Reviewers (see
Contributors page):
MC
- Mark Cunningham; WC - Weston Cutter;
DE - Devon Ellington;
JG - Jamey Gallagher; JHG - Jeannine Hall Gailey; JQG
- Jennifer Gomoll;
DH -
Denise Hill; GK - Gina Kokes;
RL -
Reb Livingston;
DM - Deborah Mead;
SRP - Sarah R. Payne;
JP -
Jessica Powers; SR - Sima Rabinowitz; ST
- Sarah Tarkington
Posted May 18, 2004
Tampa
Review
Number 26
2004
Tabloid sized, with its impressive, glossy jacket and hard cover,
Tampa Review always feels like an extravagant gift
(especially considering its unbelievably reasonable price). And
that's before you even look inside. Eclectic as always, this issue
contains impressive, distinctly varied work by Tampa Press
favorites: "a portfolio" of poems from Tampa Review Prize
poetry winner Julia B. Levine, and another of poems by Richard
Terrill, along with poet Richard Chess and fiction writer Paul
Rawlins. This issue also features wide-ranging work from a dozen and
a half others. I was struck, above all, by M. K. Babcock's
surprising "Even As I Tell It, It's Wrong or Lines, a String of" and
Gary Fincke's absolutely stupendous essay about compulsive writing,
obsessive counting, and obsessive-compulsive memorizing. The
centerpiece of the issue is poetry editor Don Morrill's long, chatty interview with jazz musician, poet,
and nonfiction writer Richard Terrill, whose Coming Late to
Rachmaninoff was published by the press in 2003. I appreciated,
in particular, what Terrill has to say about "artful" memoirs:
"…while everybody's life can be equally valuable, I don't think that
everybody's writing is equally evocative…you can write about your
own experience no matter how unremarkable it is…but the writing damn
well better be good." [Tampa Review, The University of Tampa, 401
West Kennedy Boulevard, Tampa, Florida 33060-1490. E-mail:
utpress@ut.edu. Single issue $9.95.
http://tampareview.ut.edu] - SR
Ninth
Letter
Volume 1 Number 1
Spring/Summer 2004
Ninth Letter is a vigorous and fearlessly enterprising
magazine, unconventional in both appearance and content without
lapsing from quality. Instead of the trade paperback format favored
by most lit mags, the Ninth Letter editors have opted for an
exhibition-catalog size printing, an eccentric incarnation that
aptly suits the journal’s adventurous character and could easily
inspire a wider scope of design among the lit mag community. This
inaugural issue is peopled by established names such as Dave Eggers,
Steve Almond, and Robert Olen Butler (who’s story “Hotel Touraine”
is simply enchanting), while managing to feature in its lavishly
designed pages a wealth of other writers equally eligible for
widespread attention. Three tiny prose-poems by Louis Jenkins
fascinate with their sumptuous brevity (paradox intended). Michael
Martone’s nonfiction musings entitled “Ephemera” offer John Berger-esque
perspectives on the metaphysics behind two brief letters scribbled
by Mark Twain a century ago, and launch a whole contemplation on the
cosmic significance of such postal curios to our computerized age.
An interview with Life of Pi author Yann Martel serves up
some candid authorial theory, and a thoughtful essay on the famously
truant swallows of Southern California’s Mission San Juan Capistrano
takes a look at the meaning of kitsch in our everyday lives. [Ninth
Letter, Dept. of English, University of Illinois, 608 South Wright
Street, Urbana, IL 61801. E-mail:
jrubins@uiuc.edu. Single issue $12.95.
www.ninthletter.com] - MC
InkPot
Number 3
March
2004
More alternative than academic, InkPot is a literary and art
magazine of distinct voices, and few of them sound like creative
writing instructors. Many pieces in this issue zero in on
relationships, romantic and familial. Infidelities, love triangles,
and stubborn family members all get their due. In some of the
strongest pieces, there is a sense of real people making bad
decisions (I’m thinking particularly of Angela Havel’s “Pickle and
the Road Crew,” a riveting but sad account of the author’s
experiences with road crew work and self-destructive behavior). Such
stories are not always neatly tied up at the end, nor do they go out
on a note of sarcasm or detached irony. There is, instead, often a
refreshing indication of something learned. Amidst all the drama, I
liked the quiet moment presented by Celia Homesley’s poem, “Widow
Moon,” and the confidence of Kathleen McCall’s “Disrobing My
Emperor,” about her middle-aged clothing-optional vacation: “Nobody
sneered at my elastic-puckers or my cellulite, but nobody ignored
them, either. They didn’t have anything to overlook or forgive me
for. And neither, by the end of the day, did I.” If you can get past
the huge margins and tiny print, you might want to take a squint at
Inkpot. [Lit Pot Press, Inc., 3090 Reche Rd. Ste #132,
Fallbrook, CA 92028. E-mail:
litpot@veryfast.biz. Single issue $10.
