Short Circuits: Aphorisms, Fragments and Literary Anomalies

by James Lough (Editor), Alex Stein (Editor)

Following up on the success of their first anthology of aphorisms, Short Flights, editors James Lough and Alex Stein have returned with a new volume that expands on the theme of aphorisms to include other short form writing and concrete poetry and prose from several of the world's leading, award-winning, and bestsellling writers in the genre, including Charles Simic, Lydia Davis, Sarah Manguso, Jane Hirschfield, Joy Harjo, Yahia Labadidi, Claudia Rankine, and Stephen Dobyns.

Genres: Short Stories, Poetry

384 pages, Paperback

Published April 16, 2018

Reviews

[Angelina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aphorisms was a new type of poetry to me, and like all poetry types, some spoke to me in deeply personal ways and others not so much. What I love most about this genre is that it says the unsayable in a different way than other poetry genres--it's in your face, down to earth short pieces that are incredibly quotable. I met several poets that I will now be looking for their other books.

One thing I really loved was the format of this book. Each "chapter" began with a brief interview where the poet gave some insight into his or her process, work habits, or relationship with writing. These mini-essays broke up the poetry with beautiful prose passages that made the poets feel like friends.

One of my new favorite books.

[Audrey]

I find anthologies particularly difficult to rate but this one was interesting. As someone who is a novice when it comes to reading poetry and didn't even know aphorisms were a thing before reading this, I found this book well-composed with lots of variety. Some of the works were a bit too abstract and out there for me but others I extremely enjoyed. My favorite authors were Lily Akerman, Ana Maria Shua, and especially Paul Portuges. Emily Peck was also interesting.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

We should all thank James Lough for Short Circuits! It's profoundly enriching and inspiring. I honestly feel like I'm cheating when I'm reading it, like I'm just harvesting the fruits of Lough's labor. It's great.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for a writing class to work on writing short pieces. It was a fun read.