I finished reading the latest issue of Poetry last night, while watching House. This is my first year as a subscriber and I am still luke warm about the publication. Some months the magazine is filled with poems that I "get," and am inspired by. Other months it if filled with trash. And not just normal, run of the mill trash. Elitist trash.This issue was in the middle. Some of the poems were really quite good - Todd Boss' "This Morning in a Morning Voice," and "Don't Be Flip,"; Nick Beer's "Prairie Octopus, Awake"; Michael Rutherglen's "Lives of the Watchmakers"; Roger Reeves' "Cymothoa Exiqua"; Caki Wilkinson's "Lares and Penates" and finally, Alison Stine's "School" and "After the Party." - And some were not good at all. Hard to understand.
I think my favorite poem from this issue was "School" by Alison Stine. I enjoyed the images and feelings expressed by it. The raw, lovesick, emotions conveyed by writing poems in school. The image of the girl sitting next to the speaker - picking her scabs - ahhh it is just beautiful and sick. Why does she have scabs? So much in so little.
I usually don't read the comment or letters to the editor sections of this publication, but I have been searching for non-fiction texts for my Juniors (as they prep for the ACT) and I started reading "Branches: A Notebook" by Fanny Howe. I haven't finished it, and I don't know if it will prove fruitful. But it is the first of the commentary - non poetic - pieces that Poetry publishes that I have begun reading.
Overall, I would say a good issue. Probably worth picking up - if you don't already have a subscription.
1 comment:
I think the interview with Heaney is fantastic. They talk about so many of the things that came up in class. I agree with you on some issues being wacky--like vispo from last month. I don't get it. But overall, I've been subscribing for a few years now and am entertained/challenged more than disappointed.
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