http://www.litpot.com] -
JQG
The
Southern Review
Volume 40 Number 1
Winter 2004
The Southern Review is one in that clutch of legendary
literary journals, which in many decades of existence have
unfailingly proffered the work of America’s finest writers. In fact,
it would seem silly to bother recommending a lit mag that is more
like an institution, were it not for the fact that The Southern
Review maintains such a lively and altogether anti-stodgy
approach. In this winter issue I was most thrilled by Susan
Lohafer’s short story “The Man Who Understood Everybody.” Her
protagonist Howard, a middle-age real estate agent with razor
instincts who’s beginning to slip from top form beneath pressure
from his disconsolate wife, is a Willy Loman for our age, minus the
incoherent ramblings. The story is so expertly plotted as to be a
recommendation in itself for purchase of this issue. But nearly as
absorbing is Brock Clarke’s story “The Fundraiser’s Dance Card.” In
its depiction of suburban dysfunction gone over to alcoholic
surrealism, it seems an uncanny complement to Lohafer’s tale. Then
too, the poetry in this issue simply sparkles, beginning with
Julianna Baggott’s lyrical rosary concerning the life and loves of
Norman Rockwell. Margaret Holley’s poetic meditations on the great
20th century art of Edward Hopper and T.S. Eliot mystify
by their blend of maximal sentiment and graceful restraint. [The
Southern Review, 43 Allen Hall, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5005.
E-mail:
jolney@lsu.edu. Single issue $8.
http://appl003.lsu.edu/southernreview.nsf/index] - MC
The
First Line
Volume 6 Issue 1
Spring 2004
The First Line
is a fiction magazine in which every short story begins with the
same first line and, of course, ends in an entirely different place.
This issue’s first line is “There were five of them, which was two
more than I’d been expecting.” Some of the resulting pieces are
mainstream fiction, and rather funny. I particularly enjoyed Tom
Green’s “No Comment,” about a sleazy political campaign manager who
bumbles his way through an embarrassing news conference after his
candidate winds up in the hospital following a drunk driving
accident. Other stories are more speculative. Some pesky Cubs fans
cause trouble for an angel in “A Problem with the Catholic Account”
by Steve Massart. (The angel expected Three Dowries of the Soul, not
Five; the two extra appear to be beer and polish sausage). Stephen
Paske’s “All for an Extra Dollar” gives us a well-meaning school
teacher bitten by a “demonic” student, an incident which fails to
irk the cheerful money-grubbing principal in any way (a product of
the Chicago Public Schools myself, I hesitate to label this story
“speculative” and not “mainstream”). The First Line is a fun
experiment in imaginative thinking, and perfect for readers looking
for short bursts of highly creative fiction. [The First Line, P.O.
Box 250382, Plano, TX 75025-0382. E-mail:
info@thefirstline.com.
Single issue $2. http://www.thefirstline.com] - JQG
The
Carolina Quarterly
Volume 56 Number 1
Winter 2004
Established back in 1948, the tiny literary magazine known as
The Carolina Quarterly is a model of humility: a pamphlet-style
book not even a hundred pages long, yet filled with writing of such
distinction that the reader is provoked to the kind of loving
pondering elicited by publications of the snazzier variety. After
careening straight through this winter issue, I found myself turning
it over and over in my hands in wonder. Nanci Kincaid’s
Polaroid-style novel excerpt, “First I Shoot You, Then You Shoot
Me,” chronicles the humiliating inaugural moments of ten women
entering a state prison, and in four brief, laconic pages manages to
pack a wallop equal to that of a great documentary film: “I haven’t
even gotten inside the prison and locked away, but already I’m
thinking dangerous thoughts like the dangerous person they believe I
am.” Utterly different but wonderful is Kevin Wilson’s second-person
narrative, “The Choir Director Affair (The Baby’s Teeth),” about a
man helplessly endeared to his lecherous friend’s baby, which has
sprung from the womb with a full set of pearly-whites. The poetry
selections include fine metrical compositions by Chris Childers and
Robert West. This is a journal whose value far exceeds the
subscription cost. Read it in one sitting and find your enamorment
of great literary writing well met. [The Carolina Quarterly,
Greenlaw Hall, CB#3520, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
NC 27599-3520. E-mail:
cquarter@unc.edu. Single issue $5.
