Parnassus Lives
August 12th, 2007 by Jeremy Axelrod for the Kenyon Review
Parnassus: Poetry in Review will not be closing shop with Volume 30, after all. Until recently, financial woes made that round, impressive number seem like a sensible finale for the journal’s magnificent run. As Meg Galipault noted on KR Blog [Kenyon Review Blog], Willard Spiegelman wrote in the Wall Street Journal about its “commitment to intelligence and beautiful writing” — an achievement that’s sadly not enough to fill the till. But sometimes poetry does make things happen, or at least poetry critics do. A very generous reader of the Wall Street Journal saw Spiegelman’s article and offered to fully fund Parnassus for two more years. In the last few months, many magazines and newspapers have lamented the end of Parnassus and praised its decades of excellence. Nobody spoke too soon. When the donation materialized, it was an utter surprise for everyone. [Read the rest on KR Blog]
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!
Photography :: Larry Schwarm
One of Larry Schwarm’s photographs adorns the cover of the most recent issue of New Letters. At first I thought it was an image from Katrina, but there was something more colorful about it than those now, all too familiar waterlogged and mildewed landscapes. Schwarm’s subject is the Greensburg Tornado that swept through and destroyed his home town on May 4, 2007. Schwarm was out the next day documenting the devastation. It’s odd to say there’s something beautiful about the images he captures, but then, maybe it’s an odd kind of beauty – to be awed by the end result of an F5 tornado, to see an ordered world turned upside down, to be witness to death and chaos that comes to rest under sunny blue skies. Had Schwarm shot this photo essay in black and white, my feelings might be different, more somber perhaps, less mesmerized by the intricacies of these ruins. As it is, it’s like looking at the pages of a children’s seek and find book, trying to pick out and make sense of the pieces and how they should have fit together. And being stunned to see a single green plate, whole and intact at the top of a heap of brick and mortar rubble, or a closet full of clothes and personal items left completely intact while the entire structure around it is obliterated. This issue of New Letters is worth picking up just for Schwarm’s photos alone, though the images are also on his web site. Also on his site, the one black and white photos he shares is 7.5×36.5 inches and is composed of nine negatives. Prints are available for $100 each, with 100% above printing costs donated to the Kiowa County (Greensburg, Kansas) Historical Society. In print or online, well worth the look.
Spread the word!
Poem of the Hour :: Donovan Chase
Untitled, for a Good Reason
by Donovan Chase
What follows will make no sense.
I intend for this to happen,
And so it will.
I want my poem to be considered deep, so I’ll have it make no sense.
I’ll use random bits of
pretentious nonsense,
To make a point
That doesn’t exist…
[Read the rest on 24:7 Magazine.]
[Or don’t.]
[But then you’ll miss this part:
I’ll use “vague but disturbing imagery”
Like the idea of someone taking a cat
and putting it in a cheese taco
to make the poem seem to have meaning…]
[And other funny bits.]
Spread the word!
Job :: Shippensburg University
Department of English and Shippensburg
University
Tenure-track assistant professor in Creative Writing (Poetry), full-time appointment beginning August 2008. MFA or PhD required by time of appointment. Candidates must demonstrate a commitment to teaching, service, and professional activity including published poetry (preferably a book). Twelve-hour course load each semester will include creative writing, other courses in the English major, and general education courses, with course reduction available for advising the student literary magazine. Additional teaching expertise in creative nonfiction and/or literary study desirable. The committee will request writing samples from selected candidates and may meet with these candidates at MLA. On-campus interviews will include a demonstration of teaching effectiveness and a brief poetry reading. Review of applications begins November 2, 2007, and will continue until the position is filled. View posting here.
Spread the word!
Submissions and Positions :: 63 Channels
63 Channels, an online literary/art magazine, is accepting submission for a Fall/Winter 2007 print issue as well as looking for writers and artists to be matched for their 2008 calendar project. Also looking at least two columnists and two or three book & music reviewers.
Spread the word!
Film Got Lit?
