NewPages Blog :: Magazine Reviews

Garbanzo is out to break some rules. I find this refreshing in the relatively staid world of literary magazines. Perhaps it’s my background in zine publishing that makes me sympathetic to those willing to buck the trends. First of all, this inaugural issue comes handsomely clothed in a silkscreened dust jacket. How many lit mags have you seen lately with a dust jacket, silkscreened or not? That’s what I thought. Garbanzo is also bound with fancy rivets and includes an attached ribbon bookmark (a thoughtful and handy feature). On the inside there are a few fold-out pages, and even some handwritten poems that nicely break up the otherwise printed text. So, this is a nice-looking publication, a labor of love. I can’t help wondering how long the editors will be able to maintain this level of quality for their limited run print editions (they also publish a digital version), but I will suspend my doubts for now. Continue reading “Garbanzo – 2012”

Sometimes we look to the canon for context: the depression era philosophies and legacies of John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, Pearl S. Buck. Would an American imagination have been materially different absent James Hilton, Sinclair Lewis, Edna Ferber? What if the novels of A.J. Cronin or William Faulkner remained galleys buried on the literary cutting room floor? I approached my reading of this issue of The Gettysburg Review with the canon as context; that is, does the literature in a climate of economic downturn answer similarly situated voices from the dustbowl terror of the mid 1930s? Not exactly. The truth may lie in other comparisons—perhaps an awareness of the hysterical faith-based tomes that characterized the literature of the climax of the Roman Empire, the deoxyribonucleic acid of other revolutions, a monk’s blood. In sum, I found The Gettysburg Review to stand on its own, neither an answer nor echo of the past but rather a collection of talented men and women who have unique stories to tell. Continue reading “The Gettysburg Review – Summer 2012”

A good poetry journal is like one of those good coffee-table photography and art books. You can open them to any page and find something so thought-provoking that you are carried away and forever changed (NOTE: This is one great challenge of a paperless world). The editors of the Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review have certainly accomplished this. HSPR has been around for more than thirty years and has had just two editors. Since 2008, the review’s second editor, Nathaniel Perry, has done an excellent job of picking up where Tom O’Grady, the founding editor, left things when he retired. In the past, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review has published the work of a Nobel Laureate, several Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners, and two U.S. Poet Laureates. Continue reading “The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review – Winter 2011”

Several of the poets included in this survey of “Voices in German” were familiar to me. The Expressionist Ernst Stadler, killed in battle in World War I, is represented by three evocative landscapes translated by Martin Sheehan and William Wright. Gertrud Kolmar, who disappeared in the Holocaust, mourns a child “(n)ot born because of my sins.” Her moving poem “Fruitless” is translated by Sandra Dillon. Continue reading “International Poetry Review – Spring 2012”

An inherent complication arises when writers (or editors or critics) consider the meaning of “place” in literature. It’s certainly true that an author is influenced by the geography and communities that shaped him. It’s equally true on another level that people are the same all over, filled crown to toe with the same hopes and fears. This issue of the Michigan Quarterly Review contains pieces that are accented by the flora and fauna and hardy inhabitants of the Great Lakes region. The contributors indeed communicate the unique feeling of being lost in the Minnesota prairie while tapping into the pathos that unites us all. Continue reading “Michigan Quarterly Review – Spring 2012”

I can’t speak for anyone else, but the New England Review represents so much of what I hope to be when I grow up. In addition to choosing high-quality fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction to represent the present and future of literature, the New England Review also features scholarly material that puts the writing of the past into context. Continue reading “New England Review – 2012”

Open Minds Quarterly, whose subtitle is “The poetry and literature of mental health recovery,” is a welcome contribution to the growing body of discourse by and about “consumer/survivors of mental health services.” OMQ is a project of the Northern Initiative for Social Action (NISA) based in Ontario, Canada, whose purpose is to “eliminate stigma” by informing “mental health professionals, fellow consumer/survivors, and their family and friends—as well as society at large—of the strength, intelligence, and creativity” of its authors. A small, glossy, 8 1/2 X 11 journal, OMQ is a showcase for persons who have stories to share about mental illness; it’s not a literary feast. But it’s worth reading, and submitting to, especially if your concerns coincide with NISA’s. Continue reading “Open Minds Quarterly – Winter 2012”

