Literary Magazine Reviews
Posted August 13, 2007
6x6
Issue 13
Spring 2007
Triannualish
Reviewed by Colin McLean
Ah, yes. Ugly Duckling Presse presents the most fashionable,
talented and prescient poetry zine-journal of its time. That is,
it will continue to advance the presentation and readability of
great poetry. This is 6x6 at its most solid and diverse.
Each poet in here is unique, touching and ingenious. Consider
the first sentence of the first poem, which also appears on the
cover, by Evan Willner: “If all tagalong creation insists on
being.” A great enigmatic phrase of lucid abstraction. The kind
that flourishes in this age. Willner’s poem ends, “. . . then
this crunching must really be the / gravel begging beneath our
feet. And if not, not.” A great tagalong ending of insistence
and equanimity. Consider also the first line and title of this
Lynn Xu poem: “IT IS THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AND EVERY
LANDSCAPE IS DIVINED, DARKLY,” which goes on to punctuate the
title with the last lines “wrestling the one without language.”
These Rilkean illuminations are distributed wonderfully
throughout her work. I also enjoy the smaller and off-the-cuff
poems of Matthew Gavin Frank and Matthew Rohrer. They perform
linguistic leaps both rustic and modern and invite the reader in
to laugh or wonder aloud.
[http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/6by6.html]
Brilliant Corners
Volume 11 Number 2
Summer 2007
Biannual
Reviewed by Colin McLean
Brilliant Corners, “A Journal of Jazz and Literature”
celebrates its tenth anniversary with this Summer 2007 issue,
featuring numerous tributes to the late Whitney Balliet as well
as poems, interviews and children’s poetry about jazz. For those
like me wholly unfamiliar with The New Yorker jazz critic
Balliet, you may be disappointed with the narrow scope of the
journal. As subject, he occupies nearly the entire issue. This
modest journal of jazz is still a blessing. Just like the slice
of a hi-hat, its pacing is right on. Kim Addonizio and Ira
Sardoff offer up some on-topic and splendiferous poetry. And
Susan Weiner’s non-fiction piece, “Like Jelly Beans Falling On
My Head,” describes the joys of teaching jazz to elementary
school students for African American History Month. The most
illuminating piece on Balliet is the interview conducted by
Sascha Feinstein. You get the true crankiness and brilliancy of
this lauded man’s temperament and his writing style, which is
said to be synesthestic. For example, Ben Ratliff quotes Balliet
as saying a piece of music had a “wheat-moon sound.” The jazzmen
and writers who show up in Brilliant Corners give a good
but incomplete view of Balliet. Any jazz fan should give this
journal at least one shot or wail or riff. There’s sure to be
some corner that will shine.
[http://www.lycoming.edu/BrilliantCorners]
Cave Wall
Number 1
Winter 2007
Biannual
Reviewed by Anne Wolfe
The title Cave Wall might hearken back to days of
Neanderthals and primitive times, but don’t be fooled: this
literary magazine contains highly sophisticated, polished
poetry. Still, it’s deep, not posh – it manages to touch you in
a primeval sort of way – the way you want poetry to. The elegant
blue vine on the white cover of this smallish collection gives a
more accurate overall impression of its refinement than the
title. If you want “high poetry,” try Dan Albergotti’s poems. He
references Eurydice in “Surprising the Gods,” “the Camaean
Sybil’s Curse” in “The Gods Have Given Up on Immortality,” and
“the diphthong between birth and death” in “Song 378.” He gives
an otherworldly tone to his poetry that edge on the sublime. His
best verse is “Lost Birds,” about his mother, whose chief
entertainment is watching the birds outside her window. On the
other hand, “earthbound,” “rustic,” and “pastoral” are words
that might be used to describe the poetry by Jim Peterson.
