NewPages Blog :: Magazine Reviews

Founded in 1965, Salmagundi magazine takes pride in its spectrum of essays, reviews, interviews, fiction, poetry, regular columns, polemics, debates and symposia. In the past, the magazine has featured the likes of acclaimed literary figures such as J.M. Coetzee, Christopher Hitchens, Susan Sontag, and Joyce Carol Oates. Additionally, the magazine boasts that it showcases neither a liberal nor conservative predilection, proclaiming that, “in short, Salmagundi is not a tame or genteel quarterly. It invites argument, and it makes a place for literature that is demanding.” Continue reading “Salmagundi – Spring/Summer 2011”

The recently published “Summer Reading” issue of Tin House is… well, it is… Continue reading “Tin House – Summer 2011”

Published twice a year, the Tulane Review is a student-run literary and art journal published by the Tulane Literary Society, which claims on its website to be the “hub of all literary activity” on the Tulane University campus in New Orleans. Nestled in the uptown section of the Crescent City, near where the Mississippi River snakes so tightly it nearly doubles back on itself, Tulane University is itself a hub of literary activity. The works of the forty-seven writers and artists published in this edition are like the intermingling effluents of the hundreds of rivers and tributaries that stream together in the Mississippi River. Continue reading “Tulane Review – Spring 2011”

Sitting down with a hot mug of coffee and looking at the landscape-style, bright green literary magazine sitting flat on the table in front of me, my first thought was, I hope I don’t stain this. My second thought on the cover, after having read through the pages between the two covers, was that the content was just as strange and delightful. Well, most of it. Some of it was more strange than delightful, and some more delightful than strange. Still, I’m glad I didn’t stain it. Continue reading “Welter – 2010”

Sometimes it’s nice to get another perspective, other times it’s downright satisfying to have someone else agree with you. Ninety-five percent of the time mainstream media tells the story that needs to be heard, and when it comes to news stories, many of us hear what we want to hear anyhow. That is, we take away from a story what we want to take away from it. But if you’re in the market for well-researched, articulate articles by writer-activists with true convictions (who are not afraid to speak their minds) then seek out Z Magazine. Continue reading “Z Magazine – June 2011”

In the inaugural print edition of Able Muse, Marilyn N. Taylor’s essay on the recent rise of semi-formal poetry, mentions “the poetry wars” between “the shaggy free-verse stalwarts vs. the tweedy New Formalists.” It’s nice to see that the new New Formalist critics published in Able Muse definitely do not write in a tweedy style, as evidenced by Taylor’s piece and Julie Stoner’s review of new books by Maxime Kumin and Carrie Jewell, which begins “After the Revival…reminds me of an after-school snack. I enjoyed the combination of salt and crunch and grease and hellfire and cheese, even if I had to overcome the occasional wave of nausea. (I’m still referring to the book.)” Continue reading “Able Muse – Winter 2010”

The Spring/Summer Issue of Black Warrior Review, featuring Graham Foust, Aaron Kunin, Bhanu Kapil, Sarah Gridley, Joshua Cohen, Megan Volpert, and many other fine writers, is difficult not to pick up and thumb through. The ritualistic cover art gets the issue going: two guys, two girls, all with skeleton heads, watching a horse as it is either pulled into the sky or brought down from it. More in this series by Joseph McVetty can be found later in the issue, in the Nudity Feature. Continue reading “Black Warrior Review – Spring/Summer 2011”

Burnside Review is a diminutive delight. Readers at the outset learn, from editor and founder Sid Miller, that whiskey is an “instigator.” Also both a “prelude” and an “epilogue.” Continue reading “Burnside Review – 2011”

In his Editor’s Note, Rhett Trull explains that, while she has “learned the patience, struggle and mercy of a body as it heals,” she recognizes—in the dying of Pita, her 20-year-old cat—that “one day” we will “reach a point past healing.” As a result, “My appreciation for each moment,” she says, has been “reinforced” by the poems she helped select for this issue. The poems, lyric and narrative, feature speakers whose distance from the poets seems slight. Continue reading “Cave Wall – Winter/Spring 2011”

Wow, this issue of Georgia Review is a true literary bonanza! Subtitled “A Home in Other People,” the issue offers a broad retrospective of selected stories and art from 1984 to 2007. This is the second retrospective that the Review has done; the first one came out in 1986, and now the staff is both celebrating the 25th anniversary of that first retrospective, in addition to marking the start of the Review’s 65th year. Continue reading “The Georgia Review – Spring 2011”

