Anyone searching for a traditional approach and literary collection will be comfortable and entertained by the Summer 2018 edition of Able Muse. This edition of artwork, poetry, essays, fiction, and interviews provides both entertainment and insight in what can best be complimented by its traditional approach and content. The literary works and the featured art theme encourage the reader to look further into the associated online poetry workshop Eratosphere.

The Antioch Review is a literary magazine produced in Ohio since 1941 and is one of the oldest literary magazines still published in America. It contains essays, fiction, and poetry from a variety of authors and has played a role in literary history, having included pieces produced by some of the most well-known writers, like Ralph Ellison and Sylvia Plath. The Spring 2018 issue of The Antioch Review sticks to the theme of “Love & Kisses, Lust & Wishes.” It’s an issue about love, about lust, about what we could want, and about what we never got to keep.

The Aurorean is a powerhouse of poetry. Published biannually out of Farmington, Maine, the Spring/Summer 2018 issue is sixty-one pages packed with works by seventy poets. For this reason, I would never recommend anyone read this full volume in one sitting. Doing so would leave any reader in a state akin to post-marathon exhaustion. Instead, this slim journal should be carried along your daily journey as a companion to life, to refresh your perspective, renew your vision, and deepen the experience of your existence.

Looking back, one of my first introductions to poetry (and enjoying it) was a small set of children’s books, one filled with poetry dedicated to dogs, and the other dedicated to cats. I read them constantly, paging through them until the covers began to curl backward from my incessant touching. I couldn’t help thinking of this set of books when I received the new issue announcement for Allegro Poetry Magazine in my inbox, pleased to see the issue is dedicated to cats. Unable to currently live with any felines myself, the poetry is a nice substitute for a warm cat on the lap.

The American Literary Review has been publishing well-crafted creative writing for nearly thirty years. In 2013, the journal published its final print issue and moved to an online format where it continues the tradition of providing exceptional writing to readers with an even more accessible format.

Celebrating its 45^th year in publication, AGNI, published out of Boston University, takes its name from the Vedic god of fire, the guardian of humankind. AGNI’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are a fire in the darkness, illuminating the corners of reality we do not see.

With 2017 over and two weeks into the new year, it kind of feels like getting through last year was surviving something. Reading the December 2017 issue of The American Poetry Journal, I found myself drawn to poems that consider different types of survival.

Where to start. The fans of Able Muse look forward to each issue’s featured poet and featured artist, and the Summer 2017 issue does not disappoint. The issue notably holds the attention with distinct content that varies from what one usually finds in a multi-genre journal.

Looking at the cover of the Fall 2017 issue of Apple Valley Review, I had the chills. A photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli of a town corner in winter, sun setting, and ice lining the road greets readers at the Apple Valley Review website, foreshadowing the Michigan winter waiting for me around the corner.

The second issue of The Arkansas International contains an impressive range of eclectic writing. But what caught my eye first was the collection of six-panel comics excerpt from the Notes Mésopotamiennes by French comic book writer François Ayroles, translated by Edward Gauvin.

At the beginning of each month, Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine brings readers one piece each in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, all with an animal theme. With only three pieces per issue, readers can fully enjoy each piece at their own pace, strengthening their appreciation for animal inspiration.

Regular readers of the Alaska Quarterly Review should already know that this journal rarely disappoints. This issue of the review meets the highest of expectations as it has set the bar in so many issues at an altitude that allows the inclusion of veteran writers as well as those writers only just setting out on their professional journeys. This issue contains works that may set the standards for contemporary literature even higher still.

Travel. I can’t think of a lovelier thought as, here in the northeastern US, I look out the window to see snow blasting by with below-zero wind chills and FEMA storm warnings chirping through my phone. I can hunker down indoors, curl up with my iPod and a cup of hot tea, and travel the globe and the deepest inner reaches of emotion by reading Editor Sally Long’s selections in the December issue of Allegro. 

As someone who truly enjoys reading short stories, American Short Fiction literary magazine provides a real treat. I could not put it down, too eager to read each new short story. This Fall 2016 issue celebrates 25 years and, as a commemoration, the front and back covers are covered with the names of every author that has been included in its 63 issues.

Let’s go back seventy-five years and meet ourselves again—because, as The Antioch Review has proven in its special anniversary edition, we did not hold the mirror closely enough back then, and we did not hear the message presented so clearly in the writings of people like Ralph Ellison, who laid before us in no uncertain terms our racial disparities and injustices, and in the poetry of that age. As Sidney Alexander explains in the poem “Prologue to Bolivar,” originally published in the autumn of 1944, we must “Roll back the dusty scroll, for no man lives / without his past: no man moves alone: / No man skates on time as if it were a film, but sees below him when the waters clear / the endless processionals of the dead.”

Issues of The Aurorean give readers glimpses into the seasons, the Spring/Summer 2016 issue sporting a bold, bright cover photograph of magenta petals. The flyleaf is a light, complementary pink, bringing forth the fresh feelings of spring and new flowers.

If you’re looking for something to read that departs from the literature written about white folk by white men, you need to pick up a copy of the latest issue of Apogee. Rife with culture and social commentary and a myriad of international authors both male and female, Apogee delivers a collection of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art that I simply did not want to end.

Peter McGehee’s “The Ballad of Hank McCaul” is a story whose setting begins in a hotel room, moves out to a pool hall, onto Claredon, a town an hour’s drive away from Little Rock, and then ends back in the hotel room. It begins with a problem that, by the end of the story, the narrator solves. Although it’s not as simple as all that, really, because the underlying conflict is deep and rooted and thick. The narrator, Sammy, having just visited the newly dug grave site of his lover, Hank, sums it up when he glimpses, as he is drinking beer, a sideways view of the Seventh Wheel’s clientele. “The whole world may change,” the story goes, “but the town you come from never will.”