From the June/July/August 2007 issue of Bookforum, and all available online, are three articles of use for those who teach film, for students of film study, and for literature lovers/film afficiandos:
Adapt This: Fiction Into Film
By Phillip Lopate
Reflections (on the topic of fiction into film)
By James Ivory, Elmore Leonard, Tracy Chevalier, Patrick McGrath, Jerry Stahl, Michael Tolkin, Susanna Moore, Time Krabbe, Irvine Welsh, Barry Gifford, Alexander Payne, Myla Goldberg, and Frederic Raphael
Best Adaptations (short lists from each with brief highlight notes)
By Francine Prose, Joy Press, Geoffrey O’Brien, Robert Polito, Luc Sante, Stephanie Zacharek, Steve Erickson, Molly Haskell, Armond White, J. Hoberman, Bilge Ebiri, and Drake Stutesman
Spread the word!
New Issue Online :: 27 rue de fleures
Now online: 27 rue del fleures – poetries by women. Featured in Issue Three, Summer 2007 are works by Kristin Abraham, Marcia Arrieta, Juliet Cook, Hildred Crill, Melissa DeGezelle, Karen Heywood, A.S. Morgan, Jess Neiweem, Rhonda Robison, Carly Sachs, Amanda Silbernagel, and Yvette Thomas.
Spread the word!
Submissions :: Gay Poetry Anthologies
A Midsummer Night’s Press announces two new annual anthologies: BEST GAY POETRY edited by Lawrence Schimel and BEST LESBIAN POETRY edited by Linda Alvarez. For the 2008 editions of this exciting new series celebrating the best in gay/lesbian poetry, A Midsummer Night’s Press invites submissions of poems published during 2007. Submission information here.
Spread the word!
Censorship for the Next Generation
Jessica Powers, author of The Confessional (previously blogged herein), wrote August 8 to inform us of a speaking engagement of hers having been cancelled.
She wrote: “This morning, I received news that my event at Cathedral High School here in El Paso (scheduled this coming Monday afternoon at 3 p.m.), where I was going to discuss issues of immigration and border security and racism with students, has been canceled. I understand that the person behind canceling the event is Chief Justice Richard Barajas, who thought that doing an event with a book that discusses these issues, with profanity, would be a public relations disaster for Cathedral High School and that parents would be in an uproar. Ironically, the event was scheduled on the same day that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is to be the keynote speaker at the Border Security Conference at UTEP here in town. As you know, THE CONFESSIONAL looks at the issues he will be speaking about from the teen perspective. That event has now been canceled and the discussion silenced.”
Coming only four weeks after the publication of this exceptional young adult novel, my response to Jessica: I’m surprised it took them so long.
The book is hard-hitting and more real than some adults may want to believe is possible among our nation’s “children.” And Jessica’s dis-invitation is over what? Supposedly because of the fact that characters in her book swear? Uh, did anybody notice Harry Potter in book seven is a minor drinking whiskey and making comparisons with its euphoric feelings throughout the book? But, I guess the issue of ethnic cleansing is just better masked therein so that is overlooked… Fortunately, we can hope, as with most censorship, cancelled invitations and bannings, this will encourage even more young adults to read her work and want to hear what she has to say on the issues reflected so humanly and humanely through the characters in her book. It’s just too bad these select “adults” won’t hear her out, and that they are in positions of power to silence her.
Read more from Jessica herself on her blog: J.L. Powers
Spread the word!
Remember Your First Book?
First Book is a nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books. We provide an ongoing supply of new books to children participating in community-based mentoring, tutoring, and family literacy programs.
Over the summer, First Book asked the question: What book got you hooked? On the site now are the results, including responses from Joyce Carol Oates, Edward Norton, Joan Allen, Rebecca Romijn, John Lithgow, Eric Carle, Judy Woodruff, Marlee Matlin, Rick Reilly, John Krasinski, Lisa Loeb, Joshua Bell, Elizabeth Gilbert and many more.
Spread the word!
The Nation :: Free Copies for Students
Students can request free copies of The Nation to pass out at campus events, meetings or protests. Go to their website to fill out the request form: Student Nation
Spread the word!
New Journal :: Projections
Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that explores the ways in which recent advancements in fields such as psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, genetics and evolution help to increase our understanding of film, and how film itself facilitates investigations into the nature and function of the mind. The journal will also incorporate articles on the visual arts and new technologies related to film. The aims of the journal are to explore these subjects, facilitate a dialogue between people in the sciences and the humanities, and bring the study of film to the forefront of contemporary intellectual debate. Published on behalf of The Forum for Movies and the Mind.
