Carousel
reviewed by J. Kates
While most literary magazines compete to look as serious as possible, some to the point of grimness, some to the point of aesthetic subtlety, and others just to the illusion of efficiency, Carousel risks looking fun. The Vassar-colored (pink and gray—or should I write “grey”) cartoony cover may or not have a particularly Canadian reference (remember the days of the great animated films of the Film Board?) but it certainly thumbs its nose at gravitas.
“Genuine Canadian Magazine” Carousel boasts, as a seal of approval. The submission guidelines emphasize nationalism, too. If there’s something playfully strident in all this, it’s also defensively necessary. Our northern neighbor can get overwhelmed by US.
Emerging from the University of Guelph, Carousel breathes an undergraduate air, an exuberance undeniably youthful.
The Great American Poetry Show
reviewed by Adam Peltz
Three very American elements of the anthology The Great American Poetry Show are found in the names and notes of the poets, themselves. The variety of poets’ names (eighty-four of them) offer diversity and an index of those who are among the contemporary circuit of submissions. The contributors’ notes offer an index of resources, which include a list of journals and small presses that have printed poems, and also patches of around the country from where the poets hail. Additionally, the reader learns that while some contributors hold advanced degrees and work within academia or are working towards it, still others have lifestyles outside of the university teaching world, as a therapist, farmer, conservationist, reference librarian, communications specialist, artist’s model, high school teacher, consultant, publisher, and as writers. And the personnel cover a range of generations, moving from twenty-somethings and students to one ninety-four year young contributor.
But getting away from that bit of life detail, in this collection of poets and poems, the editors aim to capture American poetry according to varied forms and techniques, much free verse and also a mingling of form with current language (anagram, couplets, concrete, use of allusions do make a curtain call). The majority of work comes across as personal verse, poems with a first person speaker that may hold a dose of real life truth, of the poet, though this cannot and should not be substantiated because a writer needs to be afforded the freedom of his speaker.
Topic
reviewed by Sheyene Heller
Topic is the sort of journal I would have never picked up on my own. As a young female professional, I am likely part of the target audience for a magazine such as this. But if I were basing my impressions solely on the covers of seven past issues, I would make a variety of assumptions about why this journal is not for me: a little too glitzy, a little too shock-for-shock’s sake, a little too contrived, a little too . . . not-literary. (This is, after all, Literary Magazine Review.) War, Fantasy, Cities, Fads, Prison, Food, Family—sure, they’re all “important topics.” But that does not necessarily make the contents of the journal “important” or even “literary.”
The front cover of Issue 8, the latest installment in Topic’s editorial escapades, promises the reader an interesting, self-aware, scary-but-playful romp exploring the topic of Sin. With white text against a surreal, nightmarish background—a dusky image of a blonde, her photograph riddled with bullet holes—the cover copy promises variety.
From Mormon homosexuality to Croat bigotry, from the confessions of a car salesman to the story of two incestuous Church-goers, this issue certainly doesn’t back away from its Topic. The journal is a little too glitzy, a little too shock-for-shock’s sake, a little too contrived, a little too . . . not-literary. I’m slipping my subscription card in the mail today.
New Magazines
by G.W. Clift and J.E. Roper
The Quiet Feather (£2. 50 single issue, one year four issues £9; Dominic Hall, St. Mary’s Cottage, Church St., Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria LA15 8BA, U.K.; editors@thequietfeather.co.uk; 8 x 6; saddlestitched, 32 unnumbered pp.) Issue 5 is the best printed, most disciplined production of the genus mimeo-mag that we’ve ever seen—and we go far enough back to remember the ones done on mimeograph machines in smelly, violet ink. Hippy, dippy affairs those were. QF itself was, according to an editorial foreword, inspired by Hay-on-Wye’s Green Man Festival, which offers music “slightly off the beaten track and a lot of fun, but packing a meaty and original artistic punch.”
QF’s fifth issue starts off, in fact, with a brief statement by Jo Bartlett (of It’s Jo and Danny) about the origin of the Green Man Festival. We got none of the references. Next is a cartoon by Miss Ping of Things in Herds. It shows pigs approaching a dark figure on a rise which the title, “The Battle of Horse & Pig,” suggests must be a giant horse. Third is David Gaffney’s essay about how one day, almost Thurber-like, he took over in a professional “counselor’s” office, talking with the depressed. Before he starts he thinks the texts are all bologna. After he has some success he decides, cryptically, that “Every piece of printed material ever produced contained a personal message for me.”
The first issue of Lorraine and James ($12 single issue, one year $27; Jasai Madden; 3227 W. Magnolia Blvd., Suite 406; Burbank, CA 91505, 818-256-4503; www.lorraineandjames.com; 6 x 9; perfect bound, satin, color cover, 192 pp.) looks generous in a way few literary magazines ever do. The leading makes the text look all but double-spaced. Each contribution has its own separate title page with a facsimile signature from its writer. What passes for contributors notes (actually they are explanations of the titles of included work along with the usual publication credits copy) and a few of the contributors’ book recommendations take up twenty of the ivory pages. And of course the type size is eye-friendly. We had to read the contributors’ notes to make certain some of the writers (for example, Daniel Jaffe and Jess Stuart) weren’t old time literary luminaries we knew early in our lives. Actually, though, their sort of contemporary graciousness prose would have told us.
