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In the late eighteenth- through mid-nineteenth centuries, the British Empire exiled close to 162,000 men, women, and children under the Transportation Act to serve their prison sentences in Australia—simultaneously ridding Britain of an overcrowded prison population and providing the Empire with expendable colonists. Continue reading “The Tin Ticket”
Vinnie Wilhelm’s “Fautleroy’s Ghost,” included in his short story collection In the Absence of Predators, first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review. I remember reading it and feeling great affection for a writer who could encompass an empathetic account of the doomed revolutionary faith of both Leon Trotsky and Patrice Lumumba within a Hollywood spoof. Ben Stuckey leaves his leaky living room in Seattle to pitch his script for a bio-pic of Trotsky: Continue reading “In the Absence of Predators”
Prior to audio and video, theatre history is a frustratingly silent one. Reviews, illustrations, journal entries, photographs, designs, and prompt books are helpful—and rare. Continue reading “Starring Madame Modjeska”
It is impossible to think of forking paths without recalling Borges’s garden of innumerable possibilities. And so in James Grinwis’s second book of poems, Exhibit of Forking Paths, selected by Eleni Sikelianos for the National Poetry Series, it makes sense that we find a poetry of possibilities and alternatives, a bit of play, an interest in “what the sounds mean before the definitions of sounds,” and a space where things can simultaneously be and not be. The title poem, which opens the book, presents different lives captured on numbered tablets, with the speaker coyly stating, “In the case of tablet 31, we will not speak.” Grinwis delivers a lot in this collection, but he reminds us we cannot have it all. Continue reading “Exhibit of Forking Paths”
The title of Bruce Jay Friedman’s new “literary” memoir, Lucky Bruce, is an understatement. All the old adages about luck come to mind, you make your own luck, some are luckier than others, etc., but when you read Friedman’s life story you can’t help but agree: Bruce is one lucky guy. Continue reading “Lucky Bruce”
The principal aim of The City, Our City, the latest poetry collection by Wayne Miller, is to construct a difficult, philosophical poetics that most audiences will have trouble wrestling into meaning. I have no problem with being pleasantly mystified or even confused (Lynn Emanuel’s latest work baffles me even as I gasp with wonder), but this book straddles a fine line between unsettling readers and completely turning them off. Since Miller’s previous volumes, especially The Book of Props, have won praise from many circles (including The New Yorker), perhaps he need not worry about losing readers; his audience may well be confined to those in the academy. And after all, The City, Our City does still showcase the poet’s remarkable skill, though it should be noted that his most successful poems establish a scene and context in which his talent begins to shine. In “Winter Pastoral,” a quiet love poem, he writes: Continue reading “The City, Our City”
Disclosure is by far one of the most interesting books I have ever read. It should perhaps be called “Full Disclosure,” as Lomax presents us with so many fragments from various areas of her life. Some pieces disclosed to us are FAFSA forms, an acceptance letter into the Peace Corps, pay stubs from several different jobs (including Taco Bell), student reviews of her teaching skills, bank statements, and medical forms. Lomax has no qualms about baring all of the personal, private information in these documents. Continue reading “Disclosure”
It’s clear within the first few paragraphs that Alan Kaufman has no intention of holding anything back in Drunken Angel. The book brings the reader into his life as a young writer, a soldier in Israel, a husband, an addict, and finally a father, with many more twists and turns throughout. There were moments, while reading, that I disliked things he did and had I met him then, I probably wouldn’t have liked him very much. However, Kaufman’s willingness to open up so completely to his reader, to put himself in such a vulnerable position, won my respect. Continue reading “Drunken Angel”
Erri de Luca’s The Day Before Happiness, a bildungsroman set in Naples after WWII, shows both memories of the war and the city at that time, focusing on characters in an apartment complex. It also offers poetic insights along with humor. The lyrical style ultimately doesn’t distinguish the two main characters, even though one is a boy and one his caretaker/mentor, but the humor does distinguish another character in his nouveau riche ignorance. Continue reading “The Day Before Happiness”