http://www.unc.edu/depts/cqonline] - MC
Diner
Volume 3 Number 2
Fall/Winter 2003
The poetry of Diner reflects the journal’s title: hearty,
digestible, eschewing the frou-frou. Sometimes the fare seems a bit
undercooked; you want to tweak a line here or cut a word there, but
the read is a good experience. There are two featured
poets/translators (Blue Plate Specials): Annie Finch and Dzvinia
Orlowsky. Notes on each are provided, outlining their history,
interests and writing style, all of which heightens the experience
of reading their work. Finch’s “My Baby Fell Apart” is, in my
opinion, the strongest poem in the issue, a rhythmic and poignant
piece on losing (or fear of losing) a child. A few lines: “My baby
fell apart. Then I could see // her falling, through a loud internal
sea, / away from the one place that still was tender. / There was no
baby left inside of me.” Other highlights include Steven Cordova’s
clever “Ms. Daydream to You,” in which Daydream is presented as a
woman with a Russian accent; and Alexander Chertok’s “What Is
Morning?” about waking to a sweet birdsong. Scattered throughout the
issue are evocative digitally-altered photographs by Colin Sjostedt.
An enjoyable magazine all around. [Diner, P.O. Box 60676, Greendale
Station, Worcester, MA 01606-2378. E-mail:
richard@spokenword.to. Single issue $10.
http://www.spokenword.to/Diner]
- JQG
Sentence
A Journal of Prose Poetics
Number 1
2003
Size and shape matter — literally and metaphorically. And because
they do, Sentence is off to a great start with this inaugural
issue. The journal has an inordinately pleasing size and shape, both
literally and metaphorically. With an announced bias for work that
does not veer toward sudden fiction, editor Brian Clements describes
the journal's purpose as "a full-service forum for readers, writers,
critics, and scholars of the prose poem tradition…critical and
scholarly essays, translations, occasional interviews, a
bibliography of recent criticism…and our 'Views and Reviews' section
where you can vent your most dearly held opinions…Sentence
will have the widest scope." That wide scope includes: the "Sentence
Feature," the introduction from contributing editor Peter Johnson's
critical study (published by White Pine Press) of Jacob, Ponge, and
Follain, followed by translations of their work; glorious prose
poems from four dozen writers, including work by Maxine Chernoff,
Jesse Lee Kercheval, Denise Duhamel, Ray Gonzalez, and Mary Ruefle; and noteworthy work from
lesser-known writers, including a pithy two-liner from P.F. Potvin
and Ana Delgadillo's lyrical "Surrounding My Birth in Veracruz." If
this issue is an indication of what's to come, Sentence will
make an exceptional contribution to the ever expanding universe of
the prose poem. [Sentence, c/o Firewheel Editions, P.O. Box 793677,
Dallas, TX 75379. E-mail:
editor@firewheel-editions.org. Single issue $10,
www.firewheel-editions.org] - SR
Motionsickness
Number 6
A wry anecdote appears in Ed Readicker-Henderson’s “How to Go to
Hell” in this issue of Motionsickness. There’s a Japanese
pilgrimage which features 88 temples across 700 miles; it can take
up to two months to walk it. Recently, would-be pilgrims have been
given the options of quick ‘n’ easy bus tours, flyovers by
helicopter, and even a video to watch if one really can’t be
bothered. All this has prompted a friend of the author’s to remark,
“They do know they’re still going to hell, right?” I mention this
story because it seems at heart to be what Motionsickness is
all about; it is travel writing for wayfarers who still want to do
it the good, hard, spiritual way. This issue includes an interview
with George Meegan, who walked over 19,000 miles from South America,
across the U.S., and over to Alaska. Just as impressive are Jason
Lewis and Steve Smith, who are gradually trying to go around the
world on human power alone and have actually succeeded in pedaling a
boat across the Atlantic! Motionsickness not only shuns the
prepackaged path, it has a conscience and explores such issues as
environmental damage caused by tourism. An engaging read of
authentic experience. [Motionsickness Magazine, 4117 SE Division
St., #417, Portland, OR 97202. E-mail:
editor@motionsickmag.com. Single issue $4.50.
http://www.motionsickmag.com]
- JQG
Colorado
Review
Volume 31 Number 1
Spring 2004
This is a particularly good issue with many exceptional poems and
stories. Melita Schaum's nonfiction "Enough" is enough all on its
own to make this one worth buying, keeping, and re-reading. It's
more than enough to make this reader change her mind about
"dysfunctional family" tales. Even in these
glut-of-family-memoir-days, it is possible to write an
original, unusual, and utterly memorable account of one's wretched
and unreasonable family. It's enough to make me crave more of
Schaum's work, though since the journal does not include
contributors' notes, it will take some effort (well worth it,
certainly) to find it. The other nonfiction piece in this issue
deserves mention, too - Barrett Hathcock's "Catch a Fire," an essay
exploring a difficult subject (a parent's choice of after-death
rituals) in a style that is natural and laudably free of clichés.
