Reviewers (see
Contributors page):
MC
- Mark Cunningham; WC - Weston Cutter;
DE - Devon Ellington;
DH - Denise Hill; DM - Deborah Mead;
JG - Jamey Gallagher; JHG - Jeannine Hall Gailey; JQG
- Jennifer Gomoll;
GK -
Gina Kokes;
LKB - Lisa K. Buchanan;
RL -
Reb Livingston;
SRP - Sarah R. Payne;
JP -
Jessica Powers; SR - Sima Rabinowitz; ST
- Sarah Tarkington
Posted June 16, 2004
The
Canary
Number 3
2004
When you pick up this stylish journal, with its austere yellow
cover, you notice its shape–-with longer pages that accommodate lots
of white space and long lines. You might expect the poetry inside to
be eclectic, experimental, and artistic–-and you wouldn’t be
disappointed. I really enjoyed Kevin Young’s work in this issue, two
poems from “Black Maria, a verse novel based on film noir” (I
just enjoyed that description from his author notes so much, I
thought I would include it in my description. Now I want to write a
‘verse novel based on film noir’ too!) called “(The Alias)” and
“(The Suspects).” Hoa Nguyen’s “[Sopping in Juice Melons
Juicy]” was as fun and sensual to read as the title indicates. Don’t
be intimated by the post-avant-garde attitude in some pieces here –
you will find plenty of surprising images and intimations to enjoy
throughout if you keep reading. [Canary, Canary River,
c/o Joshua Edwards, 512 Clear Lake Road, Kemah, Texas 77565.
E-mail: canaryriver@yahoo.com. Single issue $10.
http://www.thecanary.org/] –
JHG
5
AM
Issue 19
Winter/Spring 2004
5 AM is in a newspaper format, but printed on the pages,
instead of the latest (mostly disastrous) accounts of the day, are
poem after poem – hip, edgy, funny – that are actually a pleasure to
read. The tone in this Spring Church, Pennsylvania-based journal is
often irreverent, political, or conversational; the names inside may
be familiar with fans (like me) of Charles Harper Webb’s anthology,
stand up poetry, like Denise Duhamel, Virgil Suarez, Lyn
Lifshin, and Charles Harper Webb himself. I especially enjoyed
several poems by Shao Wei, who was featured on the front page of
5 AM, and several poems by Reginald Harris, particularly “Dinah
James.” Ron Koertge’s work was charming, especially “Lunch Hour in
Macy’s.” Here are a few lines from that poem: “…Nearby, the pearly
nurses of Dior / talk softly about flesh. Dark Stranger is / this
month’s rage. Ten promos show a coarse / but sensitive roughly
tender atheist…” This is one newspaper I would be happy to wake up
to at 5 am. Let’s pour some coffee and read! [5 AM, Box 205, Spring
Church, PA 15686. Single issue $5.] - JHG
The
Antigonish Review
Volume 136
Winter 2004
This Canadian journal out of Nova Scotia features an eclectic mix
of writing, a few translations, and the sprightly but
thought-provoking poetry of Jan Zwicky. The mix of interviews,
reviews, short fiction, and poetry is very balanced, and, as always
when I read Canadian journals, I am surprised and impressed with the
quality and diversity of the work of writers from Canada whom aren’t
as well-represented in journals here in the States. One of the most
interesting pieces in this issue was an interview with Heather
Menzies, an expert on technology’s many impacts on social
structures, particularly in the workplace. Much of the poetry
featured here was well-crafted free verse, with many exemplary
pieces, only one of which I have the space to quote here. A few
lines from Myka Tucker-Abramson’s “Lot and Eurydice, Based on
Akhmatova’s ‘Lot’s Wife’”: “If you turned around, I would lick the
salt off your skin / before tumbling back like Eurydice into slush
driven days. / You taste like fire and turn slowly away, while I
speak / loudly as anguish…” Poems by Li Qingzhao, translated with
skill by Allen C. West and Gundi Chan, are also exceptional. [The
Antigonish Review, P.O. Box 5000, St. Francis Xavier University,
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, CA, B2G2W5. E-mail: TAR@stfx.ca. Single
issue $11.
www.antigonishreview.com] – JHG
Interim
Volume 22, Numbers 1 and 2
2004
This double issue of Interim, out of
the University of Nevada at Las Vegas English Department, features
some names you will be familiar with (Cole Swenson, Donald Revell)
and some you may not. This issue contains mainly poetry (including
more than one poem for each poet, an editorial practice I applaud),
with one piece of short fiction and a short essay, as well as a
handful of reviews. The featured writers in this issue are poets
Martha Ronk and Arthur Vogelsang. Some pieces in this journal have a
somewhat intimidating, look-at-me brand of intellectualism/ ellipticism
that is fashionable but leaves me a little cold, I admit. However,
fans of the new and different will appreciate them. (P.S. Is
ellipticism a word? Write in and give me your vote!) I enjoyed Red
Shuttleworth’s satirical poem “Marilyn Monroe,” a few lines of which
follow: “…A make-up girl offered / to go find her a Paiute cayote
fetish. / ‘The gravediggers are waiting,’ Marilyn snapped. / Huston
or Miller? She brushed her bone-blonde / dry-as-the-Great-Basin
hair…She winked at Gable, ‘I used to remember / all my lines when I
was an angel.’” [Interim, English Department, University of Nevada,
Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada 98154.E-mail: interim_unlv@yahoo.com.
http://www.unlv.edu/Colleges/Liberal_Arts/English/interim/Index.htm] - JHG
The
Spoon River Poetry Review
Volume 24, Number 1
Winter/Spring 2004
The Normal, Illinois-based Spoon River Poetry Review
features some of the best writing from the Midwest and beyond. The
lyrical and at times, dare-I-say-the-unfashionable-word, beautiful,
writing reminds me why I started reading poetry in the first place.
