88 – October 2003
A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry
Issue 3
October 2003
Jeannine Hall Gailey
This new-ish journal (only on its third issue) has already generated lots of positive talk among poetry insiders and continues to showcase a wide variety of writers: experimental, traditional, narrative, lyric – name a style, and you’ll probably find it in here. A feeling of whimsy and humor pervades this issue; in the editor’s notes, Ian Randall Wilson confides that they used a “Dada” method to organize the submissions. But the felicitous juxtapositions created work in the reader’s favor.
This new-ish journal (only on its third issue) has already generated lots of positive talk among poetry insiders and continues to showcase a wide variety of writers: experimental, traditional, narrative, lyric – name a style, and you’ll probably find it in here. A feeling of whimsy and humor pervades this issue; in the editor’s notes, Ian Randall Wilson confides that they used a “Dada” method to organize the submissions. But the felicitous juxtapositions created work in the reader’s favor. The editors of 88 have created a riotous tasting menu featuring some of today’s best poetic voices – Elinor Wilner, Tony Hoagland, David Wagoner, amid many other familiar names, along with a sprinkling of reviews. Therefore, it’s somewhat difficult to pick a representative quote, but I will pull some lines from two particularly enjoyable poems, “If God Were a Wiseguy” by Dorothy Barresi: “…though we pray… / …not, for once, to a bag of blue indifferent sky, / but to a brass-knuckled / wire-tapped tough / capable of making us feel important / for a few lousy moments…” and from Gerald Yelle’s “Ovidian Love Songs and Their Place in Radio History”:
So here goes mine:
Whose love is a wire, drawn though ever smaller dies, freeing
Daphne from the laurel, Jean d’Arc’s heart from the heretic pyre.
Should your well run dry I will wed you back to water.
Definitely an up-and-coming journal to watch. [88, Box 88 c/o Hollyridge Press, PO Box 2872, Venice, CA 90294. E-mail: [email protected]. Single issue $13.95. http://www.hollyridgepress.com] – JHG