This outstanding nonfiction is well accompanied by more than enough
excellent stories, including moving work by Laura LeCorgne and Nance
Van Winckel, and forty pages of strong and unusual poems from Aliki
Barnstone, Dana Curtis, Kazim Ali, and Ellen Doré Watson, among
others. Donald Platt's "Treble and Treble and Back" is one of the
finest post 9/11 "war poems" I've encountered. [Colorado Review, The
Center for Literary Publishing, Department of English, Colorado
State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523. E-mail: creview@colostate.edu.
Single issue $10. http://www.coloradoreview.com] - SR
Blue Collar Review
Volume 7 Issue 2
Winter 2003-04
What Blue Collar Review succeeds in doing, I think, is
putting a human face on nearly every problem you’ve seen on the
nightly news in recent years. War, layoffs, violence, crap jobs, bad
schools: these are the subjects of the poetry published here. I have
to be honest: not every piece is very well crafted, but what some
poems lack in skill they make up for in conviction. As I write this,
the U.S. is attempting damage control on the Iraqi prisoner abuse
scandal, and Mike Maggio’s “Collateral Damage” is an impressive
litany of mind-numbing public apology snippets that certainly fits
this situation as well. An excerpt: “(we swear on our mothers) / (we
swear on the flag) / (we swear on the bible) / (we swear on the
corporation) / (we’re sorry).” Amy E. Oliver’s “Professional Chef,”
about what really goes on in restaurant kitchens, took me back to my
waitress years (“the sick onion grease stench” indeed!), and I
admired the quiet dignity of Jeff Vande Zande’s “Losing Work,” about
a laid-off man fearing loss of respect by his family yet finding
support from his wife. If you like poetry by and for the people,
you’ll want to pick up a copy of this magazine. [Blue Collar Review,
Partisan Press, P.O. Box 11417, Norfolk, VA 23517. E-mail:
red-ink@earthlink.net.
Single issue $5. http://www.Partisanpress.org] - JQG
The
Laurel Review
Volume 38 Number 1
Spring 2004
The Laurel Review is unpretentious and reliable, qualities
not to be underestimated in these precarious times, especially when
that means poems like Susan Ludvingson's "Barcelona, The Spanish
Civil War: Alfonso Laurencic Invents Torture by Art": "We know the
body can be made / to lose its recollections birthed in music / its
desire for bread / and sex, its only remaining wish / confession //
Who'd have guessed how easily / the brain opens its many mouths / to
red." How I wished, on reading this poem, that it were not of the
moment as much as of another era, were not an example of a poet's
uncanny ability not only to look back, but forward. My anguish is
not so much soothed as momentarily appeased by Katherine Soniat's
still life of a poem, "Hopper's Wife" and then re-stimulated by Kent
Shaw's "Prologue": "the ocean consumes itself / and the ocean
consumes itself." There are many other fine poems, as well,
including Arielle Greenburg's "Tumbler" and Bin Ramke's "Song of the
North American Martyr's." Six solid stories round out the issue. My
favorite: Judith Slater's "Snow Day," psychologically astute and
hopeful. Also, astute — Peter Makuck's review of Robert Cording's
Against Consolation. This issue introduces a new feature, "Book
Recommendations," chosen this time by editor John Gallaher. [The
Laurel Review, Department of English, Northwest Missouri State
University, Maryville, MO 64468-6001. E-mail:
TLR@mail.nwmissouri.edu.Single issue $7.
http://info.nwmissouri.edu/~m500025/laurel/index2.html] - SR
The
Antioch Review
All Essay Issue
Volume 62 Number 2
Spring 2004
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), a short biography/book essay that happily defies
categorization (Barbara Sjoholm), art critique/biography (Steven
Vincent, Alex Colville), and a personal/scholarly consideration of
the art of translation (Lawrence Rosenwald). Of course, these essays
fit all and none of these categories at the same time, which is,
partly, what makes them successful. They display thoughtful
scholarship, keen powers of observation, and deft, but widely
different styles of composition. They reveal new information and
insights about familiar topics (Abrams on Jimmy Carter and Jackson
on the "Real O.J. Story”), introduce us to the unfamiliar (Sjoholm
on Olaus Magnus) and translate these writers' idiosyncratic worlds
(Papandreou on growing up bilingual, Christensen on growing up in
Beirut, Kluge on breakfast in Ohio). [The Antioch Review, P.O. Box
148, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. E-mail:
mgiguere@university.antioch.edu. Single issue $8.