Although not the leading story in the Summer 2012 issue of Prairie Schooner, Justin Taylor’s “Flings,” is the one that seems the most summery, as it takes place in that in-between time of adjusting to life after graduation, soon after a group of friends leave a “semi-elite liberal arts college” in Ohio. The story follows each of the friends individually, as they make their ways to Portland, Oregon, bumbling through the friendships crossed with the romantic entanglements that define post-collegiate life. Many of the characters are vaguely artsy, with Andy working on an epic novel, and two of the female characters having internships in an experimental film festival, before “rapidly learning the extent to which they had overestimated their interest in experimental film.” Taylor’s writing excellently explores the confusion of this period of life, when one is trying to define one’s self in the world, as well as the narcissism that can come with a headlong pursuit of the arts. He understands the messy, crisscrossed relationships of a tight-knit group of friends right out of college. His writing is tinged with a sense of humor about the overly sincere and serious. Continue reading “Prairie Schooner – Summer 2012”

Room’s website describes it as “Canada’s oldest literary journal by, for, and about women. Published quarterly by a group of volunteers based in Vancouver, Room showcases fiction, poetry, reviews, art work, interviews and profiles about the female experience. Many of our contributors are at the beginning of their writing careers, looking for an opportunity to get published for the first time.” Continue reading “Room – 2012”

The allure of the Spring 2012 issue of Salt Hill starts with an enticing cover, a black and white illustration by Aaron $hunga where a character named “Mr. Rhombus” is told to get ready “to enter Xenocave.” More of $hunga’s graphics detail a fantastical story in the concluding entry in Salt Hill. As if that graphic wasn’t enough of a warning about the kind of fiction contained in this issue, the editors’ note reads, “The twenty-ninth issue of Salt Hill is evidence of how capricious and flimsy our perceived world is, how gray and clouded the separation between phenomenological reality and the science fictions looming behind it. Or in front of it. The fantasies stuck between its dark matter. Either which way, the work in this issue pursues out-there dimensions.” Perhaps because of this dipping into strange avenues, the best work in this edition is the poetry, as well as amazing artwork done in ink on paper by Faye Moorhouse. Continue reading “Salt Hill – 2012”

Snail Mail Review prides itself on being a print magazine that maintains “mail-only interaction” with its writers. Interestingly, although this magazine revels in the virtues of print, one main reason that it attains the amount of quality work as it does might be because of its online presence. Although the magazine is amateur-looking (they hope to move from saddle-stitching to perfect-binding soon), Snail Mail Review is professional in the way that it belongs to LinkedIn, has a Facebook page, Gmail address, and many calls for submission on literary websites and blogs. These calls work. In the introduction to this issue, Editor Christine Chesko writes of a gigantic stack of submissions sitting on a chair in Co-Editor Kris Price’s house. Continue reading “Snail Mail Review – Spring 2012”

Perhaps it’s only my personal attention span, but I believe that focused collections of any art can be easily perused and set aside for any number of reasons. A collection of one type of literature or art must be read or looked at one piece at a time and held for reflection. A combination allows for any mood and many returns. Such is the Still Point Arts Quarterly’s summer issue and their idea to showcase their current site exhibit. Continue reading “Still Point Arts Quarterly – Summer 2012”

A great literary magazine is one that makes you think and ponder and take several moments out of your busy life to just appreciate art and life. Thema offers some absolutely remarkable writing that grabbed me and forced me to sit and reread several times. I found myself thinking about the economy, relationships, writing, reading, art, and even the galaxy at large.

Continue reading “THEMA – Summer 2012”

Nearly 50 years ago, a few poets gathered near Princeton, NJ, to read their poems to each other. According to the editors of U.S. 1 Worksheets, this small group of poets formed the U.S. 1 Poets’ Cooperative, and many of the original poets are still involved in the Cooperative and continue to submit to the journal, which is headquartered in the Princeton suburb Kingston, NJ. Continue reading “U.S. 1 Worksheets – 2012”

Watershed leans in the environmental direction, at least in this issue. Given that it’s a journal celebrating the Susquehanna Watershed, this makes sense. The issue includes poetry, narrative nonfiction, and an oral history focused on contemporary Native Americans living in Pennsylvania, a state that doesn’t currently recognize any existing Indian tribes within its borders (yes, there’s some bitterness there, as expected). Black and white photos dress up the text of this slim volume. Continue reading “Watershed – 2011”

