NewPages Blog :: Magazine Reviews

This issue of Inkwell contains a batch of strong short stories, many of which focus on the female psyche. Besides a couple lapses into a male’s perspective in the opening story by Alethea Black, Peter Selggin’s novel excerpt and Anthony Roesch’s “Two Good Dogs,” the remainder of the stories are told about females or from a female’s point of view. These stories are not necessarily feminist; many simply deal with problems often attributed as “female issues”: Kathryn Henion’s “Translating Silence” with jealously; Amy Ralston Seife’s “What We Do” with depression; Edward Kelsey Moore’s “Ruth and the Beer” and Susi Klare’s “Cosmo” with unhealthy attachment; and Melissa Palladino’s “Spring Cleaning” with guilt (among other issues). Continue reading “Inkwell – Spring 2007”

With this issue, Fourteen Hills has captured at least one more subscriber for itself. Both the fiction and the poetry are innovative and powerful. This is business as usual, judging by previous reviews here on NewPages. In “Population One” by Don Waters, winner of the 2007 Iowa Short Fiction Award, we find a story Cormac McCarthy might write if he wrote short fiction. As a trip through the murderous heat of the desert turns disastrous for the two main characters, we are reminded of how the innocent and the guilty are each a little bit of both, and, in the end, chained to the same fate. John Henry Fleming contributes to this issue with his beautiful and mysterious story entitled “Cloud Reader.” The cloud reader, a humbly Socratic, Christ-like figure, struggles not to betray his convictions when instead he could take the easy way out. This is after the townspeople turn against him only days after they sought (and even paid for) a prophetic word from the mysterious wanderer. Continue reading “Fourteen Hills – Summer/Fall 2007”

Making good on its name, Dislocate does not identify genres, leaving it to the reader to discern each work. The second print issue features the usual suspects – poetry, fiction, essays, interviews – as well as a one-act play by Monica Hill and reprinted poems by John Berryman. One story, “Double Concerto” by Robert Wexelblatt, is ideally suited to the issue’s format, as it uses a point-of-view shift to play with genre expectations. Other prose offerings are more straight-ahead but no less rewarding, especially Michael Sower’s essay “Writing Notes: the Chateau and the Chalkboard,” about a different kind of dislocation: that of moving from lawyering to writing and teaching poetry. Continue reading “Dislocate – 2006”

Prose poetry is a genre I was introduced to a year ago when reading poetry by James Galvin. His poems intrigued me and forced me to ask what the definition of prose poetry really is. The guest editor of CUE’s thin volume (the entire journal can fit snugly into the pocket of my fall coat), Jason Zuzga, defines it as being the “self in process […] in prose proper […] something like Montaigne thinking on the page in an essay.” His words are an apt description for the prose poetry in this volume. On an initial glance at the form of these seventeen poems, some look like carefully placed lines of free verse and others appear almost as stream of consciousness paragraphs. On further inspection, all contain writers’ detailed observations – though maybe not quite as astute as Montaigne’s – on the visible universe that enlightens the invisible thoughts and emotions. Continue reading “CUE – Winter 2007”

I’ve recently begun teaching in the inner-city, so I thought I might find reading material for my freshman from the Bronx Biannual: The Journal of Urbane Urban Literature. Although I soon discovered that the explicit content guaranteed that these weren’t stories I’d casually give fourteen-year-old students, this issue contains great reading for the more mature reader. Continue reading “Bronx Biannual – Number 2”