http://www.antioch.edu/review/home.html] - SR
Hunger
Mountain
All-Vermont Issue
Number 4
Spring 2004
With new editors each time, Hunger Mountain can be vastly
different from issue to issue, and that unpredictability can be
exciting. Guest editors Syndey Lea's and Jim Schley's vision for
this all-Vermont special edition to "keep the door open" led them to
the discovery of writers they had not known, a celebration of
writers who seem "insufficiently applauded" and to what managing
editor Caroline Mercurio calls "a few treasured Vermont favorites"
(Ruth Stone, Hayden Carruth). There are plenty of reminders that
this work is from and of Vermont; Vermont as a physical landscape
(Thomas Absher's "Chesea"), as a metaphorical landscape (Nadell
Fishman's "Coincidence"), and as a metaphysical landscape (Linda
Hyatt Young's "October Morning"), though all of these pieces
transcend the merely local, as does Victoria Taylor Smith's humorous
story of the search for love in Montpelier, "This Need." And there
is plenty of work that could not be identified, except in the
author's bio, as coming from Vermont, from edgy (Joan O'Connor's
story "If It's Bad It Happens to Me") to lyrical (Alexis Lathem's
poem "Walking"). Photographs of the work of Vermont sculptors Jerry
Williams and Giuliano Cecchinelli and "Meander," the cover painting
by Gail Salzman are stunning, enlarging even further this issue's
generous vision. [Hunger Mountain, Vermont College, 36 College St.,
Monpelier, VT 05602. E-mail:
hungermtn@tui.edu. Single issue $10.
www.tui.edu/hungermtn/index.asp] - SR
PRISM
International
Volume 42 Number 2
Winter 2004
This issue features the winner of the magazine's 2003 Maclean
Hunter Endowment Award for literary nonfiction, an essay contest
judge Andreas Schroeder calls "beautifully calibrated." Russell
Wangersky's "Mechanics of Injury" is an expertly crafted account of
his work as a volunteer fireman, work he no longer does, not because
of any permanent injury, but for reasons more complex and,
therefore, more interesting ("burns heal, but other things
linger…they are things that warp the way you see."). Wagnerky helps
us not only to see, but to experience on a deeper level what he has
seen. He knows which details to tell and when to tell them; he
demonstrates a firefighter's sense of urgency and a writer's
instinct for restraint. He finds a necessary balance between
description and contemplation and his prose is often alarmingly
beautiful, given the nature of his subject: "This equation is
strangely reduced in my memory to geometry: the curve of her
stomach, the triangle of her skirt, the oval of people standing
around her looking down." Equally fine this issue is fiction from
E.J. Levy ("Gravity"), a writer with a great ear for dialogue, a
mature sense of story, and masterful control over her characters'
emotional journeys. [PRISM International, University of British
Columbia, Buchanan E-462, 1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T
1Z1. E-mail:
prism@interchange.ubs.ca. Single issue $7.
www.prism.arts.ubc.ca]
- SR
Field
Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
Number 70
Spring 2004
Field is a journal with an admirably clear and consistent
editorial vision. Typically, this issue presents serious, difficult,
reverent poems with very little that is conversational, casual, or
occasional; poems that demand to be read slowly and then reread,
including work by Carl Phillips, Marvin Bell, Michael Waters,
Charles Wright, and Angie Estes, among others, wonderfully wrought
translations from Chinese, German, and French, and three in-depth
review essays by the editors. I was particularly taken with gorgeous
translations of two poems by Chinese poet Bian Zhilin (1910-2000).
Translators Mary M.Y. Fung and David Lunde are working on a
full-length collection, which I happily look forward to. An excerpt
of V. Peneleope Pelizzon's work-in-progress The Monogahela Book
of Hours also offers a glimpse of new writing to anticipate with
eagerness. Pape contributes a haunting painting of a poem, "Red
Moon," with dual fire ravaged landscapes, mountains and heart, and
Franz Wright contributes four spare, stark, and powerful poems. Here
is an excerpt from "Scribbled Testament": "Having read the great
books / of this world only / to completely forget them again; /
having learned how to speak / this language only // (darken it up a
bit will you) / to translate my heart for you / from the original
silence" [FIELD, 10 North Professor Street, Oberlin, OH 44074.
