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NewPages Blog

At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!

Hollywood and Hitler

In a period in which propaganda has largely reduced the artistic and entertainment validity of the screen in many other countries, it is pleasant to report that American motion pictures continue to be free from any but the highest possible entertainment purpose . . . Propaganda disguised as entertainment has no place on the American screen. Continue reading “Hollywood and Hitler”

The Pastor’s Wife Considers Pinball

In Nola Garrett’s second collection, The Pastor’s Wife Considers Pinball, the speaker considers many things in addition to the classic game she imagines in the ten-part title poem. That long poem, organized into ten “games,” covers a lot of ground on its own: from the clear evocation of place early on in “Game 1” when Garrett writes “Here in the Rust Belt // our schools are all rules, our sons play air / guitar, // wait for the army recruiter”; to personal stories of grandfathers, friends, and neighbors; to contemplations of tragedy (“When an airplane crashes, / no one blames the sky” in “Game 2”) and God (described in “Game 5” as a “deist clockmaker”). Pinball, throughout the long poem, serves as both subject of the poem and metaphor for life: Continue reading “The Pastor’s Wife Considers Pinball”

Birth Marks

A poet of the working-class and city streets, Jim Daniels’s fourteenth poetry collection travels from Detroit to Ohio to Pittsburgh, from one post-industrial city to another, across jobs and generations. Daniels focuses on the urban landscape and its effects on its inhabitants as they struggle to establish community on streets hissing with distrust and random violence. Continue reading “Birth Marks”

The Story of a New Name

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante is the second volume of a trilogy. It is a novel of a complex friendship between two women, Lenú and Lila, that goes forward with intellectual intimacy, competition, loyalty, anger, and excruciating love. In the first book of this series, My Brilliant Friend, Lenú, in her sixties, learns that Lila has disappeared. She recreates their girlhood sharing fairytale dreams to escape a post-war Neapolitan neighborhood bleeding from fatalism and old betrayals. Lila, risk-taker and quick study, and Lenú the striver carry on friendly competition in school. Lenú is allowed to continue her education while Lila is compelled to work with her shoemaker father. Lenú begins rigorous secondary studies. Lila pulls herself into middle-class comfort at sixteen by marrying an ambitious grocer. The second book picks up at this point. Continue reading “The Story of a New Name”

Cloud vs. Cloud

Language let loose: in Cloud vs. Cloud, Ethan Paquin gives us the poet as a fleeting point. His universe is one of words—not a social universe, not the natural world. We are in the quickness of thought, of seeing at the level of language. The author is talking to himself, bending language to a penetrating look at the surface, a surface that bounces him back. All is surface, including his own experience: “What is known, nothing . . . nothing can be articulated.” Continue reading “Cloud vs. Cloud”

The Cranberry Island Series

The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson continue to inspire, by way of example, many off-shoot projects by poets who came after. Olson’s intimately grand gesture was scooping the local, immediate concerns of Gloucester, Massachusetts onto the historical and mythic world stage, while devoutly insisting the context remain personal. This gave both the permission and encouragement for numerous similar endeavors by poets seeking to weave broad, historical scope into autobiographical material. The most successful of these projects are ones similar to Donald Wellman’s Cranberry Island Series, where the poet steers clear of overly emulating Olson’s work (in terms of the “projective” form it takes across the page) and person. Wellman creates a work shaped according to its own needs assuming a form wholly its own. Continue reading “The Cranberry Island Series”

Soul in Space

Soul in Space by Noelle Kocot challenges its readers. Within the first few poems, I recognized Kocot wasn’t going to provide footholds to guide me through her words of whimsy, which hint and glimpse at an uncharted world. I fought for meaning and felt lost in space; I surrendered to the experience, and suddenly Kocot’s vividity sang from the pages. Continue reading “Soul in Space”

Giving Thanks: “Call for Submission” by Daniel Bosch

For your holiday reading pleasure, a poem that was gifted to NewPages by writer Daniel Bosch. He shared it with us as a thank you for the work we do here, and I was so impressed and intrigued by it, I asked his permission to publish it here. He agreed and also responded to my request to provide some background on his writing and this piece in particular; his commentary follows the poem. For the kindness and generosity of the many readers and writers who appreciate our work, NewPages gives our thanks!