Given my interests, while there is much to be said for the literary content of this publication, the focus on this review will be on the photography in this thirtieth anniversary issue: a special section consisting of 141 stunning glossy pages of photographs and brief essays commemorating “Liberty and Justice (For All): A Global Photo Mosaic.” From guest editor Benjamin J. Spatz’s introduction to the project: Continue reading “Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2012”

I should start by saying that I’ve been holding a grudge against apt for some time now. It turns out that if you don’t read their guidelines very carefully and submit something out of their reading period, they send you a very snarky e-mail. I’m not a fan of snarky e-mails; in fact, they kind of hurt my feelings. So I had vowed to hate apt forever. Continue reading “apt – 2012”

The Chicago Review remains one of the best eclectic reviews; its pages are continually full of essential reading. Packed with a consistently broad range of diverse and challenging writing, every issue delivers one surprise or another, and the latest doesn’t disappoint. Continue reading “Chicago Review – Winter 2012”

Since 1956, the Colorado Review has been dedicated to publishing the best in contemporary creative writing from both new and emerging writers, and the Spring 2012 issue is no exception. Continue reading “Colorado Review – Spring 2012”

Conjunctions is a slippery, difficult journal, and its current issue, “Riveted: The Obsession Issue,” is no exception. As is par for the course with Conjunctions, the writers appear heavily vested in a particular attention to language, with extremely idiosyncratic patterns and constructs of thought. Although ostensibly clustered around a theme, their writing offers broad interpretations of various obsessions that run the gamut from the expected to the unexpected, the probable to the improbable, the tangible to the intangible. Continue reading “Conjunctions – Spring 2012”

Grain: The Journal of Eclectic Writing is based out of Canada and prides itself on publishing challenging writing and art each quarter. This issue includes the winners of the 2011 Short Grain contest. Continue reading “Grain – Winter 2012”

Here are five reasons why High Desert Journal continues to be one of the best “regional” literary magazines around. Continue reading “High Desert Journal – Spring 2012”

On the whole, the poetry in the Spring/Summer 2012 edition of Iodine: Poetry Journal is “poetry of witness,” a term put forth (if not created) by Carolyn Forché. Not every poem is dark and foreboding, however, but the journal is filled with wounds that beg to be healed, even if it hurts to do so. After all, isn’t that the essence of iodine, the tincture, to begin with? Continue reading “Iodine Poetry Journal – Spring/Summer 2012”

Let’s call it “folk art.” It’s certainly folk literature. It would be chic to call it urban myth, but I call it my history. Who doesn’t remember the sand man and the boogie man? I feel sorry for them. Then there’s the wahoo man, and the weird aunt and the uncle who . . . The Journal of Ordinary Thought is just that. My neighborhood, my people. It’s not just a trip down memory lane; it’s decent literature, in the language of the people I grew up with, speaking to me about many of the events that we experienced and that you’ll enjoy reliving. Continue reading “Journal of Ordinary Thought – Winter 2012”

I usually try not to pigeon-hole magazines into a theme, but with this issue, it’s difficult not to do so! Clearly, there is a bird theme flapping its wings in this issue, from the multi-media “Penguins” cover art, to the more than a handful of stories that were cleverly pecked and then nestled together in this charming and diverse journal. And it just so happens that many of my favorite pieces of the issue were the ones which involved birds. Continue reading “New Ohio Review – Spring 2012”

The Ocean State Review’s debut issue features the work of writers who presented at the University of Rhode Island and/or its Ocean State Summer Writing Conference, and includes art, poetry, fiction, nonfiction and craft essays. Continue reading “The Ocean State Review – 2011”

In this issue’s introduction, which Editor Brad Fruhauff has entitled “Literature by Necessity,” Fruhauff reminds us that a rich literary diet “[confronts] some of the hardest realities of our time” and “will ask you to feel grace for a strung-out drug addict as well as for a cynical woman dealing with her abortions . . . to be merciful with an adulterer and to re-live the death of a childhood friend. These pieces,” says Fruhauff, “are not safe.” Continue reading “Relief – Spring 2012”

Brian Johnson takes over as the editor of Sentence in this issue, and if his first issue at the helm is any indication, this journal won’t miss a beat with the change. Continue reading “Sentence – 2011”

Spillway, an independent, semiannual journal based in Orange Country, California has been around since 1993. But, Editor Susan Terris remarks in her editor’s note that it’s only been in recent years that Spillway became a themed journal. Continue reading “Spillway – Fall 2011”

