I have not yet seen it, myself, but I hear in the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, Agent 007 may or may not cry. According to eonline.com, a tearful James Bond is a sin against the Ten Commandments of the James Bond franchise. When asked, Daniel Craig (the sixth official Bond, for those still counting) defended his character’s face-water: “He doesn’t cry, he’s sweating.” What’s funny is that in author Ian Fleming’s original dozen novels, the character Bond is found crying or sobbing about five times. His “heart lifts” a further six times; he’s rescued by a girl four times. I know this not because I’ve painstakingly read through all the books, but because Michelle Disler has—and has compiled her findings in the form of poems in [Bond, James]: alphabet, anatomy, [auto]biography. Continue reading “[Bond, James]”
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!
[Bond, James]
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A Long Way from Home
Alice Walsh’s A Long Way from Home is a compassionately told novel that straddles the line between children’s and young adult fiction, and the story it tells will appeal to younger and older audiences alike. Continue reading “A Long Way from Home”
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As Long As Trees Last
Hoa Nguyen, similar to Louis Zukofsky—another poet whose work indelibly again and again proves the apt suitability of the term when intended as sincere compliment and appropriately applied—deserves the title of A Poet’s Poet. Nguyen’s poems approach pure poetry. That is to say, there’s no shtick, no commentary, no gloss, or outside concern beyond what the poem is busying itself being as a momentary occurrence of heightened language use. Any intrusion or obscuration is absent. While it’s obviously possible to situate Nguyen within a historical English language poetic lineage (which would run something like: Chaucer, Wyatt, Donne, Shakespeare, the Wordsworths, Keats, the Shelleys, Dickinson, Hopkins, Whitman, Hawthorne, Melville, Stein, Pound, Zukofsky, Olson, Duncan, Kerouac, Whalen, Notley, Mayer, Kyger) her work exists in a timeless flow of language and song; daily routines, observances, and distractions carrying the poems along: Continue reading “As Long As Trees Last”
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What Happened to Ivy
David Burke may seem like an awkward, average teenager, and in most ways he is. However, unlike most teens, David spends a good deal of time looking after his severely disabled younger sister, Ivy. She gets all the attention, whereas David believes he’s practically invisible to his parents. It’s not surprising that sometimes David feels resentful of Ivy, and it is in one of these moments of frustration that Kathy Stinson begins this compelling family drama, What Happened to Ivy. Given that Stinson has penned more than thirty titles across many genres, it’s not surprising that her prose effortlessly captures the range of emotions encompassed in this story. Continue reading “What Happened to Ivy”
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The Madness of Mamá Carlota
Her story reads like fiction. In 1864 Napoleon III and sentimental Mexican royalists re-established a Mexican monarchy, placing the Austrian Prince Maximilian and his Belgian wife Carlota as rulers. The move, in hindsight as grotesque as the gaudy art and fashion of Napoleon’s era, was extremely unpopular in the Americas. Following the Civil War, the American government supported an uprising spearheaded by lawyer/reformer Benito Juarez. The puppet monarchy was overthrown in 1867, and Maximilian was executed. Carlota escaped, never recovered from a subsequent nervous breakdown, and lived in a castle serving as an asylum until the age of 87. Continue reading “The Madness of Mamá Carlota”
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The Purple Runner
Solian Lede is a New Zealand runner who possesses a wealth of talent but who lacks sufficient discipline to excel at her sport. As Paul Christman’s The Purple Runner begins, Solian strives to become a winning professional runner, but she expresses ambivalence about the possibility of fame, the need to give up partying in order to focus on her running, and her frustrated attempts to find a partner who takes the sport as seriously as she does. Meanwhile, Chris Carlson is a television news editor working in New York City, whose true lifelong passion is for running, and Warren Fowles is a thirty-six-year-old San Francisco lawyer who seems to possess fortune in spades. Warren has good looks, a comfortable trust fund, and natural running ability, but what he lacks is the impetus to focus: whether on his running or on his creative dream of finishing a substantial poetry manuscript. As The Purple Runner develops, the narration moves between these three characters, and all three find themselves moving to London in order to fulfill their individual dreams. Continue reading “The Purple Runner”
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The Posthumous Affair
The “Little Man” and the “Fat Princess,” as children in the spring of 1880, trail a red balloon—a “swollen heart”—across Washington Square. And thus begins James Friel’s The Posthumous Affair, a beautifully written and unique, daring love story. Even the end is a risky stand on the part of the author. Continue reading “The Posthumous Affair”