If you’re looking for writing that skirts, tunnels under, or transcends the ordinary, open any issue of The Bitter Oleander. Beyond any other criterion, this journal prefers provocative work – work that engenders a change in the mind of the reader, whether that change involves heightened sociopolitical awareness, or simply a gorgeous revolution of one’s perception of words and sound. Indeed, the best indicator of The Bitter Oleander’s character may be the uncompromising language found on nearly every page. Consider a sampling of lines from this issue’s poetry selections: “Your face breaks open to light” (Jacob Russell, “The Sea Bandits”); “the incarnate heart in your mouth pricks you” (Estrella del Valle, “My Room and Justine”); “Every morning the sun rises behind the guardhouses / wearing filthy hospital pajamas” (Titos Patrikios, “Habits of the Detainees,” in translation from the Greek). The short fiction offers similar raw intensity in lines like these from “Tale of a Long Winter” byAllen Kesten: “She remembered standing on her head after she had cut away the skin from her thighs, rivulets of blood running down her body and drying like prison bars on her torso.” Continue reading “The Bitter Oleander – Spring 2007”

The issue contains both poems that address current events and poems with timeless themes. The best poems, as often happens, combine both the relevant and the timeless aspects. Bob Hicok, a professor at Virginia Tech, writes such poems, their main focus his silent student who became a killer: “[…]the code for language= / sight. Even now, I go back and listen / to what he was saying by not saying, I look / at my memory of the unsounding / […]but there’s nothing, no knob of sound” (“Mute”). After describing the particular murderer, he asks the general question that all witnesses ask: “why did this happen,” – a common enough question in the aftermath of any tragedy, but poignant nonetheless because no one has yet given a satisfactory answer. Susan Stewart’s response to another massacre – this one in the Amish community – is to use the victims’ names as a refrain throughout her poem. Continue reading “The American Poetry Review – Sept/Oct 2007”

Ruminate publishes “work that accounts for the grappling pleas, as well as the quiet assurances of an authentic faith.” They mean Christian faith, but you don’t have to be a Christian to enjoy the thought-provoking poetry and prose in the current issue. Continue reading “Ruminate – Summer 2007”

To my mind (and perhaps those of women all over America), the acronym PMS as it appears boldly on the journal cover arouses thoughts of the combination of discomforts women experience at a certain time of the lunar cycle. So why, when it would have been so simple to scramble the letters into other combinations, is this quality journal called PMS? Title aside, there is much to appreciate in this review, which exclusively features women’s works and is divided evenly between the three genres. Continue reading “PMS poemmemoirstory – 2007”

The extremely high quality of the very first issue of Minnetonka Review – a varied, 170 pages of short-stories, poetry, non-fiction and an excerpt of a novel and interview of the author – is set at the very beginning. My breath was taken away by Robin Lippincott’s “Hibakuska (August 6, 1945)” from his novel, In the Meantime. The excerpt is from Japan shortly after the dropping of the first A-bomb – and Lippincott manages to make us believe he was there, and a native. It is so gripping, I was ashamed of being an American as I read of the destruction wrought there as told through the poetic, fatalistic eyes of a young Japanese man. Continue reading “Minnetonka Review – Summer 2007”

Luna, which is just the right size to conveniently slip into a purse, offers up multiple works by such poets as Mark Conway, Sara McCallum, Dobby Gibson, Rigoberto Gonzáles, and Crystal Williams, among others. The editors’ preference is for free verse, some so free, in fact, as to cross the boundary into prose. For example, Denise Duhamel’s “You’re Looking at the Love Interest” is a wonderful anecdote set on the page to look like a poem. And while the most basic requisite of a poem is that length of the line be determined by the content, I gravitate toward verse that uses a variety of poetic devices. Continue reading “Luna – Spring 2007”

For most of us in the U.S., “haiku” conjures memories of fourth grade teachers, 5-7-5 syllable counts, and the camaraderie of a bake sale. But, if you read Frogpond: The Journal of the Haiku Society of America, you’d be wrong except for the camaraderie. Continue reading “Frogpond – Spring/Summer 2007”

The Fall 2006 issue of Eclipse is a dark one. Death is the most prevalent subject, followed by tragedy and despair. Not a magazine to be read all in one sitting if you’re susceptible to depression. Taken one at a time, though, the stories and poems here are refreshing and thought-provoking. Continue reading “Eclipse – Fall 2006”

