At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!
World Literature Today certainly lives up to its name, containing amazing pieces of literature from all over the world. This particular issue focuses on Dystopian Visions and the country of Montenegro, but also contains fiction, essays, nonfiction, reviews, and poetry from other countries, with many of the pieces translated from their original language to English.
Continue reading “World Literature Today – March/April 2017”
The Florida Review has launched a new online component Aquifer, with free weekly literary features (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and graphic narrative), as well as interviews, book reviews, and digital stories. Later this year, Aquifer will open up submissions for this online content. Editors also hope that Aquifer: The Florida Review Online will open up the possibility for even more features, becoming a fully multi-media arts and letter site. We look forward to this great new innovation for TFR!
The winner of the 2016 FIELD Poetry Prize, Chance Divine by Jeffrey Skinner, was published at the end of last month. The editors, David Young and David Walker, selected the collection from a group of submissions they say was one of the strongest in the prize’s 20-year history. However, Chance Divine made an impression, the editors “coming back to it with increasing admiration. It’s a notably ambitious book, unafraid to ask large questions about contemporary physics, poetry, and faith, and the relationships between them—but with a wit and inventiveness that lead to unpredictable, exhilarating results.”
On the Oberlin College Press website, readers can find three excerpted poems, more information about the collection, and a way to order a copy.
Photograph “Paula/Window #1” by Roger Mullins on the cover of v16 i2 of Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley inspired this week’s theme of lit mag covers.
A detail of “The History of Nature” by Brad Kunkle on the Spring 2017 issue of Arroyo is from his Light & Leaf series, paintings “embellished with genuine gold and silver leaf, which reflects light in a room differently than paint.Therefore, they can appear contrastive and unique when the point of view or source of light has changed.”
And for a dose of humor, Issue #49 of Pembroke Magazine features a photograph taken by Editor Jessica Pitchford at the annual John Blue Cotton Festival in Laurinburg, North Carolina. Love it.
In 2015, on the anniversary of his wife’s death as a result ovarian cancer, Hyong Yi wrote 100 love notes and, along with his two children, handed them out to random passers by on the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina. The three-line poems were written as conversational love notes between Hyong and his wife, reading “Beloved, follow me to the top of the mountain. Hold my hand; I’m afraid of falling. Don’t let me go.” and “I don’t need a test to tell me who to love. I believe in you and me. I do until death do us part.”
Friends encouraged Hyong to create a website to commemorate his commitment to his wife, and now The #100 Love Notes Project: A Love Story book has been published by Lorimer Press. This beautifully crafted collection features the work of 17 artists commissioned by Hyong Li to illustrate his 100 three-line poems.
Once, a hundred years ago, the tornado
was a young man being pulled along
by the Missouri River while his friends
laughed, then called, then screamed, then
went silent . . . . — “On the Origins of the Tornado”
Sun Yung Shin’s Unbearable Splendor is full of big questions: Where do we come from? What is our origin? What is family? What is change? What are our fetal dreams? What is an orphan? Why is adoptee not recognized in the plural? Were we born to love? Can the whole world see me all at once? What is a foreigner? Was Antigone the first cyborg?
With great erudition and a fine eye for the lyric, Janice N. Harrington’s Primitive: The Art and Life of Horace H. Pippin is an essential biographical reflection which traces the life of one of America’s most underrated painters. Horace H. Pippin, born in Pennsylvania in 1888, fought in WWI in France. After being injured by a German sniper, he returned to The United States to paint.
One should think of reading Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods as a welcome to West Virginia. Sixty-three West Virginians fill this anthology with vivid poetry and fiction that serve to characterize their “wild and wonderful” state.
Perhaps one of the most difficult things about being a writer is knowing how you’re supposed to go about being a writer. Pretty close to the front of Kendra Levin’s The Hero Is You, she says, “Many books and writing programs place so much emphasis on craft, they neglect one of the most challenging aspects of writing: how to go about actually getting the words from your brain onto the page on a regular basis.” This book is, naturally then, trying not to be a book about craft, but rather one about establishing healthy work patterns.
Rosalie Moffett won The Journal Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize with her debut collection of poetry titled June in Eden. In this, her prize-winning book, Moffett shapes original ideas into poems that reflect her interest in family, science and technology. It’s dedicated to her mother and father, and they’re featured throughout.