E-mail: oc.press@oberlin.edu. Single issue $7. http://www.oberlin.edu/ocpress]
- SR
The Greensboro Review
Number 75
Spring 2004
This spring issue of The Greensboro Review contains two
short stories that are simply breathtaking: Adam Berlin’s “The
Karaoke Bet” and Matt Valentine’s “Zohra.” Berlin’s piece, in its
portrayal of a soulless, lustful bookie is worth close study by any
aspiring short story writer, so perfect is its characterization,
voice, plotting, and overall thematic significance. After betting
against another man’s wife in a karaoke contest, with the trophy to
be the man’s Harvard diploma, the bookie fantasizes: “On nights when
I came home drunk, with cash in my pocket from my cash business,
with memories of hands getting broken, and memories of empty lap
dances, I’d look at the diploma and read the elaborate script . . .
and I’d pretend I’d taken another road until I fell asleep.” Matt
Valentine’s “Zohra” is an acute tale of three American tourists in
Morocco (Paul Bowles terrain revisited), and pointedly captures the
disorientations of travel, while managing to construct a larger
metaphorical architecture. Also notable among the eight short
fictions offered is Diana Sprechler’s “Close to Lebanon,” about a
confused young Jewish woman living in Boston, stymied at every
attempt to escape her existential befuddlement. The entire other
half of this issue is devoted to poetry. [The Greensboro Review,
English Dept., 134 McIver Building, UNCG, PO Box 26170, Greensboro,
NC 27402-6170. E-mail:
tlkenned@uncg.edu. Single issue $5.
http://www.uncg.edu/eng/mfa] - MC
Light
Quarterly
Number 43
Winter 2003-2004
If you’ve ever wondered where all the Dorothy Parkers have gone,
they’re submitting poems to Light, wearing glasses, seldom
receiving passes, and all. This quarterly magazine of light verse
specializes in rhyming wit, puns, palindromes, and a heap of good
old-fashioned showing off (Robert Schechter, “My Grandmother, the
Actress”: “Of the two famous playwrights / who charmed and beguiled
her, / Oscar was Wilde / but Thornton was Wilder.”). The poems here
fall under such broad categories as “The Mating Season,”
“Quandaries?” and “Warped Worlds”; sometimes the mere inclusion of a
certain work under one of those titles brings a smile. It all ends
with essays and reviews, including a surprisingly fine piece by
Barbara Loots on the nature and purpose of greeting card poetry. If
you’ve ever been accused of Nerd Humor, you’ll want to take out a
subscription to this one. However, if puns make you groan, you might
want to skip it, or at least pass up Christopher Scribner’s very
funny “Shattered,” inspired by an inmate’s attempt to escape jail by
breaking a bulletproof window with his bare rear end. It contains
the line, “And never let a little pane deter you.” [Light, P.O. Box
7500, Chicago, IL 60680. Single issue $6.
http://www.lightquarterly.com]
- JQG
Posted May 5, 2004
Sycamore Review
Volume 16 Number 1
Winter/Spring 2004
At first glance, Sycamore Review seems a typical literary
journal, divided into the usual blocks: poetry, fiction, interview,
review. A deeper look reveals an eclectic and engaging selection of
work. Smart but not obtuse, the poetry is well-crafted with diverse
subject matter - mortality, refugee camps, a child’s collection of
pets - but my favorites are the witty pieces. One standout is Mary
Jo Firth Gillett’s “On Being Asked by a Student How You Know When a
Poem Is Done” (“I say, when you’ve given up searching / for
something to rhyme with orange because / you’ve eaten the orange.”)
Three pieces comprise the fiction section: one about a new father,
another on a divorced mother, and sandwiched between them, C.A.
Lahines’ lyrical telling of Wagner, plagued by itching testicles and
longings for woman named Mathilde in “Of Tristan, Isolde, and
Unbearable Itches.” (Did I mention this journal is eclectic?) This
issue is editor Sean M. Conrey’s first. It’s good, but a bit short.
Aside from the cover photography, there is no art spread, and that’s
a shame because Sycamore Review has featured gorgeous work in
the past. Here’s hoping that future issues continue to offer vital
content, and more of it. [Sycamore Review, Department of
English, 1356 Heavilon Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
47907-1356. E-mail:
sycamore@purdue.edu. Single issue $7.
www.sla.purdue.edu/sycamore] - JQG
Salt Hill 15
Winter 2004
Always surprising and unconventional, this issue of Salt Hill
is even edgier than usual, with Thom Ward's "imaginary" scholar Dr.
Arnold Schnagel and Schnagel's parody of reviews and critiques (like
this one!) of the work of "imaginary poet" Jan DeKeerk whose very
real poetry is translated here (from Flemish) by Schnagel; and Steve
Almond's interview with novelist and screenwriter Tom Perotta ("Q:
But you don't behave badly?" A: Well, I'm a fiction writer"); and
Denise Duhamel's poem "Lost Bra," thirty-four couplets, every line
of which ends with the words "Maidenform Bra." G. C. Waldrep
contributes three poems with his signature merger of the sacred and
the profane (as it happens, a story about Waldrep's conversion to
the Amish is featured in the latest issue of Poets & Writers
and provides a context for his work). Poet Miles Waggener
contributes excellent translations from the Spanish of three poems
by Jaime Siles — poems that at moments sound as raw as Peter Cooley,
who also has a poem in this issue, and a verse or two later as
erudite as Jorge Luis Borges: "Hace que deulen hasta los pronombres/It
hurts right to the very pronouns." There's never a dull moment at
Salt Hill. [Salt Hill, Syracuse University, English Department,
Syracuse, NY 13244. E-mail: salthill@cas.syr.edu. Single issue $8.