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Butterfly Moon
The short stories by Anita Endrezze in Butterfly Moon are a hybrid of myths and folklore, mostly with a contemporary setting. Many traditions—Native American, Norse, Greek, Romanian, Transylvanian—are used with appearances by guardian angels, gypsies, witches, familiars, shadows, a vampire, the three fates—and a Jungian therapist. The breadth of her reach is not surprising as her father is a Yaqui Indian with roots in Sonora, Mexico and her mother’s roots are in Slovenia, Germany, Romania and Italy. For all the elements combined, the stories run smoothly as they take place in psychological space where we want answers about ourselves in the world. With the prominence of interior space, the drama is within the personal field of the characters . . . and in this personal field of hopes and desire for mercy, human beings haven’t changed much over the millennia. Continue reading “Butterfly Moon”
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Space / Gap / Interval / Distance
In Space / Gap / Interval / Distance, Judy Halebsky draws the many strands of her life’s arts together, braiding the leaps and bounds of expression into a fantastic set of ekphrastic poems. Continue reading “Space / Gap / Interval / Distance”
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Lady Business
From Sibling Rivalry Press, publishers of Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, comes a new contribution to the GLBT canon. This one is a collection of lesbian poetry from both established and new authors. Before the poems, a paragraph or so provides details about each author. While usually this information is found at the end of a collection, here it sets up the reader for what he/she is about to read. This book includes a nice assortment of poems, and it was refreshing to read such a wide variety of works from each author. In this collection, there is no “one and done.” Through their poetry, the reader is truly able to get to know each writer before it is time to move on to the next. Continue reading “Lady Business”
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My Only Wife
Jac Jemc has written a novel so wonderful that if it were a dish served at a social event, I would ask the hostess for the recipe. If I were to place the various ingredients which make up this book I might say a dash of Kafka, maybe a pinch of those new wave French writers like Robbe-Grillet, and a tablespoon of Andre Breton’s classic “A Mad Love.” Mix it all up and place between two covers. Become horizontal, relax, and serve. Continue reading “My Only Wife”
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Inukshuk
Gregory Spatz’s well-written novel Inukshuk involves two alternating and to some extent paralleling stories: a father-son story and an historical recreation of the last days of 19th century explorer Sir John Franklin and his crew members on the ice-bound ships Terror and Erebus, trying in vain to discover the Northwest Passage. The parallels come first from the same names: the father is named John Franklin and his son, who is convinced he is related to the explorer, is Thomas, a name he shares with a crewmember. The father has moved the two of them to Alberta, Canada to be closer to his wife, who is on her own Arctic observation exploration. And both the explorer’s wife and the father’s wife are named Jane. What really links the two stories, however, is the thirteen-year-old’s escape into the world of the explorer’s expedition in its last days. Meanwhile, the modern John Franklin escapes into his poetry and fascination with the selkie myth (a shape-shifting myth of seal to man and back again, like the father’s own alternating myth with real life). This is a story of the danger of obsessions, the father’s and son’s coming after mother/wife Jane’s abandonment of them for her own obsession. Father and son each suffer alone, especially Thomas, the outsider in his school. Continue reading “Inukshuk”
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2500 Random Things About Me Too
This is a book for the era of Facebook, memes and all. Matias Viegener heard about a spate of peeps posting Facebook lists of 25 Random Things about themselves and decided to assign himself the task of creating such a list for 100 days, posting each daily to Facebook. Thus he ended up with a total of 2500 ‘things’ which not surprisingly proves more than enough to fill a book. Continue reading “2500 Random Things About Me Too”
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Glimmer Train September Fiction Open Winners :: 2012
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their September Fiction Open competition. This competition is held quarterly. Stories generally range from 2000-6000 words, though up to 20,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in December. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: Doug Lawson [pictured], of Los Gatos, CA, wins $2500 for “The Mushroom Hunter.” His story will be published next November in the Winter 2014 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.
Second place: Meghan Kenny, of Baltimore, MD, wins $1000 for “Heartbreak Hotel.”