Call for Submission
by Daniel Bosch

This issue embraces the world of beasts
Through new fiction, poetry, and creative
Nonfiction about the nonhuman creatures
With whom we share the world. The works we publish
Fit various overlapping styles, including
Absurdist, uncanny, fabulist, cross-genre,
Experimental, bizarro, modern fairy tale,
Post-colonial, post-gender, and activist
Writing, new weird, surreal, fantastic, etc.
We want your formally inventive fiction.
Stretch the limits of words and thoughts. We look for
Savvy, sharp, well-polished literature
That captures life in a post-natural world.
The combined terms magic realism +
Slipstream illustrate the range of our stories
Along a spectrum between modern reality
And the imagined. Contact us with interview
Suggestions and other creative goodness.
Send us your spiny, your sharp, your relentless;
We want work coursing with energy and
Able to thrive in the harshest of places,
All while maintaining a vulnerable,
Succulent interior. We are looking for
Elegantly written fiction and poetry
Where the heart of the story lies within
Words shared in conversations between lovers,
Friends, strangers or even enemies.
The guidelines provide submission word lengths
And how to submit by email, but not
How to rotate your head 360 degrees
Or carrot recipes (not yet anyway).
Avoid overt or preachy messages.
Make us swoon. Look, we’ve got eclectic tastes here.
Don’t be afraid to submit works that defy
Form or genre. Show us what it means to exist
In an ecosystem, a biosphere.
The theme of the issue you can interpret
In any way. Review our guidelines where
You can also find details on our anagram
Contest. Submissions may be about artists,
Art genres, the idea of art, the making
Of art, being an artist, creativity,
Inspiration, etc. We cannot
Pay you, but if it makes you feel better,
We’re not getting paid, either. Inspire us.
Our only real requirement: Make our
Souls ache. Give us hope. And we want it now.

“Call for Submission” is a cento. The term comes from the Latin cento, “a cloak made of patches.” The Latin is derived from the Greek κέντρων. In the Greek literary world, centos were mainly composed by verses taken from Homer. In contemporary practice, these patched together poems follow the classical model in that they are usually assembled from poems the cento-maker believes are good, and that his audience might recognize.

“Call for Submission,” is made of language I culled from NewPages’ Calls For Submission section on May 8, 2013. I am very grateful for the good service NewPages provides to writers who seek to publish their work; the site makes a difficult task much easier. Yet my writing is so animated by a desire to play—and the work it takes to get poems published is painful “work” by comparison—that I know that when I composed “Call for Submission,” I was to let my impulse to play overtake a much weaker impulse to perform

I take seriously the work I produce when I play. In my cento, I mix “high” forms with “low” content to emphasize irony that inheres in the language of Calls For Submission; for an artist, there is some irony even in any response to the command, “submit.” I made very few alterations to the patches I’ve used, because I wanted my cento to be an accurate record of how writers speak to themselves in a professional organ such as NewPages. This mirror accuracy, I hope, supports how “Call for Submission” functions as satire: too much of the language of Calls For Submission is trite, puffed up, and (I think unintentionally) silly. And part of the point of the poem is its own over-stuffed too-muchness.

Yet I have tried very hard to make audible and legible in “Call for Submission” how that very same language may be pure-hearted in its aspiration to excellence and its enthusiasm for the art and craft of writing. Ancient Greek cento-makers knew that their audience would recall bits of Homer they had culled; I hope that the NewPages writer/reader of my poem will recognize the simultaneity of its twin strands of language—the ridiculous and the sincere. It is to such simultaneity we submit whenever we do the work it takes to send writing to a magazine or press. It is to such simultaneity we submit whenever we take play with language seriously.