Who was this 19th century Czech woman that Kelcey Parker Ervick writes about in her book, The Bitter Life of Božena Němcová? And why, she wonders, hadn’t she previously heard about this woman who is so famous in Europe? I also wondered why I’d never heard of her. In checking with friends in Prague, I discovered that Němcová was indeed a cherished figure who is introduced to school children and is still held in esteem almost two centuries later. In fact, she’s pictured on the Czech 500 koruna bill.
Poet Jason Allen is a poetical pyromaniac who guides his readers through a tour of hell involving scenes of addiction, suicide, homelessness, and family dysfunction. And even if we are tempted to withdraw from such smoldering carnage, ruin and rubble, Allen reminds us that “while we sleep, our worst nightmares / continue happening to someone else.” The thing is though, the poems in this debut collection are a controlled burn. The fire never gets out of hand, which is the mark of a skilled verbal arsonist. Paraphrasing William Wordsworth: a more amateur poet would have left too much spontaneous overflow of emotion in these pages without the necessary distance needed to craft the poems as they are “recollected in tranquility.”
Jaimee Wriston Colbert has created an incredible connection between the endangered nature of humans and the environment around them. Wild Things is a collection of linked stories that showcase desperation and heartbreak felt by both humans and animals, and the landscape they are all trying to survive in. Colbert crafts a world all readers will be able to vividly picture, and that’s if they haven’t already experienced the all too true reality in each of the stories.
This historical tome edited by Anselm Berrigan has just been released from Wave Publishing: “The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church was founded in 1966 for the overlapping circles of poets in the Lower East Side of New York.These interviews from The Poetry Project Newsletter form a kind of conversation over time between some of the late 20th century’s most influential poets and artists, who have come together in this legendary venue over the past 50 years.” Poets/artists interviewed include: Akilah Oliver, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Barbara Henning, Bruce Andrews, Charles North, David Henderson, Eileen Myles, erica kaufman, Harryette Mullen, Judith Goldman, Larry Fagin, Magdalena Zurawski, Peter Bushyeager, Red Grooms, Sheila Alson, Tina Darragh, Victor Hernández Cruz, Will Alexander, and many more. The book can be ordered directly from the publisher for the discounted price of $17/shipping included.
Editor Chris Agee included a handwritten note with v9 n2 of Irish Pages, “This issue is already highly controversial. . . ” Why? The focus: “Israel, Islam & the West” with feature content: Gerard McCarthy on the refugee crisis in Greece; An unpublished survivor’s account of Bergen Belsen; “A Trial” by Hubert Butler; Writings on Iran, Bosnia and Islam; Avi Shlaim on “Israel and the Arrogance of Power”; Dervla Murphy’s “Hasbara in Action”; John McHugo on Syria; Chris Agee on “Troubled Belfast”; Ghazels of Hafez; Lara Marlowe on Mahmoud Darwish; New poems on the Middle East by Seán Lysaght, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ciarán O’Rourke & Cathal Ó Searcaigh; and “I am Belfast”, a photographic portfolio by Mark Cousins.
The cover photograph for the Spring 2017 issue of Thema by VHoward fits this issue’s theme perfectly: “Take the zucchini and run.” And also gave me a jolt of hope for summer’s soon arrival!
The Spring 2017 cover photo of Willow Springs is by Polish-born photographer Marta Berens from her ongoing series Suiti – documenting the culture of the people of Alsunga, Latvia.
While the ship in the bottle is the focal point of Justin Burks’s image on the Winter 2017 issue of Carve, it was actually the Kit-Cat Clock that drew me in. Burks is a graduate of the Art Institute of Dallas and founder of Birdhouse Branding, a creative agency that helps develop and design brands, websites and illustrations for individuals and organizations.
September 30, 2017 marks the seventh annual global event of 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a grassroots organization that brings poets, artists, musicians, and photographers together to call for environmental, social, and political change, within the framework of peace and sustainability. The local focus is key to this global event as communities around the world raise their voices through concerts, readings, workshops, flash mobs, community picnics, parades and demonstrations that speak to the heart of their specific area of concerns, such as homelessness, ecocide, racism and censorship.
The 100 Thousand Poets for Change website now features a Global Action Calendar open to everyone for posting creative actions planned to take place around the world, as well as the Resistance Poetry Wall, an open call for posting poetry about the recent USA elections. Poets from around the world are invited to post.
100 Thousand Poets for Change wants everyone planning now for their local September events and asks that organizers register their events on the 100 TPC website so your actions can be recognized.