Brooklyn Arts Press has entered the business of publishing chapbooks with a collection about endings. Joe Fletcher, whose previous publications include the chapbook Sleigh Ride (Factory Hollow Press), evokes in Already It Is Dusk a world drunk on its own decay, whose fields are “abandoned by sowers” and whose “soldiers stare blankly at the smoldering embassy.” While not as bleak as, say, Blake Butler’s Scorch Atlas, this world is peopled with monsters such as “Ben Nez the Winged,” who threatens to suck the breath from that poem’s narrator, so that he “drag[s his] boots to smear [his] tracks.” More often than not, the monster is within, such as in “Hunting” when the hunter must “Pry the chickens’ chests open / with my beak” after they “walk right up into my outstretched arms.” Continue reading “Already It Is Dusk”
In Hypotheticals, the scientific method breaks down into a scattering of hypothetical circumstances. Leigh Kotsilidis’s debut poetry collection delves into the reimagining of knowledge and personhood, questioning, on an elemental scale, the configuration of the world. A variety of formal and free verse poems, Hypotheticals takes a hard yet lyrical look at the creatures and objects that inhabit our planet, inviting the reader in to experience these strange and surprising sensations. Continue reading “Hypotheticals”
The Cisco Kid in the Bronx is a Caribbean emigrant bildungsroman that at moments may remind the reader of the classic collection Drown by Junot Diaz. Ortiz’s collection certainly fulfills many of the conventions of what could be considered a Caribbean Diaspora literature. Continue reading “The Cisco Kid in the Bronx”
In Lunch Bucket Paradise, Fred Setterberg gives a vivid description of life in California from the 1950s-1960s. Setterberg’s style of writing quickly pulls the reader into his world. I’ve never been to California, my parents were born in the years when his story begins and I seemingly have nothing in common with Setterberg’s experiences, but that doesn’t matter at all. The people in his “true-life novel” are so vivid that almost instantly you understand how their minds work and their relationships to each other. Continue reading “Lunch Bucket Paradise”
Admitting his aim is to provoke, and filled with acidic rectitude, Anis Shivani rants on in Against the Workshop about what demonstrably awful affects MFA programs have upon American writing. Under his analysis, the entire academic system of American letters appears corrupt: a viral sham in which all involved would feel ashamed if only they weren’t so mired within its murky workings. Shivani’s not exactly wrong—his points are, for the most part, well made, and there’s no doubting his sincerity. Yet despite the at-times attractive bluster Shivani coats his commentary in, he fails to finally offer up any central focus for complaint. This haphazard collection of book reviews and essay-length, bombastic taking-to-task of academic career fiction writers and poets is finally nothing but a roller-coaster jaunt through several publications of the last decade or so; Shivani’s arguments realize no greater whole to counter his provocative railings against the status quo. Continue reading “Against the Workshop”
selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee is a collection of unpublished blog entries that teeters between poetry and prose writing. Rarely do I come across writing that can pass as both styles, which is interesting. There are no capital letters in the entire book, which adds to the informal tone. Assuming the collection is autobiographical (as it stems from blog posts), Boyle is a 23-year-old bi-curious stoner who records her life. It is one of the most honest pieces I have ever read; she even lists every single person she has had sex with, never leaving out minor details such as whether or not they used condoms and if she had orgasms. After describing each of her 21 partners, Boyle enters a brief moment of self-reflection: “relieved I don’t have AIDS or children.” Continue reading “selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee”
The Adroit Journal is a triannual downloadable PDF publication edited by Peter LaBerge (Editor-in-Chief), Ameerah Arjanee and Magen Eissenstat (Poetry Genre Editors), Connor Cook and Kratika Mishra (Fiction Genre Editors), Michele Ang (Art/Photography Editor), and additional staff members.
LaBerge tells me, “The Adroit Journal was conceived for mainly two reasons: as a fundraising vehicle for an organization called Free the Children Organization, and as an opportunity for teenagers to come together to produce a collection of quality literature.” A link to Free the Children is provided on The Adroit Journal website, and donors make their contributions directly to the organization.
Readers can expect to find a complete variety of poetry and fiction within the pages of The Adroit Journal. “Often readers and contributors remark that they cannot find a singular type of work that The Adroit Journal considers,” LaBerge notes, “because we consider (and publish) all different kinds.”