Today at lunch my friend Libby told me about her plans to teach a course in dangerous writing. “You write about the thing that scares you the most,” she explained, “and turn it in to art.” In this issue of Clackamas Literary Review, my favorite pieces were ones that might be categorized as “dangerous.” For example, in Paul Yoon’s story “Lys,” the narrator skids through the precipitous terrain of subtle, taboo desire with his recently deceased father’s French mistress. Jose Skinner’s astonishing fiction, “Counting Coup,” the most provocative piece in this issue and definitely dangerous, cuts as close to the bone as any story can, laying bare an Apache boy’s sexual coming-of-age and subsequent betrayal. And Nancy Mayer’s essay, “Becoming Her Daughter,” honestly and unflinchingly explores the author’s relationship, past and present, with her ailing mother, and her complicated feelings upon her death. Continue reading “Clackamas Literary Review – 2006”

According to the Editor’s Note, this is the first issue of Bayou Magazine from the University of New Orleans to be produced after Hurricane Katrina. The cover features a photograph of Bayou St. John, which flooded during the hurricane. In this context, it’s hard not to see this magazine as a small miracle, a reflection of “both the promise of new beginnings and the determination to persevere,” as editor Joanna Leake writes. Continue reading “Bayou – 2007”

With a name like Aufgabe, I had no idea what to expect from this journal. What I found was a brilliant collection of avant-garde poetry that knocked my socks off. Guest editor Raymond Bianchi explained in the introduction that this issue was chosen to “showcase both established and emerging Brazilian poets,” some whose works are translated here for the first time. Some of the poetry is “Concrete, or visual poetry,” which Bianchi explains “is everywhere in Brazil.” There is no way to explain it except to tell you to look at it, please!  Continue reading “Aufgabe – 2007”

Southern Indiana Review takes geography seriously. Based in a heartland where visions of utopia still color local history, this journal blends a commitment to regional writers with an equal commitment to a broader audience. The resulting volume succeeds on both counts, celebrating a range of largely Midwestern voices within a far-reaching context that is anything but provincial. The variety of genres and forms presented here illuminates SIR’s encompassing aesthetic. Continue reading “Southern Indiana Review – Spring 2007”

This issue of the Santa Monica Review starts off with a bang: a reprint of the speech Ursula LeGuin gave upon receiving the Maxine Cushing Gray Award. Her words are brief and humble, and she insists on accepting the award “as a proxy, a stand-in, for Literature.” The rest of the speech is an engaging description of the power of literature and its role in our society, and as I left this opening piece to make my way through the rest of the magazine, I did so with a renewed sense of awe for the written word. Continue reading “Santa Monica Review – Spring 2007”

Salamander is nothing less than a triumph, a quiet diffusion of luminous work. From the gripping first story, “Evanthia’s Legs” (Henriette Lazaridis Power) to the socially critical insights of the final poems, this issue proves that too many jewels don’t spoil the necklace. Alternating small groups of poems with prose selections, Salamander ensures a fluid reading experience, anchored at the center by the colorful prints of Boston artist Kelvy Bird. The diligence and care of the Salamander editors is evident on every page, as is a commitment to diverse, expansive writing. Continue reading “Salamander – Spring 2007”

This issue of Red Rock Review is packed with words. Fifty-seven poems, six short stories, two interviews, two reviews and one essay all crowd between the covers. While not all of the writing is to my taste, I still found plenty to enjoy. Continue reading “Red Rock Review – Fall 2006”

