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December 7, 2017God, Zyzzyva! I need to get a subscription.
Highlights (mostly):
--"Right Angles", by Ben Greenman. I'm so sick of having to read about Trump, having to follow along with dissections of his behavior, having to be in his head. But this flash piece justifies its subject. It contains all we need to know about the man.
--"High," by Ru Freeman. Air travel = transcendence in this poem.
--"The Wedding Stray", by Andrew Martin. "Thirtysomething ennui" stories usually bore me, but this one held my attention. I think that's all there is to say about this story. Might be more than meets the eye, but probably not.
--"Good With Boys," by Kristen Iskandrian. Oh my goodness, this story is superb. She does such a cool sleight-of-hand with the child and adult perspectives conflated (the protagonist is in elementary school, but her perspective and internal monologue is decidedly more--well, not mature, exactly, but informed by experience beyond hers). The child's experience is very present and real and the pseudo-adult perspective is time-traveled backward into the body of the protagonist through subtle use of language. It got my heart beating.
--Cynthia White's poems actually made me want to buy a book of poetry (hers). Gorgeous with images straining at their edges with meaning.
--"Any Good Thing" by Andrew Magnan. Fairly devastating. Kinda out-Munro's Alice Munro. There are some missteps with the language, but it's an absolutely tense, engaging, depressing-as-fuck story.
--"The Hinge", by Sallie Tisdale. It starts slow, but by the end I was hit with such relation to the character, and so believed the character's perspective-switch on her depression (not to mention the language completely seduced me), that I recorded myself reading this story just so I could listen to it now and again, when I need it.
--"Prosody" by D.A. Powell is a tiny poem that has a perfect rhythm, a perfect marriage of form and message.
--"Ever Since the Cloverleaf" by Louis B. Jones caps the volume, and rightfully so: it's the best piece in here. It's a short film in the mind of both its characters and its readers. It gets you to believe in it while assuring you that really you can't believe in it. My Dinner With Andre if My Dinner With Andre were directed by Tarantino.
Highlights (mostly):
--"Right Angles", by Ben Greenman. I'm so sick of having to read about Trump, having to follow along with dissections of his behavior, having to be in his head. But this flash piece justifies its subject. It contains all we need to know about the man.
--"High," by Ru Freeman. Air travel = transcendence in this poem.
--"The Wedding Stray", by Andrew Martin. "Thirtysomething ennui" stories usually bore me, but this one held my attention. I think that's all there is to say about this story. Might be more than meets the eye, but probably not.
--"Good With Boys," by Kristen Iskandrian. Oh my goodness, this story is superb. She does such a cool sleight-of-hand with the child and adult perspectives conflated (the protagonist is in elementary school, but her perspective and internal monologue is decidedly more--well, not mature, exactly, but informed by experience beyond hers). The child's experience is very present and real and the pseudo-adult perspective is time-traveled backward into the body of the protagonist through subtle use of language. It got my heart beating.
--Cynthia White's poems actually made me want to buy a book of poetry (hers). Gorgeous with images straining at their edges with meaning.
--"Any Good Thing" by Andrew Magnan. Fairly devastating. Kinda out-Munro's Alice Munro. There are some missteps with the language, but it's an absolutely tense, engaging, depressing-as-fuck story.
--"The Hinge", by Sallie Tisdale. It starts slow, but by the end I was hit with such relation to the character, and so believed the character's perspective-switch on her depression (not to mention the language completely seduced me), that I recorded myself reading this story just so I could listen to it now and again, when I need it.
--"Prosody" by D.A. Powell is a tiny poem that has a perfect rhythm, a perfect marriage of form and message.
--"Ever Since the Cloverleaf" by Louis B. Jones caps the volume, and rightfully so: it's the best piece in here. It's a short film in the mind of both its characters and its readers. It gets you to believe in it while assuring you that really you can't believe in it. My Dinner With Andre if My Dinner With Andre were directed by Tarantino.
Displaying 1 of 1 review