Some of the many contributors to date include: Poetry – Carol Guess, Dorianne Laux, Annie Finch, Lee Upton, Matt Mauch, Laura Kasischke, Darlene Pag
HOOT is a unique monthly traditional-mail delivered postcard print format with additional separate content online.
When asked Why start a literary magazine?, Editors Dorian Geisler and Amanda Vacharat replied: “This is a great question. It does seem counterintuitive, a little bit, to start a literary magazine now, in 2012 – when there are already a bazillion magazines struggling to find readers and subscribers. We started a literary magazine because we thought we saw an unfilled niche, based on what people are looking for right now. It’s not that people don’t want to read new authors anymore, it’s that they don’t want it to take up a lot of time. People want concision. Furthermore, they want things that are shareable and self-defining (think Twitter and Facebook posts). So, we made a magazine that’s short, and affordable, which (hopefully) looks good enough to be hung on a fridge, and is small enough that it can be easily passed along to others.”
I have personally received the HOOT postcards, and as a fan of postcard lit, can attest that these are some of the best quality cards in full color that I have seen.
HOOT editors claim that their publications contain “Zest! We like zest. So readers can expect to find it! By which we mean: surprises – not ‘twist’ endings, but a wide variety in styles and subject matter from issue to issue. HOOT readers can also expect to find art that is visually appealing and also varied in style.”
For the print (postcard) issue, there is only have one author per issue, so to date contributors include J. Bradley, John Steen, William Henderson, and Andrea Uptmor. Online issues, contributors to date are Meagan Wilson, Meghan Slater, Christopher Grosso, Stewart Lindh, William Doonan, Maria Anderson, Justis Mills, Caroline Zarlengo Sposto, Nick Sanford, Stephen Ross, Linda Simoni-Wastila, Thomas Mundt, and Marcy Campbell.
HOOT‘s plans for the future are “all about the idea that literature isn’t just for capital-L Literary types.” Editor Amanda Vacharat explains, “There’s quality work being written that has appeal for a much larger audience, as long as it fits into their schedules. So, we’re playing with the idea of printing literature on a variety of other mediums. We also want to make contemporary writing available to people who might not otherwise have access to it. We’re working towards a model where we can send some subscriptions into prisons and inner city schools and libraries. [Editor’s note: YEAH!] Also, starting in March, we’ll be running free, in-person writing workshops locally (Philadelphia).”
Submissions are year-round and rolling. For print, writers can submit by mail or online. There is a $2 fee for submitting online via Submishmash (which the editors encourage! because this is how they are able pay their authors). But, mail submissions are accepted too, with a SASE. All for-print submissions are automatically considered for online publication. Authors only interested in online publication can submit by email.
In addition to all of this, HOOT editors run free online workshops every Wednesday evening in a chat room – for flash fiction/non-fiction and short poems (<150 words). "Basically," Vacharat says, "we'll read your work right there and give you immediate feedback. You're also welcome to help give feedback on other people's writing. We're very supportive, while still being honest. We try to give very specific things to work on. It's great for all writers - but especially if you're thinking of submitting, you'll also get a great sense of what we tend to like (and not like)." [Pictured: HOOT: ISSUE 2, November 2011, “Poem” by John Steen]
Free copies of the April 2012 issue of Poetry will be given to reading groups that request them by March 23. The Poetry Foundation asks that in return, you send a brief account of your discussion. Issues will be shipped in late March. Requests will be accepted online only here.
Where is the place for the woman writer within AWP and within the greater literary community? The women’s caucus discusses this as well as the continuing inequities in creative writing publication and literature. In addition, the panel will explore cultural obstacles in the form of active oppression, stereotypes, lack of access to literary power structures, historical marginalization of women’s writing, issues and perspectives, and the diverse voices of women. Networking opportunities.
