Ghost House Review – January 2014

Ghost House Review is a new digital publication that claims to put forth “poetry that haunts the heart.” And while I don’t think that is quite the way I would describe the work in this issue, I would say that it is quality poetry.

Ghost House Review is a new digital publication that claims to put forth “poetry that haunts the heart.” And while I don’t think that is quite the way I would describe the work in this issue, I would say that it is quality poetry.

Kate E. Schultz’s two poems were definitely among my favorites from this issue. Her first, “Onset,” depicts two girls, likely college roommates, who dance about their room in their underwear. It traps the confidence of young women, the skin on their bellies still “taut,” who know they are “every man’s fantasy.” And in the second, the narrator and a deliciously described man unload a truck of food to be sold, not to be eaten. But by the end of “At the Farmer’s Market,” I wanted to take a bite just as much as the narrator. And after reading it several times, I still can’t get over the last phrase of the following stanza, the contrast of the corn and the man:

with one twenty-pound bag of corn while he flings two
over each tanned shoulder and strides to the table
where he drops them, slitting open the green mesh
with his pocket knife. Already the small of his back
shines with sweat. The ears tumble out.

Ana Maria Caballero reminds us that the process of rotting is gradual. “Even while young and pleasant, with clean clothes and comfortable heels. Being mindful of the ground does not mean being ready for the fall.” And Ed Krizek’s poem titled “Onion” peels itself away in layers, sectioned into four. Take, for example, part of the last section:

If you peel back far enough
you may find transcendence
within the emptiness

With compassion
all can be Buddhas
sitting
sending out loving-kindness
filling an endless well.

This little magazine has a great start, and it is worth the read.
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