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Find literary magazine reviews on the NewPages Blog. These reviews include single literary pieces and an issue of a literary magazine as a whole.

Cutthroat – Spring 2006

Cutthroat logo

A cutthroat is a kind of trout — and this must surely be what the journal’s name refers to, given the beautiful painting by Albert Kogel, “Rush Hour Fish,” on the cover—although it’s hard not to think first of its better known connotations (a murderer or someone who is a ruthless competitor). So, it seems fitting that the poetry and fiction in this journal tend to tackle what I’d call “big, serious themes”: the war in Iraq, the incidents of 9/11, the aftermath of major illness, literacy, Vietnamese war orphans, the effects of the one-child law in China, the violence at Columbine high school, child abuse. “Cutthroat Discovery Poet” Elizabeth Gordon’s work is characteristic of the journal’s predilections in terms of subject matter, though her style is more conversational than much of the work presented here. My favorite of her six poems is “Game Over, President Tells Iraq”:

I remember my life like it never happened
the beautiful city of my birth
river city           colonial city      city of self-immolation
my parents’ lovemaking they slow groans of continents
the dog tags pressed between them
the copter hovered above them
slicing
the ghosts of my ancestors
smell of chemicals and refuse
diesel and perfume
fine candies melting on the tongue

There are plenty of stars in this issue, as well as worthy newcomers, including Joy Harjo and Rick DeMarinis (whose own work appears alongside the work of the poetry and fiction winners of awards in their names), Marvin Bell, Judith Barrington, Dorianne Laux, Kelly Cherry, and Naomi Shihab Nye, among others. Donley Watt’s fiction choices, stories by Tehila Lieberman and Pamela Hawthorne, are especially appealing. [www.cutthroatmag.com/]

Cutthroat Volume 1 Number 1, Spring 2006 reviewed by Sima Rabinowitz

The New Reviewof Literature – October 2005

The New Review of Literature is filled with the usual suspects. You will find, of course, poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and even a little extra: an interview. And, upon closer inspection, you’ll note that this collection is the product of the Graduate Writing program of Otis College of Art and Design. What is unexpected, though, what sets this compilation apart from others, is that all the pieces that appear among the pages are extraordinarily intelligent and well-informed. Continue reading “The New Reviewof Literature – October 2005”

Poetry Kanto – 2005

Poetry Kanto takes its name from the Japanese Kanto plain, but it’s hard not to think Canto in the Western sense of the spirited song. This journal, published by an American Baptist-founded university, features four translated Japanese and eight international English-language poets. It refutes the conception that Japan is still the isolated land of the tanka and haiku. Tanikawa Shuntaro, for example, is well regarded for his breadth of knowledge of American pop culture. Yet Kanto also illustrates where the gaps remain. Continue reading “Poetry Kanto – 2005”

Post Road – Fall 2005

The newest issue of Post Road is certainly ambitious, including not just fiction and poetry but also essays, book recommendations, a one-act play, photography, an interview, and even an index of all the characters in John Cheever’s short fiction. Highlights include Dan Pope’s story “Drive-In,” about a group of teenagers going to see a porno film at a drive-in, and Ralph McGinnis’s essay, “The Omission of Comics,” which makes a strong case for the inclusion of comics as modern art and also for their place in history as strong influences on Dadaism and Surrealism. Continue reading “Post Road – Fall 2005”

West Branch – Fall/Winter 2005

West Branch, published by Bucknell University’s prestigious Stadler Center for Poetry, isn’t a poetry journal, but poetry clearly lies at the heart of its editorial tastes. Clocking in at 134 pages and cloaked in a vibrant, gorgeously weathered oil painting cover, this issue boasts 19 poems, 4 stories, one essay, 2 book reviews and 2 translations. The nonfiction is a transcribed lecture, “On Sentimentality,” delivered at Vermont College in 1994 by poet Mary Ruefle—literary minutia to some, but likely many poets’ bread and butter Continue reading “West Branch – Fall/Winter 2005”

New England Review – Winter 2006

Reminiscent of The Paris Review or, to a lesser extent, Western Humanities Review or The New Yorker, New England Review asserts itself as a dense academic journal that takes itself as seriously as academia tends to take itself. And that’s pretty serious. The journal’s subscription tear-out reads, assuredly, “Look to NER for the challenges your taste requires.” After a billboard like that, false advertising is pretty much out of the question. Continue reading “New England Review – Winter 2006”