Judith Hall, the influential poetry editor of this esteemed literary journal, should be congratulated for producing one of the best issues of “The Antioch Review” that I’ve read in a long time. This special all-poetry issue, subtitled “What to Read, What to Praise,” contains, contrary to what you might believe from the cover, more than just poetry.

“(Re)Collecting the Vietnam War” is the theme of unrestrained poetry, prose, drama, and art in this special issue of The Asian American Literary Review. This hefty volume can be regarded as a history, much like survivor accounts of other wars. Its five sections are each prefaced by a curator, some offering more explanation than others to illuminate what follows. Contributors to this volume straightforwardly talk about the past, present and future, while not glossing over the conflicts in Southeast Asia four decades ago.

This issue of AQR devotes 80 pages of photo-essay to: "Chechnya: A Decade of War," by Heidi Bradner. "A Chechen woman holds photographs of her missing sons [. . .]." For those not au courant, Stalin deported the Chechen nation to this desolate area during World War II. Deborah A. Lott's "Fifteen," a moving account of her father's legacy of insanity provides this remarkable insight: "That I made the mistake of aligning myself with the parent who was crazy because I confused his intensity with love."

The vicissitudes of pain, a stranger who won’t leave, a talking hole in a shoe. These are just a few of the poetry plot lines in the Winter 2015 issue of Able Muse which individualizes itself by publishing work “with a focus on metrical and formal poetry.”

I remember reading about the controversy over Amiri Baraka’s poem, “Somebody Blew Up America,” written and performed after 9-11 and after Baraka’s appointment as poet laureate of New Jersey. One line in the poem— “Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / to stay home that day”—was condemned as anti-Semitic and led, ultimately, to Baraka’s sacking as poet laureate. In this issue, African American Review explores not only that incident (and whether it is legitimate to condemn Baraka as anti-Semitic), but they publish several controversial Baraka poems, an interview with Baraka, and essays covering the range of Baraka’s career as a poet and radical. Among the most notable poems, “Somebody Blew Up America” and “The McVouty Bible,” both showcasing Baraka’s anger and politics. My favorite essay was “Sometimes Funny, But Most Times Deadly Serious: Amiri Baraka as Political Satirist” by Jiton Sharmayne Davidson, which explores the history of Baraka’s satire, from his earliest, humorous attempts to his latest jabs at former New York Mayor Giuliani. [African American Review, Saint Louis University, Shannon Hall 119, 220 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63103-2007. E-mail: . Single issue $12. http://aar.slu.edu/] - JP

A Cappella Zoo, a journal of magical realism, dedicated its 15^th issue to queer stories. Though titled Queer & Familiar, rather than creating a queer and familiar text, A Cappella Zoo creates a work that queers the familiar, capitalizing on the opportunities in magical realism. This collection makes queerness familiar.

Alligator Juniper is named for a tree in the juniper family with bark like alligator skin, and the editors of the magazine say the name “invites both the regional and the exotic.” The magazine does so successfully by including pieces from their National Writing Contests in Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry along with the winning pieces from Prescott College’s annual James & Judith Walsh Undergraduate Creative Writing Awards. I admire how undergraduate students receive the opportunity for publication alongside outstanding pieces by professional writers. In addition to the award-winning pieces and nominees, the magazine includes an interview and a curated gallery of creative works.

Now publishing for over 30 years, there is much to behold in Canada’s premier Arc Poetry Magazine: an abundance of poems, plus essays, a conversation, book reviews and dynamic art.

The American Poetry Review features poetry, of course, and literary essays that are didactic, exhaustive studies on poets and poems, exploring all possible avenues of meaning from every possible angle. And that’s a good thing.

This issue of Arcadia starts off with the fiction piece “All the Women, Disappear” by Jonathan Durbin. In this short piece, the narrator describes his or her past relationships with different women. Without bogging down the reader with a multitude of details, the narrator creates vivid images of each character using each woman’s particular quirks, from Molly who “called the office so much my assistant rated her anxiety by the tone of her voice,” to Morgan who “read the front section of New York Times every day, cover to cover, while her parents were splitting up.” The ambiguity of the narrator also adds depth as the reader is unsure of the narrator’s gender, learning less about the main character of the story, than the past girlfriends.

In autocratic regimes, it is not uncommon for freedoms of speech and expression to be suppressed. Social media, newspapers, the arts, and other forms of creative expression threaten the authority of governments which work by subduing the voices of many in order to amplify the voice of one. But as recent history has shown—from the Twitter Revolution and Arab Spring in the Middle East to the Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine—the people’s voices cannot be silenced, their art cannot be forgotten, and their words cannot be erased. Artists and writers, the forces of social change, still manage to exist in places that would rather they didn’t.

At 300 pages, this double issue of Alaska Quarterly Review packs a quantity of poetry and prose, including 44 poems, 10 stories, and 3 pieces labeled nonfiction.

What initially drew me to The Austin Review was the delivery. A sucker for small-sized publications, the compact journal called out to me as soon as I saw it. Even putting biases aside, the beautiful cover art, “Iron Age” by John Mulvany, which features a serene night scene with a ghost lighting up the sky, would’ve been enough to draw me in.

I’m honored to review this particular issue of The Antigonish Review because it announces the 2014 poetry and fiction contest winners. I’m glad I wasn’t a judge. It must have been an agonizing process to glean the wheat—the winners—from what couldn’t possibly have been literary chaff.

