The Wickedest by Caleb Femi is a collection of poems which follows the happenings of a house party in south London in one night. I particularly liked the poems ‘Pass the Aux’, ‘Fredrick Stick Talks in Another Dimension’, ‘myth says South London boys don’t dance’, and ‘Brenda gives a pep talk to Abu’. The poems exude an energy of the house party, throwing away the idea of responsibility, and letting loose. Though, near the end, there’s a solemnness to the collection where Femi writes, “The stubborn weight of our giggling skulls/painted in your years./Remember us well.” A firecracker of a collection.
Final Rating: 4/5
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Tin House Issue 60 is a collection of poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and interviews. Most notably, they interviewed Karl Ove Knausgaard on his six-book series autobiography. I also particularly enjoyed the fiction in this issue, ‘About My Aunt’ by Joan Silber, ‘When We Realize We Are Broke’ by Manuel Gonzales, ‘Before the Bombing’ by Jonathan Lee, and ‘Primal Scenes’ by Kenneth Calhoun. Though, I think the story that was the most haunting, dark, but needed was Adam Johnson’s ‘Dark Meadow’. I liked this issue, and found myself enraptured by the interview with Karl Ove Knausgaard.
Final Rating: 4/5 The Iowa Review Winter 2023/24 is a collection of poetry, essays, and short stories. This issue had some really strong short stories that I particularly liked. The first was ‘Invisibilia’ by Tom Howard which features a family on the brink of divorce while all the family members either start to become invisible or shrink. I was also a big fan of ‘Family Video’ by Gracie Newman where two brothers take their grandmother’s old VHS tapes to a video rental store, fighting and remembering the love and abuse of their grandmother. There was ‘Human Resources’ by Brynne Jones which is about a woman working a corporate job when a strange girl appears at her door and as the story goes on, the girl becomes younger until she’s just an egg. And finally, I really enjoyed ‘Rifleman’ by Alex Burchfield about a Home Depot manager who befriends one of his workers, Andromeda/Andy, before a shoplifter comes into the store with a gun. For me, the stories in this issue really packed a punch, treading sometimes into the surreal.
Final Rating: 4/5 The Last Troubadour by David St. John is a collection of new and selected poems centered around the loss of friends and lovers with a strong tilt toward nature. I particularly enjoyed the poem ‘A Hard & Nobler Patience’ with the stanza, “& when her body was found she was so/Preserved by the icy currents/That even her eyelashes seemed to quiver/Beneath my breath”. Another poem I liked was ‘Stories’ in which the speaker recounts three stories that his lover had told him before she died. Overall, I liked the imagery and language of this collection.
Final Rating: 3.5/5 New Ohio Review Issue 34 is a collection of poetry, short stories, essays and reviews. I particularly enjoyed ‘visiting the Natural History Museum with my 97-Year-Old Dad’ by Michael Mark, ‘The Hair Cutting’ by Ockert Greeff, ‘In Our Nature’ by Sunni Brown Wilkinson, ‘My Body is a Cemetery’ by Eliza Sullivan, ‘Pantoum’ by Maria Martin, and ‘Kate Sessions Park’ by Bruce McKay. In ‘Kate Sessions Park’, McKay describes a girl, Fatima, who helps an intellectually disabled girl, Cici. When Fatima and the speaker bring Cici to a junior lifeguarding event, Cici pees herself, which causes Fatima to drive her to a beach 90 miles away, effectively getting her fired from helping Cici. It’s a raw story that works with the speaker’s sense of observations and intuitions.
Final Rating; 3.5/5 A Cold Winter from Idaho by Lawrence Matsuda is a collection of poems detailing his family’s experience during World War II as Japanese Americans were forced to relocate to an internment camps. It follows Matsuda’s childhood in Minidoka as well as reflecting on the crimes America had committed on its citizens during the war. I enjoyed poems such as ‘1942 Nightmare’, ‘Too Young to Remember’, and ‘Arc de Triomphe, 2003 Invasion of Iraq’. Though, as a reader having a base understanding of Japanese American culture, I felt at points the language and images catered to a white audience. Many of the Japanese terms are italicized, which signals to the audience that those words are exotic or different. And in the poem ‘Go Game’, one stanza reads, “Thumps and slaps transform/gohan into mochi,/a gooey white blob,/for the New Year’s Day’s feast.” While technically fine, the poem assumes the reader doesn’t know what mochi is, taking precious space to explain. Another instance can be found in ‘The Noble Thing’ where a line says, “Gaman, ‘endure the unbearable with dignity.’” It’s not that these ideas shouldn’t be mentioned, but rather their desire to be defined within the poem accepts the conceit that the reader doesn’t know these things. And the people who are less likely to know are folks that aren’t Japanese American. Also, there’s a recurring image of samurai that parallels the soldiers of the 442nd, and while I understand this connection, I would’ve liked one with more dimension and a little more complexity. It was an interesting read, however I felt disconnected from the intended audience.
Final Rating: 3/5 Grief Sequence by Prageeta Sharma is a collection of poems about the loss of her husband, Dale, due to esophageal cancer. It’s a painful, though important look at how or what a person is supposed to do with the grief they have. I particularly enjoyed, ‘Complicated Spiritual Grief, Part 1’, ‘Sequence 7’, and ‘Returning to Our Creation Myth’. There are moments where the speaker takes Dale’s medication away because they are being over prescribed or sending Dale’s ashes down a river. In the poem, ‘March Wind’, I was floored by what Sharma writes, “I learn that there are two winters and two early springs happening at the same time and I have to turn one season to the other to get past their painful awakenings. It’s just a snow patch. It’s still melting.”
Final Rating: 4/5 The Florida Review 47.2 features a collection of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction of which I enjoyed a few. I particularly liked ‘Antidote’ by Ben Kline, ‘Indulgences’ by Garrett Biggs, ‘Elegy with Snake Twisting my Blistered Tongue’ by Alejandro Lucero, ‘Suspended in Flight’ by Diane Gottlieb, ‘OWLS’ by Kathryn Campo Bowen, and ‘A Chest of Drawers’ by Jason Brown. I liked the flow of ‘OWLS’ in the way that the two men try to find their friend, Vanessa, after a night drinking where she wanted to have sex with one of the men. All the characters are studying law, with the speaker planning to write a novel but it never comes to fruition. In the end, they find Vanessa, as she is not lost, and is annoyed they went looking for her. I found this collection to be a generally solid read.
Final Rating: 3.5/5 The Greensboro Review Spring 2024 contains a few stories and poems that I found interesting. First was the story, ‘Trailer Park Gothic’ by Josh Bell, then ‘Mantis’ by Daniel S.C. Sutter, and finally the story, ‘Interiors’ by Leah Yacknin-Dawson. They all had intriguing and memorable characters and I particularly liked the sibling relationship in ‘Interiors’. I also enjoyed the poem ‘February: A Dictionary’ by Weijia Par with the lines “I know every inch of my body/is a danger to no one; I like history; my great-grandpa/survived all the wars for me.” A fine issue.
Final Rating: 3.5/5 Iron Horse Literary Review 26.1 is a collection of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and interviews. The story I enjoyed the most in this issue was ‘All B’s and One C’ by Patrick Font which details the life of a flunking student trying to get by in summer school. He takes weed from his father’s stash and sells it to his classmates. I liked how the voice of Joey comes through, the way he views María, and the lengths he will go to cover for himself.
Final Rating: 3/5 |
AuthorMaxwell Suzuki is a writer, poet, and photographer based in Los Angeles. Archives
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