The summer issue of Tin House: cue an essay on “miserablism”—not in music, as Simon Reynolds once used to describe Morrissey and other gloomy Manchester bands but in fiction, as Gerald Howard employs in an essay on the “Merritt Parkway Novel.” More on that later, but let that brief introduction to this issue suffice to say that this isn’t exactly light-hearted beach reading. Who wants that anyways? The editor’s note says, “Consider this summer reading as providing a few grains of sand in your suntan lotion, a little bit of grit to remind of you the depth and breadth of the human condition.” So, let this Tin House do just that—give a dark, realistic, take on summer reading. Continue reading “Tin House – Summer 2012”

If you like literature that looks, sounds, smells and tastes like Mississippi Delta blues and jazz, then Valley Voices: A Literary Review, published by Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU), would make a nice addition to your library. This issue celebrates the journal’s 10-year anniversary with a collection of what Editor John Zheng calls “the best creative works, poetry and stories, Valley Voices has published.” This issue is evidence that the journal has long lived up to its stated dedication to promoting the works of MVSU students and the cultural diversity of the Mississippi Delta through writers from the Delta, while maintaining standards of excellence in poetry and prose. Continue reading “Valley Voices – Spring 2012”

Excerpts from Jean Donnelly and John Olson could be used to sum up the style of work in the latest issue of Verse, a magazine that publishes chapbook-length submissions. Donnelly’s “Some Life” begins “read poems to know / how to live,” and midway through switches to the abstract Continue reading “Verse – 2012”

In the poem “A Figure Half Seen,” published in the latest issue of The Wallace Stevens Journal, Dennis Barone writes that, when Wallace Stevens left an exhibition of the work of the artist Jean Arp, Continue reading “The Wallace Stevens Journal – Spring 2012”

Witness is, according to the editors, “an internationally recognized journal that blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to his or her times.” A publication of the Black Mountain Institute of the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, “an international literary center dedicated to promoting discourse on today’s most pressing issues,” this issue’s theme is “Disaster.” As the description suggests, the magazine is provocatively responsible (yes! one can be both!), of consistently high quality, and, in this issue, ruthless. The world is more full of disaster than you might want to know. Continue reading “Witness – 2012”

Different from traditional stories or poems, these pieces offer up small slices of life that are not necessarily whole stories but vignettes that absolutely invoke emotion, doing so in a small amount of space. I barely put down my pen the whole time I read as I took down notes and wrote down quotes. Continue reading “Vine Leaves Literary Journal – July 2012”

The thing I immediately noticed about SNReview is its online format—clean and crisp. It doesn’t attempt to use a lot of graphics or design, which is actually really working for it: black type, in an easy-to-read font, on top of a white page. Alternately, each piece can be viewed as a PDF with active links to previous issues and the website. Beyond the format, this particular issue’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry delivers so that the graphics don’t have to. Continue reading “SNReview – Spring/Summer 2012”

Only on their second issue, the editors of Treehouse are off to a great start. Called an “online magazine for short, good writing,” this issue of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry does justice to its tagline. Continue reading “Treehouse – Summer 2012”

For this issue, make sure you strap on your rocker boots because it’s all about the rock ‘n’ roll. As their first themed issue, the editors say that this month they have “turned Hippocampus Magazine into a mixtape of creative nonfiction.” In essays and memoirs about rock ‘n’ roll experiences, the contributors write about personal influences of Pink Floyd (“A Piece for Assorted Lunatics” by Anne); concerts of Crosby, Stills, and Nash (“Long Time Gone: September 27, 2010” by Shelia Grace Stuewe); and obsessions with Steve Tyler (“Stone Cold Fox” by Melanie Malinowski). But no matter which rock artist the writer gushes about, one thread seems to bind them all together—the power music has to invoke memory. Continue reading “Hippocampus – July 2012”

Nothing more deliciously speaks for this issue of Mixed Fruit than Anne Barngrover’s poem “The Closest I Mean to I Lust You.” Tantalizingly fresh in language and sound, Barngrover uses food to express the narrator’s lust: Continue reading “Mixed Fruit – July 2012”

Megan Alpert opens this issue with a wonderful poem called “Blueprints,” which starts, “Move into a house where love sleeps / next to you, hiding in a mouth all night / long . . .” I was intrigued with each turn of the line, my heart breaking with the last of them: Continue reading “Sixth Finch – Summer 2012”