The Fall 2014 issue of The Antioch Review took on the theme of what they have chosen to call “word trucks,” which are similar to “food trucks.” The Antioch Review positions themselves to be like a food truck, “serving up a variety of dishes that were intended to stimulate the intellectual palate with ‘the best words in the best order.’” In order to stimulate the palate of every reader, this issue is packed with essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews, thoughtfully crafted and organized.

An out-of-this-country experience, the Atlanta Review introduces a collection of poems that touches on issues of race and bias. In this issue, readers are taken on a tour of Pakistan as they discover a unity in life’s tragedies.

At the end of the day, aren’t we all looking for the same thing: words on a page that are strong enough to transport us inside a writer’s mind? I’m a picky reader and I’m sure I’m not the only one. It takes a lot to get, much less keep, our attention. That said, the Spring 2014 issue of Arroyo does not disappoint; in fact, it is quite the page turner—transported I wanted, transported I got.

Ordinarily, this interdisciplinary journal (formerly the Kansas Quarterly), focuses on the seven states of the Mississippi Delta. This special issue of Arkansas Review grew out of the 100^th year anniversary of the arrival of the Pfeiffer family in Piggott, Arkansas, as celebrated by the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center there. Its director, Adam Long, guests edits this exploration of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer connection.

Apple Valley Review is definitely a journal to watch, with excellently crafted prose and engaging verse. This particular issue boasts three fictions, one nonfiction, and thirteen poems. Dave Patterson “A Return to Rothko” is enchanting with the innocence of a child’s (and then man’s) reaction to death, along with his mother’s idea that there is something wrong with him because of it. The brilliance is in the small details, the illustrations that further the characters. When he is a child, the narrator plays with his dead dog; at only eight years old, he’s fascinated with the idea of death and is still learning what it really means...

Because Agni 79 begins with an editor’s note titled “Ten Broad Swipes at the Problem of Structure in the Essay (and Perhaps Other Genres as Well),” I first turned to the essays collected in the issue to see how they managed to meet Sven Birkerts’s argument for the arbitrariness of chronological structure. “As we all know,” Birkerts writes, "there is a huge difference between a narration that unfolds an experience in sequence (as they say in the movies, when the witness is being questioned, “Just start at the beginning”)..."

In its 63rd year, The Antioch Review is still a benchmark. Robert S.Fogarty's editorial quote from Claude Levi-Straus identifies its theme as, "the search for unsuspected harmonies." In the lead essay—of seven solid essays—Daniel Bell's "Ethics and Evil: Frameworks for Twenty-First-Century Culture" asks: "How do we contain wars of faith, and the spread of potent ideologies while giving people an anchorage for their lives?" while Alan Cheuse's ''Reflections on Dialogue: How d'yuh get t'Eighteent' Avenoo and Sixty-Sevent' Street?" addresses the question of the narrator in "And God said let there be light, and there was light [. . .]" while tracing the origins of speech and story. Iraj Isaac Rahmim's autobiographical "Sacrifices" defines poverty: “[. . .] being poor as a student is not being poor at all; it is simply getting an education." Work from eleven fine poets (among them: Neil Azevedo, Michael Demos, and Marilyn Nelson) is included and in "Poetry Today," John Taylor concludes his review of Giuseppe Ungaretti's Selected Poems and Giorgio Caproni's The Earth's Wall: Selected Poems 1932-1986 with poetry of his own: "[. . . ] intimations of citadels looming there above us, even as we pass below the ramparts [. . .]."

Another disarming newsprint journal (as in: Aha! You may look as if you are reading a perfectly respectable newspaper, but instead you are subversively reading poetry without being ostentatious about it), the quality of the paper belies what lies within. The prose here is always fascinating, featuring interviews with well-known poets (in this case, Christopher Merrill) and critical essays. The poetry contributions usually lean heavily towards translations and prose poems, and this issue is no exception, with a series of poems by Jean Cocteau translated by Charles Guenther, four poems by Constantine Cavafy translated from the Greek by Aliki Barnstone, and some very witty prose poems by Jeffrey Skinner. The inside-joke humor of “Day One,” simultaneously complaining about the egotism of writers who write a poem a day and actually writing a poem about writing a poem a day, is contagious. His two poems exploring theories in physics, “Many Worlds” and “White Dwarf,” juxtapose mundane and extraordinary details effectively. The rest of the poetry, including works by the likes of Tony Hoagland, Chard DeNiord, Robert Bly and Toi Derricotte, is strong and engaging, all worthy of excerpting here if there were only space. Suffice it to say that fans of both poetry and poetics will be satisfied with this issue.

Avatar Review, an online annual, “seeks to display the highest quality of writing,” as all do. And while I cannot claim that what is published in this issue is the cream of the crop, there is plenty worth consideration and worthy of merit, including poetry, prose, art, and reviews. Britt Melewski’s “On the Overnight” came with an audio recording of him reading his poem, which enhanced the feeling of the overall poem, especially his last few lines: “saying, ‘remember the absolute worst of times, / remember the fish, the fish, the fish.’”

Though this issue of American Short Fiction isn’t overtly themed, Editors Rebecca Markovits and Adeena Reitberger note that they had already selected the stories when they realized “four of the five were about work, the daily grind or the vocation, the answer to what William Carlos Williams called ‘the typical American question’: What do you do?” This does indeed serve as a nice framework for the five pieces of short fiction that make up the issue, work by Tia Clark, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Antonya Nelson, Matthew Neill Null, and Rob Roensch.

The first sentences of the work in this issue of The Austin Review are some of the best I’ve read. Each one drew me in a little differently but with a similar level of intensity. And although the first lines of all nine pieces are of equal measure, here are a few examples:

Poems, stories, and non-fiction in Alimentum tend to fall into one of two categories: work in which food (or food-related “stuff”) is the main character and work in which food metaphors and images are used to flavor other topics. Both approaches are used successfully in this issue of the journal.