Holaday Mason’s “Seven Pairs of Swans” and Linda Schneider’s
“Tomato” are particularly enjoyable. This issue also features a
fascinating interview with poet and scholar Tony Trigilio, who talks
about, among other things, H.D., Ginsberg, and Blake’s influence on
his work. The issue also includes ten of his poems. I wish I could
quote the whole of the poem “Certain Men of the Early Twenty-First
Century,” by Cindy Washabaugh, because it is hilarious, touching,
and despairing all at the same time, a marvelous feat. I tried to
excerpt a few lines to give a sense of it: “…With solid names like
Bob and John, the rock climb, cycle, recycle / and make art… Their
mothers were restless and gifted… Their fathers drank too much or
worked too hard. Eventually / someone left… They talk to my cats and
play Scrabble with me. They love / foreign films. ‘We’re perfect
together,’ they say as they drift away.” [The Spoon River Poetry
Review, 4240 English Department, Illinois State University, Normal,
IL 61790-4240. Single issue $10.
http://www.litline.org/Spoon/] - JHG
Carnegie
Mellon Poetry Review
Volume 1, Issue 1
Summer 2003
With poetry from many familiar writers, this new journal manages
to be simultaneously down-to-earth and playful. For those who enjoy
the lighter side of poetry, there is plenty of pop-culture poetry
and poems about the poetry biz – some sample titles include “Poetry
Ought to Have a Mother as well as a Father” and “The Visiting Poet
Gets Propositioned.” Moving poems from Marvin Bell (“Letter to an
Eternal Future”) and Virgil Suárez (“Elsewhere”) are standouts, as
is the poem “Sticky Monkey Flowers, Monterey Bay” by Ray Gonzalez,
which begins: “Blossoms scrambled in the eye of tomorrow, bright
little fires / outlining the shape of secrecy, actual light of
measure wounded… Sticky money flowers spreading / into sunlit
nerves…” I like the way the editors often include several poems by
one poet, which allows the reader the opportunity to get to know
each voice before turning to the next. [Carnegie Mellon Poetry
Review, 26 Sherman Terrace, Apt. 2, Madison, WI 53704. E-mail:
kgonzalez@wisc.edu] - JHG
Ploughshares
Volume 30, Number 1
Spring 2004
This issue of the venerable Ploughshares was guest-edited
by Campbell McGrath, a poet famous for his exuberant descriptions of
all things American, from pop culture to politics. You’re not in for
a lot of surprises here as almost all the writers included in this
issue are well-known quantities (Denise Duhamel, Stuart Dybek,
Michael Collier, Rick Moody, Bob Hicok, Tony Hoagland, the
ubiquitous Virgil Suárez…the table of contents reads like a
directory of Poets and Writers magazine), but the quality is
impeccable, and reading this cover to cover was enjoyable. And
McGrath definitely makes an effort to include poets from a range of
movements, from elliptical to expansive and everything in between. I
particularly liked the tongue-in-cheek humor of Beth Ann Fennelly’s
“I Need to Be More French. Or Japanese.” Other standouts include
Cynthia Weiner’s ambiguously chipper story “Boyfriends,” the poem
“Going Bananas” by Rita Maria Martinez and the poem “In the B Movie
of Our Lives” by Dionisio D. Martínez. [Ploughshares, Emerson
College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624. E-mail pshares@emerson.edu.
Single issue $10.95.
http://www.pshares.org/index.cfm] - JHG
Iodine
Poetry Journal
Volume 5, Number 1
Spring/Summer 2004
Slim and lightweight with a plain purple cover, Iodine Poetry
Journal isn’t much to look at. But it’s the perfect length, and
depth, to tote along to Starbucks for a quick poetry fix. The poems
vary in accessibility, but none can be called obscure. The editors
appreciate the pleasure offered by the short poem—one such poem
clocks in at a mere three lines and is not haiku. A few poems with
social conscience appear, but more satisfying are the introspective
moments, often commanding attention with a single sustained image.
Michael Kriesel offers, I believe, the most breathtaking moment of
this issue in “Feeding My Heart to the Wind”: “Emptying myself for
winter / in a field of stubble / I’m a wind chime / made of bones.”
A moment like that is enough to make you forget all about that
double latte. Let it go cold, and savor Iodine instead.
[Iodine Poetry Journal, P.O. Box 18548, Charlotte, NC 28218-0548.