Event Participants: Lois Roma-Deeley, Patricia Smith, Rebecca Olson, Kathleen Aguero, Lisa Bowden
Scheduled Day: Friday, March 2
Scheduled Time: 10:30 AM to 11:45 AM
Scheduled Room, Hotel, Floor: Lake Erie, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
AWP Conference
Chicago, Illinois
February 29-March 3, 2012
Hilton Chicago & Palmer House Hilton
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will take place in February. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: David Goguen of San Francisco, CA, [pictured] wins $1200 for “Old Teeth.” His story will be published in the Spring 2013 issue of Glimmer Train Stories, out in February 2013. This is David’s first story accepted for publication.
Second place: Allison Frase Reavis, of Carrboro, NC, wins $500 for “Episodic Tremors.”
Third place: James Wheeler, of Baltimore, MD, wins $300 for “The International Typographers Union.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline for the Very Short Fiction Award: January 31 Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and first place has been increased to $1500 plus publication in the journal. It’s open to all writers, no theme restrictions, and the word count must not exceed 3000.
Black River Press has announced that Nick McRae has won the Fall 2011 Black River Chapbook Competition for his collection of poems, Mountain Redemption.
Nick McRae’s poems, reviews, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Linebreak, Passages North, The Southern Review, Third Coast, and other journals. Formerly a Fulbright fellow in the Slovak Republic and a finalist for the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, he now studies poetry and teaches creative and analytical writing at The Ohio State University, where he also serves as Poetry Review Editor for The Journal.
Complete lists of the Fall 2011 Black River Chapbook Competition finalists and semi-finalists can be found on the Black Lawrence Press blog.
Judge Sarah Shun-lien Bynum has selected Among the Dead: Ah! and Afterward Yes! by Becca Jensen as the winner of the first annual Les Figues Press NOS Book Contest.
Among the Dead: Ah! and Afterward Yes! takes place inside a family of five: Mrs. G, Mr. G, the daughter, the collector, and the chorus. It is a book about reading, imagination and the possibility of finding solace — or at the very least, meaning — in beauty. Among the Dead: Ah! and Afterward Yes! will be published in Fall 2012.
2011 NOS Contest Finalists:
Alice Boiln
Louis Bury
Roxanne Carter
Tom Comitta
Dot Devota and Brandon Shimoda
Travis Hessman
Brenda Iijima
Michael Joyce
Karla Kelsey
Katie Price
Theresa Sotto
Still Point Art Gallery Current Exhibition THE ABSTRACTION ATTRACTION! opened on November 16 and will remain a featured exhibition through February 14. Abstract painting, photography, prints, and sculpture. Artists of Distinction for this show are Steven Bogart, Ling Ling Cheng, Nomi Drory, David Kinsey, Keith Parks, and Cat van der Heiden. These artists have also been awarded the opportunity to have their portfolios published in Still Point Arts Quarterly. The exhibit can be viewed in full on the Still Point Art Gallery website.
The New York Times blog The Learning Network offers a post of resources to aid in collaborative literature study with readers who are face-to-face or located separately around the world: Reading With Strangers: Ways to Study Literature Collaboratively by Shannon Doyne and Holly Epstein Ojalvo.
Congrats to 5×5 Magazine for their new nonprofit status: The 5×5 Nonprofit Organization of Literature & Arts Advocates. 5×5 keeps its self-titled size, accepting submissions from high school students and beyond, and providing subscriptions of its magazine at no cost for high school students. Mishon Wooldridge steps down as poetry editor with the Winter 2011 issue, but Jory Mickelson moves from Nonfiction Editor into the role. The new Nonfiction Editor has yet to be announced, but 5×5 assures its readers, “We’ve got that under control.”
The newest issue of Event (40.3) features winning works of the magazine’s annual non-fiction contest judged by Kevin Chong: “Busted” by Chris Donahoe and “Far Away Sick” by Krissy Darch.
On the heels on the Dove v. Vendler Anthology Controversy, I came across a listserv post by Jennifer Bartlett about the (lack of) representation of poets with disabilities and the (un)recognition of contemporary disability poetics. I invited her to expand on her argument/commentary on the NewPages blog. Bartlett welcomes conversation on the issue, so comments for this post have been opened.