Editor Sven Birkerts begins this issue of AGNI with “The Inadvertent Eye,” an interesting essay about Robert Frank, an essential American photographer. Those who carefully consider decades-old photographs will see much more than a simple collection of long-dead people in a long-gone landscape. To prove that Frank is a “master of moody vacancy more than of the crowded frame,” Birkerts does a strikingly close reading of a powerful photograph.

The amazing thing about online literature is that in order to put together an issue, the staff of a magazine doesn’t really have to be in close proximity. In fact, the founders of Amarillo Bay say that they haven’t lived closer to each other than 100 miles—and now live nearly 2,000 miles apart. Jerry Craven and Bob Whitsitt put out their first issue in 1999 and are now in their fourteenth year of publishing. This issue contains a wonderful collection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

I believe (but I might be convinced otherwise) that my favorite piece in this issue of the Alaska Quarterly Review is Charles Wyatt’s “An Accidental Dictionary”—a listing of strange, delicious, and mostly obsolete words taken from three late-twentieth-century specialty word-books. “Bomolluck: . . . not a thing in the night, but what you fear in the night. It can sit on your chest.” “Kist: a basket for the baby Moses or Noah’s ark or Queequeg’s coffin, or the cup of the sea, or the stinging stars pursuing . . . and the heavens see only fog, neither rising nor falling. Tuned. All attention. Will.” “Gardyloo: . . . there is no truth in truth and I have lost my cats.” To word lovers like me, these changeling glomerations of sound are glorious, and Wyatt’s explanations are grand spills of imagery. I can’t resist the temptation to use them to talk about the rest of the issue.

The poetry published in the Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal is possibly the most eccentric and intriguing mix of poetic styles ever mingled together in a chemical potluck of creative energy. A fascination with the life of certain creatures and their metaphoric or allegoric relationship to humanity is often at the center of these poetic pieces, as well as some poems that speak specifically or obliquely to the not-so-friendly and explosive reactions that have or can cause the death of millions in this country.

In Abyss & Apex, the reader is transported to speculative worlds that have an air of the suspense thriller movie or the ideas prevalent in the science fiction genre. Whether it is short fiction, flash fiction, poetry or haiku (or as they call it, the “Short Form Set) you will encounter the mysterious, the strange and the unknown until your curiosity wears out or is satiated and must wait until the next issue.

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.

If I were to close my eyes and imagine a literary magazine, it would look much like The Antioch Review—no filler, the only artwork a cover to hold the stories together. Of course, the stories inside aren’t as stodgy as one might presume from the appearance. Kris Saknussemm’s “Time of the End” belongs on any shortlist of the best stories of this year. Hephaestus Sitturd invents things that don’t work, but now he must invent a Time Ark so that his family can escape the William Miller-predicted end of the world, based on his evidence, “[…] only the year before a dairy farmer in Gnadenhutten had found a cow pie in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Clearly the world was working up to something decisive.” Saknussemm’s imagination proves bottomless in “Time of the End,” as the long lists of the inventions and interests of Hephaestus’s genius son Lloyd attest, “The child had already constructed a steam-driven monorail that ran from their house to the barn, a crude family telephone exchange, and an accurate clock that needed no winding. A rocking horse that turned into a simple bicycle and a giant slingshot that had propelled a meat-safe over the river.” The rest of the fiction has a hard time reaching the heights Saknussemm attains, but Scott Elliott’s excellent “The Wheelbarrow Man” comes closest. Though the cover states “All Fiction Issue,” there is poetry to be found inside The End of Time, and the poems ascend their own peak. From the last lines of Scott Dalgarno’s “Mea Culpa Mea,” “I know, I know, it’s true— / I should be shot. I’d do it myself, except / who blames the victim anymore?” to Molly Bendall’s “Pass up the Votives” (“Suit up / In your mood, look at the people who / never take trips”). The Antioch Review shows sixty-five years has given them a pretty good idea of how to put something special on paper. [The Antioch Review, P.O. Box 148, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. Single issue $8. review.antioch.edu.] –Jim Scott

This slim journal out of Berea College, Kentucky, lives up to its name, with an intriguing showcase of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, reviews, and photographs by regional writers and artists.

This eclectic and entertaining collection of full-color art work, poetry, short fiction and memoir provides space for highly ironic voices to mingle with the highly sincere. The eccentrically goofy tale of cons gone wrong, “That Kind of Nonsense” by Patrick Tobin, was a highlight, as were the poetry translations, including Robert Pinsky’s translation of Anna Akhmatova’s poem “The Summer Garden” and Taylor Stoehr’s translation of Li Po’s “Fighting South of the Wall.” Another short story, “Heathens,” by Alden Jones, describes the complicated relationships between a teacher, one of her young female students, and a church group teen on a mission trip in Costa Rica. The fascinating (and weirdly beautiful) photographs of decaying books by Rosamond Purcell lend irony to the reading experience.

Very early on, the issue boasts the lines “Funny thing about the Autumn sun / how it warms the heart first / and later the skin” (Dexine Wallbank’s “Autumn Light”). And that is how this issue of The Antigonish Review sinks into a reader’s being. The issue continues with a Zoë Strachan (Betty Trask Award winner) piece, “Play Dead,” which adds another dimension to the fluidity of human sexuality, and makes sublime its otherwise trite last line: “I don’t suppose she’d ever felt so alone.” It’s a must read, if only to see how Strachan’s line makes the piece and vice versa. There’s a playful, narrative arc in every piece, even the reviews of Canadian poets. Ken Stange reviews Allan Brown’s Frames of Silence, a collection, beginning with: “This is not an unbiased review […],” for reviewer and writer are close friends. Stange does an evenhanded job, despite the admitted favoritism—treading finely the thin line between over- and under-whelming with his and Brown’s personal history; a fine place to start researching for an honest best-man speech.