“Woodcreek1977” gives the reader a tellingly familiar,
satisfying memory of a wild youth recalled though strikingly
evocative imagery. Peterson deftly reassures us of the longevity
of love as passion burns to embers. He knocks you out with his
droll poem about the whimsical adventure of an old man squatting
in an abandoned building who consults a face he has drawn with
chalk. “Original Face” is a satisfying verse that could be a
short short. However, the careful wording and ironic phrasing
make it poetry. Claudia Emerson, with “Hoarder,” “Cat Lady,” and
“After the Affair,” packs humor, tight imagery and what seems
like pages of information into a few stanzas. We leave her poems
feeling like we’ve made an acquaintance. With seven other superb
poets represented, plus some innovative cartoon-like art by Dan
Rhett, Cave Wall is a primal urge you must satisfy.
[http://www.cavewallpress.com]
Columbia
Issue 44
Spring/Summer 2007
Biannual
Reviewed by Anna Sidak
The word for Issue 44 of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art – Refreshing! In addition to the work of seventeen poets and four artists, the artistic layout and high quality construction contributes to the attractive overall effect.
The six fictions are immediate and lacking in exposition – not a bad thing – as in the following example from "The Contradiction" by Rebecca Curtis: "We said something that he didn't like. We were sorry but we had already said it." From "The White Fox," her second, and equally enigmatic, story in this issue: "The fox was struggling in my arms, its hind legs ripping my shirt and leaving long bloody scratches. I had slipped my hold a bit. Don't you realize, my sister said, that my work is important?"
In non-fiction, Scott Henkle's "They Reduced Us to Such a
State We Became Like . . ." is a thoughtful meditation on the
masking words public discourse uses – patriotic, sacrifice,
heroic, etc. – to make the death and devastation of war and
atrocity meaningful and bearable. Henkle uses the work of
Lawrence L. Langer, which decries the use of subterfuge, as
counterpoint while sidestepping ethical questions with the idea
these words are ritual, and acceptable, assuagers of grief.
Henkle's work is but one of six exceptional essays, including
"Transparencies," Angela Autry Gordon's fascinating hair-care
account: "I scanned the salon section for key words like weaves,
Brandi Braids and relaxers." Dave Housley's "How to Listen to
Old Hair Metal Tapes" is an amusing and informative overview of
the musical era of Def Leopard and Motley Crue by a
founder/editor of Barrelhouse Magazine.
[http://www.columbiajournal.org/]
Diner
Volume 6
2006
Reviewed by Deborah Diemont
When considering how to describe Diner, some words that come to mind are grit, greasy spoon, kitsch (in the irresistible way of roadside diners, Frida Kahlo) and funky. From the dark blue cover with its diner photos (table and chairs in front of a window reading “breakfast, lunch, dinner”; juke box; cherry pie; Bunn coffee maker) to a variety of poems and stories, many of which seem unlikely to find homes in more conventional journals, this issue of Diner made me nostalgic for things I didn’t know I missed. Some poems are odd, emotional, and searing – if not always 100% clear and polished. An essay by Anne E. Michael posed a question I’d never considered: “Is poetry a DNA-based imperative?”; i.e., will scientists discover a biological or brain-chemical source for the uniquely human ability to create poetry and art? I was smitten by Irish writer Philomena Feighan’s story about a Catholic school history teacher who can’t release himself from the demons of his own personal history, no matter how many women he beds, no matter how many scotches he drinks. And anyone who has ever tried to teach literature – or anything – might delight in Judy Kronenfeld’s poem, “Old Teacher Cogitates Revenge While Trying to Teach Wallace Stevens to the Young at 2 P.M.” After an epigraph from Stevens, the poem begins: “A student in the middle row, suddenly awake, / cackles; then he and his girl / both grimace visibly when I point out / “If her horny feet protrude” alludes / to yellow calluses, not the lustful / dead. . . .” Diner’s cover reads “a journal of poetry,” but an editorial explains the decision to start including prose to attract a larger audience. The table of contents, called “Menu,” offers “Blue Plate Specials” (long sections with bios and poems by featured poets), “Mo’ Jo” (reminiscences by writers on discovering their favorite poets), and “Fresh Baked” (Book Reviews).
*Editor’s note: Diner will cease publication after
their next issue, September 2007.
