Summer 2006 Literary Magazine Blowout Special

I have has so many of these come in the mail while I was gone, and no time to account for them.
First of all, a big thank you to The Pebble Lake Review, which accepted two poems. Yay! I’ve had several friends in this journal and it looks beautiful. So I’m excited! One of them is the first prose poem I’ve ever published.

32 Poems – Spring/Summer 2006 – I’ve been a fan of this little saddle-stitched journal from the moment it was born. The short length of the poems demands a gift for the lyric and the short length of the journal demands a reader’s attention for just so much time, and then it’s done. In this issue, I was surprised to see famous (ly evil?) critic William Logan’s name – he has a little nostalgic mood piece poem called “Hometown.” I was most enchanted by Nickole Brown’s “From Sister: A Novel Verse” and Terese Svoboda’s “Hurricane Girl” – “She outlines her eyes with ink/ from a Bic. In war or ardor? / The ferry’s bow light/ / misses her hand’s No.” Fellow blogger Steve Mueske has a poem in here too! So get it, read it, etc.

The American Poetry Journal – Summer/Fall 2006 – This is a journal where I consistently like almost all the poems in it, which is to say, I must have taste very like the editor’s. And how often does that happen? Not very! Another saddle-stitched smaller all-poetry deal, not only do I like the poems in here, I like the people – a friend of mine, Ronda Broatch (“The Boy Becomes Carp), is featured, as is my publisher, Tom C. Hunley, (“At the End of a Long and Varied Career”) and fellow-blogger Steve Schroeder (“Clockwork”) – and rest assured, all their poems are fabulous, and not just because I know them. I also loved Sara Talpos’ “Aisle 8: After Chernobyl.”

Prairie Schooner – All right, I have got to love these guys for the mere fact that they just printed the book of a deserving friend, Kathleen Flenniken’s Famous, and they’re going to publish the book of another deserving friend, Paul Guest’s Notes for a Body Double. So right there you know I think they have some kind of good taste. The summer 2006 issue features four poems by another friend, Dr. Peter Pereira. Check this lines from “Seven Views of the Eclipse:” “When his fevers came they’d sleep/ with a pillow lodged between them -/ their bodies in syzygy,/ solar flares diffused/ by a cloud of white.” Bam! Who doesn’t love that? And former advisor/mentor-type Marvin Bell had a few poems in here, and so does another advisor/mentor-type, Dorianne Laux, as well as an array of famous types and newer voices, and there are stories and reviews as well. I found almost all the poems in this issue fresh and readable.

In other news, a moment of silence for Kelli Russell Agodon’s blog. Lots of people have written in to ask about this. Well, she took down the blog, it may go up again someday, but no guarantees. I miss her too, even though I get to actually see her in person and talk to her on the phone, because her blog had its own very positive spirit, if that’s not too cheesey. We miss you Kells! But I’m wishing you well during your electronic sabbatical.

And, if any of you receive your contributor copies of Silk Road, let me know! I am anxious that these beautiful mags get into the hands of their worthy poetry contributors. I thought the faculty editor would send them out mid-July as she indicated, but you know how the summer is on college campuses, so, hopefully, you all get them soon!

And, I’ve been doing lots of homework – reading volumes and volumes, writing my annotated bibliography, working on my thesis (currently titled “In the Animé Version of My Life”) and editing a children’s poetry book. I’ve been getting lots of editing work lately – mostly through the web site – and I really enjoy doing it.