This volume features the first-, second-, and third-place winners of the Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest and the Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest, as well as poems, fiction, and book reviews from other writers. The first line of Jennifer Houle’s first poem – “I don’t listen much for birds” – sets the tone of the issue by inviting the reader to look for birds and every manifestation of the flighty or strange, both in this poem and throughout the rest of the issue.

I have always loved The Antioch Review and this "All Essay" issue deepens my appreciation. The editors succeed in demonstrating that "essays…comes in all forms and about all subjects" and in meeting their goal to "highlight [the essay's] diversity and vivacity." This would make a fine volume for any workshop in the essay's strengths and varieties and is exceptional reading for any devotee of serious nonfiction. The thirteen essays include political/social analysis (Bruce Jackson, Bruce Fleming, Michael Meyers and John P. Nidiry, Irwin Abrams), personal essays (Floyd Skloot, Nick Papandreou, P.F. Kluge, Paul Christensen, Carol Hebald), ...

The question of national literature is never without debate, and in Canada there’s always plenty of discussion going on about what it means to be truly Canadian. While the debate doesn’t end with The Antigonish Review, it’s a very good place to begin it. I find much of the literature here to be decidedly traditional: it belongs to the outdoors, to fishing and heron spotting and crafting driftwood into spirit masks. Like Anita Lahey’s “Cape Breton Relative,” these works paint a colorful but sometimes sobering portrait of a rural landscape distinctly belonging to Canada (or at least Nova Scotia and, on occasion, Vancouver Island). But this is “Canada’s Eclectic Review,” and there are also many fine turns and surprises. In “Impaired,” Devin Krukoff hits an emotional chord by viewing the world through the eyes of suffering: “The moon is split clear through the center, / a severed tongue on the plate of my window, / while across the world the sun climbs over Africa, / a continent shaped like a spear.” Kevin McPherson’s story “On Stilts” finds a man on the edge of his sanity after his wife’s death in a car crash, using long, run-on fragments to convey grief and vengeance: “My legs threaten to betray me they want to go AWOL head for the fence but I force them back in line.” And Thomas Trofimuk’s “unfolding” is a passionate and strange tale of a poetic one-night stand whose nervous rush still makes it hard for me to let go. As it turns out, there’s a worthwhile reading venture to be had here. [www.antigonishreview.com] — Christopher Mote

It’s a good thing that Alligator Juniper comes out only once a year because if you want to take in all of it – and you should – it would take nearly that long to get through it. That is, if you give the journal the time and attention it deserves. I hardly know where to begin.

Arroyo Literary Review, published by the Department of English at Cal State East Bay, takes advantage of its geography and the demographics of the San Francisco area to establish its identity as a multicultural literary feast. This issue features several international contributors, including writers associated with Peru, Japan, India, and China. Sixteen poets are represented—only three with a single poem—poetry translations from the Chinese and the German appear, and award-winning translator John Felstiner is interviewed. Four short stories ring changes on themes of love, creativity, and the absurd. The compact size and the feel of the cover communicate accessibility and quality. There is really nothing about this magazine not to like.

The stories in Adanna are not only for women and about women, but they are also all written by women, each illustrating in some way, either directly or indirectly, what it means to be female.

Editor Stacey Swann opens this issue of American Short Fiction with a concise, impassioned defense of the short story, relishing its unique power. The modern short story, Swann says, “contains multitudes…multiple faces, multiple forms – so many, it seems constraining to define it as a single object.” The stories chosen for this issue seem to bear out this assessment. The three lengthy stories are interspersed with brief, somewhat experimental pieces that add a great deal of spice.

Whenever I pick up an issue of The American Poetry Review, I inadvertently stop whatever else I’m doing and am drawn into other worlds, and the current issue is no exception. These poems are beautiful but concrete, challenging yet not esoteric.

“Late morning, and my sister and I have arrived,” begins Nancy Lord’s essay, “About a Moment,” the first line in the journal, an inviting opening, and a promise of not only what is to come in Lord’s piece – beautiful writing about a difficult subject, a visit to parents in a nursing home – but a great start to an issue that is replete with great starts (and great finishes). The other three essays in the issue begin with equally original and inviting leads (work by Timothy Irish Watt, John Gamel, and Kim van Alkemade).

“Not works that simply transport the reader/viewer to another place, but ones that become places in and of themselves – unknown regions of poetic exploration, visual mappings of the unconscious, uncharted terrains of language,” say the editors of this issue’s theme “terra incognita.” Unknown, however, is not the case for many of the issue’s contributors, who include Jim Daniels, Anna Rabinowitz, Tony Trigilio, and Dan Beachy-Quick. And unknown is not the case for the inspiration for Rikki Ducornet’s exquisite, intricate illustrations – the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges.

Absinthe 13, “Spotlight on Romania,” opens with an essay by Carmen Musat, editor-in-chief of the Romanian cultural weekly Observator Cultural, as translated by Jean Harris. Musat offers a brief overview of Romanian literature in recent decades, reminding us that until fairly recently Romanian writers had little freedom to write what they needed or wanted and expressing optimism about the future of Romanian literature.

With a name like Aufgabe, I had no idea what to expect from this journal. What I found was a brilliant collection of avant-garde poetry that knocked my socks off. Guest editor Raymond Bianchi explained in the introduction that this issue was chosen to “showcase both established and emerging Brazilian poets,” some whose works are translated here for the first time. Some of the poetry is “Concrete, or visual poetry,” which Bianchi explains “is everywhere in Brazil.” There is no way to explain it except to tell you to look at it, please! 