This issue of Night Train is 175 pages of prose – presumably fiction – with an interview of Chimamanda Ngozi Lockett and an essay on the history of Normal, Illinois. I can’t decipher a theme nor can I give any sweeping summary about this issue. Instead, here’s a list of quotes that represent the variety of stories and voices. “Where a woman might look even beatific with all mouths open, a man – even a handsome man, with a broad jaw, solid chest and a stomach you could use as a spice rack – even that man, masturbating, looks like an imbecile.” That’s from Grant Bailie’s “You Are One Click Away from Pictures of Naked Girls,” whose narrator is more concerned with his clumsiness regarding sex rather than internet porn. Continue reading “Night Train – 2007”

tnr is truly an international journal, featuring in this issue the written work and artwork of people from over a dozen countries. Translations of poems from Bengali, Bosnian, and Spanish sit side by side with original English-language works. Among the poems, which include works by Stephen Todd Booker, Alice Jay, Luis Miguel Aguilar, and others, “This Shooting” by Bosnian writer Marko Vešovi? is particularly compelling. With his translation of Hanns Heinz Ewers’s (1871-1943 ) “Abenteuer in Hamburg,” Don Maurer also gifts Anglophones with the quirky tale of a man obsessed with using the new invention of the era – a mechanical pencil sharpener – to sharpen his cache of “723 almost complete ones, 641 halves, and 379 stumpchens.” Continue reading “The New Renaissance – Spring 2007”

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry,” wrote Emily Dickinson. Continue reading “Lyric – 2006”

The current issue of The Louisville Review contains a fascinating interview with W.S. Merwin. Merwin was a guest author at Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA program in the Fall of 2006. Continue reading “The Louisville Review – Spring 2007”

The Ledge lives up to its name. Unsparing, unafraid, and with a disdain for pretensions, this journal prefers writing that flashes some kind of edge. Sometimes, as in Kennedy Weible’s offbeat story, “Obedience School,” that edge takes the form of dark humor – culminating in the bizarre chaos experienced by a young couple at a dog’s funeral. Other times, that edge illuminates sad realities like child sexual abuse (Suzanne Clores’ “Scary Monsters in the Dark”) or human alienation (Michael Leone, “Bad in Bed”; Franny French, “The Heights.”) Many of the poems concern issues related to the body, sex, and self-destruction. A few, like Philip Dacey’s “Wildly At Home: Her Rhapsody,” skirt lurid borders: “So I mounted him. / I was on top and he was blind – what more / could any modern woman want of power?” Coming from a male poet, this question begs many responses, not all of which will second its vicarious assumptions. Al Sim’s story, “Big Empty Tuesday,” takes similar liberties, needlessly oversexualizing its main female character. Continue reading “The Ledge – Fall/Winter 2007”

Years ago, I was watching a newscast of a California wildfire. Eyewitness news brought me to a refugee shelter, where overfed mountain-people lounged on cots. The newscaster explained that a local Wal-Mart “had responded to the disaster by providing blankets, food, and videocassettes.” This last item shocked me. But did Sarjaevo, symbolic epicenter of modern ethnic cleansing, have the same problem? According to Jakob Finci, Jewish community leader, the city’s most urgent issue during the 1993-5 siege was not a lack of food or medicine, but of stimulation; cooped up indoors, people were, frankly, bored. Apparently Sarjaevans took to learning languages – “the optimists learn[ing] English, the pessimists learn[ing] Arabic.” Habitus, a new journal which takes Diasporic writing one city at a time, consistently discovers the details that separate stimulating journalism from mere recitations. A Korean cover band elicits municipal pride, an anonymous medieval manuscript becomes the nation’s most prized national treasure. Continue reading “Habitus – Spring/Summer 2007”

The Spring issue of American Literary Review provides readers with a rewarding balance of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. It opens with the lyrical poetry of Karen Carissimo whose poem, “Basho’s Death Poem,” culminates with a haunting image of Basho’s final gift to this earth, “his dreams scattered / like seeds over moors of dry grass, / blooming into flags of iris far beyond / the first Spring of his passing.” Another highlight is the poetry of Katie Ford, poetry editor of The New Orleans Review. Included here are excerpts from her recently published chapbook that traces the fallout from Hurricane Katrina: the “guarded city” – “the dead tonnage / of seal lifted and abandoned by the astonished / laws of water,” a “stormed body,” and the dream “the earth was dry / undrowned it could speak again.” Continue reading “American Literary Review – Spring 2007”

