Birdfeast – 2012
Issue 4
Fall 2012
Quarterly 
Kirsten McIlvenna
Created last Thanksgiving, Birdfeast aims to quarterly provide a feast of poetry; publishing all forms and styles. “Think of how you might see a dessert pudding sitting comfortably by a roast turkey on your Thanksgiving table,” the editors say.
Created last Thanksgiving, Birdfeast aims to quarterly provide a feast of poetry; publishing all forms and styles. “Think of how you might see a dessert pudding sitting comfortably by a roast turkey on your Thanksgiving table,” the editors say.
Becca Glaser’s “I hope one day birds will rule the sky again” discusses the way the world works today, about how intimacy is found on okcupid:
I just want someone who will make crepes
with me on a Saturday morning,
love me raw and worried,
argue with me cuz conflict’s regular
as pine needles. . . .
Despite what the world suggests, she says “We are born when we are born,” and so must live in that time. She concludes, “Sometimes I’d be satisfied just to sit / at the Chinese restaurant stuffing / my face and not apologizing.”
Portia Elan says that “It is as easy as a car crash – a car & a body – a leaping body, a pedestrian body – witnessed from a cigarette sidewalk how a body is & isn’t.” The lines of her poetry make me pause and think, especially this one: “You ban the words I’m sorry but I mean it anyway – the only Am I’m sure of.”
Gale Marie Thompson’s “Ojalá” (which translates to “hopefully” or “I hope so”) says, “so here’s hoping / that it is willing / that I am willing”:
Where the universe is spreading
and thirty miles will do
I want to be embroidered
as if then I could adhere to anything
Other poets featured in this issue include Aaron Crippen, Erin Dorney, Logan Fry, Ken Meisel, Emma Ramey, Sara Tracey, Matthew Wimberly, and Matthew Zing. The layout is simple, and easy to read, but all that really is in the issue is the poetry. It would be nice to see an editor’s note or contributor bios to give some context to the issue. Either way, the poetry is what is important, and it is worth reading.
[www.birdfeastmagazine.com]
