NewPages Blog :: Magazines

Screen Reading, mini reviews by Kirsten McIlvenna of online and digital literary magazines, was originally published the first Monday of every month. However, in an attempt to gain more readership, they were then published on the 15th of the month along with the regular literary magazine reviews. Here are the archives:

October 2014
The Boiler :: Medical Literary Messenger :: Neutrons Protons

September 2014
Cleaver Magazine :: Drunken Boat :: Out of Print

August 2014
decomP :: Wicked Banshee Press :: Your Impossible Voice

July 2014
Avatar Review :: Devil’s Lake :: Pretty Owl Poetry :: Southern Women’s Review :: Under the Gum Tree

June 2014
Clare :: Communion :: New Purlieu Review :: rawboned :: Red Booth Review

May 2014
Anak Sastra :: Glass :: Olentangy Review :: One Throne Magazine :: 1966

April 2014
Apple Valley Review :: Flyway :: Hamilton Stone Review :: Origami Journal :: Sixth Finch

March 2014
Breakwater Review :: Cider Press Review :: Dragnet :: The Oklahoma Review :: The Ostrich Review

February 2014
Brevity :: East Coast Ink :: Ghost House Review :: Jersey Devil Press :: Really System

January 2014
Agave Magazine :: Alimentum :: Apogee :: FictionNow :: The Monongahela Review

December 2013
Ascent :: Blue Lyra Review :: Chagrin River Review :: Compose :: Lines + Stars

November 2013
Chantarelle’s Notebook :: Fogged Clarity :: foam:e :: Psychopomp Magazine :: Sixfold

October 2013
Gulf Stream :: NAP :: Sassafras Literary Journal :: SpringGun :: Toasted Cheese

September 2013
Crack the Spine :: Gone Lawn :: The Meadowland Review :: Middle Gray Magazine :: Unsplendid

August 2013
Bodega :: The Citron Review :: drafthorse :: Four Ties Lit Review :: Hot Metal Bridge

July 2013
Clarkesworld :: Driftless Review :: The Fiddleback :: Looseleaf Tea :: Niche

June 2013
Apeiron Review :: Bent Ear Review :: Gris-Gris :: ONandOnScreen :: Split Lip

May 2013
Ascent :: Cliterature :: The Drum :: Fiddleblack :: Literal Latte :: Mezzo Cammin

April 2013
Brevity Poetry Review :: Ghost Ocean Magazine :: Spry :: Star 82 Review :: Swamp :: Tongue

March 2013
The Blue Route :: Cactus Heart :: Danse Macabre :: Flycatcher :: Four and Twenty :: The New River :: Shadowbox :: Temenos

February 2013
Cellar Roots :: Cleaver Magazine :: Damazine :: Lingerpost :: SpringGun :: Terrain.org

January 2013
ARDOR Literary Magazine :: Imitation Fruit :: Literary Juice :: Miracle Monocle :: Ontologica :: Redheaded Stepchild :: Rufous City Review :: Scapegoat Review :: The Sim Review :: storySouth :: Thrush :: Valparaiso Fiction Review

December 2012
Atticus Review :: Birdfeast :: Cerise Press :: The Golden Key :: Jellyfish Magazine :: Map Literary :: Mead :: Otis Nebula :: Right Hand Pointing

November 2012
The Bacon Review :: Digital Americana :: The Fib Review :: Five Quarterly :: Fogged Clarity :: Goblin Fruit :: Halfway Down the Stairs :: The Medulla Review :: On the Premises :: Per Contra :: Printer’s Devil Review :: The Writing Disorder

October 2012
Arsenic Lobster :: Fiction Fix :: failbetter.com :: Gemini Magazine :: Lowestoft Chronicle :: Menacing Hedge :: Persimmon Tree :: Pithead Chapel :: Poemeleon :: Quickly :: Revolution House :: The Rusty Toque :: Sleet Magazine :: Sundog Lit :: Umbrella Factory

