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New Letters – 2005

Volume 71 Number 3

2005

Quarterly

Anna Sidak

From its attractive table-of-contents pages to ads for the Missouri Review, Notre Dame Review, and Shenandoah, New Letters is a class act, including the inside-cover ads for books by and about Peter Viereck as well as for New Letters itself. Robert Stewart’s “Allow Yourself to Say, Yes, An Editor’s Note,” includes this quotation: “‘This playfulness,’ says scholar Richard Rorty, ‘is the product . . . of the power of language to make new and different things possible and important [. . .].'” From its attractive table-of-contents pages to ads for the Missouri Review, Notre Dame Review, and Shenandoah, New Letters is a class act, including the inside-cover ads for books by and about Peter Viereck as well as for New Letters itself. Robert Stewart’s “Allow Yourself to Say, Yes, An Editor’s Note,” includes this quotation: “‘This playfulness,’ says scholar Richard Rorty, ‘is the product . . . of the power of language to make new and different things possible and important [. . .].'” and, along with Don Lambert’s “Elizabeth Layton [1909-1993], Anniversary of the Public Life” introduces the artist’s exceptional work which appears throughout as well as on the front cover. Leslie Ullman’s “History of Art in the 21st Century,” contains this beautiful line: “‘We only think we know where we’ve been.’ he says quietly, spilling us into his version of time [. . .].” My appreciation of Jim Harrison’s work has increased since reading Angela Elam’s interview, “Repair Work.” “How God and I Used to Get Along,” Eric Gilbert’s fine story (translated from the French) tells of losing God and finding love in Madame Martin’s French class. This from “The Gulf” by Janice N. Harrington: “Shallow and silty, the gulf spills its long seam. / How to decipher its hue—sage or phlegm? Fence moss / or the green of a parakeet brought home in a cardboard / box?” Of three fine essays, Michael Waters’s enjoyable “The Bicycle and the Soul,” stands out. Three excellent book reviews plus many poems complete the volume. [www.newletters.org/]

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