Controlled Burn – Winter 2003

In his Editor’s Notes, Gerry LeFemina, who here edits his last edition of Controlled Burn, admits his preference for poetry.

In his Editor’s Notes, Gerry LeFemina, who here edits his last edition of Controlled Burn, admits his preference for poetry. That’s evident from the journal itself, which offers solid and interesting poems along with some decent fiction pieces. The fiction highlight for me was Dan Leone’s “Balboa Park,” which is simple and humorous and involves an old chess player with no legs. Good stuff. A few minor structural criticisms would include the use of an overly fancy font, differing type sizes and a number of typos. All in all, though, the poetry is so good and diverse that any criticism is minor. Poems that impressed me included Robert Dunn’s “A Procession, Ghana,” and Jim Simmerman’s more comic poems. While it’s sometimes easy to get slogged down with a journal devoted primarily to poetry, this one is varied enough to hold the reader’s interest throughout. [Controlled Burn, Kirtland Community College, 10775 N. St. Helen Road, Roscommon, MI 48653. E-mail: [email protected]. Single issue $7.00. http://www.kirtland.cc.mi.us/cburn/] – JG