Aufgabe is a tome. It weighs 1.5 pounds on my bathroom scale, and that’s a paperback without any glossy pages. The journal publishes once a year, and the 2012 issue contains American poetry, a section of poems by poets from El Salvador in the original and in translation edited by Christian Nagler, other poems in translation, essays, reviews, and “notes.”

The seventieth issue of Arc, an annual journal published in Ottawa, Canada, features an email interview with poet Elizabeth Bachinsky, in which she writes: “We really are living in hybrid times.” A fitting remark both for the “cultural capital” writers find themselves living with and for this intelligently edited gathering, which takes as its theme “Reuse and Recycle: Finding Poetry in Canada.” Poetry editor Shane Rhodes contributes the titular essay, considering reuse and recycling in the context of found poetry: its background in Canada, its shifting motivations, and its internet-driven permutations. With few exceptions, however, most of the work in Arc considers reuse obliquely and explores material subjects through honed language rather than through the repurposing of archival or computer-generated texts.

Published out of Farmington Hills, Michigan, Absinthe identifies its contributors with the help of more than 40 editorial advisors, including Aleksandar Hemon, Adam J. Sorkin, and Sonja Lehner. These advisors, themselves writers and translators, along with Absinthe’s editors, have selected for this issue a preponderance of Eastern European works, including contributions from Romania, Moldova, the Czech Republic, and Croatia, as well as Spain, France, and Scandinavia.

Arcadia is an annual produced by students at the University of Central Oklahoma. The inaugural issue features fiction, poetry, drama, an essay, and several black and white photographs. A brief bio page precedes each writer’s piece. This issue includes work by writers from around the country widely published, for the most part, in a variety of literary journals and by a number of independent presses.

The “Endurance” issue of Annalemma should be abysmally depressing, as all of the stories and essays in it are sad. The great care put into its design, however, gives one answer to the editor’s question of “what gives a person forward momentum when every sign around them says give up.” Editor/publisher Chris Heavener says that “to endure means having a purpose.” His publication shows that one can find purpose though literature and art.

This annual journal of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and photography, published out of the Prescott College for the Liberal Arts and the Environment, presents fresh voices that in this edition tend to focus on issues of social justice and responsibility, including, of course, environmental issues. I especially liked Susan Thomas’ poem “To Anna Karenina,” in which the speaker addresses and compares herself to Tolstoy’s famous tragic heroine, and Jendi Reiter’s poem “Hansel and Gretel: The Mother Speaks,” in which the speaker justifies to herself her decision to kill her children. 

What I like best about Arts & Letters is that there is no best — everything is worth reading. This is sophisticated, polished work by experienced and accomplished writers. I'm not even tempted to skip around, but to read straight through from the Table of Contents to the Contributors' Notes. This issue gets off to a quirky start: an interview with Bob Hicok whose answers to Jessica Edwards's questions are similar in tone to that of his verse ("I'm not telling you what to do / anymore than I'm telling you what to feel, / I'm not telling you what to feel / because I'm not sure I feel anything, / I'm not sure there's anything to feel / because I'm not sure language is real.") Of course, the prize-winning short play by Phillip William Brock, three fascinating essays, the elegant translations by Alexis Levitin of poems from Portuguese by Eugenio de Andrade, the exceptional poems, solid short fiction, and book reviews that follow demonstrate not only that language is real, but really impressive in the hands of the right creators. If you're a reader who skips around, don't overlook Sarah Kennedy's three entries for her "Witch's Dictionary," poems whose epigraphs link "current events" with eighteenth century "witchcraft" or Rebecca McClanahan's moving personal essay about "My Affair with Jesus," or Viet Dinh's story "Faults." You'll appreciate just how real language can make an imaginary world seem with prose like Dinh's: "The first thing I ever stole was a heart." [Arts & Letters. Journal of Contemporary Culture, Georgia College & State University, Campus Box 89, Milledgeville, GA 31061-0490. Single issue $8. http://al.gcsu.edu/] —Sima Rabinowitz

If, as Christine Delphy writes, "We can only analyse what does exist by imagining what does not exist," American Letters & Commentary #17 proves the verity of her words. While this sort of existential imagining does not occur without staring current states in the eye, there are innumerable ways to stare. And stare they do, each writer confronting their own serrated
truth(s) from a lens fitting their particular frame. Often, these truths relate in some way to current U.S. politics, as the issue's special section, "Wedding the World and the Word," asserts.

Before they have the craft mastered, most undergraduate students high on talent have to settle for publishing their work in a magazine that never makes it off campus, if even outside the dorm hall. The Allegheny Review remains the lasting outlet committed to giving them the better opportunity for wide circulation. However much its selections may be arbitrary, however abundant the sloppy typos are, the magazine still packs potential. The students write about what they know: meditation on the seasons; failure to communicate in relationships; a moment of doubt while in church. "Attempting Vipassana" by Kristel Bastian is a standout, using the slightly-less-familiar theme of experimenting with Eastern meditation, but still impressive:

This issue of the famed Antioch Review is subtitled, “Circuses and Art Museums,” and it does not disappoint on either front. In Cathy Day’s story, “The Last Member of the Boela Tribe,” circus life is explored in all its glory with its underbelly exposed as well. The same can be said for the essays on the state of museums in the world, such as Neil MacGregor’s “A Pentecost in Trafalgar Square” and “Pictures, Tears, Lights, and Seats” by John Walsh.

