Ploughshares Spring 2020

by Tracy K. Smith, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Dawn Lundy Martin

The Spring 2020 Issue. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Since 1971, Ploughshares has discovered and cultivated the freshest voices in contemporary American literature, and remains prescient in the digital age by providing readers with thoughtful and entertaining literature in a variety of formats. Find out why the New York Times named Ploughshares “the Triton among minnows.” As guest-editor Tracy K. Smith writes in her introduction, “I know the most urgent work ahead—for my daughter and for me—lies in striking the balance between fear, hope, and the willingness to keep at it...That’s the conversation—about what we fear, and what in light of our fear we must do—in which the many writerly voices gathered here seem to be engaged.” Featuring poetry and prose by Kirstin Valdez Quade, Dawn Lundy Martin, Denise Duhamel, Roger Reeves, Brenda Hillman, and many others.

Genres: Short Stories, Poetry, Fiction

233 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 12, 2020

About the author

Tracy K. Smith is the author of Wade in the Water; Life on Mars, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award; and The Body’s Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She is also the editor of an anthology, American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, and the author of a memoir, Ordinary Light, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. From 2017 to 2019, Smith served as Poet Laureate of the United States. She teaches at Princeton University.

Reviews

[Lea Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Spring 2020 Edition of Ploughshares really delivered on the poetry front. The crazy thing about poetry is how many different feelings and looks you can get in reading a handful of poems. Perhaps it seems like you could read them faster than a novel, but when you switch to a new poem you have to recalibrate your brain and expectations and feelings every time.

This edition had some great poems. Some of my favorites:

Beer Run by Jared Harel
Love Song with Contradictions by Ellen Kombiyil
Daughter by Danusha Lameris - "I always wanted a daughter, which is to say, I wanted a better self" wow.
Slither by Danusha Lameris - "That was when I knew I'd become a stranger to the world."
After the Funeral by Roger Reeves

As for Fiction
The West We Leave by Kailyn McCord was a post apocalyptic tale of an abandoned California following massive and sustaining earthquakes. I always love a good tale that imagines what will happen if the world completely changes.

Dead Horn by Kirstin Valdez Quade was a great story about a family coping in the aftermath of a parent's death and the way circumstances can bend familial roles when trying to account for an absence.

Plastic Knives by Koye Oyedeji was so intriguing in its development of the story about an elderly lady waiting for her caregiver to take her to the park, but gets a completely different unexpected visitor.

And finally, in Nonfiction

What Money Can't Buy by Dawn Lundy Martin about a back to school shopping trip between an aunt and her nieces. What is the role of a prosperous aunt to her nieces living in less than ideal circumstances? How much will one shopping trip change their outlook and expectations for life?

[A-ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very poetry heavy this one. I've reached the point where I don't read much of the poetry in these collections anymore. It's just sifting through endless pages looking for something that hits me emotionally, and rarely finding anything. The prose was fine in this one. Dawn Lundy Martin's "What Money Can't Buy" was a fantastic essay on class. Syndey Tammarine's "Blue hour" was also affecting.

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites: The West We Leave, What Money Can’t Buy, Blue Hour, Interior Scroll, Beautiful Now, & Deracinations: Seven Sonigrams.

[William Mego · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of very good short stories in this one.

[Lynn Wohlwend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guess this isn't listed in Goodreads just yet, but I was adding it to my meager total come hell or high water. Plus, I loved it. Tracy K. Smith edited a mighty fine edition. Most of the poems just plain ol' delighted me and I loved the stories and essays. I read "Plastic Knives" twice and it was well worth it. You can see the author's wonderful plot choices in the second read. Anyway: Great one to pick up.