Coming in the Summer of 2007
Volume 1, Number 1
Articles:
Ira Konigsberg, “Film Theory and the New Science”
Gilbert J. Rose, “On Affect, Motion and Nonverbal Art: A Case and a Theory”
Patrick Colm Hogan, “Sensorimotor Projection, Violations of Continuity, and Emotion in the Experience of Film”
Norman Holland, “The Neuroscience of Metafilm”
Torben Grodal, “Film Emotions, Valence, and Evolutionary Adaptations”
Silvia Bell, “Separation and Merger in Lovers of the Arctic Circle”
Reviews by:
Bonnie Kaufman, Jeff Zacks , Carl Plantinga and Cynthia Freeland
Forthcoming:
Adrienne Harris on Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation
An interview with Jonathan Caouette
Uri Hasson on what movies tell us about the mind
Spread the word!
Submissions :: Indiana Review 5.08
Indiana Review is planning to bring the funk in summer 2008. Issue 30.1 will feature a special “Focus on the Funk” section, with art, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that has a uniquely funky aesthetic. Funk has the power to move and re-move, and it also has the power to defy definition. So please don’t ask what funk is (although the Godfather of Soul may be helpful). IR is looking for work that makes you want to jump back and kiss yourself. For more information, visit IR website.
Spread the word!
Evangelical Video Games :: The Nation
I’m not a video game fan, but I am interested in the shift in the attraction the younger generation has to symbols and visual graphics – the milennial literacy. It is this kind of reading/literacy that is being tapped into by Operation Straight Up (OSU), a government-sponsored (aka: You’re paying for this), military support group.
Kill Or Convert, Brought To You By the Pentagon
By Max Blumenthal
The Nation
“The Pentagon endorses an End Times evangelical group that proselytizes among US troops, plans a ‘crusade’ to Iraq, and promotes a post-apocalyptic kill-or-convert video game.”
And who’s in the forefront of this promotional movement?
“Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore’s sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days…’In my position, I just don’t think I’m supposed to keep my faith to myself,’ Baldwin told a group of Texas Southern Baptists in 2004. ‘I’m just doing what the Lord’s telling me to do.'”
Read the rest: The Notion
Spread the word!
Submissions :: Call for Art – MacGuffin
The MacGuffin, established in 1984, is a national literary magazine from Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan. Our journal is a 160 page 6” x 9” perfect bound collection of the best poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction that we receive. We also have artwork including black and white photos, prints, and drawings. We publish three issues yearly.
Spread the word!
The Book Of Hopes and Dreams
From Dee Rimbauld, Editor: The Book Of Hopes And Dreams is a charity, poetry anthology, published to raise money for the Medical Aid (Afghanistan) appeal of the Glasgow-based charity Spirit Aid, which is an entirely volunteer run organisation, headed by Scottish actor and director, David Hayman. As a volunteer organisation, Spirit Aid are able to ensure that 90% of all the funds they raise go straight to the projects they are involved in (unlike most of the bigger charities whose admin and advertising budgets swallow huge percentages of all donations). The Book Of Hopes And Dreams, which is a celebration of the human spirit (even in times of great adversity) has captured the imagination and hearts of some of the greatest living poets of our times; all of whom have freely contributed work to this anthology. There are contributions from Margaret Atwood, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Heath-Stubbs, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Tony Harrison, Alasdair Gray, Edwin Morgan, Penelope Shuttle, Anne Stevenson, Jon Stallworthy, Alan Brownjohn, Ruth Fainlight, David Constantine, Moniza Alvi, Cyril Dabydeen, Elaine Feinstein, Vicki Feaver, Michael Horovitz, Tom Leonard, Robert Mezey, Lawrence Sail, Jay Ramsay, Charles Ades Fishman, Geoffrey Godbert and Ian Duhig, amongst others.
The book costs
Spread the word!
Featured Online Magazine :: Words Without Borders
Along with the myriad ancient virtues of storytelling-giving pleasure, passing time, stimulating thought, connecting strangers — literature is a passport to places both real and imagined. In an increasingly interdependent world, rife with ignorance and incomprehension of other cultures, literature in translation has an especially important role.