“The Telling Room is a nonprofit writing center in Portland, Maine, dedicated to the idea that children and young adults are natural storytellers.” Focusing on writers ages 6 to 18, The Telling Room offers programs at their downtown writing center, engaging local writers, artists, teachers, and community groups in afterschool workshops, writing assistance, fieldtrips, the “Super Famous Writers Series,” and publishing.
In her feature article for the Glimmer Train Bulletin #122, fiction writer Kimberly Bunker opens “The Fear of Not Saying Interesting Things” with: “For some reason, this doesn’t stop me from talking, but it often stops me from writing.” She continues, commenting on both the necessity of work as well as inspiration for writers. “I think it’s possible to cultivate a mindset that’s receptive to but not obsessive about ideas, and to be methodical about pursuing the ideas that seem worth pursuing—i.e., finding a balance between waiting for lightning to strike, and getting behind the mule.” Read the full article here.
Published by NYU Langone Medical Center as part of the Department of Medicine’s Division of Medical Humanities, the Spring 2017 issue of Bellevue Literary Review features the winners and runners-up of their 2017 Bellevue Literary Review Prize:
Goldenberg Prize for Fiction
Selected by Ha Jin
Winner: “Do I Look Sick to You? (Notes on How to Make Love to a Cancer Patient)” by C.J. Hribal
Honorable Mention: “And It Is No Joke” by Conor Kelley
Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction
Selected by Ariel Levy
Winner: “Of Mothers and Monkeys: A Case Study” by Caitlin Kuehn
Honorable Mention: “Jacket” by Jennifer Hildebrandt
Marica and Jan Vilcek Prize for Poetry
Selected by Kazim Ali
Winner: “Poem For A Friend Growing Lighter and Lighter” by Abe Louise Young [pictured]
Honorable Mention: “In the absence of birdsong” by Michaela Coplen
Odd Bloom Seen from Space by Timothy Daniel Welch will be published in April 2017. Winner of the 2016 University of Iowa Press’s Iowa Poetry Prize, Odd Bloom Seen from Space, according to the publisher, “looks at the self amid the ashes of fleeting exultation and uncertainty.” The poems in this debut collection offer wisdom and surprising humor, making for a collection that is “gorgeous, original, and baffling.”
Readers can find out more about Odd Bloom Seen from Space on the University of Iowa Press website. While there, they can find an excerpted poem, “On the Isle of Erytheia,” and preorder copies.
Bauhan Publishing LLC hosts the May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize each year, awarding their sixth annual prize to Zeina Hashem Beck for her collection Louder than Hearts. The collection was chosen by Betsy Sholl, former poet laureate of Maine, who says Louder than Hearts “has it all—compelling language and a sense of moral gravitas, personal urgency and the ability to address a larger world with passion and artfulness.” She continues, calling the collection “timely in the way it provides a lens through which to see life in the Middle East, and hear the musical mix of English and Arabic.”
The collection will be released in April, but in the meantime, readers can read more about Zeina Hashem Beck, or they can try their hand at the May Sarton NH Poetry Prize themselves: submissions are open until the end of June.
Each year, the Cleveland State University Press holds the Open Book Poetry Competition, the Essay Collection Competition, and the First Book Poetry Competition (all three open until March 31, 2017). The three 2016 winners are set to be published at the beginning of April 2017.
In One Form to Find Another by Jane Lewty was chosen as the 2016 Open Book Poetry Competition winner, selected by Emily Kendal Frey, Siwar Masannat, and Jon Woodward. Advance praise refers to the collection as “an heroically unsettling and compelling textual reenactment of feminine embodiments’ lament, contemplation, and recalibration of disturbed histories . . . ”
daughterrarium by Sheila McMullin, selected by Daniel Borzutzky, won the 2016 First Book Poetry Competition. Borzutzky says of his selection, “I admire daughterrarium for pushing too far, for making me cringe with its representations of what one human can do to another, of what a body can do to itself.”
James Allen Hall’s I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well won the 2016 Essay Collection Competition, chosen by Chris Kraus. From Kraus: “In these essays, Hall lives alongside, and empathically lives through, his family’s meth addiction, and mental illnesses . . . and considers his own penchants for less than happy, equal sex with an agility, depth, and lightness that is blissfully inconclusive.”
Check out the individual links to learn more about each prize-winning collection, and pre-order copies of all three.