[http://www.spokenword.to/Diner]
Forklift, Ohio
A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, and Light Industrial Safety
Number 16
Winter 2007
Annual
Reviewed by Rachel Yoder
I have carried Forklift, Ohio on my person at all
times for the last month. Aside from revealing that I’m a nerd,
this also indicates that Forklift is the perfect
accessory for any engagement (poetry is this season’s trendy
clutch). It’s dense (70 poems in 146 pages), and fantastic for
show and tell with like-minded nerdy writer-types. “Look at this
cool journal,” I said to my friend Mark, first showing him the
1950s-style illustration of a nuclear bomb bunker, then the
photo of prize-winning sheep at the Ohio State Fair, and finally
the random excerpted indices (“‘Wild’ units (See
Freaks),” etc.). Then I said, “Listen to this,” and read him the
poem I happened to be on, Zachary Schomberg’s “The New Life.” It
began, “Your limbs / will be torn off / in a farm accident.”
When I was done, Mark said, “Hey, not bad,” paused, then
added, “That was actually really good.” This sums up my overall
reaction to the poems in Forklift – Hey, not bad; in
fact, actually really good. Forklift is the kind
of journal that you can open up to any page and find something
surprising, interesting, musical, funny and/or weird. Like
Mathias Svalina’s opening poem, “Creation Myth,” which begins,
“In the beginning there was a void. There was a tuba. The tuba
wanted to play some polka.” Or Sommer Browning’s, “We make love.
We watch more television.”: “You pull up your bowling alleys
disguised as khaki pants and reach for my boat disguised as a
hand.” Other poets I enjoyed (among the many) in this issue:
Kevin Oberlin with his poems in chart form, Richard Siken, and
Allison Titus. And let’s not forget the recipes: “Port Wine
Reduction in a Ton of Butter with Pumpkin Ravioli or Dead Animal
of Your Choice” by Rebecca Loudon and “Punked Out Pumpkin
Chicken Chili” by Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis. The final word on
Forklift – yum.
[http://www.hubcapart.com/ink]
High Desert Journal
Issue Number 5
Spring 2007
Biannual
Reviewed by Anna Sidak
The oversize High Desert Journal is a seductive
collection of prose, poetry, art, and ambience. Michael P.
Berman's photography – introduced by Charles Bowden's essay,
"Under a Dry Moon": "You learn to love the white light of midday
in June when everything is flattened by the molten energy of the
sun." – is accompanied by that of Kiev Kirby, Fritz Liedtk, and
others. Paintings include James Lavadour's haunting evocations
of stone, shadow, and light, and Tracy Lengjeld's mysterious
mono-prints. J. Anne Lazarus's poem "frontier spirit” is but one
of eight fine poems, and includes these lines: "nevada and
wyoming, / montana and arizona, new // mexico, idaho and
colorado / respectively // in 1993 / lead the nation // in
suicide / as salt // lake city leads / in per capita //
consumption / of jell-o.” Karen Fisher's essay, "We Pioneers,"
correlates a risk-laden move from California to Idaho with
perilous relocations from her family history. "Fruit Room" is
Donald Snow's memoir of the sorting-through of the accumulations
a death demands. "Teaching to the Epiphany" from Travels With
the Lorax Generation, by Phil Brick, is an essay on the
conflict between ecological and other interests: "Nature must
just be the original Rorschach." In "The Buckaroo Way," Sandy
Anderson interviews rancher/horseman Ron Miller to explore a
little-known western sub-culture derived from ancestral sources
in North Africa and Spain. Brandon R. Schrand's thoughtful
essay, "All That Glows," reflects on the allure of explosives
and the blight of mining. Josh Beddingfield's fiction, "Yellow
Cake," is about danger and damage from what once seemed
harmless. High Desert Journal is a splendid introduction
to a region seldom seen.