E-mail: iodineopen@aol.com. Single issue $5.
http://www.iodinepoetryjournal.com/] – DM
Tar
River Poetry
Volume 43, Number 2
Spring 2004
I don’t read literary journals for the reviews they publish, and
I’m a little surprised to find myself mentioning them here—in a
review. But I have to say that the three reviews in Tar River
Poetry are themselves as compelling as the poetry in this small
volume. Richard Simpson, Susan Elizabeth Howe and Thomas Reiter
present careful, academic discussions of three new poetry volumes,
discussions that presume a well-educated but not necessarily
scholarly audience. Informative and never pompous, they are a
pleasure to read. Tar River’s poetry is equally strong and
accessible, making us see the extraordinary in the ordinary, like
the everyday astonishment of swimming or the centurion stance of
roadside mailboxes. In Mark Cox’s “Inner Rooms,” a speaker sorts
through his late parents’ belongings, searching in vain for a
lingering connection to his parents, eventually concluding “[t]here
is no key / taped to a drawer bottom, not one fingerprint / on one
dusty light bulb, no trace of the moment / before they let go,
turned their faces to the wall.” The speaker is left at the end of
the poem needing to “fashion the world again.” Such is the job of
the poet, and in Tar River Poetry it is a job done well. [Tar
River Poetry, Department of English, Bate Building, East Carolina
University, Greenville, NC 27858-4353. E-mail: makuckp@mail.ecu.edu.
Single issue $6.50.
http://personal.ecu.edu/makuckp/home.html/] – DM
Orchid
A Literary Review
Number 3
With so many outstanding stories in this journal, it’s hard to
know where to begin. Does one talk about the honest, dead-on
dialogue of Ron Rindo’s “Crop Dusting”? The dreamy and lyrical
narrative of Anne Spollen’s “Fishdreams”? The landscape of losers in
Andi Diehn’s “Burning Season”? It’s impossible to do justice to this
fine fiction journal in two hundred words. One could say that
haunted voices predominate, with a vein of sadness running through,
but that would overlook the biting wit of Jo-Chieh Jennifer Chang’s
short-short “Eating Seaweed” as well as the redemptive ending of
Gary Eldon Peter’s “Skating.” The only commonality in this
well-balanced issue is writing of the highest quality. Spollen’s
narrator, a girl whose mother has recently died, offers this
perspective on silence: “I learned that silence has a motion. It
slides over you without shape or form, but with weight, exactly like
water. It glides. It moves toward you in a river of silence, then it
glides across you, only it doesn’t leave: it continues. Its color is
silver. And silence has a sound, a sound you hear only after hours
and hours of wading inside it: the sound is soft, flute notes rising
up like the words of glass speaking.” On second thought, who needs
two hundred words? Beautiful—there’s nothing else to say. [Orchid: A
Literary Review, P.O. Box 131457, Ann Arbor, MI 48113-1457. E-mail:
editors@orchidlit.org. Single issue $8.
http://www.orchidlit.org/] –
DM
Midnight
Mind Magazine
Crime Issue
Number 6
Fall 2003
The staff of Midnight Mind Magazine must have a great time
at work. At least that’s the impression you get from reading their
latest issue. Yes, it’s filled with fiction, essays, poetry and
reviews just like all those other “little” magazines. But what makes
Midnight Mind such a standout is the exuberance with which
it’s all executed. A letter to the editor could be a yawner, but not
when it’s written by a fictional character from the previous
issue—and addressed to the “assholes at Midnight Mind.” Even the
column of subscription information will make you smile. This sixth
issue takes crime as its theme, and many of the stories employ a fun
noir tone. Also enjoyable are the regular columns such as “In praise
of” (in this case, in praise of a hangover), the more serious
“Literary Travel” and the sublimely random “Things of Note.” Don’t
forget to flip the magazine over and turn it upside down—you’ll be
all set to read one of the most entertaining short stories I’ve come
across this year, Roderick Maclean’s “Beauty Knows No Pain, Redux.”
In it, a depressed former actor, his last recurring role recently
written out of Magnum, P.I., realizes that he harbors strong
feelings for Tom Selleck and discovers cross-dressing while being
chased by loan sharks. If you were a fan of Mad magazine as a
kid, pick up a copy of Midnight Mind. You’ll find yourself
saying, “I wish I worked with these guys.” I know I do. [Midnight
Mind Magazine, P.O. Box 146912, Chicago, IL 60614. E-mail: info@midnightmind.com.
Single issue $7.95.
http://www.midnightmind.com/] - DM
Northwest
Review
Volume 42,
Number 2
May 2004
I find it
impossible not to love – or at least admire – Northwest Review
for allocating an entire white page to this epigraph by Leonard
Bernstein: “Our response to violence will be to make music more
intensely, more beautifully and more devotedly than before.” Two of
the literary pieces that most directly follow that lead appear in
the magazine’s category, Essays and Hybrid Forms. “Notes on
Uranium Weapons and Kitsch” (George Gessert) decries the sale of war
as entertainment by juxtaposing such politically expedient terms as
“smart bombs” and “depleted uranium” with clauses like this: “Some
kitsch is ineptly crafted ‘bad’ art, but today the rule is
impressive technical skill. Hundred-thousand-dollar fashion ads are
like Andrew Wyeth paintings: their high craftsmanship and aesthetic
finish project vast authority.” A more traditionally structured
essay, “Gringolandia” by Leah Halper, tells of one woman’s yearning
to love her homeland while repudiating its aggressions in Latin
America. Fiction offerings include Stephanie Harrison’s innovative
quartet of short-shorts, single-sentence celebrations of dashes,
colons and semi-colons. One is a heartful meditation on a phrase one
utters so often and spontaneously that it comes to define oneself.