Lisa Williams’s “Becoming Again a Threshold” captures a feeling of being stretched over a decision, over time, over space—a sense I get from the poetry in this issue: Continue reading “Memorious – June 2012”

This issue of Eclectica is a bursting collection. From the poetry to the prose, I was enthralled, spending hours reading. My favorite piece, “Sasha, That Night” by G. K. Wuori, told the story of a woman named Sasha who has a special ability that she cannot always control: she is a “hydraulic vigilante.” She is able to manipulate liquids, causing them to move, or boil, or freeze. Continue reading “Eclectica Magazine – July/August 2012”

As always, SmokeLong Quarterly serves up a heaping plate full of appealing flash fiction; I couldn’t wait to dig in. “Ameilia Fucking Earhart” had me laughing—and easily disturbed—throughout as a young couple discovers an old skeleton wearing an aviator hat. Deciding it must be Amelia Earhart, Elias picks up the skull and has his way with it—both humorously and sexually: Continue reading “SmokeLong Quarterly – 2012”

This issue is full of illusions as the characters in the stories break down their misconceptions and face reality—or, instead, continue to live in them. In “The Bathroom window”by Ivan Overmoyer, the narrator imagines a great scene outside the window, only to be disappointed when he/she actually opens it. Ned Randle’s “The Amazing Doctor Jones” portrays an old man who hasn’t adapted to the new medicine practice but still believes the way he does things is the best. And then Pan Pan Fan literally deals with illusions as the narrator stares at “The Woman in the Mirror Continue reading “Cigale Literary – Summer 2012”

In writing this review, I struggled to find a thread that sews all of the pieces together, but then I realized that perhaps it doesn’t need that. The pieces in this issue stand apart for themselves, in the excellent narration, the witty lines, and the way they portray life’s uncertainties. Anthony Moore’s “Speak Memory” was easily my favorite; the narration in it had me chuckling to myself. The narrator is in the process of writing as the story develops, commenting on the writing and metaphors he is using—sometimes pointing out the flaws in them and trading them out for new ones. The story itself brings up questions of memory as the couple’s baby has nightmares. Their doctor says that the baby doesn’t have any memory beyond eating, sleeping, and pooping once it falls asleep. Yet, she still wakes up every night screaming and crying. Paul, the father, takes steps to insure that he won’t forget anything. Continue reading “pif Magazine – July 2012”

elimae‘s individual stories and poems may be small, but they all have a zing. Leia Penina Wilson asks about loneliness as the character bottles up her own loneliness and muses, “what do you do with a city that’s all a secret she wonders do we even / exist?” Continue reading “elimae – July/August 2012”

Carve Magazine’s summer issue invites the reader into three delightful and thoughtful short stories with its cover which features a girl with sea-green hair holding a miniature merry-go-round of horses. The cover, by Alessandra Toninello, “ties [the] stories together in a fitting way,” says the editor’s note. “It’s rare that an issue’s stories and photo come together in such a synchronous way. I can’t help but feel a bit of magic pulled this issue together too.” Continue reading “Carve Magazine – Summer 2012”

This issue of Defunct, a nonfiction magazine, sparked a piece of my childhood—memories of Saturday mornings when my brother and I would litter the floor with Legos, watch Pokemon on T.V., and munch on bowls of Honey Nut Cherrios. Sonya Huber’s “Legoland” reminisced about the days when Lego characters all had the same face. “The little yellow faces,” she writes, “smiled a sort of inward parenthesis. They felt their feelings but the faces were all the same calm smile: man, woman, killer, child, seven heads stacked in a freakshow parade.” She compares these to the Legos that her son now plays with; each of the characters featuring the latest Indiana Jones or Harry Potter movie. As she says, “This is his Legoland now.” Continue reading “defunct – Spring 2012”

The 2River View’s current issue contains poetry that moves, most of which ends to make me feel unsettled, as if I need to sit there, take a deep breath, and ponder before rereading—because they are definitely worth a second look. S. L. Alderton’s “The Last Gas Station in Iowa” ends, “As she crosses the asphalt / toward the brink of cloud, it seems // that the van could roll a little further, / and fall off the end of the world.” And Peter Street’s “Another Sideline—1957” ends with “he’d throw them in / and I would watch // someone’s pet melt into nothing.” Carrie Causey’s poem about purgatory invokes feelings of being stuck: Continue reading “2River View – Summer 2012”