September 2012
Amarillo Bay :: The Bacon Review :: The Boiler :: Brevity :: DMQ Review :: FRiGG :: Penduline :: Poecology :: Steel Toe Review :: StepAway Magazine :: Swamp Biscuits and Tea :: Sweet

August 2012
The Baltimore Review :: Blue Lake Review :: Contrary :: Fox Chase Review :: La Petite Zine :: New Delta Review :: Plume :: The Puritan :: r.kv.r.y :: Ragazine.cc :: Tampa Review Online :: Wag’s Revue

July 2012
Carve Magazine :: Cigale Literary :: Defunct :: Eclectica Magazine :: elimae :: Hippocampus Magazine :: Memorious :: Mixed Fruit :: pif Magazine :: Sixth Finch :: SmokeLong Quarterly :: SNReview :: Treehouse :: Vine Leaves Literary Journal :: The 2River View

June 2012
Anti- :: Blood Orange Review :: Dragnet Magazine :: inter|rupture :: Jersey Devil Press :: LITnIMAGE :: The Molotov Cocktail :: Short, Fast, and Deadly :: Shot Glass Journal :: Spittoon :: Stirring :: Straight Forward :: The Summerset Review

Broad Street has created a viable option for literary end table collections. In this issue, several mediums of storytelling are combined, allowing readers both a visual and multifaceted verbal display. Hunt/Gather was the proposed theme, and I do feel it is somewhat of a challenge to the reader. Loose definitions of the terms seem to have been used by the editors in compiling the pieces presented. By getting a little too hung up on wanting traditional definitions, I feel like I missed some of the simple beauty available in the pages that I can easier see in reflection. Continue reading “Broad Street – Summer/Fall 2014”

Medical Literary Messenger is an online/PDF journal aimed to “promote humanism and the healing arts through prose, poetry, and photography.” All work relates in some way to medicine, illness, or the body, and this issue includes reflections from doctors, patients, and family members of those who are sick. But the journal isn’t simply a platform for those to express themselves and heal through words; it’s also an intriguing read and delicate look into the lives of others. Continue reading “Medical Literary Messenger – Spring 2014”

The first thing that caught my eye in this issue of Neutrons Protons was the titling of the included pieces, and I was intrigued to read more, as you will be when you see titles such as “A Social Media Marketer’s Guide to Chronic Illness” and “The House with No Doorknobs” and “It Was All So Pinteresting” and “The Tin Man Addresses the Parole Board.” I urge you to read past the titles that invite you in; you’ll be glad you did. Continue reading “Neutrons Protons – September 2014”

This issue of Poetry East is absolutely a pleasure to physically handle. Every page is of glossy finish, it is roughly the dimension of a medium-size paperback, and it is lightweight enough to pack anywhere without being in the way. No page numbers in this issue make it difficult to reference where to locate some of the poems I found most enjoyable. Linear structure seems to have lent itself to the editor’s preference in selecting which works to include. Most of the poems included follow a very reasonable, almost philosophic arc toward endings that do not surprise so much as fulfill the reader. In response, since it feels good to go against the grain sometimes, I am going to employ reverse linear structure in presenting this review. Continue reading “Poetry East – Spring 2014”

Tar River Poetry, published by East Carolina University, has featured work of established and emerging poets since 1978. This issue follows tradition and includes a substantial number of engaging poems. These predominantly brief, free verse poems are intellectually challenging yet accessible to a wide variety of readers. While these pieces vary in subject and stylistic mode, imagery remains strong throughout the collection. The best poems convey striking images, the kind that stay with a reader long after the last page of the journal is turned. Continue reading “Tar River Poetry – Spring 2014”

Playing parts both online and in print, Booth chose this year to put out a special short fiction issue, packed with many of the best pieces from the online edition as well as the winners of the 2013 Booth Story Prize. All the stories included in this issue are imaginative and well worth the read. Continue reading “Booth – Issue 2014”