In mid-April, Gallic Books will be publishing Hell’s Gate by Laurent Gaudé. Gaudé’s The Scortas’ Sun is the winner of the Prix Gouncourt, the French literary award given to an author of the best imaginative work of prose each year. Hell’s Gate is a thrilling story following a father as he chases redemption for his murdered son. It explores “the effects of bereavement and grief on a family, and the relationship between the living and dead.”
Check out the Gallic Books website for more information about Hell’s Gate. Read advance praise, check out a downloadable PDF extract, and give yourself a chance to read work by one of France’s most highly respected playwrights and novelists.
There’s something unassuming about The 2River View. They reject the flashy for a simple, quiet website. This doesn’t work against them, though. Instead, the simplicity is welcoming and calming, the homepage pointing readers in the direction of whatever they seek: an issue archive, information about their “2River Favorite Poem Project,” and, of course, the current issue. The current Winter 2017 issue is paired with three images of winter, the scenes whited-out with snow. Many of the pieces found in this issue coincidentally left me with the chills, fitting choices for inclusion in a winter issue. In addition, each poet provides a voice recording of their poetry, resulting in a complete, cohesive collection as it intimately connects reader to writer.
PANK publishes work that plays with form and expectations to confound readers with possibility.
Issue 62 of Creative Nonfiction (CNF) is dedicated to Joy. The published essays can be divided into two segments: essays about the craft of writing and essays following a more literary and narrative vein. Both segments best utilize the theme of joy when the authors bring the reader into the moment so we experience joy by their side.
Chaos is the theme of this year’s issue of Witness, and there is plenty of it going on. Start with cover photos by Alexandre Nodopaka, who interprets the chaos of the cosmos. Artists use all sorts of unexpected media, but Nodopaka looks no further than a parking lot surface underfoot to discover “cosmic inspiration in seagull guano.” He states, “The guano, in their ethereal impacts on the macadam, up close, portray the likeliness of astronomical photographs of the heavens.” A series of his “highly light-contrasted” photos, some resembling Rorschach tests, are featured within.
In a tribute to the major changes the United States has undergone since the election last November, the editors of Camas chose to make this issue one that commemorates the many beautiful aspects of our country. Through poetry, art, photography, fiction, and nonfiction, each piece celebrates the beauty of nature, diversity, and the true American spirit.
In Volume 82 of New Letters, The University of Missouri-Kansas has provided us with one of those always delightful choices of literary direction and entertainment, and for some of us there also memories of past enjoyment. Those of “a certain generation” will recall (some thirty or forty years ago) the popularity of Caribbean novels, a series of enjoyable and enlightening stories which included a history and a heritage totally different if not totally new to the average reader of novels and short stories. The art critics would/could call them “primitive” if they were paintings, but the content told of experiences that we had not even thought about.
Dear America,
A cento of Adrienne Rich
You’re beginning to float free
Toward a new kind of love
Burning itself, burning down
The blueprint of a life.
I wanted to choose words that even you
Intend to refuse shelter
With a lie. And each
A beautiful tumor
Feeding on everything.
. . .
[Read the rest and listen to the poet read his own work on Terrain.org]
The winner of the 2016 Orison Poetry Prize, Ghost Child of the Atalanta Bloom by Rebecca Aronson, will be published next month on April 4, 2017. Hadara Bar-Nadav, who selected the winner, calls the collection, “[e]xplosive, turbulent, haunting magnetic,” saying that “[m]ortality and death undergrid Aronson’s fantastical visions, where a child becomes a seagull, a woman turns tarantula, and a house threatens to fill with blood.”
Find sample poem “Wish” at the Orison Books website, where you can also find out more about Aronson and pre-order copies, which are currently on sale, a couple saved bucks you can set aside for even more poetry.
Parlor Press’s annual New Measure Poetry Prize (now open for 2017 submissions until the end of June) awards a poet a cash award of $1,000 and publication of an original manuscript.
The 2015 winner, This History That Just Happened, by Hannah Craig, selected by Yusef Komunyakaa, was published at the beginning of the year. Komunyakaa says of his selection, “This History That Just Happened places the reader at the nexus where rural and city life converge, bridging a world personal and political, natural and artful, in a voice always uniquely hers.”
Craig has also won the 2016 Mississippi Review Prize and her manuscript was a finalist for the Akron Poetry Prize, the Fineline Competition, and the Autumn House Poetry Prize. Stop by the Parlor Press website to learn more about Craig and purchase her debut poetry collection digitally or in print.
