Hotel Amerika – Fall 2003
Volume 2 Number 1
Fall 2003
Reb Livingston
The eerie black and white cover photograph (“Drunken Dream, Fatigue, 1936” by Koishi Kiyoshi) of Hotel Amerika sets the self-conscious tone for this issue. Only the sophomore issue from this new publication out of Ohio University, it includes poetry, fiction, translations and essays from a broad mix of emerging, mid-career and mature poets.
The eerie black and white cover photograph (“Drunken Dream, Fatigue, 1936” by Koishi Kiyoshi) of Hotel Amerika sets the self-conscious tone for this issue. Only the sophomore issue from this new publication out of Ohio University, it includes poetry, fiction, translations and essays from a broad mix of emerging, mid-career and mature poets. The poetry is what truly stands out, such the poems by Josh Bell, Tony Hoagland, Larissa Szporluk, Piotr Gwiadzda, and Lee Upton, varying in styles and subject matter, but all quite memorable. From Upton’s surrealistic “The Hedge”: “You without a reputation worth / protecting / behind the hedge. // A unicorn goring a maiden / behind a hedge.” This issue is a keeper for any reader’s journal library. [Hotel Amerika, Department of English, 360 Ellis Hall, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701. Single issue $9. http://www.hotelamerika.net/] – RL