[http://www.highdesertjournal.com/]
Insolent Rudder
Summer 2007
Quarterly
Reviewed by Stefani Nellen
Insolent Rudder is an online magazine publishing flash fiction and very short "relatively" plotted stories of "no more than 1113 words." The stories in the current issue oscillate between the comical and the poetic, and almost all of them are perfect illustrations of the condensed observations typical of flash – those seemingly effortless "pow!" moments that pack a lot of truth into very few words. From Jamie Lin's Sequence of micros, "Falling Uphill": "She was the round, shiny apple. I was the rotten tomato with too many weaknesses." From Liesl Jobson's "Ashram": "I kneel before him, bending to kiss his instep. He loved it before when I sucked his toes. We must wait for the guru, he says, pushing me away." From Bosley Gravel's "The Bone Tree": "Mother said they buried him deep that autumn, and she imagined him frozen in the earth waiting for spring like a fresh seed as the snow blew the last of the orange leaves."
The stories in this issue cut right to the strongest image,
the most astounding emotion – that's what flash is about.
Surprise is only the beginning. At first glance, this might make
the stories seem slighter than "full length" short stories, but
this is not the case. The fiction in this issue tickles,
surprises, pops – not only on first read. This is the kind of
writing that satisfies the need for a quick literature fix but
is profound enough to withstand attrition. The tones and moods
vary widely between stories. Frank O'Connor's "Coffee" is an
all-out funny homage: “Dolloped, Twisted, Shorted or Flatpack?
Spiced, Spangled, Glucose or Creemeedunk? Grandee,
Extra-Grandee, Grandee Dandee or Extra-Grandee Dandee?” In
contrast, Liesl Jobson's "Saviour" is a sparse story about the
loss of a child, which is nicely complemented by J.M. Patrick's
"Lacuna," a quiet celebration of life. The reader is advised to
enter the current issue during their coffee break and sample the
buffet.
[http://www.insolentrudder.net]
The Iowa Review
Volume 37 Number 1
Spring 2007
Triannual
Reviewed by Stefani Nellen
My personal favorite among this issue's stories, Mary Slowik's "Teeth," takes the storyteller's doctrine (dig where it hurts) to a brilliantly literal level. In her atmospheric, sinister story, the narrator, a dentist's daughter, watches her father fix an exposed nerve: "The nerve waved blindly on the point of the probe. It reminded me of a single larva separated from its teeming kin, the heaving masses in our compost pile, the rows of soft grubs lined up in our beehives at home. And yet, I knew this tiny thread contained the most quivering pain." All the pain hiding inside all the teeth (false teeth, hidden teeth…the theme connecting the story's sections) erupts in a single, intense moment. Wow.
This issue's diversity of style amazed me; it was impossible to predict one story from the next. Stephen Spicehandler's "To Cavalry" describes the loving battles between the narrator and his dying wife – a surprisingly action-packed story considering the potentially static and depressing subject matter. The love depicted in this piece is still alive and kicking, and all the more heartbreaking for it. How interesting to compare Spicehandler's piece with James McKean's much shorter story, "Bound," which also describes a marriage. McKean's story is as calm and tense as "Cavalry" is twitching and struggling. Husband and wife go to visit their future plot on the cemetery; the incident reveals a seemingly enormous chasm between their personalities, which becomes – as the last sentence reveals – irrelevant in the face of their love.
