Northwest Review – 2004

This issue of the Eugene, Oregon-based Northwest Review is heavy on short fiction and light on poetry, which I, as a poet with poetry-advocacy issues, must disapprove of. However, the fiction and essays are quite lively, including Michael Mattes’ wonderful “Miles and Miles” about a frustrated comic book artist attending a wedding in Chicago.

This issue of the Eugene, Oregon-based Northwest Review is heavy on short fiction and light on poetry, which I, as a poet with poetry-advocacy issues, must disapprove of. However, the fiction and essays are quite lively, including Michael Mattes’ wonderful “Miles and Miles” about a frustrated comic book artist attending a wedding in Chicago. For you fans of poetry in translation, there are several pieces of the work of the remarkable revolutionary Qiu Jin, translated by David Lunde and Audrey Heijns. Here, the last couplet of her poem “Inscription on a Photo of Myself in Man’s Attire”: “When you see my friends from former days, / please tell them I swept the dust off the floating world.” Of interest here as well is an interview with memoirist and novelist Kim Barnes, often characterized as a “Western” writer – juxtaposed amusingly with the scenes of the Wild West – staged with toy horses and cowboys – by photographer David Levinthal. [Northwest Review, 369 PLC New Line, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. E-mail: [email protected]. Single issue $8. http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~nwreview/] – JHG