http://students.syr.edu/salthill/] - SR
Prairie
Schooner
Volume 78 Number 1
Spring 2004
There is always something for nearly every serious reader in
Prairie Schooner. It's not because Raz lacks a consistent
editorial vision. On the contrary, issue after issue the journal
feels whole and unified. It's more because her vision is large and
generous. The prose is especially strong this issue, with a tender
and memorable story by Tamara Friedman ("Stealing Sherisha") and a
fine example of literary journalism by David A. Taylor, "Nailing a
Freight on the Fly: The Federal Writer's Project in Nebraska."
Taylor's essay is a solid and pleasingly humble combination of
competent research, travel writing, and literary history. Three
short fiction pieces by Iranian writer Leonardo Alishan ("Black City my soul called home.") will likely encourage
readers, as it has me, to seek out his collections of poetry. As
usual, there's an abundance of fine poems. Poems by Judith Arcana
("Facts of Life") and Peter Viereck ("Two Liners") demonstrate the
range of styles represented in this issue. From Arcana: " All that
we do, living, is killing; birth / and death the pumping hearts of
life." And from Viereck, this two-liner ("Progress"): "What has the
tech age left the soul for food? / Look for the road kill crushed
across the road." [Prairie Schooner, 201 Andrews Hall, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0334. E-mail:
kgrey2@unlnotes.unl.edu. Single issue $9.
www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm]
- SR
Nimrod
International Journal
Vietnam Revisited
Volume 47 Number 2
Spring/Summer 2004
Nimrod's spring issue is always theme-based and always superb.
The subject of Vietnam is timely in ways I wish it were not, though
it makes the work all the more necessary. The issue begins with an
essay by poet John Balaban, who volunteered in Vietnam as a civilian
conscientious objector, and excerpts from his outstanding collection
of Vietnamese folk poems, published by Copper Canyon. That book is
also reviewed here by Britton Gildersleeve, who aptly calls
Balaban's translations "elegant." (Gildersleeve's essay about
growing up in Southeast Asia, "39A Phàn dinh Phàn" is also quite
elegant: "I don't remember leaving. I only remember being
gone."). "Poetry, that fragile construct, is Vietnam's enduring
monument," Balaban writes. His work is followed by a collection
of Nimrod's own enduring moments: exceptional poems, stories,
essays, an interview with novelist Lan Cao, and exquisite black and
white photographs. Andrew Lam's story, "Star Anise, Charred Onion,
and Five Kinds of Basil," offers a small taste of this issue's
powerful writing: "Nga, remember those mornings when the borders
were still real and even talking across the clotheslines or the
courtyard as treacherous as crossing the ocean? Yet how I long for
that world! For the smallness of things." [Nimrod, The
University of Tulsa, 600 S. College, Tulsa, OK 74104. E-mail:
nimrod@utulsa.edu. http://www.utulsa.edu/nimrod]
- SR
Grain
The Same Mistakes
Volume 31 Number 4
Spring 2004
The same mistakes is not…a mistake. In fact, it's a provocative
and successful theme, beginning with editor Kent Bruyneed's witty
introduction and his description of these writers "doubting and
soaring." The poems and stories in this issue share a casual energy
that is more difficult to achieve than it may at first seem,
elevating mistakes to art. The theme of admitting a mistake, telling
on oneself, has moved these writers to elect tones and diction that
are highly personal, without becoming sentimental, and exceedingly
familiar, while still deliberate and artful. It's surprising how
much serious, thoughtful and original material is contained in what
can appear so informal and natural, as in this poem by Michael
Quilty, "Anniversary Ride: Theme of Opposition": “a year ago this
morning I sat in the closed room of a seminar, / the first hour the
prof explained The Theme of Opposition / in Four Victorian
Writers, / after our break she told us about the planes (and
twin towers).” All of the work is strong, but several pieces warrant
special mention: Yann Martel's scathing short fiction/social
commentary, beautiful poems by warren heiti, and a very fine story,
"Blue," by Kim Trainor. [Grain, Box 67, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
Canada S7K 3K1. E-mail:
grainmag@sasktel.net . Single issue $9.95.
http://www.grainmagazine.ca] - SR
The Threepenny Review
Number 97
Spring 2004
Anne Carson, Gary Shhteyngart, and Mark Doty, all in this issue!