Daniel Bosch’s poems, essays, translations, and book reviews appear in many magazines and journals that use NewPages’ Calls For Submission.

Nimrod Literary Awards 2013

Nimrod‘s latest issue features the winners from their Literary Awards for 2013, under the issue theme “Hunger & Thirst.” Winners were selected from among 560 poetry manuscripts and 406 short stories.

The Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry

FIRST PRIZE: Sarah Crossland, “Safranschou” and other poems

SECOND PRIZE: Lynn Shoemaker, “In My Native Home” and other poems

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Don Judson, “Chemo” and other poems
Daniel Lusk, “Weights and Measures” and other poems
Julie Taylor, “Hungry Lake” and other poems

The Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction

FIRST PRIZE: Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, “Boys on the Moskva River”

SECOND PRIZE: Jacob Appel, “Paracosmos”

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Roberta Haas George, “A Small Fortune”
John Haggerty, “The Last Detail”
Alison Moore, “Safe House”

See a list of finalists and semi-finalists here.

Book Covers :: Picks of the Week :: November 21, 2013

After a brief hiatus, we’re back with more interesting book covers:

Bite Down Little Whisper, poetry by Don Domanski, Brick Books

 

 From “Ars Magica”:

Quietude is called returning to life Lao Tze says
even on a Tuesday afternoon in Nova Scotia
even with the hood ornaments of chocolate irises
gleaming outward from their arterial darkness
with the unborn standing high up in the trees
                                  like cemetery angels
one finger pointing to heaven    the other to earth

Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea, poetry by Renee Ashley, Subito Press

 
 

from the book’s title poem:

But you too know this: the wanting to be what you cannot—except by extension—and the bearing of those secrets so immeasurable not even an ocean can conceal them And in the ocean’s failure the mountain shows its hard side its watershed steep with its varied waves of not-sea its gravities and declivities its runnels its hummings and echoes vaulting against the inner ear a passel of unruly birds against a pearled tympan . . .

The Everyday Parade/Alone With Turntable, Old Records, poetry chapbook by Justin Hamm, Crisis Chronicles Press

After reading Justin Hamm’s The Everyday Parade, flip the chapbook over and take in its B side, Alone With Turntable, Old Records. (The image above shows the front and back covers.)

From “The Everyday Parade”:

She helps him swap out
the fuel pump
for one from the junkyard
delivered by goateed uncle
on motorbike,
and all afternoon they sit uptown,
a pair of grease-covered gearheads
in the white sunshine,
watching the long slow procession
of the Everyday Parade.

 
 

We’ll be back with more book covers after Thanksgiving…happy holidays!

NOON Returns Online

Editor Philip Rowland welcomes writers and readers back “to the online continuation of NOON: journal of the short poem. Published in hand-sewn, limited editions between 2004 and 2009, the journal aimed to put some of the most interesting English-language haiku in conversation with other innovative short poetry. Each issue was designed to be read as a sequence of poems, with one per page and the authors’ names given only in an index.” Returning from its hiatus, Rowland writes, “The new series will appear online, two or three times a year, with the journal’s style of presentation being retained as far as possible. A selection of poems from the online issues will be published in printed book form every other year.” Submission are currently being accepted, and we here at NewPages certainly look forward to the return of NOON!

Editorial Changes at The Southern Review

A note in the latest issue of The Southern Review says that Cara Blue Adams announced her leave from the magazine this summer to pursue writing and teaching. “We wish her well in those and all other regards,” the editors write. They also note that she had selected the prose for issues through summer 2014 and should be recognized as having done such. “For this Louisiana-style lagniappe from a Vermont native, then, and for many other things, we thank her even as we bid her farewell.”

Making a Short Story Collection

In her essay, “It Is All Ours to Make,” Laura van den Berg writes about the short story collection. She begins: “In my early days of writing stories, I somehow came to operate under the following assumption: whenever you amassed 200 pages worth of fiction, your work would undergo a miraculous transformation into a book.” And when she is disappointed by the results, she notes, “A big part of my problem was that I was attempting to write a collection without having read very many collections.”