Third place: Andrew MacDonald, of Toronto, Ontario, wins $600 for “Four Minutes.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
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Short Short Fiction Contest Finalists
The Aspens’ Writers Foundation and Esquire magazine teamed up for a Short Short Fiction Contest that awarded 10 finalists who will gather in NYC for a writing workshop taught by Colum McCann. The finalists will read their piece in front of a live audience of judges. They are also invited to “Fiction Night at the Esquire,” a celebratory party where the winner will be announced. The winner will receive full scholarship to a fiction workshop at Aspen Summer Words, Writing Retreat and Literary Festival in Aspen, Colorado. The finalists are:
Kashana Cauley | New York, NY | Avenue B
Angela Cummings | Kirkland, WA | Humane
Alex DeBonis | Paris, TN | In the Market for Heartache
Kenneth Gagnon | Dover, NH | Impact
Ivy Hansen | Carbondale, CO | To Do
Daniel McGillivray | Brooklyn, NY | Neither
Courtney Sender | Baltimore, MD | Accounting
Richard Rauch | Lacombe, LA | Devilment at the Comfort Inn
Bob Thurber | North Attleboro, MA | My Father’s Study
Casey Walker | Iowa City, IA | Picnic, Lightning
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Health Rights at the Crossroads
This special issue of Western Humanities Review is themed “Health Rights at the Crossroads: Women, New Science, and Institutional Violence.” The editors say, “Together these articles [in the magazine] exemplify the vital conversation in the medical humanities and social sciences that is emerging at the intersection of women’s rights, emerging technologies of science and health, and institutional violence. This conversation and the articles in this issue raise critical questions about the meanings of power and empowerment for women engaged in practices such as wage labor via assisted reproductive technologies and sex, and the political and economic struggles over the circumstances within which they will engage in these labors and have access to health services such as abortion.”
The issue features writers Leslie Butt, Kelly Ray Knight, Rachel Niehuus, Sharmila Rudrappa, Carolyn Sufrin, and Tracy Weitz and was guest edited by Galen Joseph and Dorothy Porter.
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Waiting for the Enemy
Each year, Iron Horse Literary Review publishes a single-author contest and issue. This year they have chosen to feature Brandon Davis Jennings. The editors say, “This chapbook of stories stormed through the Iron Horse office and left us in a shambles! We’re now big fans of this writer, and if we can just get a copy to your doorstep, we know you’ll feel the same way.”
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New Academic Journal :: Word Hoard
Peer edited and drawing on an editorial presence that includes students from the Centre for American Studies, the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, Modern Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature, Women’s Studies & Feminist Research, and the Department of English, Word Hoard is a new community journal supported by Western University’s Graduate English Society.
Word Hoard is currently soliciting articles, essays, and interviews for their second issue. They invite submissions between 3000-5000 words related to the provocation and concept of “The Unrecyclable.” Article and interview submissions are due 15 January, 2013. Accepted submissions can expect online and print publication in the summer of 2013.
Current Issue: Volume 1, Issue 1 (2012)
Community and Dissent
Articles available full-text (PDF) online:
Editors’ Introduction: Leif Schenstead-Harris, Nina Budabin McQuown, and Kevin Godbout
“Prometheus Queer: An Interview With Daniel Allen Cox” by Matthew Halse and Dock Currie
“The Progeny of Prometheus: Solidarity as Gift” by Mary Eileen Wennekers
“Identity, Memory and Place” by Kelly Baker
“Queer Spaces and Strategic Social Constructions in Rao’s The Boyfriend” by Frederick D. King
“Embracing Identity Politics as a Way of Dealing with a Self in Crisis in Edmund White’s The Married Man” by Zied Khemakhem
“Nationalism, Community, Literature” by Christopher Langlois
“Leadership, Authenticity, and the Arendtian World” by Rita A. Gardiner
“Leadership and Pedagogy in the Arts and Humanities: An Interview with Alison Conway and Joel Faflak” by Diana Samu-Visser and Nina Budabin McQuown
“Patricia Grace’s Potiki: A Case Study for the Adaptability of Postcolonial Theory to Indigenous Literature” by Karim Abuawad
“Publishing and Reading as Dissent: Resistance, Literary Tourism and Arsenal Pulp Press” by Casey Stepaniuk
“1984, Genesis Upside Down” by Jamie Rooney
“A Walking Tour of Light” by Leif Schenstead-Harris
“’& Then’: Word Hoard’s Closing Remarks” by Leif Schenstead-Harris, Nina Budabin McQuown, and Kevin Godbout
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Haiku Horoscopes
At the back of each issue of Grain, Jonathan Ball contributes Haiku Horoscopes. Several of the editors at NewPages editors fall under the sign of Taurus. For the Fall 2012 issue, this is our horoscope:
It’s time that you did
Something about that wombat
Who owes you money
The rest of the issue contains new writing by Joan Shillington, Andrew F. Sullivan, Kirby Wright, Ian Bullock, John Cameron, Laura Clarke, Jeanie Keogh, Allison LaSorda, Mark Jordan Manner, Ted Mc Carthy, Claire Millikin, Matt Nagin, Ruth Roach Pierson, David Romanda, and Jenna Spearing.