Few literatures have truly prospered in isolation from the world. English-speaking culture in general and American culture in particular has long benefited from cross-pollination with other worlds and languages. Thus it is an especially dangerous imbalance when, today, 50% of all the books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6% are translated into English.
Words Without Borders opens doors to international exchange through translation of the world’s best writing — selected and translated by a distinguished group of writers, translators, and publishing professionals — and publishing and promoting these works (or excerpts) on the web. We also serve as an advocacy organization for literature in translation, producing events that feature the work of foreign writers and connecting these writers to universities and the media.
Our ultimate aim is to introduce exciting international writing to the general public — travelers, teachers, students, publishers, and a new generation of eclectic readers — by presenting international literature not as a static, elite phenomenon, but a portal through which to explore the world. In the richness of cultural information we present, we hope to help foster a “globalization” of cultural engagement and exchange, one that allows many voices in many languages to prosper.
Words Without Borders is a partner of PEN American Center and the Center for Literary Translation at Columbia University, and is hosted by Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
Spread the word!
Discussion Forums :: Brooklyn Book Talk
Giving the residents of Brooklyn and elsewhere an opportunity to discuss books and literature, facilitated by staff of Brooklyn Public Library. Brooklyn Public Library’s online book discussions encourage people to talk about books over the Internet. The discussion allows for debate and the sharing of ideas related to books. To participate in the discussion, simply click on the “comments” link at the bottom of a post and submit a comment. Currently under discussion: Grief by Andrew Holleran; upcoming for September: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri See more: Brooklyn Book Talk
Spread the word!
Lit Mag Mailbag :: August 7, 2007
Ascent
Volume 30 Number 3, Spring 2007
Triannual
Bellingham Review
Volume 30 Numbers 1 & 2, Spring/Fall 2007
Biannual
The Hudson Review
Volume 60 Number 2, Summer 2007
Quarterly
The Journal of Ordinary Thought
Spring 2007
Quarterly
Kaleidoscope
Number 55, Summer/Fall 2007
Biannual
The MacGuffin
Volume 23 Number 3, Spring/Summer 2007
Triannual
The Massachusetts Review
Volume 48 Number 2, Summer 2007
Quarterly
Michigan Quarterly Review
Volume 46 Number 3, Summer 2007
Quarterly
The Midwest Quarterly
Volume 48 Number 4, Summer 2007
Quarterly
The New Centennial Review
Volume 6 Number 2, Winter 2006
Triannual
One Story
Issue Number 91, 2007
Monthly
Parthenon West Review
Issue 5, 2007
Biannual
Rock and Sling
Volume 4 Issue 1, Summer 2007
Biannual
Skidrow Penthouse
Issue Number 8, 2007
Annual
Sou’wester
Volume 35 Number 2, Spring 2007
Biannual
Spread the word!
The Drummstick
Got Doc’s CD in the mail and didn’t think much of it until I took a closer look at what exactly this “drummstick” is that he plays. This is some incredible technology! You can check out more at his site: www.drummstick.com and see other YouTube clips of him performing with other musicians.
Spread the word!
Online Lit Mag :: Storyglossia 21 is Complete!
If you haven’t been reading along as each story has been released, the full
Issue 21 is now available featuring stories by: Gretchen McCullough, Kay Sexton, JSun Howard, Amelia Gray, Dan Capriotti, Sung J. Woo, Terry White, Paula Bomer, Clifford Garstang, Emily M. Z. Carlyle, Joel Van Noord, Anthony Neil Smith, Laurie Seidler, and Josh Capps. Issue 22 will start in a week or so, with a new story released every 2-3 days.
Spread the word!
Submissions :: Young Writers
Attention Young Writers: Submit your work to be read at an upcoming live production!
If you are between the ages 14 and 21 and enjoy writing, please submit your poems, stories, or essays to be considered for reading at an upcoming live production of A River & Sound Review.
“Writers may submit up to three poems, or an essay or story up to 1,000 words in length. Selection of the work will be based on the literary merit of the submission and its appropriateness for our program. Due to our production schedule and limited staff, it may take us up to three months to notify you of our acceptance of your submission.”
See submissions page here: Young Writers Submissions for A River & Sound Review
For more information about opportunities for yount writers, visit NewPages Young Authors Guide.
Spread the word!
