The Missouri Review – Winter 2005

I know that The Missouri Review changed its look and feel some time ago, so this may be old news to some of you—but The Missouri Review is bigger, more graphic, and strangely personality centered—large bios appear next to the work, complete with author photos, each on its own page—and beginning pages of stories start with shouting, inch-high fonts.

I know that The Missouri Review changed its look and feel some time ago, so this may be old news to some of you—but The Missouri Review is bigger, more graphic, and strangely personality centered—large bios appear next to the work, complete with author photos, each on its own page—and beginning pages of stories start with shouting, inch-high fonts. The overall effect a little distracting, making me feel I was reading some kind of souped-up “mega” literary magazine. This issue features an interview with A.M. Homes, a pictorial review of Leon Bakst’s costumes for the Russian ballet, and poems by R.T. Smith. My favorite poems were those of Lynn Aarti Changhok, whose formal poems about her childhood in India and her subsequent life in New York ache with nostalgia. in “Artemesia” she writes: “In the dream, I walked up narrow streets / Where butchers string up carcasses, but each / Dead body was a year I’d been away, / Their angry, hollowed stares accusing me: / You have no claim. You are no daughter here.” The journal still retains the charming literary cartoons and a small section of reviews at the back. The trendy formatting of the magazine aside, the content is as old-fashioned and solid as always—nothing to challenge the old guard, certainly not adventurous, but enjoyable poetry and prose. [The Missouri Review, 1507 Hillcrest Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia MO 65211. Single issue $7.95. www.missourireview.com] —Jeannine Hall Gailey