompanied by the solid, polished
poems of ten poets, two satisfying short stories, and five exemplary
full-length reviews. The poetry is especially strong this issue,
poems by John Hollander, James Longenbach, Lisa Russ Spaar, David
Livewell, William Logan, Jordan Smith, Mary Leader, George Bradley,
Henry Sloss, and Brian Swann — work that is controlled and tense,
yet never forced or needlessly edgy. This issue brings together the
very best of the genres represented here. [Yale Review, Blackwell
Publishing Group, 550 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 E-mail:
yalereview@hotmail.com.
www.yale.edu/yalereview] — Sima
Rabinowitz
Reviewers - Contributors
Notes
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
Cumulative Index of Lit Mags Reviewed
P.O. Box 1580