In the past few months, there has been some “controversy” in the poetry world regarding the publication of The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove, and Helen Vendler’s scathing review in the New York Review of Books. One of the primary arguments focuses on the idea of inclusion being a factor in poetics to the exclusion of high quality – or what Vendler refers to as “writers . . . included in some cases for their representative themes rather than their style . . . Multicultural inclusiveness prevails . . .”
I have been following the news on Dove/Vedler with a personal interest. What is nagging at me is that a relatively mainstream anthology is causing such a stir. A few months ago Sheila Black, Michael Northen, and I published Beauty is a Verb: The New Disability Poetry (Cinco Puntos Press), and although the book has been well-received, the controversy that seems synonymous with putting together something altogether new has been nonexistent. I would actually like a little more controversy — or at least discussion around the question of inclusiveness as it pertains to writing by and about people with disabilities. My argument isn’t that there aren’t real racial and gender issues in the world of poetry and publication. My point is that the arguments about race and gender are so loud that the inclusion of people with disabilities remains a non-issue in poetics, publishing, academia, and otherwise.
First, looking at the Dove anthology itself, what interests me is the glaring lack of attention paid to poets/people with disabilities as a multicultural group. It is striking that an anthology which appears to pay particular, quite conscious attention to inclusion is void of any mention of “disability” as a category. There is no mention of the Crip Poetics movement, and there are no poets in the anthology who either identify as disabled or even have a disability: Larry Eigner, Vassar Miller, Josephine Miles, Jim Ferris, Paul Guest are all absent. Lucie Perdillo, a Random House poet with a McArthur Fellowship who writes on MS is absent, as are any ASL, Deaf or blind poets, including Steve Cannon, a major figure in the Black Arts Movement which Dove champions. The only poet in the collection who might identify as “disabled” is Robert Duncan, and I’m guessing the Duncan poems included don’t address his vision/vision which was arguably central to his work.
I do think that an anthology, such as ours, which is entirely new, calls for a little attention. Beauty is a Verb discusses how aphasia is a link to experimental language (Norma Cole), addresses “crip poetics” which most people have never heard of (Petra Kuppers), speaks to the linguistically complexity of translating English to ASL (John Lee Clark), and most of all addresses the inhabiting of the disabled body as a worthwhile experience and an experience that can be complicit in forming a poetics. All of such remains largely ignored in both mainstream and experimental writing.
Attention to and debate about disability is still a thing that makes people nervous — as if they feel afraid of giving disability a voice – or more pointedly giving people with disabilities a voice. The silence is noticeable. For example, there is plenty of discussion regarding race from white people, and unlike skin color, most of the able-bodied will have some disability in their lifetime. More importantly, it seems that people still dismiss disability as a category/identity, and one that is privileged to gain the most simple rights, like getting into the store or having a job — not to mention being in the Penguin anthology.
It also seems true that in the poetry world you have to insult someone directly or indirectly to get attention – which I did a few years ago when I called out Paul Guest for allowing John Ashbery to refer to Guest as an invalid on his book blurb. All hell broke loose and, evidently, the right to call a person an invalid is something to which people are very attached. I was mortified but also exhilarated over the debate — I found it exciting that poets with disabilities could be seen as not always agreeing, as debating and negotiating what is meant by a disability or what it means to be a person with a disability. Anything better than the constantly imposed “code of silence.”
One flaw in Vendler’s arguments concerning the Dove anthology is that she is so sure of the standards she is defending. Rather, poetics, writing, and language for that matter are things always in flux and subject to debate. An exciting side to Beauty is a Verb and the poets it includes is that these poets are generally engaged in poetry as a revolutionary activity — one that seeks not merely to reflect or “measure up” to existing standards, but in subtle and not so subtle ways to remake them. And part of that remarking, the first part, but by no means the simplest, is resisting the silencing of disabled voices in poetry and out in the world.
Was it way back in the Sixties when Norman Mailer had a blurb on one of his books — his third novel Deer Park, in fact, that said “Burn this book!”? I know he collected all the worst blurbs about the book — which received generally negative reviews and plastered them on the back cover. But that story has always stuck with me. And when I think about what I’d like to see happen as far as disability poetics, well, one answer would be buy Beauty is a Verb and/or support the strong and beautiful poems being written by a wide range of poets with disabilities. And if not that, then I hope people burn our book – at least that will get the conversation/controversy started that seems necessary in order for us to begin to be seen and heard.