Now, having successfully published two short story collections (and read many, many more), van den Berg comments, “One of the greatest joys of story collections is the way each one can operate entirely on its own terms. . . The stories are micro-worlds but are contained by an overarching fictional universe, the parts inseparable from the whole.”

Read her full essay and others in the most recent issue of Glimmer Train Bulletin (#82), a free publication of craft essays from authors published in Glimmer Train Stories.

Cartography with a Twist

The Antioch Review‘s latest issue boasts a special theme, “Cartography with a Twist.” In an editor’s note, Robert S. Fogarty writes, “Our authors have shown great industry also and even greater imagination in depicting their varied worlds, as they perceive them through others and in travel to places as diverse as India, Dublin, Ireland, Richmond, Virginia, the interior of a therapist’s office (Boston), a college town (Iowa City), or the White House (that is D.C.). involving a planned liaison that ran afoul of a national crisis. There are some great tales here, some memorable characters, and a deep appreciation for the varieties of human experience that are to be found just around the corner or continents away.”

The issue includes work by Ken Bode, Thomas J. Cottle, Bruce Fleming, Patricia Foster, Molly Haskell, James Marcus, Maureen McCoy, Peter Blickle, Kirk Nesset, Keven Ducey, Brandon Krieg, Joseph Harrison, and many more.

The Richard Brautigan Collection from Poet Joanne Kyger

Offered by Granary Books, The Richard Brautigan Collection features “an extraordinary archive of original artwork, inscribed books, rare ephemera and magazines, photographs, typescripts and more” from long-time friend and writer Joanne Kyger. Available on the website is an introduction, selected highlights from the collection with brief notes, and a collection listing. This alone is worth the visit for Brautigan fans. Those interested in the collection can contact Granary Books for more information and a price.

Fellowship for Jewish Scholars and Writers

The Posen Foundation is pleased to announce the Posen Society of Fellows’ second year; an international cohort of emerging scholars whose work deals with Jewish subject matter. Each of the six winning fellows will receive $40,000 over two years, and the opportunity to attend an annual gathering led by prestigious scholars and writers.

The Posen Foundation is now soliciting applications for the 2014-2016 class of Fellows. They welcome applications from doctoral students writing their dissertations on subjects related to modern Jewish history and culture. All applicants should have completed their exams before April 1, 2014 and have an approved dissertation or have already begun writing it and have a remainder of two years.

Deadline: January 15, 2014

Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction

The most recent issue of The Malahat Review includes the winner of the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, Kerry-Lee Powell for “Palace of the Brine.” The award “celebrates the achievement of emerging writers who have yet to publish their fiction in book form.” It was chosen by Alissa York from among 295 submissions. Congrats to Powell. You can read an interview with Powell about her winning piece on Malahat‘s website.

Literary Magazine Reviews : November

Check out our batch of literary magazine reviews this month, including issues of:

The Asian Literary Magazine Review
Cimarron Review
The Gettysburg Review
Grasslimb
Green Mountains Review
Indiana Review
The MacGuffin
Main Street Rag
The Master’s Review
Neon
theNewerYork
Paddlefish
Ploughshares
Prairie Schooner
The Reader
Willow Springs

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

This isn’t so much about the cover as it is about the whole design of the book. Being modeled by our two copies above (on my cluttered desk), Garbanzo‘s design includes a dust jacket (you’ll find it’s been stamped on the inside), fold out pages, a ribbon bookmark, and a unique binding. This particular issue goes along with the Halloween feel of fall with die-cut bats (one of which fell out and quickly attached itself to the backside of the cat that likes to roll around on the floor). I appreciate that while it is simple, it makes a unique experience for the reader and has an almost handmade feel (especially since each issue is numbered on the inside jacket).