[Northwest Review, 369 PLC, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
97403. E-mail: jwitte@oregon.uoregon.edu. Single issue $8.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~nwreview/]
– LKB
Zoetrope:
All-Story
Volume 8,
Number 1
Spring 2004
The edgy
fiction in Zoetrope chronicles our hard-won (if dangerously
tentative) status of humanity. Primal bullies lurk throughout the
stories in this issue: a family simultaneously imprisons and
abandons its defenseless, unmarried kin; a man exploits a toothless
orphan reduced to turning tricks by the freeway, an anonymous driver
works up a deadly malice. Consistent with this issue’s theme of
place, all protagonists grew up in/immigrated to/are visiting
California. Fittingly, the guest designer is Wayne Thiebaud, whose
works appear on 22 of the issue’s 106 pages and prove that a
waterfall can be a street and the sky can be an honest yellow. While
Zoetrope is one of only a noble few literary magazines to
reprint classic short stories (one per issue), the unique angle in
these pages is that the fiction has inspired a film and is presented
with commentary by the author or filmmaker (i.e. Steven Spielberg,
Mary Gaitskill and Hanif Kureishi) on the relationship between the
two art forms. [Zoetrope: All-Story, The Sentinel Building, 916
Kearny St., San Francisco, CA 94133. Single issue $6.95.
http://www.all-story.com/]
– LKB
Shenandoah
The
Washington and Lee University Review
Volume 54,
Number 1
Spring/Summer 2004
At least
half of the stories, poems and essays in Shenandoah feature
explicitly southern environs: a contemplation of the moniker,
“Southern Writer,” a reflection on the racial understory of
magnolia-blossomed Mississippi, a woman’s return to the Carolina
blackberry patches (and chigger bites) of her youth. However, it’s
the artistry, not the regionalism, that distinguishes the most vivid
writing in Shenandoah; personal, penetrating, savingly
unsentimental. Some enticing opening lines of poetry: “Always my
grandparents arrived/disguised as harmless elders.” (Andrea
Hollander Budy); “Let’s say the self is a story.” (Forrest Hamer).
Some of the most arresting short stories deal with personal violence
– a woman slugs the hated tattoo on her husband’s chest, a
millworker is run through the stomach with a wooden board and an
eldest brother protects his younger brothers from their violent
father. Society is always the conspirator, but you’ll find no facile
conclusions here. The magazine boasts an acclaimed fifty-four year
history without shunning currently fashionable forms like the
short-short story. Some stories offer their insights by flicker,
others, by floodlight. As the editor accurately calls it in the
introductory pages, the journal is an investment in beauty.
[Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review, Mattingly
House, 2 Lee Avenue, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA
24450-0303. E-mail: rodsmith@wlu.edu. Single issue $10.
http://shenandoah.wlu.edu]
– LKB
Sewanee
Review
Volume 111,
Number 4
Fall 2003
If
personified, Sewanee Review would be an accomplished scholar,
wry professor and imaginative writer, persisting with an evening
pipe and pale cardigan despite colleagues who have lurched forward
into dark jeans and lunchtime smoothies. Indifferent to keeping up
with any literary Cloneses, its spirited criticism, fiction and
poetry abide no indulgent memoirs about tallness or the curse of an
Irish childhood, no sneering hepcats, noble gang members or
hyper-realist bodily functions. Three short fictions address
destruction euphemized as progress – venerable oak trees felled for
a new mall; reredos destroyed in the name of modernization; the
visible ravages of cosmetic surgery. The literary criticism is
particularly energetic in essays and reviews devoted to the issue’s
theme of Explorations in the 18th Century: James Boswell “can
barely open his mouth without sounding fatuous, self-absorbed and
sublimely foolish...”; Edward Gibbon (“The History of the Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire”), “laughs more than he weeps at the
folly of mankind.” Hume and Franklin are vividly discussed, along
with Enlightenment antecedents, Defoe and Pepys. The milieu is male
and clubby, but Sewanee Review (like Samuel Johnson,
appearing frequently as the unannounced patron saint of the issue),
promotes “solid conversation” and yields solid reading. [Sewanee
Review, University of the South, 735 University Avenue, Sewanee, TN
37383-1000. E-mail: jpatters@sewanee.edu. Single issue $8.
http://www.sewanee.edu/sreview/home.html]
– LKB
Arts & Letters
Journal of Contemporary Culture
Issue 11
Spring 2004
I'm hooked. I was a sporadic reader of Arts & Letters, but
no longer. I've just finished this issue and I can't wait for the
next one. I read from cover to cover, not tempted to skip or skim or
even come back to something later — every piece, from the A&L Prize
for Drama winner, "Left" by Sourbah Chatterjee, to reviews of work
by Judson Mitcham, Annie Finch, and Vivian Shipley drew me in and
satisfied me. With so few opportunities to read new play scripts, I
was thrilled to read Chatterjee's clever one-act play about a family
of siblings, abandoned by their father as children and their adult
solution to father-less-ness. I'd call Chatterjee's piece a
highlight of the issue, if it weren't for the fact that it is
followed by fiction, nonfiction, and poems that could all easily
qualify as highlights. There is a delightful interview with Janisse
Ray, author of The Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wild
Card Quilting: Taking a Chance on Home; pleasing,
read-me-more-than-once fiction by Janice Eidus, Barbara Haines
Howett, Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer, among others; and
read-again-and-again poems from Jesse Lee Kercheval, Roy Jacobstein and others, including newcomer, Israeli poet
Rosebud Ben-oni. [Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture,
Campus Box 89, Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, GA
31061-0490. E-mail: al@gcsu.edu. Single issue $8.
