The Greensboro Review – Spring 2003

Spring is The Greensboro Review’s contest issue and the prize winning story, “The Cornfield” by Ann Stewart Hendry, and prize winning poem, “Poem from Which Wolves Were Banished,” by Jeanne Marie Beaumont, are indeed exemplary. Hendry’s story of the ruin of a farm as a result of foot-and-mouth disease on a neighbor’s property is beautifully written, old-fashioned in some senses (a pleasingly traditional story), much like the family farm itself.

Spring is The Greensboro Review’s contest issue and the prize winning story, “The Cornfield” by Ann Stewart Hendry, and prize winning poem, “Poem from Which Wolves Were Banished,” by Jeanne Marie Beaumont, are indeed exemplary. Hendry’s story of the ruin of a farm as a result of foot-and-mouth disease on a neighbor’s property is beautifully written, old-fashioned in some senses (a pleasingly traditional story), much like the family farm itself. Beaumont’s poem begs to be read aloud (although its form on the page is unusual and effective) for what it accomplishes rhythmically and for its attention to sound. Both the prize-winning story and poem achieve a profound tension between the sensuality in their language and images and the bleakness they portray, and both, oddly or perhaps not, are about harsh seasons in every sense. From Beaumont’s poem: “I’m half-sure the creature / out in the center of the road / has something in its mouth / so the wind does the howling / for them both.” There is much else here worth reading. Of particular note, poems by Matt Hart, Mark Cox, and Gary Duehr (one of several honorable mentions in the contest). In general, this issue presents work that feels fresh without being edgy, writing that is somewhat traditional or conventional, without being trite — which makes for very satisfying reading.