Redactions – 2011
Issue 14
2011
Annual
John Palen
This issue brings a fresh approach to regionalism by positing its own ad hoc region. “The I-90 Poetry Revolution” includes varied, ambitious work by poets who came from, live in or have some relation to the territory strung along the lanes, ramps, gas stations, motels, fast-food joints and rest stops between Boston and Seattle.
This issue brings a fresh approach to regionalism by positing its own ad hoc region. “The I-90 Poetry Revolution” includes varied, ambitious work by poets who came from, live in or have some relation to the territory strung along the lanes, ramps, gas stations, motels, fast-food joints and rest stops between Boston and Seattle.
The concept is interesting. Unlike writers who self-identify with the South, Midwest or Adirondacks, these poets share little in the way of unique landscape or history. So what do they share? The magazine offers a manifesto that includes such articles as disdain for “cosmopolitan elitism and rural anti-intellectualism,” and commitments to “the heart and the gut,” “the northern hemisphere and the four seasons,” and poetry that “can truly make a difference in the lives of those who need it.”
If such commitments could easily apply to good poets along any number of Interstate corridors, north, south, east and west, that fact only serves to point out what really binds these writers together: They do good work. Whether or not you buy the “I-90 Revolution” premise, this is a magazine worth spending time with.
It has attracted some well-known names: William Heyen, Jim Daniels & Ravi Shankar (in a co-authored piece), Gerry LaFemina (reviewing a new book by Lynn Emanuel), Laura McCullough, John Bradley, Daniel Tobin, Bill Tremblay, and Sherman Alexie (in a two-line poem about his father). Many others are less well known, but do nothing to lower the consistently high level of serious, accomplished and engaging poetry. Take for example the beginning of Tremblay’s “Waking With Night Fever”:
Lava flows out of my body
as I stand in the bathroom
shuddering, moaning, leaning,
palms spread against the wall.
Or the ending of Jonathan Johnson’s “Kellogg, Idaho,” in which truck stop and casino “let you know / they’re still here in four-foot plastic letters”:
Take this one good look
at the black-haired girl astride
her pony, turning him tight
around the farthest barrel in the field.
She’ll be gone next time
you’re through here. She
won’t ever be back.