And there's more: Phong Nguyen offers the hilarious "Pages from the Textbook of Alternate History: Columbus Discovers America," and Rusty Dolleman's "September, 1981" takes a more personal view on an historic day: the boxing match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns as viewed by a group of factory workers from Michigan who have bet all their money on Hearns. Another interesting pair of stories on a similar theme (history) – the surreal idea piece and the suspenseful, old-fashioned narrative. A strong mix here and throughout. [http://iowareview.org]
The MacGuffin
Volume 23 Number 2
Winter 2007
Triannual
Reviewed by Anne Wolfe
It devours you, it challenges you. The fiction in The MacGuffin has muscle. The poetry can take you places in a few simple stanzas, with no visible effort. Such craftsmanship is hard to come by. Masterpieces adorn this 159-page journal. “Bed-Tea in New Delhi” is an efficient poem by Dawn McDuffie about the hedonistic world of a privileged person with a servant. It powerfully shames the rich while lamenting the poor. The reader is crushed by Trudy Seagraves’s “Cowboy,” an outstanding narrative about a brutal act committed by an ignorant father that changes a family. Seagraves weaves a spell while she brings the reader along to contemplate a horrible scene. In a very different manner, a female author writing about women brings a unique view of working mothers into focus. Two very different women, a Scandinavian nanny and a black married career-mother with a philandering husband, find common ground when it comes to facing the world alone. “The Easy Part,” by Joan Wilking, slyly challenges the reader to dislike its characters, then flips the picture, showing their complexities, and scores political points as well as dramatic points. On a wholly personal level, a moving poem digs deep into a now sadly common problem. N. S. Williams describes, with grace and fury, moments of unease that make up years of daily living with the dread disease in “Monitoring My Mother’s Alzheimer’s”. His dexterous imagery goes to the core of what makes the illness so heart breaking. Each character, in every story, in The MacGuffin is vivid; each poem makes the reader pause. With the cool cover art scene, “Gazebo at the Summer Palace in Beijing,” by Gordon L. Wilson, depicting an exotic grove of trees in green and pink overlooking a blue river, this journal takes us to real and mind-blowing places. The MacGuffin is a must-read. [http://www.schoolcraft.edu/macguffin]
The Missouri Review
Volume 30 Number 1
Spring 2007
Quarterly
Reviewed by Anna Sidak
With The Missouri Review now accepting e-mail submissions, who can say what masterpieces will now arrive; although this issue seems to have been assembled without that benefit, it is an intriguing collection. In addition to slaking my thirst for good fiction – stories by Jacob M. Appel, Erica Johnson Debeljak, Rachel Swearingen, and others – the contents include essays, poetry, and an interview with the disarmingly honest David Sedaris: "I'm not apolitical; I just don't consider myself an original thinker, [. . .] I'm more the kind of person who might read something and then try to pass it off as my own."
Especially noteworthy are this issue's book reviews. From Steve Street's knowledgeable review of The Jacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany (translated by Humphrey Davies): "Controversy has surrounded this two-year Arabic-language best seller [. . .]. Readers who until now have not been particularly interested in Egypt and the extremes it embodies – East and West, secularism and religiosity, haves and have-nots, globalization and colonialism's continuing legacy – will be interested by the book's end." And this from the editor of the Missouri Review, Speer Morgan, in conclusion of his review of The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford: "Aside from the reanimated 'dead' husband, this third of the Bascombe trilogy is a compelling portrait of a man approaching old age, still fighting, and in some ways even better company than in the earlier books."
From Editor Speer Morgan's foreword to this issue: "Important
scientific ideas become metaphoric vehicles for theories that
have little connection with objective truth." This sentence
pinpoints, for me, the flexible beauty of English, a language
wherein my thirst for good fiction is slaked, and lime is
caused to crumble, although he continues, "Through no fault of
its own, what starts as true science can become a rich source
for nonsense."
[http://www.missourireview.com]
Polyphony H.S.