http://al.gscu.edu]
– SR
The
Virginia Quarterly Review
Volume 80 Number 2
Spring 2004
VQR gets the award for the most evocative juxtaposition
this spring — illustrator Eric Wight's blond, broad-shouldered "Escapist," from Michael
Chabon's comic book story ("The Origin of the Escapist") practically
leaps off the cover, heavy chains broken and loose in his hands,
locks flying, white teeth gleaming, and then the first entry in the
magazine, Carleton J. Phillip's "Capturing Saddam." (And 200 pages
later, when we encounter an exquisite painting of a soldier in
battle at Mt. Fuji, from Deborah Parker's "New Perspectives on
Japanese Prints," spear and grimace facing right, where the Escapist
faced left, we begin to think editor Ted Genoways is either very
lucky or a genius). VQR is a museum inside a magazine or a
magazine inside a museum, and the whole issue is a glorious set of
juxtapositions as startling as the first one. And just as in any
fine museum, one visit won't suffice. It could take the entire three
months between issues to get through this one before the next
arrives. There is new work here from essayists, fiction writers, and
poets whose names are as powerful as the image of the Escapist (E.L.
Doctorow, Robert Bly). But, if you only have time to stop and
appreciate some of these masterpieces, don't overlook Greg
Rappleye's poem "The Salt Cairn" or Jane Jacob's "Credentialing vs.
Education." [The Virginia Quarterly Review, One West Range, PO Box
400223, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4223. E-mail: vqreview@virginia.edu.
Single issue $7.
http://www.virginia/edu/vqr] – SR
Posted June 1, 2004
The
Missouri Review
Volume 26 Number 3
2003
Because The Missouri Review has such a strong tradition of
excellence, it is used by many of my friends as a sort of literary
bellwether, a steady source of reading pleasure over the years. The
theme of this issue is “Fusion” and features an interview with
Tobias Wolff as well as some early, previously unpublished work
(“The Swan”) by Tennessee Williams. I continue to applaud The
Missouri Review’s regular practice of publishing more than one
poem by each poet they feature, which enhances the reader’s sense of
the individual poet’s voice rather than having all the poems run
together in a jumble, as they do in even the best journals. Also, I
admit that I like reading the subversively zine-like cartoons. The
note that opens the issue from the editor, Speer Morgan, “Pirate
Publishers,” is an amusing look at the trials and foibles of
literary publishing, and includes such interesting tidbits as
language from the rejections by various publishers of The Bell
Jar, Lolita, and Wide Sargasso Sea. I also liked
Catherine MacCarthy’s poem “Deluge.” One standout piece in this
issue was Lissa Franz’s short story “Islamadora,” which begins: “The
women of the office gather around Pilar’s desk to play Who Has the
Worst Children. The higher up they are in the office hierarchy, the
more offensive and shocking their offspring…Pilar is the
secretary…Her daughter, Thea, is sixteen. She is six foot two and
plays the flute with a timidity that makes people look away while
she performs.” [The Missouri Review, 1507 Hillcrest Hall,
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211. E-mail:
tmr@missourireview.com.
Single issue $7.95.
http://www.missourireview.org/] - JHG
Fourteen Hills
Volume 10 Number 1
Winter/Spring 2004
This refreshingly energetic and well-produced journal from San
Francisco State University may have a confusing table of contents,
but once you find yourself between the covers, you won’t want to
leave. The content is just as colorful - and at times as jumbled -
as the image on this issue’s cover, “Cityscape” by Chris Johanson;
this is a lighthearted romp rather than a doleful stroll through the
works of the writers. Pieces with extraordinary flair include Bianca
Diaz’s short prose poem “Postcard from the Frangipani,” Lisa
Wallgren’s surreal short story “Division of Assets,” Kim Addonizio’s
poem “The Work” and Susanna Childress’ poem “Rhabdomancy.” At the
center of the issue is the somewhat unusual “In the Penal Colony,”
an opera by Philip Glass based on a story by Franz Kafka with a
libretto by Rudolph Wurlitzer. Subversive art work scattered
throughout the issue increases the sense that the journal wants to
challenge the status quo. [Fourteen Hills, c/o the Creative Writing
Department, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue,
San Francisco, CA 94132-1722. E-mail: hills@sfsu.edu. Single issue
$7. http://www.14hills.net] -
JHG
ZYZZYVA
Volume 20 Number 1
Spring 2004
I read this San-Francisco-based journal, an eclectic grab-bag of
West Coast writing, on a regular basis, because I have a vested
interest in West Coast writing, but also because I am always
interested in what will show up next. The editors always have
surprising delights hidden among the pages, often in their “First
Time in Print” section, where debuting authors are showcased. This
issue has a sprinkling of poetry, art, and one farcical script
(involving Jorie Graham, the author, an angel, and various other
entities), but is overwhelmingly made up of short fiction. (Come on,
Howard Junker, would it kill you to include a few more poems?) But
props to ZYZZYVA for including a couple of weird, funny
pieces I’m not even sure how to classify, like Aimee Bender’s “Some
Romans,” Benjamin Chambers’ “It’s Not Enough to Own the Original,”
and the aforementioned script “The Big Keep” by Kevin Killian. It’s
nice to see editors with a sense of humor. The poignant “Blue” by
Holly Chase Williams and the short-short/prose poem “Don’t Say
Mulatto” by Roxane Beth Johnson are high points of this issue,
elegant and intimate. I also admire the surprisingly sensual photo
“Cabbage, Palo Alto,” which somehow resembles a set of gleaming
closed eyelids, and William Rehm’s landscape photo, “Fry Canyon
Slick Rock.” [ZYZZYVA, P.O. Box 590069, San Francisco, CA,
94159-0069. E-mail:
editor@zyzzyva.org. Single issue $11.