Fall in the Midwest is a time for snuggles, blankets, reading, and a new issue of The Boiler. While the fiction and nonfiction were enjoyable, it was the poetry that warmed me up inside. In “Things I Know,” Megan Collins reminisces about part of her family she never knew—her grandfather. Continue reading “The Boiler – Fall 2014”

There’s much to be grateful for in this issue of Image. Always intellectual, visual, and spiritually beautiful, now in its twenty-fifth year, Image has a well-deserved reputation for hopeful, but realistic, attention to the intersection of “the larger questions of existence. . . [and] what the poet Albert Goldbarth calls the ‘greasy doorknobs and salty tearducts’ of our everyday lives.” Image is more than a journal—it’s also a set of programs to further the cause of such attention. The theme for this silver anniversary is “Making It New.” This issue fulfills this mission with grace; gratitude, as a response, is entirely appropriate. Continue reading “Image – Summer 2014”

The prose and the poetry in this issue of the Colorado Review are in two separate sections. And the issue certainly feels like two different journals, the prose accessible and filled with gripping stories, and the poems experimental and eclectic. Continue reading “Colorado Review – Summer 2014”

Published by the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, Bellevue Literary Review explores literature that addresses aspects of the human condition that relate to health, healing, and disease. In this volume, selections of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction recover images from hospital rooms and doctors’ offices, caregivers’ homes and nurses’ stations. They find language deeply rooted in the human body, with all its strength and resilience, limitation and vulnerability. These selections speak a common language with which most of us can identify and relate. Continue reading “Bellevue Literary Review – Spring 2014”

The Spring 2014 issue of The Bitter Oleander is like a smorgasbord laden with curious-looking food that you’re not sure you would like, and which even seem a little intimidating. But egged on by your adventurous spirit and that childhood admonition at the dinner table—you don’t have to like everything, but you ought to try everything—you pick it up and discover that the rewards can be great indeed. The magic lies in the deft mix of the accessible and the unfamiliar, in the selections as a whole as well as in the individual pieces. Continue reading “The Bitter Oleander – Spring 2014”

One of the best young journals out there is burntdistrict, each issue promises tons of beautiful, thought provoking, and unique contemporary poetry and this issue is no different from all the rest. In its third year of publication, burntdistrict is still going strong and publishing some of the best up–and-coming and well-established writers from across the world. One of the most interesting poems in this issue is Alexander Lumans’s poem “What We Don’t Know About Natalie Portman Can Still Hurt Us.” This poem masterfully uses the narrator’s obsession with the actress and the narrator’s lack of knowledge about her to reflect how obsessed society is with things unknown Continue reading “burntdistrict – Winter 2014”

Not having reviewed Cleaver Magazine since its launch with the preview issue, I felt it was high-time I check back in to see how it is evolving, and this issue did not let me down. Each contribution to the issue is well thought-out and carefully crafted. After reading Amelia Fowler’s “Space and Time,” I was surprised to find out that it is her first publication. Props to Cleaver for snatching her up, because I imagine there is only more publications to come for this writer. Continue reading “Cleaver Magazine – September 2014”

This issue of Conduit carries a byline of “Failing Famously.” It is roughly 11 inches high by 4 inches wide and is a visual pleasure with interesting color schemes and artwork sprinkled throughout. The physical layout truly lends itself well to the presentation of poems that might not have fit on more traditional 7-inch pages. Viewing a poem on a single page carries substantial effect for empowering the words! I would love to be able to give specific pages of reference to anyone interested in picking up a copy of Conduit based on this review, but I can’t. Editors made a very bold choice to use words associated with failure as their method of pagination! What some might call page 1, the creative team at Conduit decided to call “accident.” The last page of the magazine is called, “zero.” Continue reading “Conduit – Spring 2014”

CutBank is a biannual literary journal run by the English department at the University of Montana. The journal is in its 40th year of publication and prides itself in publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art from both established and up-and-coming writers and artists. CutBank proclaims they are “global in scope, but with a regional bias” that allows people joy by helping them to “discover and develop a fondness for the new work” that it features. In this issue of CutBank, there is page after page of phenomenal writing that your heart will grow fond to love. Continue reading “CutBank – 2014”

