Prairie Schooner – Summer 2005

One of the standards, Prairie Schooner has published worthy prose and poetry for seventy-seven years, and this issue’s four stories, five reviews, and work by thirty-eight poets may be so described. The highlight for me is Ron Hansen’s “Wilde in Omaha,” in which the narrator, a local reporter, spends a few hours in Wilde’s witty, but taxing, company and experiences the truth (at least, for his lectures) of the Punch pronouncement: “The poet is Wilde. But his poetry’s tame.” There are poems and stories here of which Wilde would approve; not half bad—Rita Mae Reese’s “My Summer in Vulcan,” on catching the eye of an older sister’s boyfriend; Lon Otto’s “What Is Son?” – the question to ask if learning to dance on a rooftop in Havana; and a story of bitter betrayal, “Wooden Fish” by Matt Freidson. One of the standards, Prairie Schooner has published worthy prose and poetry for seventy-seven years, and this issue’s four stories, five reviews, and work by thirty-eight poets may be so described. The highlight for me is Ron Hansen’s “Wilde in Omaha,” in which the narrator, a local reporter, spends a few hours in Wilde’s witty, but taxing, company and experiences the truth (at least, for his lectures) of the Punch pronouncement: “The poet is Wilde. But his poetry’s tame.” There are poems and stories here of which Wilde would approve; not half bad—Rita Mae Reese’s “My Summer in Vulcan,” on catching the eye of an older sister’s boyfriend; Lon Otto’s “What Is Son?” – the question to ask if learning to dance on a rooftop in Havana; and a story of bitter betrayal, “Wooden Fish” by Matt Freidson. Lee Martin’s entertaining “People Always Going To,” left me wondering. And then the shock of recognition in “Wow” by William Trowbridge: “‘Wow,’ we said, / cocking our heads and hooking / our thumbs in the pockets of our Levi’s / like the transparent image of that coolest / of traffic fatalities, James Dean. ‘Man.'” [www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm] – Anna Sidak