The Oklahoma Review – Fall 2013

Put forth by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Cameron University, The Oklahoma Review publishes a mixture of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and reviews. Although I found a couple of pieces in this issue to be a little too daring (to the point they weren’t successful), there were several pieces that made it worth the read. James Brubaker contributes a whimsical piece titled “Three Television Shows About Familial Love.” Both comedy and social commentary, the fiction piece accurately picks out key elements of television shows and turns the elements in on themselves. Put forth by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Cameron University, The Oklahoma Review publishes a mixture of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and reviews. Although I found a couple of pieces in this issue to be a little too daring (to the point they weren’t successful), there were several pieces that made it worth the read.

James Brubaker contributes a whimsical piece titled “Three Television Shows About Familial Love.” Both comedy and social commentary, the fiction piece accurately picks out key elements of television shows and turns the elements in on themselves. For example, “A Father’s Love” is the first show in which contestants compete to win the father by being the best son or daughter. As is familiar with contestant shows, each week someone is eliminated. In the case of this show, Brubaker makes it so that the father turns down the contestant by saying, “I’m very disappointed in you.”

Rob Roesnch’s fiction piece takes place at St. Luke’s school where a teacher has been forced to resign on account that she is pregnant and unwed. Some of Vicky Goggins’s colleagues reach out in support, and one even goes as far as making a house call, but in the end, you have to wonder if you should feel sad for Vicky, or perhaps, instead, happy that she is free from the politics and gossip of the school.

Jose Angel Araguz’s “Dandelions” is short and sweet, an image of an innocent child’s view of a man “one day returning to dust.” And Angela Spofford draws heavily upon imagery to drive her two prose poems, “Fish” and “Weld Country.”

At the moment, the website itself is new and still being worked on, so unfortunately there isn’t anything else to read beyond the current issue.
[www.cameron.edu/okreview]