For an online literary, Drunken Boat has a huge amount of content to read, from the regular fiction, poetry, and nonfiction to translations, art, a Greek poets folio, and a special section of funny flash. While there is way too much here to touch on even every genre, I simply offer you some of my favorites: “On Monasteries” is a piece of nonfiction that weaves together stories of clients Allison Vrbova had as a social worker with her desire to visit and her experience with Taize, “a magical place where pilgrims join the life of the monastery, eating, praying, singing and working in a community.” Continue reading “Drunken Boat – August 2014”

One of the older philosophies of critical theory maintains that good art should reflect reality or enlighten us about the real world. The variety of approaches and perspectives that are available promise us that we can always be surprised by the next work of the next author. Such surprises come quickly in this issue of the Open Minds Quarterly. A ‘new’ reality comes to us through the works of artists who have to deal with a world that we may not have experienced. All of the contributions to the quarterly are meant to create an awareness of mental health issues, and they all do it very successfully, whether the piece is poetry, photography, an interview, or an essay. Continue reading “Open Minds Quarterly – Summer 2014”

Out of Print is an online magazine hailing from India that publishes short fiction in English or translated to English with a preference for literature that reflects the subcontinent. G. Sadasiv reimagines the end of Guy de Maupassant’s famous short story “The Necklace,” or, rather, he continues the story for one more final twist. The piece starts as a brief retelling of the original story over the phone and then delves into the continuation of the story as one character imagines it, starting with Mathilde regaining the expensive necklace she had returned. Continue reading “Out of Print – June 2014”

Whitefish Review carries a constant byline of “Art, Literature, Photography.” This particular issue carried a special theme of “fire,” and some of its words will continue to smolder inside me for a long time. Poetry, fiction, and visual imagery all have some very bright spots, but the nonfiction entries take the cake! Every page felt like it was making the most of itself to give pertinent information while remaining entertaining. Continue reading “Whitefish Review – Summer 2014”

Because Agni 79 begins with an editor’s note titled “Ten Broad Swipes at the Problem of Structure in the Essay (and Perhaps Other Genres as Well),” I first turned to the essays collected in the issue to see how they managed to meet Sven Birkerts’s argument for the arbitrariness of chronological structure. “As we all know,” Birkerts writes, “there is a huge difference between a narration that unfolds an experience in sequence (as they say in the movies, when the witness is being questioned, “Just start at the beginning”)…” Continue reading “AGNI – Number 79”

The stories in Under the Gum Tree feel very authentic; it is easy to identify with the characters and narrators. In Chelsea Schott’s “The Frederick Boy,” I was transported back to being a teenage girl, that feeling that your crush is the whole world, the terror of a disapproving parent, going over the day’s events again and again in your mind. It begins: “I try not to think of that day last summer on the back of John’s motorcycle—knowing if I think about it too much, if I let myself wander back into that day, I will dissolve into the desire I can’t resist—of retracing every step I took, walking over the same paths…”

Continue reading “Under the Gum Tree – July 2014”

The first and most obvious thing to notice about Conjunctions is that its biannual print anthology is enormous. This issue is more than 300 pages, featuring work by Brian Evenson, Laura van den Berg, Robin Hemley, Gabriel Blackwell, and others. The theme of the issue, “exile,” is addressed both literally and figuratively, with work often revolving around ideas of social exile and self-exile as well as physical displacement.

Continue reading “Conjunctions – Spring 2014”

Based at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Cream City Review is a fun, slim publication that opens its pages wide to different aesthetics and styles. There are magical stories set side-by-side with realist flash fiction, and in the middle of the issue is a special feature on Native writing. It’s rare that I’m able to say I have no clue what to expect from one page to the next in a literary journal, but in Cream City Review, that’s absolutely the case. This is not a criticism, though: instead of seeming scattered or overloaded, the journal is a merry-go-round of brightly colored poems and stories.