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Children’s Literature :: Cozy Classics
Cozy Classics from Simply Read Books are a series of board books for children based on the classics Les Miserables (forthcoming), Pride and Prejudice, and Moby Dick. Each book contains twelve “child-friendly” words and twelve needle-felted photo illustrations. Brilliantly charming!
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End of the World. End of the Book?
Supposedly, this is the year of the end of the world. Editor Richard Newman says, “The first books predicted the end of the world, and probably not long after, people began predicting the end of the book.” With the close of book publishers, magazines, and distributors, it’s easy to get downhearted about the situation, but Newman says he is not “singing the death song of the printed word.” He says, “Good literature will survive the trends and weather the storms and droughts, even if only a handful of people keep it alive and don’t surrender to the rapture of destruction.”
The most recent issue of River Styx is based on the theme of the end of the world. “In these pages we have presented the irrational struggle with the end of everything—our fear of the end at odds with our odd hope for it,” Newman says. Contributors include Bruce Bennett, Lee Upton, Albert Goldbarth, Juliana Gray, Gary Leising, Michael Salcman, Rachel Christilles, William Greenway, Dorianne Laux, Lawrence Raab, Alison Pelegrin, Maura Stanton, Michael Derrick Hudson, Erika Meitner, Greg Pape, Gaylord Brewer, Andrew Hudgins, Jeffrey Hammond, Robert Finch, George Singleton, and Geoff Schmidt.
In addition, the winners of the 2012 River Styx International Poetry Contest are included. The submissions were judged by A. E. Stallings, and the contest is in memory of Anne and James Lindsey.
First Place
Hailey Leithauser: “Minnows”
Second Place
Debra Marquat: “Ground Oregano”
Third Place
Brain Brodeur: “Cousins”
Honorable Mentions
Michael Derrick Hudson
Josephine Yu
Alison Pelegrin
Ryan Wilson
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Happy Thanksgiving
Please enjoy a safe and restful holiday weekend with family and friends. We’ll be back on the blog Monday.
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2012 Outdoor Book Awards Announced
Thinking about holiday shopping for the nature lover in your life? This year’s Outdoor Book Awards have been announced, and with the variety of categories in the awards, there’s something for everyone.
Two books are winners in the Outdoor Literature category. Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail by Suzanne Roberts (University of Nebraska Publishing) details the author’s 1993 trip through the Sierra Mountains of California with two other women. Fresh out of college, Roberts and her friend Erika decide to hike the 211-mile trail. Roberts reluctantly agrees to allow Dionne, a 98-pound bulimic who has never trail-hiked, to accompany them. The book unfolds with a chapter for each day of their trip (Roberts kept a journal during the hike), and the reader is propelled through the narrative by suspense: Will Dionne make it? Will the author’s knees hold out? The heart of Almost Somewhere is the relationship between the three women—described as “a bulimic, a bully, and a neurotic”—and how they each find their strength and sense of self on the trail.
The other winner of the Outdoor Literature category is a more dramatic survival story. The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier, by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan (Ballantine Books), details Davidson’s harrowing experience after a climb up Mt. Rainier. During his hike down, he falls into a crevasse, but is stopped when his pack somehow wedges between two narrow walls. First a load of snow and then his hiking partner, gravely injured, fall on top of him. The Ledge recounts Davidson’s harrowing efforts to save his partner’s life, while balanced on his pack, and then his attempt to hike 80 feet to the top of the crevasse and hike out to safety.
On the extreme opposite end of nature’s grandeur, David George Haskell’s The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature (Viking) narrows its focus to a smaller spot: one square meter of a forest in Tennessee. Winner of the Natural History Literature category, The Forest Unseen tracks this “forest mandala,” as Haskell calls it, through a full year of seasons and changes. The patch itself is shown in a video on Viking’s site at the link above, and audio clips and photos can be found at Haskell’s site, theforestunseen.com.