Fiction rules in this issue of the Greensboro Review. Not to say that the poetry failed to capture my attention, but the stellar stories strung together here hooked me from the first, “The Drift Line” by Charlotte O’Donnell. It’s a tale of preteen female friendship, with the complexities of that friendship’s dynamics laid bare on a rocky shoreline: Continue reading “The Greensboro Review – Spring 2011”

This gorgeous twenty-fifth anniversary issue of Gulf Coast—a celebration in poetry, prose and art—while anchored in the present, salutes contributors of past years with luminous grace. Continue reading “Gulf Coast – Summer/Fall 2011”

Most of the poetry in this issue is exemplified by Nico Alvarado’s “I Dream I Dreamt a Form”: Continue reading “LIT – Summer 2010”

If the unsettling cover art is meant to hint at the contents of this thick annual print issue of PANK, I’m at a loss as to the meaning of the hint, even after reading through to the very end. I’m not sure if that says more about the nature of the artwork, or the disparity of the work within. The pages hold prose poetry, visual poetry, and flash fiction, as well as more traditional poetry forms and longer short stories, and virtually everything in between. In the truly liberating fashion of contemporary experimental literature, PANK does not require its writers to classify their work, or if it does, it chooses not to disclose those labels within its table of contents. This can be refreshing, or occasionally annoying. Continue reading “PANK – 2011”

This journal is a joy, and my only critique is that it’s not pages and pages longer! I found Ted Kooser’s “A Farmhouse in Winter” instantly. This edition opened to this poem, as though I were assigned to encounter a chilly personality, first. As one who worships summer heat, I forgot that when I read, “It’s taken weeks but at last the cold / that poured down out of Alberta / has found its way into the old rock cellar / and up the steps to the kitchen door.” This spirit drifts into homely, hidden spaces, and somehow is expected. All is well. Are those “shelves of canned tomatoes” and “dusty rags of cobweb” prepared to move aside for this icy, temporary guest Kooser’s touch is simple, not simplistic. How I cherish the sweet power of image at the end! Continue reading “Potomac Review – Spring 2011”

Slice highlights lies and make-believe in its newest issue and overflows with engaging poetry, spectacular fiction, smart nonfiction, and insightful interviews with Ray Bradbury and Isabel Allende among others. Where to begin? What to highlight? Continue reading “Slice – Spring/Summer 2011”

Admittedly, I was a bit tentative when I began reading the latest issue of The Southern Review. When I hear the word “Americana,” its self-proclaimed theme, certain images are conjured—flat beers, hunters waiting in the pre-dawn darkness, the barefoot and pregnant teenage fatherless-yet-sweethearted girl working in a diner on the side of a barren highway—of which I have become a bit tired. Let us call those images shortcomings of my imagination; I had no idea of the depth and variance to the works waiting inside this publication’s pages. Produced by Louisiana State University, it is an engrossing and well-balanced mix of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and photography. Continue reading “The Southern Review – Spring 2011”

This issue of Adbusters, subtitled POST—with an Arabic word insertion—WEST, is at first glance an irreverent avant-garde (the publishers probably think using avant-garde is passé) mish-mash of advertisements, graphics, photographs, art, essays, book excerpts, observations, and poetry about economics, capitalism, politics, jihad, revolution, militarism, overpopulation, aquaculture, genetic modification, anarchy, and you name it.

Continue reading “Adbusters – May/June 2011”

Published by C.A.L. Press, Berkeley, CA, Anarchy purports to “Disarm authority! Arm your Desires! with provocative, creative, and critical anti-authoritarian discourse and art.”

Continue reading “Anarchy – Issue 70/71”

Unless one is a regular reader of Social Policy magazine, there may be some confusion, despite Wade Rathke’s “Publisher’s note.” He says the Spring 2011 issue is “in perfect harmony with the heart and spirit needed in these times, despite the challenges of adversity…and challenges of our…heroic strengths and weaknesses.” If Social Policy is “[the] key site for intellectual exchange among progressive academics and activists from across the United States and beyond,” it would be instructive and helpful to say so in the boilerplate masthead or logo. Their website says, “Social Policy seeks to inform and report on the work of labor and community organizers who build union and constituency-based groups, run campaigns, and build movements for social justice, economic equality, and democratic participation in the U.S. and around the world.” Again, why not say so in the magazine? Its cover does include “Organizing for Social and Economic Justice.”