Cover art for this issue of Boulevard is an acrylic on canvas by Rafal Olbinski called “Permission from Silence,” 2009. This one is a definite favorite of our managing editor: “I just still love that cover,” she keeps saying.

Job: Assistant Professor Transnational Literatures

Assistant Professor of English in Transnational Literatures, Literary Theory and Culture

The Department of Humanities at Michigan Technological University invites applications for an Assistant Professor of English.

Requirements: Ph.D. or equivalent in English by time of appointment; record of teaching excellence; evidence of research and/or scholarly potential. Candidate should have expertise in pre-1800 or Early Modern British literature. Candidates should also be prepared to teach early modern drama, early modern poetry and prose, literary theory and survey on British literature and major authors. Methodological interests may include literary history, cultural studies, materialist approaches (corporeal, economic and technological), and comparative literature. Special interests in global or transnational cultures and approaches to English literature are especially welcome.

The department’s graduate and undergraduate programs afford faculty unique opportunities to teach and engage in research that both shapes and benefits from a rich multi-disciplinary environment. The department offers doctoral and master degrees in the interdisciplinary Rhetoric and Technical Communication program and undergraduate major degrees in English, including English with a concentration in Secondary Education; Liberal Arts; Communication, Culture, and Media; and Scientific and Technical Communication. The usual tenure-track teaching load is 2 courses (6 hrs.) per semester.

Please see our website: http://www.mtu.edu/humanities

Please send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and three confidential letters of recommendation to:

Dr. Kette Thomas
Chair, English Search Committee
Department of Humanities
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive Houghton, MI 49931-1295

Finalists will be asked to send statements of research and teaching interests (single page each), evidence of teaching effectiveness, and a 20-page writing sample. Appointment begins August 2014. Review of applications begins on November 15, 2013, and will continue until the position is filled.

Michigan Technological University is an Equal Opportunity Educational Institution/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Michigan Tech is an internationally renowned doctoral research university, with a diverse community of 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students and cross-disciplinary faculty. Located on Lake Superior in Houghton, MI, its community offers year-round recreational and cultural opportunities.

Michigan Tech is an ADVANCE institution, one of a limited number of universities in receipt of NSF funds in support of our commitment to increase diversity and the participation and advancement of women in STEM.

Michigan Tech acknowledges the importance of supporting dual career partners in attracting and retaining a quality workforce. Michigan Tech is committed to offering career exploration advice and assistance whenever feasible and appropriate at the University and in the local community. See www.dual.mtu.edu for additional information.

Kallie Falandays Poetry

Thumbing through the recent issue of burntdistrict, I came across a collection of four “she said, “he said,” poems by Kallie Falandays. I liked them so much I just had to share a snippet:

She said,
                Conversations from Dovetail

When I woke up it smelled like rain. I held you
like a doorway, in between my beating claws.
I want to hold you like a window, I said.
Like a chair. I want to see your openings. See my metal
beams, my metal rods, see my growling claws?

The Asian American Literary Review – Fall 2013

This issue of the Asian American Literary Review is packed with ambition. While many literary journals experiment with the elements and the appearance of language, this issue of AALR crosses the physical conventions of the idea of the literary journal. The contents, like the challenges to the physical form, provoke questions and emphasize ambiguities rather than entertain, which is perhaps fitting when the issue centers on “mixed race,” a sometimes questionable and often ambiguous term laden with history, exultation, and pain. Continue reading “The Asian American Literary Review – Fall 2013”

The Gettysburg Review – Autumn 2013

The Gettysburg Review deserves its reputation for excellence and consistency. Editor Peter Stitt and his colleagues have put together another issue packed with work that examines the human condition from a number of geographical and emotional perspectives. Continue reading “The Gettysburg Review – Autumn 2013”

Grasslimb – July/August 2013

I’ve eyed Grasslimb for a couple issues now, drawn by its simple, clean tabloid-style design. Each issue has had only two sheets, center folded, for eight, 11×14 pages of reading. I like this ‘local newspaper’ style, and the heavyweight paper adds to the reading pleasure. Easy enough to hide behind on a bus ride, solid enough to stand up through bumps and turns. Continue reading “Grasslimb – July/August 2013”