Amsterdam – city of hashish, soccer riots, bicycles – city of canals, tall people, and even taller people – continues now to bring us this international literary journal. The word versal means rare or universal as defined on the inside of the superbly designed cover. In this Versal 5 are indeed rare words that will cut edges in your mind. If you seek Versal for the atmospheres of Amsterdam, though, you will be disappointed. Versal is perhaps not the best of international literature, but holds a sure-shot at becoming just that. Continue reading “Versal – 2007”

Smartish Pace is exclusively a journal of free verse poetry. It was a treat to read translations from Hindi – to have, as renowned translator Elliot Weinberger might say, “the news” of a faraway country brought to me through poetry. In Katyayani’s darkly-playful poem, “A Woman Hiding in Language,” a woman seems to disrupt language itself by hiding inside of it, such that, “. . .the dictators / didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. / That day the poets couldn’t play / with words searing as a mass of fire.” Shrikant Verma’s “Hastinapur” reminds me of how anyone might feel about a city or village in times of war or simply rapid change: “Just think / about that person / who comes to Hastinapur / and says: / “No, no this can’t be Hastinapur!” Though the average reader, like myself, probably speaks no Hindi, I thought it would have been illuminating to see the original poems – how they look on the page – as well as a read a translator’s note on the challenges in translating from Hindi to English. I’d have favored fewer poems in the issue to make space for this (several poets have 5-6 poems included). Continue reading “Smartish Pace – 2007”

A new journal appearing both in print and online, Quay offers a crisp collection of fiction, non-fiction and drama. The print issue’s format (almost square) is unusual without trying too hard, and the same is true for the content. One of my favorites among the fiction pieces was J.P. Briggs’s “American Debut,” in which an agent and a producer discuss a starlet called Eva, “the next big icon of a generation,” while “[t]he snakes darted and skimmed in the swimming pool with their arrow heads flexed above the blue water.” I was also impressed with Myfanwy Collins’s “Cowless, Rainbowless,” a sequence of vignettes revealing the narrator’s hurt in nightmarish slow-motion. The beauty of the writing is an almost perfidious contrast to the narrator’s pain and loneliness. Completely different in style: Scott Humfeld’s “Capt. Spaulding and the Missing Motor,” a tale set in the Peruvian jungle, delivered with the authority and wit of first-hand experience. Continue reading “Quay – May/June 2007”

The 30th Anniversary Issue of Quarterly West is, from cover to cover, consistently and astonishingly good. This issue features AWP Intro Award Winners in fiction and poetry, and the Writers@Work Fellowship Award Winners in nonfiction and poetry. It opens with two stories that examine moments of grace: Steve Almond’s short-short “Phoenix” in which a john is redeemed by a thieving hooker, and Quan Berry’s story “Daily at the Gate of the Temple Which is Called Beautiful,” which, with just its title, promises to deliver us to a hallowed place, perhaps even to offer a moment of transcendence. I tried to decide what other of the six remaining stories to mention in this review, and could only come to this: you should read them all. The Writers at Work award-winning nonfiction piece, “16 Doors” by Brenda Sieczkowski, is structured in 16 numbered segments, each a door into the author’s memory and dreams, traveling from ancient China to modern-day Vermont, examining everything from family genealogy to cell structure. Continue reading “Quarterly West – Fall/Winter 2006/2007”

If you think that high school poetry and fiction tends to be clever and stocked self-consciously with modifiers, you could be at least partly right, but if you passed up Polyphony H.S., you’d be missing a whole lot. Continue reading “Polyphony H.S. – 2007”

With The Missouri Review now accepting e-mail submissions, who can say what masterpieces will now arrive; although this issue seems to have been assembled without that benefit, it is an intriguing collection. In addition to slaking my thirst for good fiction – stories by Jacob M. Appel, Erica Johnson Debeljak, Rachel Swearingen, and others – the contents include essays, poetry, and an interview with the disarmingly honest David Sedaris: “I’m not apolitical; I just don’t consider myself an original thinker, [. . .] I’m more the kind of person who might read something and then try to pass it off as my own.” Continue reading “The Missouri Review – Spring 2007”

