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Generally speaking, I hate theme issues – if I wanted to read that much about a single topic, I’d buy a book – but subTerrain’s issue on “Money” won me over. Continue reading “subTerrain – Winter 2006”

Although Subtropics is only three issues old, it’s already hard to imagine the American literary scene without it. Published at the University of Florida, it offers a wealth of quality fiction and poetry, including a few works in translation. In this issue, you’ll find an excerpt from Sándor Márai’s Hungarian novel The Rebels, and poetry by Romanian poet Mariana Marin and French poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859). Continue reading “Subtropics – Winter/Spring 2007”

Sycamore Review refuses to be lost in the “to be read” stack, partly because the magazine is an 8-inch by 8-inch square, which leaves its wings outstretched from most towers of books. However, not only its unusual dimensions (but, really, what is unusual anymore?) and comfortable paper quality make the magazine an aesthetic delight. We are gathered here today to find out whether form and content are unified as equal partners. Continue reading “Sycamore Review – Winter/Spring 2007”

Zone 3’s current issue is a thoroughly entertaining selection of poetry and short fiction, though if you have recently experienced a troubled relationship, this issue might not be the one for you. James Iredell’s “Custodian” gives a snapshot of an unfulfilled woman who is attracted to a coworker and fears her husband is having an affair with his new boss. Continue reading “Zone 3 – Fall 2006”

Antioch Review celebrates its 65th year of publication with this fine issue’s eclectic collection of essays, fiction, poetry, book reviews, and et cetera, which includes Editor Robert S. Fogarty’s thoughtful editorial, “Nolan Miller (1907 – 2006),” on the last of the journal’s founding editors, and John Taylor’s “Poetry Today.” Thomas Washington’s “A Quarterly Reader (and Writer),” laments the absence of editorials in many quarterlies, as do I. If you enjoy sophisticated spy stories, you’ll love “Tunis and Time” by Peter LaSalle; Stephen Taylor’s “Bloomsbury Nights: Being, Food and Love” will bring you closer, perhaps (to a dictionary); “Odessa” by Rick DeMarinis will remind you of those among us who cannot sort things out. Continue reading “The Antioch Review – Winter 2007”

When I was in college, the English majors and science majors just didn’t get along. Reading Zahir, I kept wondering what all that tension was about, since so many of this journal’s cross-disciplined writers are able to blend their interests in creative writing and science so well. My favorite piece in this issue is Jerry Underwood’s “Traveling Companion,” set in a world which is simply a very long train, constantly moving on a Track with no beginning or end in sight, inhabited by robots all named Bob (if male) or Bobbie (female). Continue reading “Zahir – Spring 2007”

If pop culture irritates and disgusts you, then this magazine is for you. If you’re a pop culture junkie and your admiration for Patrick Swayze and Mr. T is rivaled only by admiration for your father, then this magazine is for you. Equipped to satisfy the panoply of individual tastes, Barrelhouse brilliantly succeeds at “bridging the gap between serious art and pop culture.” With a wide range of fare – essays, interviews, poetry, fiction, art – Barrelhouse has it all. I mean, come on, who else is publishing poetry about Ed Asner? Exactly. Fiction in this issue is strong across the board, and to be fair, each piece deserves its own review. Melissa Yancey’s “Recommended if You Dig” is a perfect example of the Barrelhouse blend, where the young indie protagonist may finally have fallen in love but becomes obsessed with the fact that the woman he’s seeing does not share his love for Neutral Milk Hotel, and this seemingly irreconcilable difference threatens to be the deal-breaker. Another excellent piece is Wendy Wimmer’s “Billets Doux,” an art/fiction piece (Barrelhouse art director Kylos Brannon does a top-notch job laying this piece out) comprised of emails tapped on a Blackberry, offering verbal snapshots cumulating in a portrait of loneliness and desire. Continue reading “Barrelhouse – Issue 3”

The American Scholar celebrated 75 years with the publication of its winter issue. To mark this outstanding achievement, Robert Wilson, the journal’s editor of two years, asked two contributing editors to read every issue from the past 75 years (300 in all) and comment on the journey. The results are fascinating—both in terms of the writers who have written in The Scholar (e.g. John Updike, Oliver Sacks, Barbara Tuchman, Rita Dove, and Hannah Arendt), and in terms of how the journal’s contents trace larger social, political, and ideological movements. Wilson writes in his editor’s note that he noticed how “arguments became more specific, more rooted in particular cases or in personal experiences, more dependent on narrative” Continue reading “The American Scholar – Winter 2007”