Continue reading “Social Policy – Spring 2011”

The editors of Barrelhouse can always be counted upon to present works that occupy the necessary space on the spectrum between “literary” and “pop culture.” Barrelhouse is the perfect journal to present to friends and family (or even strangers) who have far too long deprived themselves of the magic and potential of poetry, prose and even graphic art. Continue reading “Barrelhouse – 2010”

This hefty journal is art-in-the-palm; it is a singular delight, a challenge, and a joy, all at once. Readers are presented with a collage of literature, poetry, memoir, music, and photography. This journal explores realms of authorship with notably startling computer images of Japanese mathematical scores by the renowned visual artist, Ryoji Ikeda. Continue reading “Boulevard Magenta – 2011”

There’s something undeniably Faulknerian about this issue of the University of Montana’s literary journal CutBank. You’d think that the publication would cater to luminous pieces of prose and poetry that highlight the golden beauty of the Rocky Mountains, work that showcases rugged mountain people born with a heritage of adventure and manifest destiny. While CutBank does feature poetry and prose that praise the glory of the Midwest, this issue’s selection of contributions seem to be fascinated with the darker elements of human nature, of greed and tainted love, sad-eyed people searching for a savior. Continue reading “CutBank – 2011”

This handsome journal is clothed in Lee Etheredge IV’s type on photograph cover. Readers are directed to “Some Words About the Images,” where they encounter his shape poem, declaring: “i am not a poet.” Etheredge is a visual artist, who utilizes drawings produced by a standard typewriter. The final piece featured is utterly unique. This artist succeeds easily in engaging brain, eye, and heart. Continue reading “Fence – Winter 2011”

Originally coined by Lewis Carroll in the poem “Jabberwocky,” the term jabberwock is defined as “a playful imitation of language consisting of invented, meaningless words; nonsense; gibberish.” On the contrary, the Jabberwock Review contains a selection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that attempt to defy such a negative connotation. The works featured in this volume are undeniably character driven, focusing on narrators and protagonists that seek a deeper understanding of his or her identity. While there isn’t a specific theme to this issue, the organization of the pieces creates a smooth flow, creating a seamless transition for the reader. Continue reading “Jabberwock Review – Winter 2011”

Parcel is a corporeal labor of love, a treasure for the reader who yearns for the simplicity of words on paper. This edition is dedicated to those “with a love of the elegant, tangible, hand-delivered book.” When Heidi Raak, owner of The Raven Book Store, and Kate Lorenz, Kansas kindred spirit, became a team, they wondered: could they produce a gem of a journal, crafted to arrive at each reader’s door, a ready-to-open-present? Continue reading “Parcel – Spring 2011”

In this issue, Saltwater Quarterly channels inspiration through one of the most powerful and seductive emotions of the human condition: desire. Whether it is carnal or the spiritual, the maternal or the romantic, the selection of poems and prose are crafted by a sense of urgent yearning, carved from the deepest truths of the human heart. Continue reading “Saltwater Quarterly – Winter 2011”

In the Letter from the Editor, Darren Richard Carlaw states that the goal of StepAway Magazine is “to perpetuate the evolution of the walking narrative,” and encourages authors “to submit work which forges pathways through the cityplace.” Carlaw recalls his childhood fascination with William Blake’s “London,” which later spawned an admiration for Guillaume Apollinaire, Charles Baudelaire, and Walter Benjamin. In this issue, the featured contributors transport readers to the bustling streets of New York City to the fast-paced glitz of Los Angeles. While Carlaw sought inspiration from classic literature, StepAway Magazine is an undeniable product of modernism, unafraid to unflinchingly explore the ugliness of such cities. Continue reading “StepAway Magazine – Spring 2011”

Jude Nutter’s starkly eloquent “16 October, 2009, 17.55 PM: Little Elegy” is illustrative of the issue’s approach and strengths, with its description of life with horses, somehow both intimate and personal, yet distant, a portrait of another life: Continue reading “American Literary Review – Spring 2011”

This is the journal’s 50th issue includes the work of 14 poets, the most recognizable or established among them being David Trinidad; 10 fiction writers, the most recognizable or lauded among them being Achy Obejas and Bayo Ojikutu; two nonfiction writers; a number of reviews; and “Et Al.” hybrid and uncategorized work by Joseph Gallimore and Jill Summers. Continue reading “Another Chicago Magazine – 2010”

Editor Bryan Borland introduces readers to this new journal by announcing that Assaracus has “no formula” other than that all poems are authored by gay men, a “place for our poetry to dance with its own kind.” Poems are preceded by bios documenting writer’s credentials (poets who are both quite experienced and first-time in print are included in this premier issue), and the poems reflect much diversity in style, tone, and approach. Shane Allison contributes a spare “Dream” of bare single lines, “Used to / wonder / late at night // Boxers / or / Briefs”). Jay Burodny contributes a sense poem all in italics, “A Needy God.” Raymond Luczak contributes a prose poem, “Six Gallery, San Francisco: October 7, 1955.” Matthew Hittinger contributes a long poem of couplets, “A Bus Journeys West”: Continue reading “Assaracus – 2011”

