The Kenyon Review Winter 2023 features short stories, essays, poetry, and visual art, with a folio focusing on bridges and how people/connections/moments can be bridges for other things. This issue has a few fascinating stories, one of which is called ‘Block Party’, by Danny Lang-Perez, which features a magical man who can cook/make anything from his mobile kitchen and his son, Charles, who people adore. When Charles doesn’t appear one night because his mother asked him not to help, the neighborhood goes crazy, throwing things at the man and running him out of their cul-de-sac. It’s an interesting way to look at how the entitled treat workers, and what happens when things don’t go their way. I also enjoyed the language in ‘Eight Poems’ by Abbas Kiarostami and ‘The Orphanage’ by Emeline Atwood. Though, everything else felt a little lackluster.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
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The Best American Poetry 2022 is a selection of poetry guest edited by Matthew Zapruder with poems from Ada Límon, Ocean Vuong, Louise Glück, and Diane Seuss, among others. Most, if not all the poems, featured meditations on the affect of the pandemic, the loneliness/isolation it brought, and how daily life was interpreted. There were poems, such as ‘Goblin’ by Matthew Dickman, which showed how thin the line between care and abuse is and what that power meant to the speaker. And in this way, Dickman, upon saying, “There are so many ways/to eat the young.” recognizes and fears how his actions can change his child’s view of him. Or take Robin Myers’s poem, ‘Diego de Montemayor’, which finds Myers at a weird crossroads, knowing their ancestor oversaw a massacre, and still recognizing that ancestor as a part of their family. And, of course, how can I not forget Ocean Vuong’s, ‘Reason for Staying’, with the immaculate line, “Because my uncle never killed himself—but simply died, on purpose.” There were certainly high points, but after reading the bios, the writers did seem homogonous in their backgrounds, from which I would’ve liked to see more diversity.
Final Rating: 3.5/5 The Best American Short Stories 2011 is a collection of short stories selected by Geraldine Brooks. The stories range from a scifi story about a love drug to a whole town hibernating every winter. There are some stories that stick out boldly such as ‘The Sleep’ by Caitlin Horrocks, ‘Out of Body’ by Jennifer Egan, ‘Phantoms’ by Steven Millhause, and ‘Dog Bites’ by Ricardo Nuila. Though, I was underwhelmed by the more well-known authors in this collection such as Joyce Carol Oates and George Saunders. Oates’s story focuses on a daughter who can’t identify her mother’s body, and while an interesting premise, I didn’t enjoy the voice. It wasn’t as vibrant or as specific as other authors. And George Saunders’s story about the love drug opened too quickly and the drug names/scenes fell too easily within scifi tropes for it to land or for me to take it seriously. Though, I think ‘Out of Body’ was a gem in the way it dealt with suicide, friendships, college, and relationships. It was also interesting to see that within the Contributor notes, many of the stories came directly from personal experience.
Final Rating: 3/5 The Kenyon Review July/Aug 2022 is a collection of poetry, non-fiction, and short stories, with a folio focusing on mothers reflecting on the climate crisis. There is anger and grief in the issue, which bleeds through its non-fiction, particularly in ‘To Live Again’ by Aliyeh Ateaei translated by Salar Abdoh. The story is about a mother trying to teach her son about her home in Afghanistan and why they had to flee to Iran. I absolutely loved the way the language held so much weight and how she treats her son with tenderness. And one of its final lines aches with meaning as her son says, ‘”Next time I’ll try to be born as oil”’. I was also a fan of the short story ‘Still Life with Lobster’ by Timothy Reynolds with its sharp use of imagery. Overall, I enjoyed the pressing discussions of climate change, but couldn’t quite connect with the poetry.
Final Rating: 3.5/5 Granta: Conflict Issue 160 is a collection of essays, fiction, memoir, photography, and poetry focusing on the themes of war and conflict. It mainly resides and contemplates the war in Ukraine and how that affects the people and places there. The stories and essays are about fasting, divorce, mental illness, assault, and moments of turmoil. The harrowing accounts of Ukrainian citizens in ‘Letters from Ukraine’ by Lindsey Hilsum displays the humanity and terror that is currently occurring. I was also drawn in by the narrative Suzanne Scanlon brings in ‘The Moving Target of Being’ which is urgent and frank. It contemplates the struggles of having a mental illness and checking into a psychiatric hospital. The issue looks at the victims of what war and conflict can create, and how each person deals with it differently.