Pleiades – 2006

This issue of Pleiades, with its cover depicting George Washington with his scalp on fire, contains a generous review section (nearly half the issue’s pages are devoted to reviews) and a few features, including multiple poems by Kevin Honold and Jap Hopler, with introductions by Cate Marvin and Louise Gluck, respectively. Kevin Honold had a long sectioned poem about the Iraq war, quite topical and all that, but my favorite of his was the brilliant “The Groves of Baal,” meant to echo the Biblical language of the book of Lamentations with an odd, colloquial voice chiming in the background: Continue reading “Pleiades – 2006”

Rhino – 2006

This year’s bright pink issue of Rhino features, as usual, mostly poetry, with a satisfying section of poetry chapbook and book reviews in the back called “Rhino Reads.” This issue also features a section of poetry in translation. The poetry in Rhino typically flirts with experimentation, drawing in the reader by a thread of emotional energy, lyric power and sometimes, offbeat humor. Continue reading “Rhino – 2006”

Witness – 2005

This issue of Witness focuses on “childhood in America,” a theme richly explored in an impressive selection of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and photography. Much of the work concentrates on transformative moments in childhood—first experiences with death, desire, and discovering the limitations of adult figures—and sketching American landscapes: Maxine Kumin’s Philadelphia corset shop, Lawrence Raab’s nature camp, and the agonizingly familiar territory of high school. Continue reading “Witness – 2005”

Ascent – Spring 2005

If you have ever wondered why so many high school students graduate with an indifference to literature; if you have ever considered the impact of war literature on young people whose heroes are largely provided by electronic media; if you have pondered the best words for the dying and what it means to be profoundly changed by a relative stranger, then, by all means, find a quiet corner and put yourself in the good company of this issue’s authorial minds.  Continue reading “Ascent – Spring 2005”

BackwardsCity Review – Winter 2006

Part comic book, part ironic guidebook for today’s troubled yet repeatedly humorous world, the winter edition of Backwards City Review reveals the more playful side of the more reflective, more meditative literary journal; and yes, this is possible. While its contents won’t dazzle your minister—unless, of course, he’s not put off by a hearty double helping of sarcasm—this issue offers roughly 100 pages of quirky, if, at times, campy, quality writing, complete with a giant, purple, city-crushing, donut-eating robot on its cover. All the world an oddity. Let’s just say you know what you’re in for when you see the cover and your interest continues its meandering inside.  Continue reading “BackwardsCity Review – Winter 2006”

Ballyhoo Stories – Fall 2005

The second issue of Ballyhoo (meaning extravagant publicity—from the American, of course) brings together writers at all levels of their careers on the theme of “Songs and Cacophony.” The 8.5 x 11 black and white journal frames each story with a prominent black or white border. On the third anniversary of his mother’s death, Andrew Bomback’s narrator prank calls his ex to misquote the Beatles’ “I Will.” Continue reading “Ballyhoo Stories – Fall 2005”

The Canary – 2006

I’ll admit it, at first I was intimidated. It was the periwinkle of the front and back covers that mollified my disease. Thing is, my hands aren’t familiar with the heft of a 125 page journal, especially one comprised entirely of poetry, especially one comprised mainly of long poems. On first flip-through they felled me, hard. A substantial journal dedicated entirely to poetry is a sad rarity these days. The Canary is a necessary and matchless one. Continue reading “The Canary – 2006”

A Public Space – Spring 2006

The debut issue of A Public Space is probably one of the most highly anticipated magazines in recent history. Brigid Hughes, the former editor of the Paris Review, tops the masthead and the contributors include literary heavyweights like Rick Moody, Kelly Link, Charles D’Ambrosio, recent Pulitzer winner Marilynne Robinson, and John Haskell—not to mention a rare interview with Haruki Murakami, a Japanese author who enjoys a cult-like following. And A Public Space does not disappoint. Continue reading “A Public Space – Spring 2006”

Circumference – 2005

What gets translated? is more of a koan than a question. After all, where does meaning hide if not in words themselves? And what happens to meaning when words are transformed into another language? Something remains—but what, exactly? These are the kinds of questions that this small but important journal sets out to explore. Continue reading “Circumference – 2005”