Continue reading “Cream City Review – Spring/Summer 2014”

Though this issue of American Short Fiction isn’t overtly themed, Editors Rebecca Markovits and Adeena Reitberger note that they had already selected the stories when they realized “four of the five were about work, the daily grind or the vocation, the answer to what William Carlos Williams called ‘the typical American question’: What do you do?” This does indeed serve as a nice framework for the five pieces of short fiction that make up the issue, work by Tia Clark, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Antonya Nelson, Matthew Neill Null, and Rob Roensch.

Continue reading “American Short Fiction – Spring 2014”

With a mix of flash prose, short prose, poetry, and book reviews, decomP delivers an online literary magazine monthly, with a fair tasting of good literature and samples of audio readings throughout. Adam and Eve’s marital and sex life comes to life in the first included piece, Adam Gnuse’s “Adam, at Night.” Although Eve is comforted by her child, Adam worries and is resentful about his eventual death, seeming to say that even in the beginning of life, the first man to live still questions life after death: “He wonders whether it will be like going back somewhere dark and warm, somewhere safe. Whether it will it be something like growing up. The thoughts don’t comfort him.”

Continue reading “decomP – August 2014”

Avatar Review, an online annual, “seeks to display the highest quality of writing,” as all do. And while I cannot claim that what is published in this issue is the cream of the crop, there is plenty worth consideration and worthy of merit, including poetry, prose, art, and reviews. Britt Melewski’s “On the Overnight” came with an audio recording of him reading his poem, which enhanced the feeling of the overall poem, especially his last few lines: “saying, ‘remember the absolute worst of times, / remember the fish, the fish, the fish.’”

Continue reading “Avatar Review – 2014”

This issue of Dogwood serves up a generous helping of surprising and original reading. The talent is evident; even when a poem or story can use more polish, I am interested and compelled to read on. A variety of styles is represented, some more experimental than others, but I never feel lost, either literally or emotionally, or feel that the writers draw too much attention to themselves at the expense of the writing.

Continue reading “Dogwood – 2014”

An understated sophistication distinguishes The Common. At only its seventh issue, it has the tone of one who is confident of its place in the world. Many times, I paused in my reading to savor the ingenuity of a conceit or turn of phrase, but I never felt as if anyone represented in this issue was trying too hard to impress. They don’t have to: firmly in control of their craft, they steer the reader to exactly where they want her to go.

One cannot help but be carried along in the surprising and delightful rhythms of the “speechifying” of the non-native English speaker, or perhaps a native speaker of a variety of South Asian English—certainly as much a standard as any in this age where English is the world’s dominant lingua franca—in Manohar Shetty’s poem “Toast.

Continue reading “The Common – April 2014”

This issue of Five Points is an issue of reflection, from its opening tribute to Maxine Kumin, in which associate editor Beth Gylys remembers researching the literary friendship between Kumin and Anne Sexton for her college senior thesis, to the poems of Ellen Bass and Barbara Hamby, who reflect on meals of pork chops and fried chicken, respectively. We also have the reflective photographs of Vesna Pavlović through his project “Fabrics of Socialism” and Kirk West’s photos of blues venues, artists, and objects. The issue also includes interviews with Kumin, West, and Stephen Dunn.

Continue reading “Five Points – 2014”

Published at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Devil’s Lake offers a sampling of poetry, fiction, and visual art twice a year.

I spent a great deal of time on Matt Morton’s “Spring Bulletin,” and although I don’t think I’ve unlocked all the keys to the poem, I lingered on each moment, trying to take it all in. Written in the second-person point of view, it causes me to be hesitant moving through the poem as I read the lines, “Something / vaguely unsettling about the quality of air. / Something about the humidity that left us / glancing over our shoulders when we mowed the lawn.”

Continue reading “Devil’s Lake – 2014”

Published at Lynchburg College in Virginia, this review has roots in the South as deep as James Dickey’s. But while its content aims “to maintain an artistic and intellectual connection” to Dickey and his work, the interpretation is generous enough to allow for a good mix of Dickey scholarship, original poetry, essays not about the author but maybe concerning things he would care about, and book reviews. One might say the spirit of Dickey is hovering over the journal, so that, for example, the wilder shores of the avant garde or identity politics do not appear in this issue. We are in recognizable Dickey territory the whole way.