Green Mountains Review – 2013

This edition of Green Mountains Review draws us to its content as soon as we see the cover. The artwork is a compelling collage done by the featured and multi-talented artist, Lou Beach. As with Beach’s work, this issue is a collage of multiple works by or about the same authors, but what you notice is the collective quality of them all, that as a whole provides more than just surface entertainment. Continue reading “Green Mountains Review – 2013”

Indiana Review – Summer 2013

Indiana Review is not a nicey-nicey publication. A fair amount of the content, while high quality, exhibits an “edgy” quality, as in it won’t-put-one-to-sleep, or make one sigh. It won’t give warm-fuzzies, or make one feel like cuddling up in a big chair with hot chocolate. What it will do is remind one of the hazards of existence and the unsettling realities of life in a vivid and entertaining manner. Continue reading “Indiana Review – Summer 2013”

The MacGuffin – Spring/Summer 2013

The MacGuffin, published by Schoolcraft College, is a treasure-trove of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, especially short fiction. The style is fairly traditional, which makes it easy to read and digest, but never dull. There is so much good prose that it is worth reading for that alone. It does not separate fiction from nonfiction, and I find it difficult to identify for certain mostly which is which—once on the page, what is the difference between fiction and nonfiction? Is there such a thing as nonfiction when it is words on a page? Which is stranger, or harder to believe, or comes across as more meaningful, or contrived? Continue reading “The MacGuffin – Spring/Summer 2013”

Main Street Rag – Summer 2013

The Main Street Rag is published quarterly out of Charlotte, North Carolina. This issue opens with an interview with photographer Bryce Lankard, whose photos grace the cover and are included within the pages of text. The interview is a contemplative discussion of art and its purposes from Lankard’s point of view. His photos after Hurricane Katrina serve two purposes, “one to address the public debate and a second to address the loss.” He goes on to say that he “wanted to show New Orleans as flawed yet beautiful” and “remind people of the city’s cultural uniqueness and how rich it had been in providing the fabric of America—so the rest of the country would not abandon New Orleans.” His NOLA photographs accomplish these objectives. His 9/11 photographs reveal where the photographer was when the planes hit the towers and show life moving at an accustomed pace even in those moments. Lynda C. Ward’s interview illustrates Lankard’s passion and approach to the world. Continue reading “Main Street Rag – Summer 2013”

The Masters Review – October 2013

It could be said that The Masters Review presents the same value proposition as do The Best New American Voices, The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” fiction showcase, and Poets & Writers listings of leading new poets. That value proposition is the culling of new talent from diverse sources, a way of framing a structure of gifted writers today under the strong light microscope of editorial review. Continue reading “The Masters Review – October 2013”

Neon Magazine – 2013

Neon hails from the UK where Editor Krishan Coupland accepts works from around the globe. Neon favors literary and slipstream short-form writing: “We err towards the dark, and like to experiment with language and form” with “a particular taste for the apocalyptic.” Dark and apocalyptic has never been my style, so it makes me wonder how I found such comfort in much of what I read here. Continue reading “Neon Magazine – 2013”

Paddlefish – 2013

Plain, and rooted in the plains: that’s what remained with me after I finished reading Paddlefish, the annual literary journal from Mount Marty College in Yankton, South Dakota. A photograph of a boundless golden field and blue skies spreads over the front and back covers; the book reviews visit the Nebraska landscape and snippets in South Dakotan history; the stories and poems touch on post-military and Native American life. Paddlefish is plain, too, in its subjects, sentiments, and language. The reader is often told exactly what the writer is thinking, a mode that may appeal to some but which, to others, may leave too little to the imagination. Continue reading “Paddlefish – 2013”