There's also a wonderful story ("The Red Fox Fur Coat") by Teolinda
Gersao, translated from the Portuguese by Margert Jull Costa, who
also contributes a translation of an essay on Faulkner by Javier
Marías, outstanding book essays by P.N. Furbank (on Geoffrey Hill's
Style and Faith) and Rachel Cohen (on a new edition of
Rilke's Letters On Cézanne), and C.K. Williams on Lowell's
Collected Poems, comparing poets to composers: "…that there are
elements in the poems that I don't care for, or even have to
forgive, is incidental to the elemental experience of being taken
again by Lowell's singularly gratifying music." The prose is
accompanied by marvelous poems. In particular, I loved "Five Year
Plan," by Victoria Chang. The pièce de résistance: Carson's
Stein-like "How to Like 'If I Had Told Him A Completed Portrait of
Picasso' by Gertrude Stein”: "If she told us we would like it. Yes
we would. Or at least I do. To complete a portrait is to learn to
like your likeness albeit miraculously and never more than three." I
count on The Threepenny Review for intelligent, unexpected,
and stimulating work. Here it is. [The Threepenny Review, P.O. Box
9131, Berkeley, CA 94709. E-mail:
wlesser@threepennyreview.com. Single issue $7.
http://www.threepennyreview.com] - SR
PRISM
International
Volume 42 Number 1
Fall 2003
Sometimes clichés are true: this issue of Prism International
illustrates the concept that good things do come in small packages.
The journal contains poetry which ranges from Bernadette Higgins’
traditional poem, “Short Wave,” describing language, music, and
thoughts which tease and cross on the air late at night, to a strong
contemporary poem by Matt Robinson, “why we wrap our wrists the same
each time,” exploring a hockey player’s quest to “do anything” to
beat his “jinx.” Ouyang Yu translates four Chinese poems from the
8th and 9th century, which are beautiful in their simplicity and
complexity. One of the most remarkable poems is Leanne
Boschman-Epp’s “Prince Rupert Rain Journal: night rain.” In this
extraordinary poem, the reader is treated to both an auditory and
visual simulation of rain through sound and creative placement of
words. The contemporary fiction is short, averaging about eight
pages per story, but packs a punch. Lauro Palomba’s knock-out piece,
“Salesmanship,” shows us even Santa can have an “angle.” Royston
Tester contributes “Once Upon a Prissy,” a powerful and gritty story
of a young Englishman learning to prostitute in Spain. Finally, give
the cover by Janieta Eyre a second look. Yes, it’s unusual. A young
woman with bright orange hair, blacked-out eyes, and graphics
attached to her cheek is stirring a pot on a stove. Now, add the
title, “Making Babies” and notice the container of eggs, semen, and
blood. Interesting. [Prism International. Creative Writing Program,
UBC Buch. E 462 – Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada. E-mail:
prism at interchange.ubc.ca. Single issue $7.
http://prism.arts.ubc.ca/] – GK
The Tampa Review
#25
I had a sense of déjà vu while reading The Tampa Review. I
held the large slim 7x11 hardcover and remembered beautifully
illustrated fairy tales books from my childhood. Although The
Tampa Review is not filled with whimsical tales, the cover
artwork by Florida artist James Rosenquist along with the black and
white photos in the journal creates a book of beauty. The unusual
format also sends a subtle message that the journal should be
treasured and enjoyed over and over again. The journal opens with
Patrick J. Murphy’s “Night Fishing,” a story about young boy who
defies his new stepfather’s rules and takes a skiff out deep sea
fishing. Instead of returning home with a fishing trophy, the boy
catches and kills a giant ray. This unexpected disappointment and
tragedy mirrors his own life as his father is replaced with another
man. Another interesting regional work is Marcia Fairbanks’ “The
Ghost Orchid of Fakahatchee.” The author searches for the allusive
“ghost orchid” made famous by the movie Adaptation and Susan
Orlean’s book about an orchid thief. The non-regional works are all
solid pieces of writing reflecting other areas of the country and
other dreams. W. Scott Olsen’s piece “The Joy of Beginning” heads
out onto the Alaska Highway. Rafael Perez Estrada’s poem, “The
Enterprising Young Man,” shows the stature gained by a young
Bangladesh man who sells his kidney to a New Yorker. “Lessons,” a
short story by James S. Proffitt, portrays a man who can’t find
home—geographically and mentally. [Tampa Review. The University of
Tampa, 401 West Kennedy Boulevard, Tampa, Florida 33606. E-mail:
utpress@ut.edu. Single issue $9.95.
http://tampareview.utampa.edu/] - GK
NewPages Literary Magazine Stand Archives
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December
2003
November
2003
October 2003
September
2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
Cumulative Index of Lit Mags Reviewed
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