Number 3
2007
Annual
Reviewed by Anne Wolfe
If you think that high school poetry and fiction tends to be clever and stocked self-consciously with modifiers, you could be at least partly right, but if you passed up Polyphony H.S., you’d be missing a whole lot. This 98-page literary magazine has a slick, colorful, collage art cover by Tony Fitzpatrick: faces, figures, signs, musical notes and images all surrounding a train coming right at you! The smorgasbord of poems and short stories is imaginative with a capital “I.” They are full of angles that only young people with few preconceptions can come up with, making up for what they lack in life’s experience with insight and ‘what-ifs’. A fond, eloquent ode to aging mothers who are not aging gracefully is the subject of “Only Her Lilac Tears,” a short-short by Minh Ha. Pyro” by Amanda Kaufman will both fascinate and horrify the reader with her highly imaginative tale. An intriguing ‘what-if’ scenario spelled out in eerie, potent 1984-style, is about human’s future battle to conquer emotions. In this short fiction, “Emotion Control,” by Lindsey Maxson, the reader is actually drawn emotionally to a cyborg or robot with a purpose –a spy? It deftly begs the question, “What is life?” Jacob Walters’s “The Color of Sound” asks “What is the sum of the life of an old man, and what does he lose when he dies?” Walters intrigues us by playing with opposites using words and phrases and effectively puts to the reader the eternal question: What is death? This publication is chock-full of amazing stunts of youthful creation and well worth the time. [http://www.polyphonyhs.com]
Quarterly West
Number 30
Fall/Winter 2006/2007
Reviewed by Rachel Yoder
The 30th Anniversary Issue of Quarterly West is, from cover to cover, consistently and astonishingly good. This issue features AWP Intro Award Winners in fiction and poetry, and the Writers@Work Fellowship Award Winners in nonfiction and poetry. It opens with two stories that examine moments of grace: Steve Almond’s short-short “Phoenix” in which a john is redeemed by a thieving hooker, and Quan Berry’s story “Daily at the Gate of the Temple Which is Called Beautiful,” which, with just its title, promises to deliver us to a hallowed place, perhaps even to offer a moment of transcendence. I tried to decide what other of the six remaining stories to mention in this review, and could only come to this: you should read them all. The Writers at Work award-winning nonfiction piece, “16 Doors” by Brenda Sieczkowski, is structured in 16 numbered segments, each a door into the author’s memory and dreams, traveling from ancient China to modern-day Vermont, examining everything from family genealogy to cell structure.
QW also features a
satisfying mixture of poetry, with two particularly engaging
prose poems by Dave Snyder: “Pica: On Happiness” and “Hexagon:
On Truth.” Snyder is the Writers@Work winner in poetry and for
good reason; these poems are interesting and original, moving
like Rubik’s Cubes with their shifting ideas and images that
click into multiple patterns as they examine birds and bees, a
man who eats airplanes, robots who polish glass, and
intelligence itself – both natural and artificial. Tracy K.
Smith’s skittish poem “Nocturne: Andalusian Dog,” poses the
question, “Isn’t there anything / You’ve lived wanting / Like a
dream that won’t // Resolve?” And this issue of QW
answers her question, 48 different and dazzling ways.
[http://web.utah.edu/quarterlywest]
Quay
Volume 1 Issue 1
May-June 2007
Triannual
Reviewed by Stefani Nellen
A new journal appearing both in print and online, Quay offers a crisp collection of fiction, non-fiction and drama. The print issue's format (almost square) is unusual without trying too hard, and the same is true for the content. One of my favorites among the fiction pieces was J.P. Briggs's "American Debut," in which an agent and a producer discuss a starlet called Eva, "the next big icon of a generation," while "[t]he snakes darted and skimmed in the swimming pool with their arrow heads flexed above the blue water." I was also impressed with Myfanwy Collins's "Cowless, Rainbowless," a sequence of vignettes revealing the narrator's hurt in nightmarish slow-motion. The beauty of the writing is an almost perfidious contrast to the narrator's pain and loneliness. Completely different in style: Scott Humfeld's "Capt. Spaulding and the Missing Motor," a tale set in the Peruvian jungle, delivered with the authority and wit of first-hand experience.
While I enjoyed most of the fiction, I was blown away by the dramatic writing – brilliant one-act mini-plays, all of them funny, profound, ready to be performed. Wow! This is new. It's hard to find a favorite among the four offerings from Lisa Soland, David Robson, Timothy Braun, and Ross Brown – I recommend you pick up an issue of Quay and read them all.
The non-fiction offerings were exceptional, too. Matthew M. Quick's "One Cigarette a Day," a loving memory of his grandfather (and the many cigarettes he smoked) thankfully avoids "just quit" slogans in favor of honest exploration of the meaning of smoking: "Whenever I smell cigarette smoke now, I think first about my grandfather, then about how many inhalations I have left, and I slow my breath and breathe in deliberately and savor the filling of my lungs." Neil Landau's prose-poem "Foregone Conclusions" reflects on aging and death and exposes our inadequate dealings with these issues with an acuity that belies the dreamy, free-associative format.