[Jennifer Bartlett is author of Derivative of the Moving Image, (a) lullaby without any music, and co-editor of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability.]
Edited by Cynthia Reeser, Prick of the Spindle Print Edition comes to readers biannually in October and April of every year and is available in paper copy and eBook (Kindle).
Already having established the well-known and respected online quarterly publication, Prick of the Spindle, Reeser comments: “I started the print edition in part to expand our audience and readership, as well as the scope of what we publish. As a nonprofit, we wish to initiate subscriptions and also to be able to pay our contributors, and the print edition helps us to do both.”
Prick of the Spindle readers can expect to find fiction, drama, nonfiction, poetry, interviews, and essays of a more formal nature, as well as artwork and experimental text/image pieces.
The inagurual print edition includes an interview with Sandy Longhorn, poetry by Jessica Cuello, Nandini Dhar, Claire Stephens (text/image), nonfiction by Juan Daniel Mill
Prairie Schooner Winter 2011 is a special issue devoted to contemporary Irish writing. As Interim Senior Editor Stephen C. Behrendt writes: “Unlike many ‘special issues’ of journals, this one has not begun with a predetermined narrow list of contributors from whom we solicited the contributions that now appear here. Instead, we have happily welcomed the work of many writers who responded to our general invitation for submissions, and this present issue samples some of the most compelling and vibrant contributions from among this wealth of splendid material. It represents, then, a cross section of the Irish writing community today, in all its rich diversity. . . The poetry , fiction, and drama in this issue testify to the enduring themes not just of Irish culturebut indeed of the whole human enterprise.”
Check out the latest great post of NewPages Literary Magazine Reviews, including both new and established publications in print and online:
Alaska Quarterly Review
Bellevue Literary Review
Black Lantern Publishing
Booth
CaKe
The Carolina Quarterly
Faultline
The Helix
Magnolia
The Main Street Rag
New Orleans Review
Off the Coast
Palooka
Paul Revere’s Horse
Phantom Drift
Post Road
River Teeth
Silk Road
Straylight
Tin House
I love it when I find a story I simply cannot turn away from reading, even when I think I should because I think I know where it’s going, and especially when I’m wrong and it takes me somewhere unexpected. Lucas Dean Fiser’s story in Pif Magazine had me at the title: “My Father Stood Loading His Gun,” and after this opening, I was spellbound:
“My father stood in my doorway holding his .45 caliber handgun. He leaned against the wood framework smoking a cigarette, loading the gun. Smoke circled his head like a halo, and I gently laid the book I was reading into the sheets. Every time he loaded a bullet you could hear the steel snap into the magazine. His mouth moved when he did this…”
Read the rest here. It’s not long to read, but be ready for it to stay with you for a while.
Winners of the The Missouri Review Fourth Annual Audio Contest include:
Poetry – Greg Brownderville, “Sex and Pentecost”
Prose – Rachel Yoder, “I’m White and I’m Mennonite”
Self-Recorded Documentary – Ken Cormier, “Voices of the Dead”
Professionally Recorded Documentary – Anna Pinkert, “After the Flood”
All recordings, along with past audio entries, can be heard on The Missouri Review Audio Page.
The Moth: True Stories Told Live began in 1997 as a venue of storytelling in front of a live audience. The Moth Radio Hour, begun in 2009, is now on over 200 radio stations nationwide. There are a number of stories that can be accessed from the web, and The Moth is currently accepting stories to feature on its website. Storytellers are invited to record their one-minute pitch right on The Moth website, or if you have trouble with the online recording gizmo, there is a phone number to call and pitch your story via phone. All stories must be true – and no cliffhangers. What are your waiting for?