http://www.zyzzyva.org/index.htm] - JHG
Image
A Journal of the Arts & Religion
Number 41
Winter 2003
This somewhat conservative, glossy-covered journal publishes art,
poetry, fiction and essays that focus (mostly) on the God of the
Judeo-Christian tradition, but the work is surprisingly diverse and
thought-provoking. (Production quality note to artists: The art work
is featured beautifully in full color and heavy paper.) In this
issue, I especially like the poems of Madeline DeFrees, a
tremendously intelligent and entertaining poet who happens to also
be an ex-nun, and the candid and brave essay by Valerie Sayers “The
Word Cure: Cancer, Language, Prayer” about her experience with
melanoma and spiritual crisis. I was hoping, based on previous
issues of this journal, that this issue would take a few more risks
and display a bit more edge, as found in the recent collection of
intellectual writings on spirit and religion in the book Killing
the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible, but I think it will be a pleasant
surprise for most readers to find the cerebral, honest work about
religion that Image provides. [Image, 3307 Third Avenue West,
Seattle, WA 98119. E-mail:
image@imagejournal.org. Single issue $10.
http://www.imagejournal.org]
- JHG
Bellevue Literary Review
Volume 4 Number 1
Spring 2004
The Bellevue Literary Review explores the connective
tissue between the practice of medicine and literature in a way that
is sensitive, surprising, and compassionate. I routinely read and
love the work of this journal, in part because the subject matter is
so intensely personal, the vulnerabilities of illness and injury,
the uncertainties of working with the ill and injured. This issue is
sprinkled with the work of well-known authors like Alicia Ostriker
and Hal Sorowitz and focuses on the impact of relationships with
others in a medical setting. For instance, in one story a rape
victim is comforted by a nosy woman in a proctologist’s office, and
in another, a medical student falls briefly in love with a beautiful
patient repeatedly infected with gonorrhea by her boyfriend. In a
third, the relationship between a husband and wife is damaged while
they are in Venice seeking fertility treatments. I like too many
pieces here to call out just one or two, but I will quote the poem
“The Initiation,” by Alicia Ostriker, in its entirety: “I was still
a kid / interning at Bellevue / It was a young red-headed woman /
looked like my sister / When the lines went flat / I fell apart /
Went to the head surgeon / a fatherly man / Boy, he said, you got to
fill a graveyard / before you know this business / and you just did
/ row one, plot one.” [Department of Medicine OBV-612, NYU School of
Medicine, 550 First Avenue New York, NY 10016. E-mail:
info@BLReview.org . Single issue $7.
http://www.blreview.org] -
JHG
Witness
Volume 27 Number 2
Summer 2003
Witness runs a lot of issues with political themes; the
theme of this issue was “Ethnic America,” and contributors like
Naomi Shahib Nye, Joyce Carol Oates, and Bib Hicok examine the lives
of immigrants, of outcasts, of refugees, and of the assimilation of
individual cultures. The history of American diversity has not been
a happy one, and this issue takes an unflinching look the past and
current realities of that diversity. From “Untitled” by Andrei
Codrescu: “often after a public event // a pretty girl…or a shy tall
boy…will say something in a foreign / accent to me we are from
bosnia / Hungarians or jews my mother / was born near your city…now
we are from here what should / we do with our accents // do like me
I say / keep talking.” The photographs of people (cheerleaders in
uniform, children in dress-up clothes, sulky teenage boys on bikes)
throughout the issue are as effective at displaying diverse lives as
the written work. [Witness, Oakland Community College, 27055 Orchard
Lake Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48334. E-mail:
stinepj@umich.edu. Single
issue $9.
http://www.webdelsol.com/Witness/] - JHG
Ascent
Volume 28 Number 2
Winter 2004
This issue of the Minnesota-based Ascent is focused on the
contemplative, the intellectual, and the spiritual - most of the
pieces are focused in some way on individuals contemplating their
world and their place in it. In one story, the balance of the
universe rests on the subversive tendencies of a man at a newspaper
who inserts people’s names into the text of classified ads; a poem
compares the speaker’s actions as a new father with the actions of
Caligula. Entertaining and somewhat erudite, I enjoyed Jean-Mark
Sens poem “Doubling,” which begins: “Your mouth articulates /
outside words: / and bit by bit you’ve grown / a guardian angel.”