I read Quay on a plane and found it very absorbing –
An interesting new journal that opts for the quirky and unusual
without sacrificing substance. I look forward to Issue 2.
[http://www.quayjournal.org]
Smartish Pace
Issue 14
2007
Biannual
Reviewed by Deborah Diemont
Smartish Pace is exclusively a journal of free verse poetry. It was a treat to read translations from Hindi – to have, as renowned translator Elliot Weinberger might say, “the news” of a faraway country brought to me through poetry. In Katyayani’s darkly-playful poem, “A Woman Hiding in Language,” a woman seems to disrupt language itself by hiding inside of it, such that, “. . .the dictators / didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. / That day the poets couldn’t play / with words searing as a mass of fire.” Shrikant Verma’s “Hastinapur” reminds me of how anyone might feel about a city or village in times of war or simply rapid change: “Just think / about that person / who comes to Hastinapur / and says: / “No, no this can’t be Hastinapur!” Though the average reader, like myself, probably speaks no Hindi, I thought it would have been illuminating to see the original poems – how they look on the page – as well as a read a translator’s note on the challenges in translating from Hindi to English. I’d have favored fewer poems in the issue to make space for this (several poets have 5-6 poems included).
In general, I found the issue to be a mixed bag. Some poems
use flat language to try to “tell us” something. In others,
highly elaborate language play or intellectual exercise seems to
be the poet’s main motivation. Then, there are also plenty of
the kind of poems I like best, which open the heart and mind
freshly to the world. Among the latter are Rosanna Warren’s “Le
Silence” which considers love while viewing two sculpted
figures: “crystal figures in a / mineral world call forth //
Ionic orders and / a spherical, halogen, blinding / deity
clearly deaf.” Robert Wrigley, in four poems, manages to capture
that intangible surprise we sometimes glimpse in ordinary love
or in nature. Finally, Suzanne Roberts’s “Hesitation –
Cuernavaca Mexico,” one of the finalists for the 6th annual
Erskine J. Poetry prize, is one of my favorites for its subtle
capturing of infidelity through a landscape’s details and a few
human gestures.
[http://www.smartishpace.com]
Versal
5
2007
Annual
Reviewed by Colin McLean
Amsterdam – city of hashish, soccer riots, bicycles – city of
canals, tall people, and even taller people – continues now to
bring us this international literary journal. The word versal
means rare or universal as defined on the inside of the superbly
designed cover. In this Versal 5 are indeed rare words
that will cut edges in your mind. If you seek Versal for
the atmospheres of Amsterdam, though, you will be disappointed.
Versal is perhaps not the best of international
literature, but holds a sure-shot at becoming just that. “Answer
The Question” Jeffrey Beam titles his 21st century haiku, which
then seems to respond with: “Question the answer // Narrow the
way this way that way.” A poem that at once conjures up
spiritual fine-tunings as well as what could be easily be
irreverent remarks to a police officer. There are quite a few
remarkable poems in this issue like Beam’s that crash against
the pages to reveal greater truths. However, the prose poems
often lapse into feigned importance: a literary trick that at
once helps purge and mock not only yourself but others. There is
an exceptional piece by poet Matt Sadler titled “Letter to Mary
from the Future.” His driving questions and intuitive phrasings
cause the reader to linger over the lines and dig into them. No
false guides, just honest speculation ripened into verse. A fine
momentum for Versal. Also of note is a “Waiting,” a short
story by Billy O’Callaghan, all-around great illustrations by
half a dozen artists (including color reproductions throughout),
and solid layout and design. For lovers of literature, Versal
5 beckons with a broad sampling.
[http://www.wordsinhere.com/versal.html]
Reviewers - Contributors Notes
NewPages Literary Magazine Stand recent reviews:
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
Apr
2007
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Feb 2007
Jan
2007
Cumulative Index of Literary Magazines Reviewed