The editors of The Ampersand take a firm editorial stance from the get-go: “Give us God, give us god, give us the gritty, oily humanity, & make us laugh. If you can make us cry, do so. If you want to lament the loss of pets or parents, do not.” On the chance you need someone to draw you a picture, they follow this up with a chart, “The Ampersand Flow.” The flow chart reminds writers they must be “good enough” to be included in the journal and warns if you write about puppies, your work is sure to be rejected.

I have seen a lot of photographs of birds – who hasn’t? But, I have never seen one quite as striking as Ashley Sniezek’s “Sanctuary.” Both the photo and the impeccable reproduction are so sharply focused I feel as if the slender bird’s beak might reach out and peck me if I try to turn the page. But I must turn the page, because this photo is followed by an equally marvelous one, “In the Tomb of Ramose, Luxor, Egypt,” by Sue Lezon. Twelve photographers’ work is featured in this issue, including photos from national award winner Don Fike and student award winner K. Angeline Pittinger. These are some of the finest black and white photos I have encountered in a magazine, reproduced with such clarity they appear almost surreal.

A concentration of metaphors, word play, and unconventional thinking binds together the five line poems in American Tanka. From the world of subtle nuances and concrete images, I constantly had the sense of reliving a moment that had never before belonged to me. Yet through my communion with each poem, the shared joy, sadness, different perspective, that Aha feeling, I was assured that the moment was in part my own. Several authors are memorable, out of which only a few can be mentioned here. Cindy Tebo’s “old lime kiln,” the first line in her poem, is haunting. The sudden image of the kiln suggests travel, perhaps an old country road. Merely driving by, the traveler pauses in a chance meeting of past and present. The kiln “in the shadows / of a cold afternoon” emphasizes the passing, of the kiln? the traveler? Like Leonard D. Moore’s powerful seven stanza sequence “To Find My Way Home,” Tebo adds additional layers to her poem through careful word choice, placement of lines, absence of punctuation, and juxtaposition. Tim W. Younce’s repetition of the line “folds and unfolds” creates the feeling of nervousness from the perspective of a soldier “at the airport / camo clad,” holding his “boarding pass.” For a moment this soldier can stop time, fold it in his palms. We are all three connected, author, soldier, reader — through a shared awareness of both our power and powerlessness. These poems are for readers who do not want to be told what to think, for those who enjoy connecting the threads. We must compare images and/or ideas and draw conclusions using hints the author provides and our own resources. Because of the relationship we establish in the process, the poems have the potential to live on. [American Tanka, P.O. Box 120-024, Staten Island, NY 10312. Email: . Single issue $12 www.americantanka.com] —Donna Everhart

This issue is dedicated to the theme, “Scars,” as evidenced from the dramatic black and white cover photograph of a man whose chest becomes a screen on which is projected several black birds in flight, their wings like the feathery reminders of what the body endures. While a theme dedicated to the visceral remnant of physical and emotional wounds could have solicited writing that was affected, tedious, or even cliché, this issue illustrates anything but. Instead, we read of the subtleties of pain, the nuances of grief, the faint reminders of loss or dejection, though many of these authors left me feeling hopeful — that glimmer of possibility that encircles our aches like a silvery light.

This issue’s theme is “Celebrity Houses. Celebrity Politics,” framed by an essay of the same name by Daniel Harris, who has written widely on popular culture. Harris explores the blurred lines between celebrity as a Hollywood-esque phenomenon and celebrity in political life (stars who become spokespersons for “causes,” politicians who flaunt their looks, wealth, and social lives as if they were stars of stage and screen). He considers the relationships between Republican ideology and our fascination (obsession) with the Hollywood elite, a link that is falsely depicted as antagonistic – and more dangerous than it at first appears.

A simple, rustic cover – white, the title of the magazine in black, bold font, and a picture of a tilled field, wild tiger lilies framing the pastoral scene. The opening photograph, by Ann W. Olson, like the front cover, is of dilapidated stone steps running up a hill, framed by buttercups. The juxtaposition of decay with new life can be seen in many of Olson’s photographs, throughout the issue.

In this issue, The American Scholar continues to prove it’s one of the best publishers of essays in the country (the poetry–by Rita Dove, etc.

First, the time has come with this magazine to praise Sven Birkerts as an editor. He’s a ferociously intelligent author (most recently of My Sky Blue Trades), and he took the helm of Agni three issues ago, initiating his run with what was one of the single best printed journals of last year, Agni 57.

Anak Sastra is an online magazine that provides a platform for Southeast Asian writers to publish their work in English. It is also a place for “expats, tourists, and regional connoisseurs” to share their experiences in the area. And while I came in with little to no knowledge of Southeast Asia, I still took away important insights.

The name Donald Sterling underlines an un-sterling moment in ‘post-racial’ America, delivered in sound bites that, in many ways, reveal sensibilities lurking beneath the ‘post’ in post-racial. Sterling’s girlfriend or personal assistant, V. Stiviano, was the messenger, thanks to mobile devices that heighten our desire to spy on intimate conversations. Indeed, Stiviano had the ball; and then came the slam-dunk that catapulted the message to first-class scandal. Soon, race as topic of discussions and conversations in living rooms and social media is on center stage once again, quietly intrusive, at times, to a point where it taints the spirit of any material you’re reading in the context of race.

Good grief, literally. Don’t let the vibrancy of those yellow umbrellas on the cover lull you into a state of blissful aesthetic appreciation; a hard rain’s gonna fall. The short stories, nonfiction, and poetry in the Alaska Quarterly Review’s (AQR) latest issue are soaked with serious consequence, with writers delving into the subjects of madness, financial distress, war, disease, alcoholism, and plain old existential funk. Only the writers’ leavening of such heavy subject matter with great humor, insight, and tart individuality kept me from developing a low-grade Zoloft habit while making my way through the 300-plus pages of this literary squall.