North Dakota Quarterly – Fall 2005

North Dakota Quarterly is a sprawling academic journal—it has expanded by 50 pages since I reviewed it last year—but it knows how to put its enormity to good use. Thoughtful essays, reviews, and criticism are givens, but this issue gives opportunity to illuminate the fiction and poetry that tends to get overshadowed. The highlight is three short stories, three, by Robert Day. While two of them are fairly cosmopolitan, the other one, “The One-man Woodcutter Meets His Widowmaker,” decidedly belongs to the rugged West. Continue reading “North Dakota Quarterly – Fall 2005”

Parthenon West Review – Fall 2005

I don’t know if this magazine dropped out of the sky or sprung from the mud, but few have shown what Parthenon West Review has to offer: a fully-formed poetry magazine whose vision is frightening to behold. Coming in at under 200 pages, a weekend is too little time to get through this mammoth. If San Francisco is the city where West meets East, PWR takes advantage of the label, building on its Zen-influenced roots in modernism, imagism and the Beats, approaching the avant-garde without leaving contemporary conventions behind. This excerpt from Rusty Morrison is an exemplar: Continue reading “Parthenon West Review – Fall 2005”

Southwest Review – Fall 2005

Joshua Harmon’s lead-off essay is titled “Live Free (Or Die Trying).” Yes, it’s a skewed reference to New Hampshire, and to the political divide in the U.S. and the secessionist fantasies entertained by blue-staters. Yet Harmon, a self-described “Mass-hole” and shrewd observer of place (see AGNI No. 60), discovers that voting patterns are not so easily explained when he visits a region he knows well, Coos County, NH—an otherwise conservative area in the rural mountains that John Kerry won in 2004. Continue reading “Southwest Review – Fall 2005”

The First Line – Fall 2005

Incipit: “Having little to his name when he died, the reading of Henry Fromm’s will went quickly.” I’m willing to overlook the dangling modifier in this issue’s first line (though many outraged “writers” did not, say the editors) because, after all, it’s the end product that counts: seven short stories and even a poem, all beginning with this opening sentence. Continue reading “The First Line – Fall 2005”

Natural Bridge – 2005

This issue of Natural Bridge, a beautiful journal produced by the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is guest edited by Ruth Ellen Kocher and explores the theme “fragment and sequence.” The roster of contributors includes both established writers like Denise Duhamel and Timothy Liu and lesser known authors. The locales are exotic and varied—Iraq, Bombay, Mexico, Romania—and much of the fiction involves domestic life. Continue reading “Natural Bridge – 2005”

Phoebe – Fall 2005

“Nothing original can ever be said about a trip to Paris; in some ways, that is its saving grace.” Kate Peterson may be right, in her installment-style story “Eighteen Conjugations of Cambridge,” which delights and ultimately stirs the dirty waters of nostalgia to a point that parallels “The lights in paintings […] afterglows: just-extinguished candles, early morning streetlamps, or dying stars.” Continue reading “Phoebe – Fall 2005”

Brick – Winter 2005

Brick, a Canadian journal of non-fiction and poetry, is a magazine in a class of its own. The contributors in the winter issue include prominent writers like Donna Tart, Oliver Sacks, David Sedaris, Geoff Dyer, and Fanny Howe. The issue begins with a quote from John Berger, the perfect writer to introduce this pioneering journal that relishes in investigating and pressing against the boundaries of literature. The nonfiction pieces are incredibly eclectic in style and subject, with essays on boxing, Dublin, highways, the novel True Grit, and Thom Gunn, in addition to a transcript of a speech made at the 2005 Griffin Poetry Awards ceremony—and interesting and often humorous meditation on the state of poetry—and letters from Norman Levine and William Faulkner. The previously unpublished letter from Faulkner to an aspiring writer is a standout; he prescribes Dostoevsky, Mann, and Hardy to the struggling artist and offers gems like “no writing that was worth doing was ever done in one day or one year, sometimes, oftentimes, not in one decade.” Continue reading “Brick – Winter 2005”