Begun in 1989, Reach Out and Read is a program wherein medical professionals “prescribe” books and reading aloud to children “as a means of fostering the language-rich interactions between parents and their young children that stimulate early brain development.” Now, the Reach Out and Read model exists in all 50 states, with almost 1,500 sites distributing 1.6 million books per year. The program serves 4.7 million young children and their families each year, “including one in four children living in poverty in this country.” The organizers hope to grow each year, envisioning that support for books and reading will become a regular part of every child’s checkup. For more information about programs near you and information about how to get involved, visit Reach Out and Read online.
Winners and honorable mentions of The Master’s Review Short Story Award for New Writers have been announced. The winning story is awarded $2000, publication (online this spring), and agency review from Amy Williams of The Williams Agency, Victoria Marini from Irene Goodman, and Laura Biagi from Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. The second and third place stories win $200 and $100 respectively, publication, and agency review as well. Previous winning works can be read online here.
Winner
“Operation” by Scott Gloden
Second Place
“White Out” by Caitlin O’Neil
Third Place
“Malheur Refuge” by Rick Attig
Honorable Mentions
“Little Sister” by Yin Ren
“Million and a Half” by Kevin Klinskidorn
“The Weight of Gravity” by Denise Schiavone
“The Caveman” by Rachel Engelman
“Good Listener” by Ally Glass-Katz
The Master’s Review is currently accepting submissions for its annual Anthology Prize. This year’s judge is Roxanne Gay.
Diode celebrates ten years of publishing “electropositive poetry”: poetry that “excites and energizes”; poetry that uses language that “crackles and sparks.” Issue 10.1 features works from over 40 poets as well as two full-length collections, Starlight & Error by Remica Bingam-Risher and quitter by Paula Cisewski, several chapbooks, interviews and reviews. All of Diode‘s is available for readers to enjoy online.
This month’s featured collaboration from Broadsided Press , “Final Descent into Phoenix” with poem by Julie Swarstad Johnson and art by Kara Page, has been months in the making. “We chose Julie Swarstad Johnson’s poem for publication from our open submissions over a year ago,” notes the Broadsided Editorial Team. “We sent it out to artists to see who would ‘dibs’ it in November, in January artist Kara Page sent us what she’d created, then our designer found a way to bring both together into a single letter-sized pdf, and finally we asked poet and artist what they thought of the results,” with the conversation between artist and poet published on the Broadsided website.
Broadsided posters are available for free download and postering all about town. Become a Broadsided Vector today!
Each June, Rescue Press accepts submissions for the Black Box Poetry Contest for full-length poetry collections open to poets at any stage in their writing careers. The latest Black Box Poetry winner will be released later this month (March 15): What Was It For by Adrienne Raphel. Judge Cathy Park Hong calls the debut full-length collection “feral and full of feverish delight.” She continues, “Raphel takes Victorian nonsense verse into the twenty-first century and transforms it to her own strange and genius song.”
Readers can learn more about What Was It For at the publisher’s website, where they can also find Raphel’s bio with more information about the writer and pre-order copies.
Things Impossible to Swallow poems by Pamela Garvey is the newest in the 2River Chapbooks Series. 2River chapbooks can be read online, or to make your own print copy, click “Chap the Book” to download a PDF, which you can then print double-sided, fold, and staple to have a personal copy of Garvey’s chapbook. There are currently 24 chapbooks available for free download for readers to enjoy.
Diode Editions recently held their very first full-length book contest and have announced two co-winners: Remica Bingham-Risher’s Starlight & Error, and Paula Cisewski’s quitter.
Starlight & Error retells through the lens of imagined memory the legacies of love between aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, children and their children’s children. The poems ask how we transcend the mistakes of those who made us, and who will save us.
quitter is a “thoughtful protest in form, line, and ideology.” The collection invites readers to ask ourselves what we’ve tried, and if we’ve tried hard enough, challenging us to continue looking for solutions.
Learn more about the prize-winning collections at the Diode Editions website where readers can read advance praise and order copies.
The Fall 2016 issue of The MacGuffin features the winners of the 21st National Poet Hunt Contest along with commentary from Judge Li-Young Lee.
First Place
“Pedro” by Elisabeth Murawski
Honorable Mentions
“Things to Know if You Live Here” by Marc Sheehan
“A Woman, Conjured” by Janet Greenberg
The 2017 contest will be judged by Naomi Shihab Nye.
