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Third Coast – Spring 2004

Issue 18

Spring 2004

Weston Cutter

Consistently one of the best, cleanest-looking, most affordable and most interesting literary magazines, Third Coast seems incapable of ever making a bad move. If you go to it for your fix of Bob Hicok, for example, you might get distracted by a story by Kieth Banner – lines like “I love her like you might love a stubbed toe if the rest of your body was numb.”

Consistently one of the best, cleanest-looking, most affordable and most interesting literary magazines, Third Coast seems incapable of ever making a bad move. If you go to it for your fix of Bob Hicok, for example, you might get distracted by a story by Kieth Banner – lines like “I love her like you might love a stubbed toe if the rest of your body was numb.” Ryan Van Cleave and Ptim Callanboth have short-short stories in here that are as good as you’ll find anywhere, and the poetry is consistently wonderful. From Western Michigan University, out of Kalamazoo, this magazine seems to actually go a long way toward defining and clarifying a certain aesthetic, one that’s neither rigorously formal nor wildly inventive simply for inventiveness’ sake. The work in Third Coast, over and over, is excellent, engaging work that does the hardest of things quite well: each piece is its own piece, following its own rules and fulfilling its own needs. Deborah Landau’s poetry can precede Myron Hardy’s, and both sets of poetry are fantastic in their own ways—stanza’d or un-/metered or otherwise, more language or more image focused. And in what may be most shocking: the book reviews in the back are always fantastic, and in this latest issue inclue a review of another literary magazine – Orchid Literary Review. An incredible magazine, always worth double the necessary $6. [Third Coast, Department of English, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331. E-mail: [email protected]. Single issue $6. http://www.wmich.edu/thirdcoast/] – WC

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