The work in this issue of the Birmingham Poetry Review is terribly moving, highly accomplished, and unexpectedly inspiring. How not to be simply undone by Deborah Ager’s “A Poem in Which My Father is Not the Villain,” which opens the issue? “I believe we commit errors we want no one to know about, / that we wish we could bathe and be healed and sip whisky and be clean.” Continue reading “Birmingham Poetry Review – Spring 2011”

Issue 40 is a special theme issue on animals, the centerpiece of which are an excerpted essay and an interview with the talented, perplexing, and always-provocative Lauren Slater, who has a book forthcoming on animals, and who was first published many years ago by this journal. Essayist par excellence Phillip Lopate contributes “Show and Tell” about the human animal, “the ethics of writing about other people.” Well-known writer Susan Cheever describes her encounters with much maligned house mice in “Of Mice and Women,” and Jennifer Lunden, Kateri Kosek, Randy Fertel, Jeff Oaks, and Chester F. Phillips contribute strong essays on butterflies, starlings, grunions, zoos, dogs, and lions. Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Winter 2011”

The Fiddlehead has been a Canadian literary delight since 1945, when it began as the mimeographed paper-child of The Bliss Carman Poetry Society. Published quarterly by the University of New Brunswick, this treasure is an eclectic journal. I relished five stories and was enthralled with deliciously crafted writing from fifteen poets. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Winter 2011”

I know that I’m not the ideal reader for journals that feature art. I usually don’t pay attention as I should, and consider the pieces selected as speed bumps. In this aspect, the art in Front Range isn’t exceptional, but it has been selected with an informed eye to complement the text. The journal’s words, however, are satisfying and, dare I say, practical. Continue reading “Front Range – Spring 2010”

Fugue is one of my favorite journals. There is always something exciting, inventive, original, and unexpected; something that reinforces my confidence in the state of American literature; something I am grateful to have encountered; something special in the best and truest sense of the word. In this issue, this includes prize-winning fiction from Colette Sartor and Paul Vidich; poetry from Margarita Delcheva, Bryan Narendorf, and Patty Crane, among others; fiction from Luther Magnussen and Heather Jacobs, among others; nonfiction from Sarah Fawn Montgomery, David Shields, and David McGlynn; and interview by Steve Heim with George Saunders; and an “Experiment” by Kevin Sampsell, “This is Between Us.” Continue reading “Fugue – Summer-Fall 2010”

There is a point in the conversation between poets Adam Clay and Timothy Donnelly in this issue of Grist where they are discussing truthfulness in poetry. Both poets agree that when reading a poem it doesn’t really matter to them whether what’s happening in the poem comes directly from the poet’s life or not, whether it is “true” to life outside the poem. But then Donnelly brings up the issue of what to do when you, as a poet, do want to “engage with realities outside the poem in a sincere way.” How do you communicate this to a reader? As Donnelly so pithily remarks, “it’s not like you can use a special font for sincerity.” Continue reading “Grist – 2011”

This issue of The Journal flexes its tensile strength in both poetry and fiction. The first poem to shake me was Frannie Lindsay’s “To the Petermann Glacier,” which seems to portend an environmental holocaust (the glacier moving “down each torn strand of latitude”) while hinting at the post-disaster world to come, one where we find “the newly erected Cathedral of Zero / with its pulpit tangled in sumac.” Meanwhile, “the lost gulls float inland scavenging sticks // as you lay down the calm heat of listening before / the great barrier requiem.” Continue reading “The Journal – Autumn/Winter 2010”

The annual Juked print issue opens with a tight piece of historical fiction by James Scott titled “Watertown,” in which two of Babe Ruth’s questionably well-meaning associates decide to do something about Babe’s addict wife: Continue reading “Juked – Spring 2011”

“Symposium: Poems Disliked, Poems Loved” is advertised on the cover, so it’s hard to pay attention to much else before turning immediately to the back of the magazine, where the special feature is located, to find out who is willing declare their dislike of certain poems or types of poetry in a public forum. The journal asked poets Wayne Miller, Helen Nelson, and David Rivard to present for discussion a “bad poem” (“weak or shallow or disappointing”) and a “good poem” (not defined!). The poets then “conversed” about these six poems via e-mail. Continue reading “New Ohio Review – Spring 2011”