Final Rating: 3/5 The Kenyon Review Sept/Oct 2022 is a collection of poems, short stories, and essays, some of which by young writers. The poetry in this issue is strong and I enjoyed ‘Diptych on Getting from Point A to Point B’ by Myra Kamal, ‘Blue Peony’ by Peter LaBerge, ‘Pandemic Dog’ by Alison Powell, ‘Splinter’ by Marney Rathbun, and ‘This Is Just To Say’ by Laura Cresté. Though, I was particularly drawn to the short story ‘Porn Star’ by Sena Moon which focuses on a girl who sees her neighbor masturbate and tells the rest of her class. The dynamic between the two characters was interesting to watch unfold. Overall, its poetry stood out as something to return to.
Final Rating: 4/5 The Paris Review Issue 240 is a collection of poetry, prose, and interviews with many of the short stories focusing on queer life. I particularly enjoyed the story ‘Descent’ by Harriet Clark which is about a boy whose mother is in a prison on a mountain for being a getaway driver. I liked the way the son’s relationship between his mother and grandmother begins to fray. I also enjoyed the story ‘Ira & The Whale’ by Rachel B. Glaser, which is about a gay man who is slowly dying in the stomach of a whale. It uses the initial premise of the Noah and The Whale narrative but spins it in a modern and enjoyable way. And finally, I found the heartbreaking nonfiction piece ‘About Ed’ by Robert Glück to have immense depth. Though, the rest of the issue didn’t feel as strong as those three narratives.
Final Rating: 3.5/5 The September 2022 issue of Poetry is a collection of poems interested in the idea of monuments, real or imagined, and how that affects our understanding of the world. There are moments in the issue, particularly the poems by A. Van Jordan, which see monuments in people, those who were killed, and the affect they have on the public. The poems observe and exist in a life caused by war, the aftermath of police brutality, and what comes of being. The poems I enjoyed were ‘poem’ by Mansi Dahal, ‘Section 267C [Ars Poetica]’ by Janelle Tan, ‘I do not mention the war in my birthplace to my six-year-old son but somehow his body knows’ by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, ‘Missed Calls’ by Christopher Shipman, and ‘Airsoft’ by A. Van Jordan. I loved and ached from the lines written by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, “He isn’t asking/anymore. He is making me/monument. You would still be/if I cut you in half.” They are angry poems, poems that contain much more than themselves, and it felt like this issue resonated with me much more than other Poetry issues.
Final Rating: 4.5/5 The Kenyon Review May/June 2022 is a collection of prose and poetry that looks at life after the pandemic and in relation to nature. This issue had some intricate stories, namely, ‘The Arm of the Lord’, by David Crouse, and ‘Burning’, by Uche Okonkwo. Some of the poetry that captured me was, ‘Escape & Energy’, by Brenda Hillman, and ‘Mercy Me’, by Corrie Williamson.
Though the story that I felt was the strongest was ‘Happy Is a Doing Word’, by Arinze Ifeakandu which follows two boys who are learning about themselves and their queerness in relation to the rest of their community. I loved the way the voice of the story bleeds through the pages, and how the anger, frustration, sadness, and joy play out as the boys are outed to their parents and friends. It is a captivating story that worked to give dimension to queer experience. Final Rating: 4/5 The October 2005 issue of Poetry contains mostly mediocre poems with a few shining lights. This issue felt like it relied too heavily on poems that fit within rigid rhyming schemes (which isn’t in itself bad, but it more or less felt stale). Though, I thoroughly enjoyed the poems by J.D. Whitney and Amit Majmudar. I was particularly fond of the poem ‘The Miscarriage’ by Amit Majmudar which ended on the lines, “our bodies folded shut our bodies closed/around hope like a book preserving petals/a book we did not open till the morning when/we found hope dry and brittle but intact”.
Final Rating: 3/5 |
AuthorMaxwell Suzuki is a writer, poet, and photographer based in Los Angeles. Archives
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