Ploughshares – Fall 2013

Travis Holland’s “Planet of Fear” is one of a number of brilliant stories in this all-fiction issue of Ploughshares, edited by Peter Ho Davies. Holland writes beautifully. Three strands make a rich, bright braid: the narrator’s work with an exceptional youth in a boys’ correction facility, his frustration with his dementia-disabled father, and his love for his smart but innocent five-year-old daughter. Scenes slide seamlessly from one of these strands to another, the tension level rising slowly, steadily, as the client is bullied, the father drifts further and further from his original professorial authority, and the daughter grows into her own. Each episode is wonderfully drawn. Of a “nature walk” through an unfinished housing development with the daughter, Holland writes: Continue reading “Ploughshares – Fall 2013”

Prairie Schooner – Fall 2013

The cover of this issue of Prairie Schooner greets the reader with an impressionist autumn scene painted by Faridun Zoda. The inviting image is appropriate; the editors have chosen work that compels the reader to take a step back and enjoy a moment of quiet contemplation. Continue reading “Prairie Schooner – Fall 2013”

The Reader – Summer 2013

Brian Nellist’s essay “People Don’t Read Scott Any More,” originally published in the Spring 1997 issue of The Reader, may have summed up a movement with an essential added value of literature: “the answer is experto crede, not ‘Trust the professional’, heaven forbid, but ‘have faith in the man who’s tried it.’” The idea represents a logical extension of trust in precedent—that we can look to literature as a forerunner to lives we haven’t lived and perhaps never will. We are all witnesses, but in a limited sense. Reading is the addenda to our lives. He adds at the end of the excerpt something else of vital importance to the enterprise of reading: Continue reading “The Reader – Summer 2013”

Willow Springs – Fall 2013

Willow Springs is a long-standing literary magazine, publishing works by well-known and up-and-coming writers alike for the past 30 years. The first thing that struck me when I began reading it was that there was not a specific theme noted anywhere or an editor’s note. While the magazine’s goal is to “engage its audience in an ongoing discussion of art, ideas, and what it means to be human,” this is a very general goal that can go in a number of directions. While it isn’t necessary to have a theme, the individual pieces themselves work together in a way to create themes in the reader’s mind; the one that stood out to me was of the things inside us—the hidden talents we aren’t aware of; the twisted desires we will never admit; the work of art we haven’t unlocked. Continue reading “Willow Springs – Fall 2013”

Sixfold – Fall 2013

Reviewing Sixfold is an entirely different game due to the way submissions are selected. Instead of being voted on by a judge or editors of the magazine, submissions are voted on by other writers that submit, working their way up the ranks until the top 3 are selected for prizes and others are selected for inclusion into the issue. Continue reading “Sixfold – Fall 2013”

Chantarelle’s Notebook – October 2013

Starting off this issue of poetry magazine Chantarelle’s Notebook is a poem that easily reveals its insight, a trait found throughout the issue. LaMar Giles’s “Uninspired” pokes fun at current popular music, noting that “a sudden breeze / moves me more / than music nowadays.” It’s short, fun, and makes its point clear. Continue reading “Chantarelle’s Notebook – October 2013”

Fogged Clarity – September/October 2013

Executive Editor Ben Evans writes that he hopes readers will find, in Fogged Clarity, “something resonant here, something stirring and poignant . . .” The sole fiction piece, Benjamin Roesch’s “If You’re Listening to This,” resonates with me. It is a heartfelt look into Luke’s lifelong struggle to remember his father and feel his father’s love for him. Now married to Jasper, Luke donates his sperm to his ex-wife, who is also gay and wants to have a baby in France with her wife. What seemed at first a brainless act, becoming a biological father turns out to be a bigger deal for Luke than he would have guessed. Eager to tell his new daughter that he loves her and will always be there in the way his own father couldn’t, Luke runs into conflict when her mothers tell him that they don’t plan to tell their daughter who the donor is. It’s definitely a standout piece, right from the very beginning, which is definitely an attention getter: “Luke found himself in a small room with no windows. There was porn of all persuasions. There were tissues and baby wipes. There was Jergens almond scented lotion.” Continue reading “Fogged Clarity – September/October 2013”

Haiku Wanted!