The Winter 2011 issue of Able Muse includes winners and finalists for its 2011 Write Prize contest:
Write Prize for Fiction – Final Judge: Alan Cheuse
Winner: Douglas Campbell – “Sunflowers, Rivers”
Write Prize for Poetry – Final Judge: Rachel Hadas
Winner: Jean L. Kreiling – “Waiting for a Helicopter”
Second: Susan McLean – “Teaching to the Test”
Finalists: John Beaton – “Your Voice”; Catherine Chandler – “This Dusky Arc”; T.S. Kerrigan – “Missing the Sunset at Sounion”; Joshua Lavender – “The Guest”; Gabriel Spera – “Bread and Fish”; Richard Wakefield – “Crossing”
An additional list of poetry honorable mentions can be found on the publication website.
This fifth publication of Cake contains exceptional writing, including poetry, fiction, reviews, drama, and interviews. Breauna Roach’s poem “Scrambled” left me a bit unsettled, but there is no doubt as to her genius. Roach begins by revealing her discovery that cupcakes are never found in a garbage disposal, they are sweet desserts that would be shameful to waste; however, eggs are a whole different story: Continue reading “Cake – Spring 2011”
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” As the venerable Carolina Quarterly enters its 64th year of publication in 2012, the answer from discerning readers, and good writers, must be yes. Poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and graphic art accepted by the CQ’s editors provide a select tour through recent works of both polished and emerging writers and artists. Thematically, this issue features that which is certain—death and Texas. Continue reading “The Carolina Quarterly – Winter/Spring 2011”
Faultline is the journal of the English department at the University of California-Irvine. The journal has a quiet, slightly offbeat feel to it. Much of the fiction is the kind that could be about people you know—but, then, there’s just something different, something slightly magical and slightly weird about it. Continue reading “Faultline – Spring 2011”
The Helix is a biannual literary magazine run by students of Central Connecticut State University and is comprised of drawings, paintings, photographs, prose and poetry. Like helical strands of DNA, the art and literature printed in The Helix represents vast permutations of human experience and possibility. Continue reading “The Helix – Spring 2011”
Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Literature broke into the literary world just this year. The first guest editor, Gayle Brandeis, is an author of both young adult and adult fiction and has also been honored for her work as an activist. A little blurb on the back of the collection promises that Magnolia is “a diverse collection that will open your eyes, challenge your thinking, and break your heart.” And Magnolia certainly delivers. Continue reading “Magnolia – 2011”
I really like the way Main Street Rag fits in my hand; it’s the perfect size for a literary magazine. It’s also cool that MSR publishes letters from readers. In my experience, that’s a rarity for a literary mag, but one that I think adds to the experience of reading a magazine. It’s always fun to see what other readers have to say. Publisher/Editor M. Scott Douglass clearly puts a considerable amount of work into Main Street Rag, and marks each issue with his own “Front Seat” and “Back Seat” columns that bookend the contents. Not shy about veering into political territory, Douglass launches this particular issue’s “Back Seat” into a commentary on American economics and class struggles, offering up his own solutions on tax issues (two options to choose from!). This sort of diatribe within a literary magazine may seem out of place to some readers, but I found it refreshing. It helps to project the image that MSR is quite comfortable in its own skin. Continue reading “Main Street Rag – Fall 2011”
I’ve always viewed the New Orleans Review as one of the silverbacks of the modern literary journal scene. Despite the obvious setbacks in dealing with Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, it still surges ahead as one of the leading reviews with a promise of great work by great writers—those well-known, and those not. Some have said it is better than ever. This current issue does not disappoint, especially with Jacob M. Appel’s story “Prisoners of the Multiverse,” winner of the 2011 Walker Percy Fiction Contest. Not wanting to ruin the story for future readers, I will quote Nancy Lemann, judge for this year’s prize, in her introduction to the piece: Appel’s story “preserves the mystery” of a thing of beauty and delivers “what I seek in literature: inspiration, hope, and possibility.” Continue reading “New Orleans Review – 2011”