Fans of photography or ocean life should check out Design and Artistic Merit award winner Beneath Cold Seas: The Underwater Wilderness of the Pacific Northwest by photographer David Hall (University of Washington Press). His images document the ecosystem of the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska. Sarika Cullis-Suzuki’s introduction to the book details the conservation issues related to the area.
For a full list of the award winners and honorable mentions, detailed by category (including awards for Nature and the Environment, Children’s, and more), visit the Outdoor Book Award website at http://www.noba-web.org/books12.htm.
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BlazeVOX Thanksgiving Menu Poem 2012
The Thanksgiving Menu Poem 2012 is an annual online event, this year, featuring Guest of Honor: Bill Berkson.
From BlazeVOX [books]: “For two thousand and twelve we are celebrating with a twelve-course meal over twelve hours. This is a book length poetry project matched with haute cuisine, including a full biography of Bill Berkson with poems, links to more poems, reviews and interviews. The whole project will go live on Thanksgiving morning, so be sure to come and have a feast. Please feel free to invite your family, friends, and colleagues.”
Event Info
Date: Thanksgiving Day, November, 22 2012
Time: All day and will be up for the rest of the year
Online Address: www.blazevox.org/index.php/thanksgiving-poems/
Thanksgiving Menu Poems Past:
Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop 2011
David Shapiro 2010
C. D. Wright 2009
Anne Waldman 2008
Ron Silliman 2007
John Ashbery 2006
Robert Creeley 2005
Kent Johnson 2004
Forrest Gander 2003
Charles Bernstein 2002
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New Podcast :: Book Ends
Created by writer and award-winning blogger Philippa Moorem, Book Ends is a new weekly (Wednesdays) podcast by writers for writers and those who love the written word. Novels, poetry, travel writing, biographies, cook books and all manner of printed works will be discussed: writers in conversation about their work, their inspiration and their advice to those wanting to follow in their footsteps. The program is available online and via iTunes subscription.
Episode 1: Nikki Gemmell
Episode 2: Lisa Jewell
Episode 3: Ivy Alvarez
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Adrienne Rich on Anne Sexton
In the most recent issue of American Poetry Review, Lynn Emanuel, a former student of Adrienne Rich at City College in New York, shares a speech given by Rich during the year of Anne Sexton’s death. “The speech is typed on onionskin,” says Emanuel, “and stained by the tape I used for many years to attach it to the wall above my various desks.”
Emanuel says that 1974 was a “tumultuous year for Rich and her students.” It was the year Sexton killed herself, and it was about the time that Rich published her work Diving into the Wreck as well as came out as a lesbian feminist. Rich’s speech, given to the women in her college workshop, begins:
“Anne Sexton was a poet and a suicide. She was not in any narrow or politically ‘correct’ sense a feminist, but she did some things far ahead of the rebirth of the feminist movement. She wrote poems alluding to abortion, masturbation, menopause, and the painful love of a powerless mother for her daughters, long before such themes became validated by a collective of consciousness of women, and while writing and publishing under the scrutiny of the male literary establishment . . .”
The rest of the speech is printed in American Poetry Review, the November/December 2012 issue.
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Philip Roth Retires
During a recent interview, Philip Roth told French magazine Les Inrocks that he will retire from writing: “To tell you the truth, I’m done. Nemesis will be my last book.”
According to the Daily Star, Roth says he has spent most of his time in recent years preparing material for his biographer, Blake Bailey: “If I had a choice, I would prefer that there is no biography written about me, but there will be biographies after my death so [I wanted] to be sure that one of them is correct.”
Roth said he had asked his literary executors and his agent to destroy his personal archives after his death once Bailey has finished the biography. “I don’t want my personal papers hanging around everywhere.”
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Book Burning Party
Posted on BookFox (John Matthew Fox), this video shows Troy, Michigan’s risky approach to saving their public library. Could be role model for other cities with similar ballot proposals in the future.
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American Life in Poetry: Column 399
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Our sense of smell is the one sense most likely to transport us through time. A sniff of fried fish on a breeze and I can wind up in my grandmother’s kitchen sixty years ago, getting ready to eat bluegills. Michael Walsh, a Minnesotan, builds this fine poem about his parents around the odor of cattle that they carry with them, even into this moment.
Barn Clothes
Same size, my parents stained and tore
alike in the barn, their brown hair
ripe as cow after twelve hours of gutters.