David Wagoner’s “The Shape of My Life” got it right: “Three or four beginnings, four / or five middles, and two or three / regrettable endings”(except for the endings being regrettable – they’re not). This issue is all about telling a good story, beginning, middle, and end. More than a dozen poets, four fiction writers, and three essayists demonstrate the power of narrative, the rich possibilities of an original first line, and the satisfying resolution of a clever ending.

Arsenic Lobster is a great concoction, a boiling pot of poetry that fizzles and pops. The poetry pokes, it prods. Cristofre Kayser’s poem asks “Was there ever a knife that did not cut?” And Jeanne Stauffer-Merle’s poem tells us that “The mouth of wind is jagged and hanging and / cold and cold . . .”

Anobium embraces and celebrates the strange and surreal. As a reader, sometimes this works for me and sometimes not. This is the first issue of Anobium, and I think for what they are trying to do, it's a strong start. I liked the design, for one: the journal is pocket-sized, perfect-bound, and features subtle yet effective graphic design by staff artist Jacob van Loon.

A fascinating feature of this online magazine is that each issue is published “as it comes together,” right before your web-weary eyes. It is a double treat to witness the process as some of the finest poetry, fiction, and art available are assembled; however, that pleasure doubles a reviewer’s troubles. The “emerging” Fall issue waits while I offer a response to the summer issue.

The journal that calls itself “Canada’s eclectic review” very nearly earns the title based on the cover photograph alone. “Miss Julie” lounges in a flowered black overshirt, high-gravity malt liquor in hand, infinite stories to be told with her painted lips. Inside, Alberto Manguel’s essay could be a case for eclecticism. He contrasts the inclination of the great artist to produce a diverse range of works with posterity’s tendency to remember a single one the artist may not feel is representative. Nature themes abound, appropriate in a Nova Scotia-based publication. Eleonore Schönmaier’s poem, “Tracks,” features a protagonist challenging her place amongst the trees and clouds and snow. Karen Shenfeld’s poem, “Bathurst Manor,” evokes a simpler time “When the summer air cooled like bath water,” and time was passed by “squinting through the deepening dusk / to wait for the wishing star.” Human nature arises in Christine Birbalsingh’s story “Trapped,” which depicts a young mother whose eagerness to care for her children is her undoing.

Alimentum toasts its 5th anniversary with tasty bites from members who regularly sit around its table: Fiction/Nonfiction Editor and Art Director Peter Selgin, Web Editor Eric LeMay, Managing Editor Duane Spencer, Poetry Editor Cortney Davis, Assistant Web Editor Ruth Polleys, Art Director Claudia Carlson, Menupoems Editor Esther Cohen, and Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Paulette Licitra each deliver a morsel. Every course on the menu is nutritious and filling in its own way, but one of my favorites is Selgin’s “The Muffin Man,” a history of and personal treatise about his relationship with that now ubiquitous treat, the muffin. From the “flat, round, spongy, air-filled concoction prepared with yeast-leavened dough and cooked on griddle” (the English muffin) to “granola muffins, cappuccino muffins, strudel muffins, pumpkin, blueberry, applesauce, yogurt, oatmeal, and chocolate chip muffins—muffins whose entire purpose in life seemed to be nothing more or less than denying their muffinhood,” Selgin captures the surprising rise (pun intended) of this American phenomenon.

In this issue of Apalachee Review, some of the best writing is about sports. Joe Ponepinto's boxing story, "The Sting of the Glove," puts you deep inside a morally compromised manager who pushes his fighter too far, then puts on the gloves again himself. Perhaps he returns to the ring in an effort to recapture his own stolen career. Perhaps he does it to win the comatose fighter's girlfriend. Perhaps both.

Ascent has been featuring essays, fiction, and poetry since 1975. The website is updated regularly, every couple of months.

American Athenaeum invites you to step into their “museum of words” with their latest “Understanders” issue. Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s unwavering dedication to his craft in the face of stinging criticism, the editors dedicate this issue “to every artist who stays true to their art and vision amid the naysayers.”

After twenty-four online issues, apt, in existence since 2005, has done something uncommon in today’s literary scene. At a time when many journals are abandoning print altogether to establish themselves exclusively as online venues, no doubt as a strategic move toward long-term viability, apt has decided the two mediums can and should exist alongside one another. For its 2011 inaugural print issue, apt has brought together the work of Curtis Tompkins, Janelle M. Segarra, Christina Kapp, and David Bartone among others.

The American Poetry Review is an old school classic. Like the New York Review of Books, its large, newspaper sheets enchant readers who nostalgically yearn for the days of yore before Wasteland iPad apps and “liking” poems on Facebook (or the social media engine of your choice). This is not to say that APR is a musty old rag littered with obscure and dank Poundian cantos. Intriguing interviews and poetry grace its pages.

Admittedly, I was smitten with the idea behind this summer’s issue of Alimentum long before I’d had the opportunity to read it. This biannual literary journal, which dedicates itself to the subject of food, has gathered together work for its twelfth issue with a focus on food memories. Whether they are good—that first icy Bombpop of summer—or perhaps, not so good—think glace fish mold—we all have them. The editors at Alimentum have chosen carefully its ensemble of voices for this issue. Collectively, they offer up a very soulful celebration of first foods.

This publication of Prescott College for the Liberal Arts and the Environment combines fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and black-and-white photographs from the college’s students as well as national prize winners, all chosen by guest judges. The fiction runs the gamut from the naturalistic treatment of a poor woman giving birth in a tobacco field (Vickie Weaver’s “Distance”) to the magical realism of a murderous mountain lion (Andrew Beahrs’s “Full”).