Cover image: “Happy Summer from My Ivory Tower” by Roopa Dudley.
In February, Black Lawrence Press released Retribution Binary by Ruth Baumann, which advance praise calls “a study in wreckage and palpable absence” that is “Part dreamscape, part gutter-bucket realism” (Marcus Wicker). Retribution Binary is the winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition, and Baumann is no stranger to winning chapbook prizes, winning the Salt Hill Dead Lake Chapbook Contest in 2014 and the Slash Pines Chapbook Contest in 2015. Copies of Retribution Binary can be found on the Black Lawrence Press website, where readers can learn more about Baumann, and read an excerpt.
Also released last month was the winner of the 2016 Georgia Poetry Prize, Sun & Urn by Christopher Salerno, chosen by Thomas Lux. Lux calls the collection “madly imaginative, and, ultimately, a brilliant and deeply human book,” imploring readers to read it three times. Salerno’s fourth poetry collection, Sun & Urn is now available from the University of Georgia Press website, a book made from “the wild stuff of grief and loss.” Check out the press’s website for more information.
“Calmly on Fire,” a found photograph and collage on paper by Lorna Simpson, makes it difficult for readers to look away from Hotel Amerika Winter 2017.
Published in Ireland, this spring 2017 issue of Into the Void cover features “Two Boys in the Woods” by Refael Salem.
Unusual beauty seems to be my theme this week, finishing off with “Red Heart Boat” by Andy Levine on the cover of the online Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine.
The University of Iowa Press brings readers a real treat: the lost novel of Walt Whitman, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle. While we’re familiar with Leaves of Grass, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle was serialized in a newspaper under a pseudonym, read with little fanfare, and then disappeared.
It wasn’t until 2016 that it was found by Zachary Turpan, a literary scholar. While following a deep paper trail into the Library of Congress, he stumbled upon the only surviving copy of Witman’s lost novel.
Now, after lying in wait for over 160 years, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle is available for modern readers both digitally and in print at the University of Iowa Press website.
Drawing on some eight hundred letters and other research documenting over two decades, Diane Simmons illuminates the unusual life of family friend, Eva Eldridge during and after WWII America. Simmons, originally neighbors and friends with Eva’s mother, Grace, when she was just a young girl, became the executor of Eva’s estate upon her death, leading her to secrets “hidden away in the arid eastern Oregon attic” of Eva’s home. Drawn by return addresses from Italy, North Africa, “somewhere in the Pacific,” and from all over America, Simmons looked past “a creepy sense of voyeurism,” grabbed a knife and cut through the “loops of tightly knotted kitchen string” that held together envelopes “collected into fat packets.”
Over the past couple of years, more than a bit has been written about the re-emergence of the novella as a respected literary form. Given that most of us tend to be caught between a perpetual time crunch and a desire for the aspects of our lives that truly matter, it only makes sense. Shorter works are able to accommodate our constraints while providing that glimmer of the richer experience we seek. All the while, a move toward a relative minimalism has revealed that breadth does not necessarily equate with depth. Sometimes, an author’s choice to refrain from filling in all of the blanks just may allow for a more satisfying experience on the part of the reader.
The mystifying title of this anthology—The Careless Embrace of the Boneshaker—calls for an explanation, which is forthcoming in the introduction. “Here are writers claiming who they are and screaming it from the top of their lungs. They are the boneshakers. [ . . . ] Like the 19th century bicycle prototype from which they get their name, they have no means of shock absorption.”
The Night Could Go In Either Direction is, as the subtitle states, a conversation; a conversation between speakers, Kim Addonizio and Brittany Perham both contributing to this conversation on facing pages of this twenty-five page chapbook covered in lux pink paper that shimmers slightly in natural light. I have never read Perham, but Addonizio’s poems, quickly recognizable, are reminiscent of her collection What is This Thing Called Love. Perham’s prose poems contribute a raw symmetry to this tale of love gone wrong while Addonizio is so Addonizio, saying things that only Addonizio can say in that very Addonizio way.
Jacob M. Appel explains the title of his mystery novel, The Mask of Sanity, by crediting psychiatrist and psychopathy pioneer Hervey Cleckley, who used the phrase as the title of his 1941 book. It referred to people who “at their cores proved incapable of feeling empathy or compassion for their fellow human beings,” writes Appel.