Continue reading “James Dickey Review – Spring/Summer 2014”

Frogpond is the subscription/membership publication of the Haiku Society of America, and for anybody the least bit into haiku or who would like to learn about haiku and the many forms of traditional Japanese poetry and modernized versions of it, this is one of THE publications to be reading.

Frogpond regularly publishes haiku, senryu, haibun, rengay (and other short sequential forms), renku (and other long sequence forms), essays, and book reviews. Each issues begins with a full page devoted to the winner of the Museum of Haiku Literature Award (currently $100) for the best previously unpublished work appearing in the last issue of Frogpond.

Continue reading “Frogpond – Winter 2014”

This all-poetry issue of The Midwest Quarterly was a treat that did not disappoint. I grew up in a rural community, population south of 4000, and we were the county seat: these poems spoke straight to my childhood. As with all good poems, I’m sure there are pieces here that will speak to city folk as well, but the trip down memory lane was outstanding for me. The only gripe I have about the entire issue is that there was no table of contents for easy reference, so it took some effort to relocate my favorites for closer inspection.

Continue reading “The Midwest Quarterly – Winter 2014”

The University of Houston’s Department of English publishes Gulf Coast, a literary journal started by Donald Barthelme and Philip Lopate in 1982, under the Texas-worthy name Domestic Crude. The current name was adopted in 1986; in 2013 the magazine merged with the Texas art journal Art Lies and began to publish writings about art in each issue, as well as the visual art which has always appeared. The list of distinguished contributors to this issue originates far beyond Houston and Texas, although local authors turn up as well.

Continue reading “Gulf Coast – Summer/Fall 2014”

Last month I reviewed Frogpond and noted it as one of THE journals for haiku enthusiasts. Modern Haiku is another of THE journals haikuists should be reading. This journal has been in continuous print since 1969, with a masthead of esteemed haiku experts, each a haiku household name: Kay Titus Mormino, Robert Spiess, Lee Gurga, Charles Trumbull, and the current editor, Paul Miller.

Continue reading “Modern Haiku – Summer 2014”

This issue had a lot going on in it, and I am quite frankly left feeling run through the ringer. A full-length chapbook by Colin Winnette, titled “Follow Through,” was stuck right in the middle of this issue! It was intriguing work comprised of short, paragraph style prose poetry, but it completely distracted me from trying to understand the issue as its own piece of work. (I found out, after researching the press, this chapbook placement is a common practice with Heavy Feather Review.)

Continue reading “Heavy Feather Review – April 2014”

Because the Poetry Foundation’s website is such a fixture of my online reading, buying an issue of Poetry always make me feel like I’m donating to public radio. Lifting an issue from the bookstore shelf and leafing through it, I can almost hear the faintly accusatory voice of a pledge drive broadcaster playing the guilt card, asking, “How often do you find yourself enjoying the vast resource that is the Poetry Foundation website, or sending the articles and poems you find there to friends? Isn’t that worth $3.75 a month to you?

Continue reading “Poetry – July/August 2014”

Iowa is often considered a fabled place in the world of American letters, and The Iowa Review lives up to the expectations that such a powerful name bestows. The journal has been publishing some of the country’s finest authors since 1970, and in 2014 it’s still incredibly strong.

This issue, the first with Editor Harilaos Stecopoulos at the helm, includes poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork, all consistent with the journal’s previous issues. The issue also includes two interviews and two reviews, both new features, as well as a pairing of three Amber Tamblyn poems with images by, among others, filmmaker and painter David Lynch.