The magazine’s 2010 fiction contest winners open the issue and they are, indeed, award-worthy. Tori Malcangio’s “A History of Heartbeats” is a smartly structured story that plays out the metaphors of heart rate, flight, and the body’s flight from its own heart (anorexia) in a heartbreaking story of substance (body) and soul (flight). Short-short fiction winner Darren Morris follows—in a stroke of editorial genius—with “The Weight of the World,” with its appealing and insightful narrator (“When you’re a kid the summer lasts forever, and that summer lasted two lifetimes.”). Short-shorts by honorable mention recipients Edith Pearlman, Jendi Reiter, and Thomas Yori are also terrific examples of the short-short genre. Their work is well matched by fiction from another 14 writers; nonfiction from 6 contributors; and 50 pages of poetry, including poems by the ubiquitous Bob Hicok, and 6 marvelous poems by Traci Brimhall. Continue reading “Passages North -Winter/Spring 2011”

PMS poemmemoirstory is so good that the journal’s already-annoying title becomes extra irksome. Continue reading “PMS poemmemoirstory – 2010”

A Public Space publishes lots of up and coming literary stars and this issue seems particularly packed. A swift survey of the bios gleans that only one of the contributing writers in this issue is sans book, while the others have a title or two in print or one forthcoming from a major house or a well-respected small press. With regards to A Public Space, amateurs need not apply. Continue reading “A Public Space – 2011”

This entertaining lit mag changes its homepage fortnightly, updates its archives monthly, and issues a print edition yearly. They offer poetry and flash fiction and they read year-round. They also have audio poems presented online for those who like to hear poetry read aloud. Continue reading “Raleigh Review – 2011”

California State University’s student-edited journal Watershed is cohesive in its content and approachable in its length. This collection of poetry, prose and photography centers itself around recollections of childhood and of family, bringing the past and present together—illustrating through apt detail the way people live, work and connect with one another. While slim, only 66 pages, it shouldn’t be rushed. Continue reading “Watershed – 2009”

Women Arts Quarterly launches its slender first issue with poetry by Julia Gordon-Bramer and Kelli Allen, a novel excerpt by Jacinda Townsend, nonfiction by Beth McConaghy, an interview with violist Kim Kashkashian, artwork by Ellen Baird and Vanessa Woods, and a music review. The journal “aspires to nurture, provide support, and challenge women of all cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and abilities in their role in the arts and seeks to heighten awareness and understanding of the achievements of women creators, providing audiences with historical and contemporary examples of the work of women writers, composers, and artists.” The inclusion of work about and by composers is unusual and does distinguish WAQ from other publications. Continue reading “WomenArts Quarterly Journal – 2011”

Brenda Mann Hammack’s poem “Little Hermit Sphinx” exemplifies this journal’s approach, strengths, and unique contribution to contemporary letters. The poem begins: “strings moon moths on thread. So much gauzier than horse-flies, / but not so illicit as eagle feathers.” Provocative syntax; risky images; the exuberant fracture of expectations—these are the hallmarks of A Cappella Zoo and Issue 6 is no exception. Here is the opening of short fiction from J.S. Khan, “Someone Must Stop the Bonapartists!”: “Alas, it is upon us: the most dire cataclysm to befall the Earth since the Late Heavy Bombardment—there are too many Napoleons!” Continue reading “A Cappella Zoo – Spring 2011”

“Poetry on tap,” is this journal’s tagline. But who needs booze when there are poets like Jane Mead? I was thrilled to find her here as I have loved her work since her first (watery, in fact) book, and she did not disappoint in “Dust and Rumble”:

Continue reading “Alehouse – 2010”

“This is how it ends.” That’s the first line of a poem by Jess Wigent. Could there be a more wonderful beginning? I love it. I don’t necessarily understand it, but I love it. That’s my overall assessment of the issue—weird endings and beginnings I find compelling and exciting and often perfect, even though I don’t necessarily always understand them or believe I can explain them or even know what genre I’m reading. Wigent’s piece, “This One Thing Truly Makes,” is a marvelous prose poem/story with visual complements of post-it-note/memo style fragments. It’s the idea itself of “what truly makes” that makes the journal appealing, the search for essential meaning. Continue reading “Caketrain – 2010”

With its generous letter-sized pages alone, Camas evokes the open space of the West. This winter issue includes stunning outdoor black-and-white photography, much of it full page, by David Estrada, Doug Davis, Doug Connelly, and others. Between these images is woven a collection of poetry and essays celebrating the many facets of nature and how we humans interact with it. Continue reading “Camas – Winter 2010”