It devours you, it challenges you. The fiction in The MacGuffin has muscle. The poetry can take you places in a few simple stanzas, with no visible effort. Such craftsmanship is hard to come by. Continue reading “The MacGuffin – Winter 2007”

My personal favorite among this issue’s stories, Mary Slowik’s “Teeth,” takes the storyteller’s doctrine (dig where it hurts) to a brilliantly literal level. In her atmospheric, sinister story, the narrator, a dentist’s daughter, watches her father fix an exposed nerve: “The nerve waved blindly on the point of the probe. It reminded me of a single larva separated from its teeming kin, the heaving masses in our compost pile, the rows of soft grubs lined up in our beehives at home. And yet, I knew this tiny thread contained the most quivering pain.” All the pain hiding inside all the teeth (false teeth, hidden teeth…the theme connecting the story’s sections) erupts in a single, intense moment. Wow. Continue reading “The Iowa Review – Spring 2007”

Insolent Rudder is an online magazine publishing flash fiction and very short “relatively” plotted stories of “no more than 1113 words.” The stories in the current issue oscillate between the comical and the poetic, and almost all of them are perfect illustrations of the condensed observations typical of flash – those seemingly effortless “pow!” moments that pack a lot of truth into very few words. From Jamie Lin’s Sequence of micros, “Falling Uphill”: “She was the round, shiny apple. I was the rotten tomato with too many weaknesses.” From Liesl Jobson’s “Ashram”: “I kneel before him, bending to kiss his instep. He loved it before when I sucked his toes. We must wait for the guru, he says, pushing me away.” From Bosley Gravel’s “The Bone Tree”: “Mother said they buried him deep that autumn, and she imagined him frozen in the earth waiting for spring like a fresh seed as the snow blew the last of the orange leaves.” Continue reading “Insolent Rudder – Summer 2007”

The oversize High Desert Journal is a seductive collection of prose, poetry, art, and ambience. Michael P. Berman’s photography – introduced by Charles Bowden’s essay, “Under a Dry Moon”: “You learn to love the white light of midday in June when everything is flattened by the molten energy of the sun.” Continue reading “High Desert Journal – Spring 2007”

I have carried Forklift, Ohio on my person at all times for the last month. Aside from revealing that I’m a nerd, this also indicates that Forklift is the perfect accessory for any engagement (poetry is this season’s trendy clutch). It’s dense (70 poems in 146 pages), and fantastic for show and tell with like-minded nerdy writer-types. Continue reading “Forklift, Ohio – Winter 2007”

When considering how to describe Diner, some words that come to mind are grit, greasy spoon, kitsch (in the irresistible way of roadside diners, Frida Kahlo) and funky. From the dark blue cover with its diner photos (table and chairs in front of a window reading “breakfast, lunch, dinner”; juke box; cherry pie; Bunn coffee maker) to a variety of poems and stories, many of which seem unlikely to find homes in more conventional journals, this issue of Diner made me nostalgic for things I didn’t know I missed. Continue reading “Diner – 2006”

The word for Issue 44 of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art – Refreshing! In addition to the work of seventeen poets and four artists, the artistic layout and high quality construction contributes to the attractive overall effect. Continue reading “Columbia – Spring/Summer 2007”

The title Cave Wall might hearken back to days of Neanderthals and primitive times, but don’t be fooled: this literary magazine contains highly sophisticated, polished poetry. Still, it’s deep, not posh – it manages to touch you in a primeval sort of way – the way you want poetry to. The elegant blue vine on the white cover of this smallish collection gives a more accurate overall impression of its refinement than the title. Continue reading “Cave Wall – Winter 2007”

Brilliant Corners, “A Journal of Jazz and Literature” celebrates its tenth anniversary with this Summer 2007 issue, featuring numerous tributes to the late Whitney Balliet as well as poems, interviews and children’s poetry about jazz. For those like me wholly unfamiliar with The New Yorker jazz critic Balliet, you may be disappointed with the narrow scope of the journal. Continue reading “Brilliant Corners – Summer 2007”