Sunday Elegy
The Dead Bird Elegy
By Martha Henry
Most of us have our own ways of avoiding the idea of death, if not the actual event itself. But we also have ways of confronting death, usually in a sideways way, like Zombie movies or estate planning. Then there are the traditional Buddhist methods, such as meditating on the uncertainty of the time of death or hanging out with fresh corpses in a charnel ground. Me, I take photographs of dead birds.
Read the rest, or listen to the the MP3 version, on tricycle: the independent voice of Buddhism.
Spread the word!
What’s on YOUR iPod?
How about FREE audiobooks? LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Their goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. They are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project. Download HEAVEN for the literati! LibriVox also welcomes volunteer readers and listeners for editing recorded works and maintains a strong community among its regulars with message boards and podcast updates.
Spread the word!
In Memoriam :: Aura Estrada
“New Directions mourns the loss of Aura Estrada, essayist and reviewer, wife of Francisco Goldman, and a great friend who helped us publish Roberto Bolano in the United States. One of our finest Spanish language fiction readers and advisors, Estrada died on July 25 in a surfing accident off the coast of Mexico. Her reviews appeared in many publications, including Bookforum and Boston Review, which published her review of two recent New Directions books in its July/August 2007 issue. A brilliant essay by Aura Estrada on Bolano and Borges can be read on the Words Without Borders website.”
Spread the word!
Book Sale! Coach House Books
Who can resist a sale, especially when it involves books, and especially from a really cool small press? “The Scorching Summer Sale has been extended through August! Purchase any two Coach House books from the website and receive a third book absolutely free! (The free book must be of equal or lesser value than the two purchased books.) Simply place an online order for two books of your choice, then send an e-mail to [email protected] with your name and selection of third book. Act quickly. The sale ends August 31.”
Spread the word!
Awards :: Wallace Stevens Award
Charles Simic has been selected as the recipient of the 2007 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. The $100,000 prize recognizes outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. The Academy’s Board of Chancellors, a body of sixteen eminent poets, nominates and elects the Wallace Stevens Award recipient.
Spread the word!
Books :: War Poetry
The Baghdad Blues by Sinan Antoon
Published by Harbor Mountain Press
“Baghdad Blues shares with war poetry, especially that of World War I, the sense of underlying shock and horror at the human cruelty and waste. But, Antoon’s poetry is more nightmarish. It starts with enormous schizophrenic intimations of a self caught between repression, fear, and resignation under a dictatorial role, to end up amid scenes of horror that have become the legacy of the 2003 invasion and occupation. Sinan Antoon’s Blues snatches its images from among metal, armor, deserted places, explosions, to build up an identity for an Iraqi soul in a world which is drifting fast into horror which Joseph Conrad-Kurtz’ cry cannot fathom or reach. As befitting the title, sound summons its power from everything in Iraq: from the dictatorial decrees and their demand for appreciative applause, to the air, sea, and land bombardments and explosions. The agonized soul has to cope up with these by its music, its beats of the heart as it perceives all from a hole somewhere, a hole that might offer a glimpse, perhaps of hope, that the poet calls Baghdad Blues.”
—Muhsin al-Musawi
Professor of Arabic Literature at Columbia University and Author of Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition and Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict
Spread the word!
Lit Mag Update :: StoryQuartely
StoryQuarterly announces that our new system for receiving submissions year-round is now online. Also, the SQ Fiction Contest is accepting entries until September 30 and offers a First Prize of $2,500, a Second Prize of $1,500, and a Third Prize of $750. Additionally, ten Finalists will each receive $100. The new issue of SQ is also online, featuring:
Charles Johnson’s short story “Night Watch, 500 BCE”
Steve Kistulentz’s short story “Reykjavík the Beautiful”
Gary Buslik’s short story “Don’t Open That Door”
Elea Carey’s short story “First Love, Last Love”
Darrach Dolan’s short story “Riot”
Golda Goldbloom’s “Wyalkatchem Stories”
Skip Horack’s short story “Bluebonnet Swamp”
Hannah Pittard’s short story “Pretty Parts”
Emily Rapp’s short story “November”
Spread the word!
