Mag reviews out at New Pages

New Pages has reviews by various hands of new issues of 20 literary magazines, from Alimentum to Z. Included are two reviews I wrote, of New Millenium Writings and Pilgrimage. I particularly recommend the latter, a typographically beautiful product with fine essays and poems. Not to miss: Mylene Dressler's essay "Found."

Three poems accepted at 'Prick of the Spindle'

Prick of the Spindle is a Pensacola-based online quarterly that publishes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama and art that take both experimental and traditional approaches. The magazine describes its goal as being "well-rounded, with an acknowledgement to the works of literary history." (In case you've forgotten, as I had, the title on the masthead comes from the tale of Sleeping Beauty, who pricks her finger on a spindle and falls into a 100-year sleep until awakened by a prince). The journal is wide-ranging and ambitious. I'm happy as can be that three of my poems -- "Art," "A Young Man Sees His First Picasso," and "All Nighter on the Snow Plow" -- will appear in the December issue. The first is a response to reading Gregory Curtis' book The Cave Painters; the second, one of my few attempts at an ekphrastic poem -- a poem about a work of art. The third started out as a short story and got out of hand until I condensed it to 12 lines. Seems like I'm on a roll here.

Anne-Marie Oomen's American Map

Anne-Marie Oomen is a poet, essayist and playwright who also teaches creative writing at Michigan's Interlochen Arts Academy. Her latest collection of essays, American Map, is another in the Made in Michigan Writers Series published by Wayne State University Press. A travel memoir, the book demonstrates Oomen's considerable strengths: Use of place as a gateway to memory; an astonishing ability to capture and render detail; and a narrative about the present that is gripping in its own right and allows Oomen to come to terms with the past. Read the rest of my review at 360 Main Street.

Another poem about canning . . . .

The Honey Land Review is an on-line journal named after a nine-mile wide strip of rural land that stretches the length of the Iowa/Missouri border. In early- to mid-1800s, the strip was the subject of a border dispute. According to the review's website, militia from both states squared off over the territory, a Missouri sheriff was jailed, and three trees containing bee hives were ransacked. True to its name, the review says it "embraces work that pushes the boundaries." I'm very pleased to have a poem, "Canning Apple Sauce," accepted for the upcoming issue. The poem is one of several about preserving food. "Canning Peaches" appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of Clapboard House, and "A Bushel of Macs" is in my Pudding House chapbook, Harry Truman All the Way.

Two books of mine reviewed by U of I blogger

University of illinois writing teacher John Griswold, writing as Oronte Churm, included two of my books in a review of reading he's enjoyed this summer. Churm blogs for Inside Higher Education. Griswold is the author of A Democracy of Ghosts, a novel about the Herrin Massacre of 1922. The massacre is a key incident in Paul Angle's Bloody Williamson, which was required reading when I hired on in 1963 as a reporter with the Southern Illinoisan newspaper. Griswold's close-to-the-ground novel adds tremendously to my understanding of those events.

New collection from Li Tien

Friend and translation collaborator Li Tien of Midland (MI) has just self-published a chapbook of 23 poems published in journals. Entitled No Rain No Rainbow the book includes work that has appeared in Mid-America Poetry Review, Orbis Quarterly International, The MacGuffin, White Pine Review and numerous others. Among the translations are three from the Chinese of Tien's father, Yu Y. Tien, as well as two Song Dynasty poems that Li and I translated and published in the March Street Press chapbook Drizzle and Plum Blossoms. Li's new chapbook is full of wonderful short poems. Some are meditations on the natural world, others looks back at his youth in occupied China. Drizzle and Plum Blossoms was reviewed last year at 360 Main Street by Matthew Falk. His review is here.

Reviews of High Desert Journal, MacGuffin

I've had the joy of reading some outstanding fiction, poetry and essays in reviewing literary magazines for New Pages. My review of the latest High Desert Journal is here and of The MacGuffin is here. Best of the best: Don't miss Joe Wilkins' prize-winning short story "Enough of Me" in High Desert Journal, or Hunter Liguore's "The Last Soucouyant" in The MacGuffin.