Ah, yes. Ugly Duckling Presse presents the most fashionable, talented and prescient poetry zine-journal of its time. That is, it will continue to advance the presentation and readability of great poetry. This is 6×6 at its most solid and diverse. Each poet in here is unique, touching and ingenious. Consider the first sentence of the first poem, which also appears on the cover, by Evan Willner: “If all tagalong creation insists on being.” A great enigmatic phrase of lucid abstraction.  Continue reading “6×6 – Spring 2007”

Long before highbrow carpetbaggers followed the Silicon Valley free-market bubble west to begin San Francisco’s literary “reconstruction,” there was Howard Junker, the cantankerous eccentric who started Zyzzyva from scratch and clawed his way to a position where he could tell Thomas Pynchon’s agent to call Thomas Pynchon bad names. An original do-it-yourselfer, Junker reads every submission that comes through the transom; provides the email addresses of his contributors; even maintains one of the most informative literary blogs on the net. Junker’s reaction to foreign incursion, after several infamous softball skirmishes, has been exceptionally Southern: namely, he has continued publishing Zyzzyva almost exactly as before. Continue reading “ZYZZYVA – Spring 2007”

Though Yellow Medicine County in southwest Minnesota is home to the native Dakota People, the first issue of Yellow Medicine Review includes artists indigenous to places as distant as Papua, New Guinea and Australia. It’s expected that a journal with “Indigenous” in its title would have considerable negative references to the colonizing culture. As with most white American mutts – lineage too mixed to be certain of anything – I have enough Indian blood to be an embarrassment to the indigenous. Regardless of my whiteness, as a reader, the strongest pieces in this journal were not the ones condemning the past but those expressing the Indigenous experience as it is now. Continue reading “Yellow Medicine Review – Spring 2007”

Two short stories in this issue of Sou’wester just knock me out: April Line’s “What It Would Be Like To Have a Baby With a Turnip” and Patricia Brieschke’s “Eat!” Both feature ordinary women as protagonists and both cover themes done before: the experience of pregnancy (Turnip) and self-starvation (Eat). Continue reading “Sou’wester – Fall 2006”

The Southern Review prides itself on excellence, on not letting the reader off the hook. This issue has three essays on “Mind and Metaphor,” none of which are an easy task to read, partly because each of will unsettle your preconceived notions of those two abstract concepts. Continue reading “The Southern Review – Spring 2007”

In a world of the increasingly gritty, beyond-experimental, post-post-modern and devil-may-care, The Sewanee Review feels almost old-fashioned in its emphasis on clarity, craftsmanship, and quality. It was a treat to carry it around with me, leave it beside my bed, and, before falling asleep underline stand-out bits of analysis in critical essays. Christopher Clausen’s “From the Mountain to the Monsters” intrigued me from the opening lines: “Take nature as your moral guide, and before long you find yourself haunted by nightmares of monsters. The relation between cosmic nature and human ethical conduct was the most important intellectual problem of the nineteenth century.” Continue reading “The Sewanee Review – Spring 2007”

Poetry East is a 220-page journal containing nothing but poetry and contributors’ notes. The journal often publishes theme issues, past themes including post-war Italian poetry, Finnish poetry, and issues dedicated entirely to Robert Bly, Muriel Rukeyser, and “Ammons/Bukowski/Corman.” I’d like to get my hands on some of those past issues. The current issue has no purported theme, but a majority of the poems would fit well with the past issue “Praise,” (Poetry East has actually published a Praise I and a Praise II) or with the forthcoming issue, “Bliss.” I don’t mean to suggest that I don’t care for praising or blissful poems, but this relatively thick journal seemed to me, taken as a whole, a bit too even in tone. A good many of the poems could have pushed the envelope a little more. Continue reading “Poetry East – Spring 2007”