At supper they spoke in jokey moos.
Sure, showers could dampen that reek
down to a whiff under fingernails, behind ears,
but no wash could wring the animal from their clothes:
one pair, two pair, husband, wife, reversible.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 University of Arkansas Press, from The Dirt Riddles by Michael Walsh, University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Michael Walsh and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
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American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.
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A Very Different Book
Is it a book? Is it a painting? It’s Very Different Animals by Frank Sherlock, an accordion-fold book set in fonts VTKS Animal 2 and Big Caslon and mounted in Blick Studio mini canvasses. Each canvas features original artwork by Philadelphia artist Nicole Donnelly. It is printed in an edition of 100 on reclaimed 120 gsm Arches cotton wove watercolor paper. It is officially available on Fact-Simile‘s website at a discounted pre-sale price.
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The Literary Review: The Long Issue
The Literary Review‘s Summer/Fall 2012 issue is subtitled “The Long Issue”: “Because some stories need room to grow.” Not typically done in the magazine world, this issue features only long poems and novellas.
Editor Minna Proctor says, “this issue’s theme came about because one of our contributors flagrantly ignored our submission guidelines and sent us a novella, which so roguishly intrigued us that we changed the guidelines so as to not interfere with the integrity of her winding story. We built an issue around her; a gesture of pure admiration. We built her a furious house of extraordinary writing.”
Included in this issue is poetry by H.L. Hix (“Aggression Cues”) and Joshua Weiner (“Rock Creek Park (II)”) and fiction by Kirstin Allio (“Quetzal”), Paula Bomer (“Inside Madeleine”), and Jesse Ball (“The Neck Verse”).
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The Future of the Book
The future of the printed book is a thought that is probably always at the backs of our minds, as writers, as editors, as readers. American Letters & Commentary‘s newest issue is dedicated to this very topic. “Will technology increase access to literature or restrict it to those who can afford new technologies?” ask Co-Editors Catherine Kasper and David Ray Vance. “Will paper bound books become art objects for antiquarians, restricted to museums and wealthy collectors? Will producing electronic media prove more or less hazardous to the environment as compared with paper production for printed books?”
This special issue features essays by Joan Retallack and Ander Monson on the subject, and Dimitri Anastasopoulos, Christine Hume, Dave Kress, and Christina Millettii contribute a collaborative piece titled “Story Net” which “examines the concept of ‘tomorrow.'”
And then there is contributing art by Brian Dettmer that you really have to see. He is a book artist. “The richness and depth of the book is universally respected yet often undiscovered as the monopoly of the form and relevance of their information fades over time,” he writes. “By altering physical forms of information and shifting preconceived functions, new and unexpected roles emerge.” He explains his process as such: “I work with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest . . . My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.”
Other poetry and prose contributors in the rest of the issue include Eric Anderson, Hadara Bar-Nadav, Denise Bergman, Thea Brown, Jennifer Chapis, Suzanne Cleary, Elizabeth Cross, Jesse DeLong, Dan George, AB Gorham, Richard Greenfield, Derek Gromadzki, Kathleen Hellen, Russell Jaffe, Christopher Kondrich, Brandon Krieg, Jason Labbe, Megan Levad, rob mclennan, B.Z. Niditch, Simon Perchik, Marthe Reed, John Phillip Santos, Anne Shaw, Kent Shaw, Carmen Gim
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New Lit on the Block :: Phoenix in the Jacuzzi Journal
“What if a phoenix were to ignite in a Jacuzzi? Would anyone notice? Would the phoenix be reborn?” These are the questions that Editor Nicholas Wilsey asks. “I like to think the phoenix would reenter the world in a state of relaxation: a cool drink in its beak; a warm, bubbly feeling climbing up its wings,” he says. And thus, the name of his new literary magazine was born.
Phoenix in the Jacuzzi Journal is a print magazine that publishes at least twice a year in the spring in the fall. There is a possibility of having multiple issues in the spring and fall or a special issue in the winter and summer. They publish poems and short prose pieces.
“I am beginning to talk with other journals about doing a joint reading on the poetry-focused radio show I DJ, The Eggshell Parade,” Wilsey says. “I also intend to do an issue that includes a CD of musical adaptations of the issue’s pieces. I am going to have a lot of fun with PJJ. I invite readers and contributors to have a lof of fun with PJJ, Joe (Weil, Consigliere), and me.”