Entering its tenth year of publication, this journal of the University of South Carolina at Beaufort offers readers fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry by established and emerging writers. Kathleen Rooney’s essay “Coy Mistress,” about her work as an artist’s and photographer’s nude model appealed to me, perhaps all the more so because I read it while sitting clothed in a paper gown on a physician’s examination table, and over the years, I’ve wondered how a person guards her/his composure while under such close scrutiny. Rebecca McLanachan’s essay, “Interstellar,” delves into the relationship between two sisters. Artfully structured around the recurrent image of double stars, it movingly portrays their changing relationship over time. In the short story “Uncle Will,” Ron Cooper convincingly depicts an irascible older man and his clever solution to the perennial problem of transportation. Poems by some two dozen authors take up half of the journal. They include works by Nelson James Dunford, Michael Johnson, Sharon Doyle, David Lunde, and Jane Sanderson. Standouts are Michael Bassett’s “Aphorisms of One Who Calls Himself Legion Because He is Many”: “The wounds we cannot live / without define us the way the night / sky outlines the stars.” Similarly, in her prose poem (or flash memoir) “Detour,” Sanderson powerfully depicts the feelings a person experiences upon visiting a once concentration camp, now memorial. Frederick Zydek’s “Dreams That Get It Right,” part of a collection-in-progress about dreams, also prompted me to think, with these lines: Continue reading “Apostrophe – 2006”

Stylish and quirky, BWR continually reimagines what it means to be a university-affiliated journal. Amid the chapbook and gorgeous art portfolio, Steve Davenport’s “Murder on Gasoline Lake” unfolds the toxic layers of his childhood spent in a refinery town and illustrates the ways home, even sludge and stink, gets graphed to us “whether we like it or not.” Angie Carter may have entered the world just as Elvis exited, but her nostalgic essay proves music and video as seductive as warm flesh to the obsessive psyche. While paragraphs labeled “First sight,” “First jealousy,” “Our song” suggest stalkerish fandom, Angie’s awareness of the absurd and coverage of other Elvis aficionados (freaks?) sweetens the insanity. Continue reading “Black Warrior Review – Fall/Winter 2006”

The Canadian journal Brick is a slap in the face (with a brick) to mediocrity. Brick 78 is chock full of nuts: Robin Blaser, Robert Hass, Sylvia Plath, Ko Un, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Barry Gifford, and certainly more. This journal is not long-winded, and still Brick answers to some of the most interesting essays, memoirs, tributes and speeches, and of course, good poetry. The essays of Brick are always the most fulfilling. The piece “Milosz: The Conscience of Solidarity” by Peter Dale Scott is fascinating. A quote at the beginning of the essay by Adam Michnik should be of interest to poets and revolutionaries alike: “I remember that when I once was arrested the police found a box of treatises by Milosz in my apartment. And during the interrogation the officer was saying, ‘Mr. Michnik, do you believe that with the help of this little poetry you are going to win against Communism?’ And we won.” Continue reading “Brick – Winter 2006”

Talib Kweli sums up this issue in the final interview/article when he advises, “Make sure that you acknowledge, at all times, your history, your ancestors, where you come from and what you are responsible for, what people have done, how people fought, struggled, and died to get you to where you are.” Each and every engaging and diverse perspective in Callaloo’s issue on “Hip Hop and Culture” clearly sounds off on the importance of the roots of the culture, which entails those directly and indirectly involved in the music and culture. The authors manage to establish the importance of hip hop culture’s history through a variety of interviews, photos, poetry, and articles, not to mention the great front and back cover artwork. There’s nothing like seeing a respectable journal’s title in graffiti topped equally with city and island skylines, a meeting of the urban and the earth. The roots of hip hop and its culture also find an unexpected icon in Curtis Crisler’s poem, “Elegy for Mister Rogers: In memory of Fred Rogers,” which served “as a backbeat, before Run/DMC, Eric B. and Rakim, Tupac and Biggie.” Again the dominant theme for each poet in this issue is the importance and relevance of personal and cultural history in hip-hop. Regarding the critical articles, I found Wayne Marshall’s work on sampling’s relevance in hip-hop and Ed Pavlic’s exploration of the relationship between the DJ and audience the two most captivating pieces of criticism. Continue reading “Callaloo – Summer 2006”

After finishing the final piece “Punched” by Steven Cordova in the Cimarron Review, I was left with the line, “You were punched.” Indeed, I was. With each piece I was smacked in the face with a story and a perfect picture, like a movie reel with words streaming by at an almost overwhelming pace, leaving me breathless. The selection of poetry is inarguably strong. For example, “Nocturne,” by Nate Pritts, is based on the simple concept of night, in which he envelopes the feeling, letting each aspect out in short detailed descriptions such as, “Tiger lilies outside my window beat slow time // against the screen, six-petaled heads bobbing / burnt orange, mute tongues curling & streaked // like the sky…” “Aunt Catherine” by Yvonne Higgins Leach also shined, showing a sign of hope for a woman who only had time for herself when she was in the water. Continue reading “Cimarron Review – Winter 2007”

Just about to enter its fortieth year, Cimarron Review does not appear to be suffering from a midlife crisis—no new bells and whistles, just poetry, fiction, and essays. As usual, Cimarron Review excels with their selection of poetry. Emily Fragos delivers two devastating poems, “19 Chopin Waltzes” with its accusatory lines, “All the begetting: the weak limbs and soft bellies, / the faces elongated like the devil himself,” and “Insomnia” whose ending is one long shiver, “Even the chained lie down in the dark; / Soldiers, sick of shoveling muck and trench, dream of resting / Beneath blankets of snow. Continue reading “Cimarron Review – Fall 2006”