and the poem “Watching” by Jesse Lee Kercheval, about watching
movies - “…Now when the movie comes I’m already restless, thinking
one step ahead. / I’m questioning everything even before the academy
leader counts down. // Now when I’m watching a movie, it may happen
that another movie / fills my head & keeps me from watching the
movie I am watching.” I enjoy reading the new voices and new ideas
found here. [Ascent, Concordia College, 901 8th
Street S, Moorhead, Minnesota 56562. E-mail:
ascent@cord.edu. Single issue
$5.
http://www.cord.edu/dept/english/ascent/] – JHG
The
Kenyon Review
Volume 26 Number 2
Spring 2004
This issue of Kenyon Review might help a newcomer to the
literary world learn who’s who; there are so many well-established
poets and writers here: Alice Hoffman, Stanley Plumly, Marvin Bell,
Carl Phillips, David Lehman…and the list goes on. This Ohio-based
journal may not hold many surprises, but it does contain a good deal
of excellent writing, including a long poem (a form sadly often
neglected in page-miserly lit mags) by Beth Ann Fennelly called
“Telling the Gospel Truth.” Here are a few lines from Alice
Hoffman’s lyrical “The Witch of Truro”: “Witches take their names
from places, for places are what give them their strength. The place
need not be beautiful, or habitable, or even green. Sand and salt,
so much the better. Scrub pine, plumberry and brambles, better
still. From every bitter thing, after all, something hardy will
surely grow.” The reviews and essays here are also intelligent and
probing, especially Kim McMullen’s “New Ireland/Hidden Ireland:
Reading Recent Irish Fiction” and Thomas Gardner’s essay
“Restructured and Restrung, Charles Wright’s Zone Journals
and Emily Dickinson.” [The Kenyon Review, Walton House, Kenyon
College, Gambier, OH 43022-9623. E-mail:
kenyonreview@kenyon.edu. Single issue $10.
http://www.kenyonreview.org/]
- JHG
Journal of Ordinary Thought
“Cause I Wanted To”
Fall 2003/Winter 2004
This slim quarterly, published by the Neighborhood Writing Alliance
in Chicago, is one of the more fascinating literary magazines out
there. Hardly intending to be ironic, the work within is, by
‘writerly’ standards, ordinary: there’s hardly a trace of the purple
prose or tightrope walking eccentricities to be had in the more
well-heeled literary rags. The poems, reflections and stories within
are incredibly ordinary—most of the writing focuses on quotidian
life, on the little miseries and injustices and small miraculous
moments of life. At the (admittedly large) risk of going completely
gooey, the magazine is devastating because the work is simply, over
and over, real: people hate their jobs and write accordingly;
someone had a horrible experience in youth and simply relates it.
I’m as ready as the next guy to trade ten Grisham books for one by
Lydia Davis, but there’s a shocking beauty and simplicity in the
direct, inspired writing within. [Journal of Ordinary Thought,
Neighborhood Writing Alliance, 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL
60637. E-mail: editors@jot.com.
http://www.jot.org/jot.html] - WC
Conduit
Number 14
Spring 2004
While it’s tempting for me to enjoy Conduit because we are of
the same city, or because I think Conduit does many things
tremendously well—among them risk annihilation, use words instead of
page numbers, gather incredible poetry—the clearest reason in this
latest issue to enjoy it is because of the poem, “My One Paneled
Wall,” by Crystal Curry, though ‘enjoy’ is far and away far too weak
a verb for this startlingly sharp and perfect poem, and she should,
like many other poets within (C.G. Waldrep, Olena Kalytiak Davis,
etc.), have whatever choice of beverage she prefers purchased for
her. Conduit is nothing if not daring, and their motto of
risking annihilation is not at all some clever ruse for your
hard-earned literary magazine dollar. (For the record, as well:
Sarah Manguso, an internet high five to you for both poems.) These
poems are reckless, not necessarily pushing language so much as
alchemizing it, restructuring the pyrite of life and love and
longing into something glintier and more mercurial. [Conduit, 510
Eigth Avenue Northeast, Minneapolis, MN 55413. Single issue $8.
http://www.conduit.org/] - WC
Quarterly West
Number 57
Fall/Winter 2003-4
A bizarre admission: I write and, much more often than not, read
fiction and poetry, and Quarterly West, seemingly without
intent, has made a nonfiction convert out of me. It’s not that I am
not enthralled by the two novellas from the biennial contest within
this issue (and pity Kevin McIlvoy for having to choose between
these two, let alone however many countless others). It’s nothing
about not enjoying, with that sort of creeping case of the willies
that sometimes happens, Dan O’Brien’s story. G.C. Waldrep, as ever,
does it for me, and Kate Gale’s “Demanding Barbados” is luxurious.