The inaugural issue features new writing from Grace Bauer, Adam Fitzgerald, Howie Good, Michael Homolka, Paul Hostovsky, Bridget Lowe, Andrew Nurkin, K.M.A. Sullivan, and Anne Valente.
PJJ accepts submissions through email. Authors whose work is accepted are invited to read on The Eggshell Parade.
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Alligator Juniper – 2012
Like the magazine, the alligator juniper tree is native to Arizona (the journal is a yearly publication of Prescott College), but, as its unusual name implies, the magazine “invites both the regional and the exotic.” What sets this journal apart from other lit mags is that the only avenue for submission—open to all levels, emerging, early-career, and established—is through their national contests. These include a general one for fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and photography, and a separate Suzanne Tito contest for fiction, CNF, and poetry. The prizewinners and finalists selected for this issue are supremely worth reading. Continue reading “Alligator Juniper – 2012”
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American Letters & Commentary – 2012
American Letters & Commentary defines itself as “innovative,” “challenging,” “daring,” and “diverse.” In this issue, John Phillip Santos reviews the poetry of John Matthias, saying that his “work imbeds us in his mind’s ceaseless flow of intimate memories, archival citations, insurrectionary readings, free associations and liberated play that seeks to unsettle the unexamined phenomenology of the reader’s attention to the world.” These phrases characterize ALC 23 as a whole. Continue reading “American Letters & Commentary – 2012”
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American Literary Review – Spring 2012
In The Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (January, 2006), researchers argue that “emotion enhances remembrance of neutral events past.”1 Investigators speculated that the reason for this might have to do with more pointed attention during the coding process or enhancement after the event, but what they showed more centrally was that emotion enhances long-term memory, “determining what will later be remembered or forgotten.”2 Virginia Woolf wrote in her journal that there was a certain advantage to memory stripped of its emotional coloring, which doesn’t contradict the recent claim of the Academy, but adds to the complexity of the relationship between memory and emotion which would have considerable impact on literature and its sibling sciences—the law and psychology. Continue reading “American Literary Review – Spring 2012”
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Beloit Poetry Journal – Fall 2012
Whenever I review a poetry journal, I look for one or two poems that stitch all the poems to each other and, ultimately, to the fabric of my conscience. I trust the editors, whenever possible, to produce a publication that ties itself together with a common theme, a certain style, or a period in literary history, to name a few of the devices at an editorial team’s disposal. If I leave myself open to all the ways that such a “stitching” can happen, I am almost always pleased—as I am with the Fall 2012 Beloit Poetry Journal, which is a gem of a journal. The poem “Above the Lake,” by Stephen O’Connor, manages to pull the journal together. Continue reading “Beloit Poetry Journal – Fall 2012”
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Blue Mesa Review – Spring 2012
Blue Mesa Review, a product of the creative writing program of the University of New Mexico, almost did not see publication this year. Editor-in-Chief Suzanne Rose Richardson reports that her fellow editors had to fight to keep their magazine alive during their school’s funding crisis: “They organized fund raisers, attended countless meetings, and they brainstormed in order to bring you this very issue you’re holding. Each editor gave above and beyond to ensure this issue had a chance to make it.” The folks at Blue Mesa have a lot to be proud of in this issue. The result of their hard work and dedication is a handsome journal with great content. Continue reading “Blue Mesa Review – Spring 2012”
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Chinese Literature Today – 2012
In his editor’s Note, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Jonathan C. Stalling explains that part of the publication’s mission is to offer “to non-experts a multifaceted portal into contemporary China through literature and literary studies.” To do this, he refers readers to the issue’s featured scholar, Yue Daiyun, whose work in comparative literature has led to the conclusion that the traditions of the West and those of China (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) no longer exist independently of the other. Indeed, as Stalling explains, Yue’s vision is one in which comparative literature is preparation for “an era of global multicultural coexistence.” Continue reading “Chinese Literature Today – 2012”
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Harvard Review – 2012
Reading the Harvard Review was a pleasure. I could read this journal anyway I liked. I could freefall, flipping forward fifty pages at a whim, and know whichever piece I landed on would catch me. The obvious wow-factors include Spain’s poet laureate, Vincente Aleixandre; Antoni Tàpies, a Catalan painter whose work has been displayed at the most prestigious museums around the world; and Charles Simic, a Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellowship recipient. Continue reading “Harvard Review – 2012”