Contests for Anthology :: Press 53
Press 53 will hold eight category contest from now until March, 2008. Winners of each contest will be published Fall 2008 in the Press 53 Open Awards Anthology. Categories will be judged by eight award-winning & industry professional judges. Categories include: poetry, flash fiction, short-short fiction, genre fiction, short fiction, creative nonfiction, novella, and young writers.
Spread the word!
Submissions :: North Central Review, IL
The staff of the North Central Review invites you to submit to the national, undergraduate literary journal published by North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. The North Central Review considers all literary genres, including short fiction, poetry, drama, creative nonfiction, and mixed-genre pieces, for two issues annually. The submission deadlines for the Fall and Spring issues are October 15 and February 15, respectively.
Spread the word!
Job :: Sarah Lawrence College, NY
Sarah Lawrence College seeks established nonfiction writers to fill two half-time tenure-track positions beginning in the fall of 2008. Teaching responsibilities include undergraduate and graduate nonfiction-writing workshops, regular individual tutorials with students, and supervision of M.F.A. theses. We are looking for candidates with an M.F.A. or equivalent, at least one published book, teaching experience at the undergraduate or graduate level, a demonstrated commitment to excellence in teaching, and a willingness to participate actively in the nonfiction-writing program and the academic life of the college.
Please send a letter of application, a C.V., samples of writing, and three letters of recommendation to Nonfiction Search, c/o Rosemary Weeks, Faculty Assistant, Sarah Lawrence College, 1 Mead Way, Bronxville, NY 10708. Applications should be postmarked by November 15, 2007.
Spread the word!
Contest Winner :: Lynne Thompson
Perugia Press publishes one collection of poetry each year, by a woman at the beginning of her publishing career. Beg No Pardon by Lynne Thompson, winner of the 2007 Perugia Press Prize, has just been released. Visit Perugia Press website for details and ordering information.
Spread the word!
Submissions :: Palabra
Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art invites submissions of short fiction, poetry, short plays and novel excerpts. Looking especially for work that pays attention to language as much as content, takes literary risks and explores new territory in Chicano & Latino literary art.
Spread the word!
Photos :: Buddha Project
Lens Culture: Photography and Shared Territories
“The Buddha Project encourages people worldwide to participate by submitting photos of found Buddha, sacred Buddha, ancient Buddha, kitschy Buddha, handmade Buddha. An archive of hundreds of Buddha images may well generate good karma for everyone involved, viewers and contributors, alike. As of July 12, 2007, there are 318 photos in the collection. Please participate by contributing your images of Buddha. Notice Buddha in your surroundings and share your discoveries with others. It will make you feel good. Guaranteed.”
Spread the word!
New Online Journal :: Delmarva Poets
The first issue of the Delaware Poetry Review, an online magazine featuring new works from the Mid-Atlantic region, is now available. The inaugural issue features 23 poets. The Delaware Poetry Review was formed when the editors of five well-respected, award-winning journals in Delaware, Virginia, and Washington, DC (Bay Oak Press, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Bogg, Delmarva Quarterly, Delmarva Review, and Gargoyle) decided to collaborate on a new project together. Read it here: Delaware Poetry Review
Spread the word!
Submissions :: Bent Pin Journal
Bent Pin Quarterly, an online journal, is seeking original poetry, flash fiction, essays and creative non-fiction for its Fall 2007 edition. Also needed: original submissions for two regular features: Story within Story, flash fiction (or other genre) that somehow nests two unfolding, releated stories; The Poem at Length, one longer poem, or a poem series. Bent Pin publishes online on January 1, April 1, July 1, October 1,and reads submissions year round. We are now reading for our Fall 2007 issue which will be published on Oct 1.
Spread the word!
6×6 – Spring 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”
Spread the word!
Brilliant Corners – Summer 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”
Spread the word!
Cave Wall – Winter 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”
Spread the word!
Columbia – Spring/Summer 2007
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”
Spread the word!
Diner – 2006
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”
Spread the word!
Forklift, Ohio – Winter 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”
Spread the word!
High Desert Journal – Spring 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”
Spread the word!
Insolent Rudder – Summer 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”
Spread the word!
The Iowa Review – Spring 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”
Spread the word!
The MacGuffin – Winter 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”
Spread the word!
The Missouri Review – Spring 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”
Spread the word!
Polyphony H.S. – 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”
Spread the word!
Quarterly West – Fall/Winter 2006/2007
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”