Continue reading “The Iowa Review – Spring 2014”

With this double-issue blowout, River Styx celebrates its thirty-ninth year (“because who wants to turn 40?”) as one of the country’s most “thoughtful yet accessible” literary ambassadors. Boasting a long list of notable and returning contributors and brimming with poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art of great depth that’s also deeply entertaining, this issue is River Styx turned up to eleven. Nowhere is this more evident than in the issue’s poetry. Featuring new poems from Dorianne Laux, Kim Addonizio, Jeffrey Bean, Stephen Dunn, Albert Goldbarth, Ted Kooser, Lawrence Raab, Robert Wrigley, and A.E. Stallings, among others, River Styx’s latest issue is Xanadu for those who enjoy provocative free verse and formal poetry of a largely narrative bent.

Continue reading “River Styx – 2014”

The Labletter “has its roots in the Oregon Lab, the name given to a group of artists and their annual gathering.” The magazine began as a way for these artists to stay in contact and share work, and in 2008 it went public—a move fortunate for audiences who care about sophistication, quality, and commitment to art.

In this issue, you’ll find generously-reproduced art, from the front cover inward; exquisite short stories; three beautifully-crafted essays, on collage, theater, and clogging; and fifteen strong poems by four inspired poets.

Continue reading “The Labletter – 2014”

After a brief interview with Denise Frohman and a note from Women of the World Poetry Slam Host City Chair, Wicked Banshee Press (a brand new online journal) plunges right into the poetry, and it doesn’t fool around with any feet-wetting. The very first poem sends a strong emotional sting with Tara Betts’s “Throwing Away a Wedding Dress.” Describing it as “dented and dew-dotted, dried / fondant, crumbling and collapsed / in loose folds,” a metaphor for the entire marriage.

Continue reading “Wicked Banshee Press – Spring 2014”

This was the first issue of Poet Lore I have ever read, and it will not be the last! Well over 100 pages of outstanding poems, poetic history, interviews, and reviews made this more than just another issue to review; they turned it into an outright gripping read. While most of the works were brief (under one printed page), large-scale themes of loss and death are woven throughout. The editors did an outstanding job of finding beautiful poems that also highlighted positive moments in life through the pain. I am not lying when I tell you how a couple of pieces nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Continue reading “Poet Lore – Spring/Summer 2014”

Your Impossible Voice, a newer quarterly e-publication, has taken strides to give a great literary experience through the professional and engaging look of their website to the well-formatted work of their publication. As far as the work goes? Well, let’s explore. Karen An-hwei Lee’s “Letter from Orange County: Twelve Fragments” falls under the category of nonfiction in this issue, and is a beautifully written homage to a past place, or rather to a current place that is no longer what it was, but I could argue that it could also fall under the category of poetry with lines like these…

Continue reading “Your Impossible Voice – Summer 2014”

Pretty Owl Poetry is a brand new online quarterly that publishes poetry and, in opposition to the title of the journal, flash fiction. The poetry is very accessible, not overly complicated or using fancy language.

Take, for example, Clare Welsh’s “Almost Exorcism,” a poem broken into three pieces about children’s reaction to a lump “on the ribs of a dog.” The first part have the children imagining it as a second heart…

Continue reading “Pretty Owl Poetry – Summer 2014”

The editors of River Teeth are candid about their selection process. About half of what they publish comes from unsolicited submissions. The rest may come from authors whose work they’ve heard at conferences, online or regional publications, commissioned work, or from friends, acquaintances, and the editors themselves. “We know all this sounds more than a little intuitive,” writes the editor, “even presumptuous, and quite a bit less than arm’s length. That’s the nature of love, we guess.”
In this issue, animals, parenting, and the nature of memory are the doors authors use into insights about life.

Continue reading “River Teeth – Spring 2014”

This issue of Southern Women’s Review has a “Bust” theme and is full and broad in exciting and enriching literature including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. As I was traveling at the time of reading this issue, I took special note of Kerry Madden-Lunsford’s piece in which the narrator is in China teaching English but is feeling isolated and very much an outsider. Although she wants to learn her own way into the culture, she can’t seem to and retreats back to English literature to find her own comfort.

Continue reading “Southern Women’s Review – 2014”