Four Poems from Cimarron Review

Magazine Review by Katy Haas

The Spring 2020 issue of Cimarron Review is a slim one, but here is still plenty in its pages to keep a reader company, including a fine selection of poetry.

This selection includes Ethan Joella’s ruminations on the titular magazines that his “wife’s mother read in the hospital,” and a desire to destroy them to protect his wife in her grief. Joella creates a tender piece that focuses on his wife’s love for her mother, as well as his love for his wife.

Leslie McGrath asks one eight-word question in “Pink Inquiry,” a poem that makes impact with its simplicity. Christopher Brean Murray reflects on his childhood dogs “Duke & Pam,” and the way he has “never been able / to get into a poem the way” he felt about them. What results is a sweet poem about the three finding warmth and comfort in one another.

William Reichard in “Tinnitus (in Four Movements)” describes his relationship with the ringing in his ears, using the sound of cicadas as a way to lead this exploration. I read the fourth movement repeatedly, pulled in. “There was no escape from / the pulse of his own blood,” it reads, the stanza itself feeling as inescapable as the sound.

Take some time to visit the poetry in this issue of Cimarron Review, as well as the five pieces of prose also inside.