Burnside Review – Summer 2005

If ever you’ve gazed upon artworks born of the Surrealist movement with awe, you’ll readily absorb the concept that not to understand is, in itself, a way of understanding. Just as Surrealists aimed to circle like sharks the locus of aleatory explosion, the subconscious surfacing, spilling forth through the murky waters of convention, so, too, do the writers that comprise the Summer 2005 issue of Burnside Review. In theory, Surrealist art, like artwork of any era, concerns itself foremost with itself, then its audience. Artists aimed to tear at the piñata of despair to reveal the ripe and virile confetti within. This is where some of the work in this issue breaks down, and where some of it really takes off. Continue reading “Burnside Review – Summer 2005”

The Chattahoochee Review – Spring 2005

The spring issue of The Chattahoochee Review, a sleekly designed journal from Georgia Perimeter College, offers an excellent selection of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, book reviews, and art—in addition to a special feature on Brazilian poetry. The four outstanding short stories, two by notables William Gay (lauded by some circles as the next Faulkner) and George Singleton, center on down-on-their-luck characters and American domestic life gone awry. The poetry is equally impressive, in particular Chad Prevost’s stunning “Lyric of the Ever-Expanding Universe”: “You thought the dandelions stood / in one place, but come to find out they were / dancing across the wind like tumbleweeds / wheeling without the thought of gravity, / and what you thought was gravity / is only your body’s leaden weight / pinning down your dandelion soul.” Continue reading “The Chattahoochee Review – Spring 2005”

The Means – October 2005

Congratulations to Co-Editors and proud parents Tanner Higgin and Christopher Vieau on the birth of their child, The Means. The Means, a Michigan native, at once temperamental and charming, incubated for a full two years, paralleling the gestation period of an elephant. In concert with the already unraveling mammalian theme, Higgin writes, in his Editor’s Note, “This first issue contains a virtual Noah’s ark of writers […] absolutely necessary in our rebellion against the literary establishment.” Their complaint? Scarcity of literary journals willing to publish the risqué and the silly, which is exactly what they set out to do. The Means’s debut issue presents readers with seductive ideas in newfangled form. Rebecca Brown’s hyper-experimental essay “The Reading of Water: Subjective Surging Based on Graham Swift’s Waterland” simultaneously annoys and dazzles readers with its meandering style. But Brown ultimately comments steeply, I think, and not un-clearly, on time and its relevance—or irrelevance—to narrative. C.L. Bledsoe’s is-it-a-poem “What To Do In Case of a Locked Door” reads like a set of fold-out directions, making sense even without those tiny useless diagrams. As much sense as preparatory advice for a locked door situation can make. Both pieces are delightful endeavors, and they aren’t on their own. Admittedly, The Means is a new kid on the block, a strange new kid, both in approach and tenor, in a subdivision of more traditionally ‘serious’ journals. In a recent interview, Kim Addonizio commented on this strange new-ish approach to poetry: “earnestness […] to get at that from a different way, irony through humor, some kind of movement sideways.” The Means line dances its way to the dignity it already knows it deserves.
[The Means, P.O. Box 183246, Shelby Township, MI 48318. Single issue $8.]

Opium – 2005/2006

Opiummagazine.com has taken its “literary humor for the deliriously captivated” into the print world. No.1, with an Eggersly subtitle, “A Whopping Collection of Fanatical Literary Brilliance,” retains the clever wit and sly characterizations of its daddy on-line journal, including estimated reading times. Continue reading “Opium – 2005/2006”

The Paris Review – Summer 2005

In its 1953 inaugural issue, William Styron, best known for his novel Sophie’s Choice, wrote, “I think The Paris Review should welcome these people into its pages: the good writers and good poets, the non-drumbeaters and non-axe-grinders. So long as they’re good.” And they are good. This issue finds Liao Yiwu a seeming star, as both interviewer and subject, covering an alarming 35 pages, or about 18% of the issue’s 192 pages. Yiwu’s pieces range from encounters with a professional mourner, an independent public toilet manager, and a human trafficker, with China serving as each interviews’ backdrop. Continue reading “The Paris Review – Summer 2005”

Slipstream – 2005

“I can sometimes almost read the inscriptions on brick walls, in doorways, between/ the wing blades of pigeons.” So writes Yvonne C. Murphy, in her poem “Avenue of the Strongest.” Slipstream No. 25, a journal, as always, consisting solely of poetry, is rife with equal allusions to both the body and to the written word, both in crude and refined forms. At first this seems a strange set of motifs to underline a journal. But a second look finds body and text not altogether removed, and, in fact, a relatively popular contemporary discussion. Continue reading “Slipstream – 2005”