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Jubilat – 2012
Jubilat 21 is an eclectic issue packed with both surrealism and honesty, insight and fun. I’ve always loved jubilat for the bold, inventive work it features, and this issue is no exception. Continue reading “Jubilat – 2012”
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The Labletter – 2012
The Labletter is the product of a small group of artists in Oregon who wrote together for ten years before inviting formal submissions. At its core, the Lab was a place where artists could experiment with their work and benefit from the group’s diverse mediums. The journal’s fourth annual issue stays true to its Oregon Lab roots—it is steeped in nature, whether captured by the photographer, the novelist, the poet, or the painter. Continue reading “The Labletter – 2012”
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The Los Angeles Review – Spring 2012
This issue of The Los Angeles Review is packed with nonfiction, fiction, poetry, interviews, reviews, and even a special feature on John Rechy. At just under 300 pages, it is truly a wonder how the editors were able to include so many genres and forms. Rechy was impossibly lucky to have the first piece of fiction he submitted be published. He was a gay hustler who needed physical affection, even after becoming a successful writer. His writing is poignant, vivid, and mesmerizing, here is a little taste included in the magazine: Continue reading “The Los Angeles Review – Spring 2012”
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Palooka – 2012
The cover art for this issue—“The Little Prince” by Andrew Robertson—speaks greatly to the aura of the writing held within. The Little Prince stands on his asteroid, back turned to us, with just his rose. The fiction, poetry, and nonfiction held within the magazine emit these same senses of loneliness and solitude, though in a way that is both beautiful and poetic. Continue reading “Palooka – 2012”
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Redivider – 2012
Redivider releases their spring 2012 issue loaded with a mix of strong and diverse works of fiction and poetry. From the absurd to the tragic, this issue was a pleasure to read from beginning to end. Continue reading “Redivider – 2012”
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Rhino – 2012
It’s Rhino. I don’t know how long it’s been around, but it is one of the best annual collections of poetry you can find. Once you know the quality is there, what would you like me to tell you? It’s always good. If you are not familiar with it, you can count on it to enrich your day and entertain your evening. If you are familiar with it, you look forward to it. So, what did I do? Continue reading “Rhino – 2012”
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Sakura Review – Spring 2012
Upon reading Volume III of Sakura Review, I had an immediate interest in finding out what the word “Sakura” referred to. I, of course, went first to Wikipedia where I learned that “sakura” might refer to “the Japanese term for ornamental cherry blossom trees and their blossoms.” Continue reading “Sakura Review – Spring 2012”
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Southern Humanities Review – Summer 2012
When money’s involved, what constitutes a document can be volcanically contested. Prior drafts, letters of intent, symbols sketched on a corner of a tablecloth are material one way or the other, if at all. Not so with every literary magazine. The summer 2012 issue of Southern Humanities Review is the first out of maybe twelve issues that I’ve reviewed that is curiously harmonic, down to the detailed footnotes of an essay. The Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting of the Southern Humanities Council, the copyright attribution on the last page from November 1931 are allusive, contributing to a cohesive whole, teasing, in the vein of a modern Nabokov, what is real, what is to be believed. Continue reading “Southern Humanities Review – Summer 2012”
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upstreet – 2012
What makes the lit mag experience special? Editor Vivian Dorsel provides one interesting answer in the short introductory essay that opens this issue of upstreet. Dorsel describes the experience of arriving in Bermuda for a vacation. The narrow Bermudan roads wind you “through a landscape both commonplace and exotic—simple cottages and family homes and forms and hues foreign to your native New England, palm trees in myriad sizes, shapes and shades of green whose fronds clatter in the gusty wind . . .” upstreet creates a similar experience, introducing the reader to unexpected people and places that are nonetheless familiar. Continue reading “upstreet – 2012”
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Printer’s Devil Review – Fall 2012
In an introduction to this issue’s featured artist—Caleb Cole—Joshi Radin discusses how Cole takes old group photographs and whites out all people but one. “We focus on this individual,” writes Radin, “plucked from the crowd. Confined by the white space where companions once crowded, she is alone even in the company of others.” Take, for example, “There Yet,” in which you can see a young girl’s blank expression, barely visible. It may have been lost in the photo originally, blocked out by the other children. Each of the photographs emits loneliness, solitude. “As a group,” Radin says, “They are all alone together.” The pieces of writing contained in this issue speak that same message to me. Continue reading “Printer’s Devil Review – Fall 2012”