Aaron Milstead’s short story “The Pickled Man” was such an easy and captivating read that I suggested to my twelve-year-old son that he read it as well. As I predicted, he devoured the story of Wilber Will’s World of Wonders that features a mysterious oddity floating around in a pickle jar. That night, at around two a.m., I awoke to a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed. I knew immediately that figure was my son and that he’d just had a nightmare featuring, not surprisingly, the pickled man. After putting him back to bed, I thought about the power of Milstead’s story. It had left an unsettling impression on my son—one that lies just below the cerebral surface—long after he’d finished reading it. It is the titillating payoff that you hope for when you read something particularly spooky. This is exactly what Black Lantern Publishing’s fifth issue offers its readers with its collection of short stories, poetry, flash fiction, and artwork, all within a macabre theme. Despite my recommendation to my son, this is not a collection intended for children. BLP offers an assortment of haunting contemplations that deal with the subject of death and ushers readers to a darker side of literature. Continue reading “Black Lantern Publishing – November 2011”
Off the Coast, based out of Robbinston, Maine, publishes poems, artwork, and reviews. It seems to me that this particular issue has a strong focus on nature and animals interacting within their natural surroundings. The title of each issue is chosen from a line or phrase from one of the issue’s selected poems. The Fall 2011 issue is entitled Everything Here. The editors make a very honest effort to live up to the promise of such a title. Continue reading “Off the Coast – Fall 2011”
Run by the MFA program at Butler University, Booth publishes something every week on their website and has a print publication each spring. I have never seen the print edition, but found the online material quite intriguing. I was especially impressed by their selections of poetry. Continue reading “Booth – December 2011”
It’s possible that the mark of an evolved soul is the ability to pass at will into whatever state of consciousness is useful or appropriate at any given time. Over twenty distinct such states have been observed, with names like reverie, lethargy, trance, and rapture. The question of when such states are useful or appropriate is the subject of story and song from time immemorial. That they are essential to our lives if we are ever to be whole is the conviction behind a compelling new journal whose title hints at this ability I’ve described: Phantom Drift. Continue reading “Phantom Drift – Fall 2011”
The subtitle of Palooka seems to indicate that editors Nicholas Maistros and Jonathan Starke have something of an outsider’s mindset. This “journal of underdog excellence” contains work that, according to Maistros, responds to the “storms” we experience in “different yet collectively elemental ways.” From the journal’s colorful and playfully disturbing cover art to its entertaining contributors’ notes, Palooka turns the difficult trick of making itself accessible to a wide range of audiences without talking down to them. Continue reading “Palooka – 2011”
Post Road offered me surprises that I don’t believe I have actually seen in other magazines. For instance, during my first official flip through, my thumb stopped on a page where Micah Nathan reviews The Stories of John Cheever, claiming that, although not a “titan like Hemingway or Faulkner . . . there’s room in the pantheon for gods of all types. We reserve a temple for him.” I can’t recall how many reviews (celebrations?) of Cheever I have read in modern literary magazines—because I don’t believe that I ever have. And then on the page opposite began Asad Raza’s review of the 1983 Lizzie Borden movie Born in Flames, a movie that, according to the author: “makes most New York movies seem like sentimental fawning.” These two pieces represent the eclectic, brilliant choices the editors have made in putting the magazine together, which I think is its greatest strength. It caters to many different tastes, and, according to the magazine’s website, each submission is read by three different people before accepting or rejecting it—thus ensuring a strong collection with each biannual issue. Continue reading “Post Road – 2011”
As most people know, the Silk Road was a many-thousands-of-miles-long trade route linking Asia with the rest of the world in ancient times, a network of land and sea avenues over which civilizations traveled and cultures interfused. The goal of Pacific University’s literary journal is to “give readers a vivid point of exchange or interaction that could occur only in a specific time and space . . . ‘place’ is the touchstone the magazine uses for the pieces we publish.” In this issue, there are eight stories, six pieces of creative nonfiction, work from sixteen poets, and a provocative interview that “take readers somewhere crucial, defining and relevant.” The issue as a whole is a journey worth taking. Continue reading “Silk Road – Summer/Fall 2011”
One of the merits of nonfiction narratives is that they indulge human curiosity about others’ lives. The fall issue of River Teeth, a magazine dedicated solely to narrative nonfiction, includes eleven true stories, all of which quickly and convincingly pull you into the authors’ lives for brief, powerful episodes. While some stories uniquely explore common phenomena like homesickness, others offer coveted glimpses into rare experiences. The four most memorable stories in the collection are those whose subject matter and narrative voice are equally captivating. Continue reading “River Teeth – Fall 2011”