But Ander Monson’s “I Have Been Thinking About Snow” and Sarah
Madsen’s “Movement: a photographer’s alphabet” are both beguilingly
great. Structurally they’re dissimilar, from each other and from
nonfiction in general: Monson uses periods to space sentences,
fragments, words, weather reports out from each other; Madsen has
each page be an entry for a word (aperture, heat, wretched), and for
each entry there is a listing of the image, the technique, and the
caption. Both works are mesmeric, lingering - like those
conversations we carry with us and recall over and over. [Quarterly
West,
University of Utah, 200 S. Central Campus Dr., Rm. 317, Salt Lake
City, Utah 84112-9109. E-mail: dhawk@earthlink.net. Single issue:
$8.50. http://www.utah.edu/quarterlywest/] - WC
Iron Horse Literary Review
“First Frost”
Volume 5 Number 1
2003
I go back and forth about the debate regarding whether or not there
are simply too many literary magazines. There’s the statistic that
the majority of amateur authors spend more money per year on sending
work out than they do on the literary magazines they’re so
desperately trying to garner an acceptance from, and there’s the
notion, to me anyway (an admitted elitist), that if there’s
eventually a venue for every piece of writing, what does that do to
writing overall? Iron Horse Literary Review is exactly the
type of magazine that acts as soothing antidote to the insta-headache
above. I’ve never seen the magazine before, I recognize just a few
of the names in the issue, I haven’t the slightest who the editors
are, but the magazine is coherent and well organized and neat and
good, and it passes the pick-up-and-flip test better than many: I
literally picked it up ten or so times, flipped open to a random
page, and was hooked, if not by one page than the opposite or,
sometimes, both. No style is outlandishly favored in terms of
quality or page space, and the best feeling is that strange sort of
trust a magazine or book exacts as it does the job well: you don’t
know what’s next, but you know it’ll be worth it. [Iron Horse
Literary Review, Texas Tech University, Department of English, Box
43091, Lubbock, TX 79409-3091. E-mail:
ironhorselr@netscape.net.
Single issue $6. http://www.english.ttu.edu/IH/] - WC
Harpur Palate
Volume 3 Number 2
Winter 2003-4
Jeff Walt has written one of the sexiest poems about smoking ever
and Jennifer Perrine makes me want to hold someone’s hand. Lexi
Rudnitsky’s “Malaria” is beautiful and Harpur Palate (which
is what, by the way, anyone? sorry I’m dumb) is a fine magazine. M.
Nasorri Pavone’s “Rick on His Way to Rachel” surprised the hell out
of me and took three readings, and Mary Anne Mohanraj’s story, like
Jenny Steele’s, is well paced and moves like a cloud, then stays
like one in your head. Out of Binghamton University in New York,
this magazine feels more than many, like it’s still growing into
itself in good ways. There’s no pedantry, no hint that if I were to
pick up the magazine in a year it might be totally different,
meaning: there’s a flexibility to it that’s welcome. Again, there’s
little formal inventiveness within the pages, there are simply
well-written, solidly structured poems and stories. [Harpur Palate,
English Department, Binghamton University, PO Box 6000, Binghamton,
NY 13902-6000. E-mail: hpfiction@hotmail.com Single issue $8.
http://harpurpalate.binghamton.edu/] - WC
The
Long Story
Number 22
2004
I know it’s not polite to talk about politics, and there’s hardly a
gray zone in the polarized debate regarding politics in this country
right now, but the Long Story is specifically political, so
it bears discussion. For the uninitiated: the Long Story is
one of the few literary magazines that focuses pretty much
exclusively on novellas/long stories (more than 8,000 words), and
has done so for a long time and very well. There are eight stories
in here, total page count 160, so the magazine in practical terms
more resembles a thick collection of stories or essays than a
‘typical’ literary magazine. R. P. Burnham, Editor, begins this
issue with a prelude that is so coherent and good, I nearly missed
the pedantry, though that may also because I’m sympathetic with his
views. He describes, eloquently and at length, the need for writers
to tell the Truth, to see the actual world and write of it, and
while he has overt political views that he’s making obvious,
Burnham’s introductory essay is right up there with some of the
things Remnick’s written recently in the New Yorker. The
eight stories within are, unfortunately for them, follow Burnham’s
essay, which for me meant each was read with new consideration for
the world, for what to do next, for how to see better those around
me. That said, the stories were uniformly good, readable, and
better: each confirmed Burnham’s call for humanistic fiction. [The
Long Story – Single issue $6] - WC
Third Coast
Issue 18
Spring 2004
Consistently one of the best, cleanest-looking, most affordable and
most interesting literary magazines, Third Coast seems
incapable of ever making a bad move. If you go to it for your fix of
Bob Hicok, for example, you might get distracted by a story by Kieth
Banner - lines like “I love her like you might love a stubbed toe if
the rest of your body was numb.” Ryan Van Cleave and Ptim Callanboth
have short-short stories in here that are as good as you’ll find
anywhere, and the poetry is consistently wonderful. From Western
Michigan University, out of Kalamazoo, this magazine seems to
actually go a long way toward defining and clarifying a certain
aesthetic, one that’s neither rigorously formal nor wildly inventive
simply for inventiveness’ sake. The work in Third Coast, over
and over, is excellent, engaging work that does the hardest of
things quite well: each piece is its own piece, following its own
rules and fulfilling its own needs. Deborah Landau’s poetry can
precede Myron Hardy’s, and both sets of poetry are fantastic in
their own ways—stanza’d or un-/metered or otherwise, more language
or more image focused. And in what may be most shocking: the book
reviews in the back are always fantastic, and in this latest issue
inclue a review of another literary magazine - Orchid Literary
Review. An incredible magazine, always worth double the
necessary $6. [Third Coast, Department of English, Western Michigan
University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331. E-mail:
gdeutsch@wmich.edu.
Single issue $6. http://www.wmich.edu/thirdcoast/] - WC
NewPages Literary Magazine Stand Archives
May 2004
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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