Every year, Broadsided hosts the annual Haiku Year-In-Review (henceforth referred to as HYIR). The collective has posted four topics responding to an event that seemed significant in each season of 2013. Now they want your haiku! In December, they’ll post the best entries for each season along with art created on the same subject and ask YOU to vote. January 1, 2014 they’ll be published as our featured broadside. Gorgeous and poignant year after year. Join in this great event!

Six Word War

Created by Shaun Wheelwright and Mike Nemeth, both US Army veterans, Six Word War is real stories from Iraq and Afghanistan in just six words. In partnership with Six-Word Memoirs and SMITH Magazine, this project is the first ‘crowdsourced’ war memoir that will “tell a story different than any other ever told about war. For the first time in history, one book will contain the collective experience of our military at war in their own words.” A book of the six-word stories is available now for preorder; all November pre-sales will be autographed first editions of Six Word War.

Broadsided November

November’s Broadsided Press Collaboration, “The Seahorse Motel” features a poem by Rachel Marie Patterson, art by Ira Joel Haber, and design by Debbie Nadolney.

Edited by Elizabeth Bradfield, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Sean Hill, Alexandra Teague, and Mark Temelko, Broadsided has been putting literature in the streets since 2005. Each month, a new broadside is posted both on the website and around the nation.

Writing is chosen through submissions sent to Broadsided. Artists allied with Broadsided are emailed the selected writing. They then “dibs” on what resonates for them and respond visually – sometimes more than one artist will respond offering a selection of broadsides.

Broadsided Vectors can do
wnload the poem in full color or black and white and poster it around town, campus, wherever! Check into becoming a Broadsided Vector today!

South Dakota Review’s 50th Anniversary

The most recent issue of South Dakota Review is volume 50, honoring their 50th year anniversary. Editor-in-chief Lori Ann Roripaugh contributes an opening essay reflecting on the 50 years. In section eight of her essay, she writes, “For the past 50 years, poems, stories, and essays have migrated into the South Dakota Review office by land and by air, and—more recently—along the glittering veins of electronic networks. For the past 50 years, the magazine has come out on a quarterly basis . . . publishing a commemorative sampling of the last half-century’s literary culture.

“This shared exchange of textual aesthetic currency, of textual cultural memory, is truly a gift exchange, functioning within a gift economy, and the exchange of trust implicit in this 50-year legacy of shared gifting is both profoundly humbling, as well as a source of immense pride for all of us who have had the pleasure of working on the magazine.

“I think of this exchange of gifts as a body of work in constant motion and flux, traveling along highways and streets and flyways and networks like an elaborate circulatory system. A breathing organism. This perpetual inhale and exhale of language, art, and memory.”

Poetry Anthology Helps Victims of Boston Marathon Bombings

As Thanksgiving and the season of gratitude approaches, consider purchasing a book that makes a difference with each sale. Like One: Poems for Boston, edited by Deborah Finkelstein, is a recent anthology that brings together pieces from a wide range of poets, from former Jersey City Poet Laureate Aaron Middlepoet Jackson to former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky to Dickinson and Whitman. All proceeds from the book go to The One Fund, created last summer to assist victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and their families.

For a complete list of poets included and their bios, visit the poets page on the website. Like One can be purchased via the website or on Amazon.

Modern Haiku Favorites of the Summer Issue

As always, the latest Modern Haiku reveals awards to the favorite haiku, senryu, and haibun from the previous issue (in this case, the Summer 2013 issue), selected and awarded $50 by an anonymous donor. Winners this time around are as follows:

Favorite haiku: by Jack Barry
last kid
left on the school bus
November rain

Favorite senryu: by Ken Jones
Catching myself
in the ovoid mirror
I try to look interesting

Favorite haibun: by Carol Pearce-Worthington
“In the Book of Dreams Told”