​The Kenyon Review Spring 2023 is a collection of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations which heavily focused on translations edited by Jennifer Croft, Jeremy Tiang, and Anton Hur. Overall, I thought it was a decent issue, and there were some wacky stories, such as ‘Tumbleweed’ by Ao Omae and translated by Emily Balistrieri which follows the life of a movie star tumbleweed who had once been a person. Another strange story was ‘The Aspiration for Cha-Ka-Ta-Pa’ by Bae Myung-Hoon and translated by Sung Ryu which is about a futuristic time where people go to a library to be immersed in life of the 2020’s and the language/spelling is not like I’ve seen before. There were two stories that I enjoyed which were ‘A Field Guide to the Bear-Men of Leningrad’ by Sam J. Miller and ‘Two-Headed Dog’ by J. T. Sutlive. The first story features a town in which people fear bear-men who come in at night and eat the villagers, but it turns out that the speaker realizes they’re one of the bear-men. And the second story is about two men, one American who teaches English, the other a Japanese man who works construction/clean-up after a tsunami. The two men are gay and grow close and have an on/off relationship. And I enjoyed the subtlety of the emotions between the two when one of them grieves the loss of his brother in the tsunami. Overall, I enjoyed the short stories, albeit they were a little weird, but didn’t connect too much with the poetry.
 
Final Rating: 3/5

​sin cesar Issue 12 is a collection of poetry, nonfiction, fiction, interviews, and Spanish translations focused on and about the LA diasphonic experience. The issue featured poems I enjoyed, such as ‘Future Aztec Palimpsest’ by Magally Zelaya, ‘quien decide what a border is’ by Sandra Sanchez, and ‘Zapotec’ by Hermelinda Monjaras Hernandez. Though, I was struck by the intensity and rawness of Tongo Eisen-Martin’s poem ‘Repeating’, and was absolutely floored by the lines, “Young man,/You will admit/That sometimes/Suicide is power/Some people live stronger as ghosts”. It’s a punchy issue, and I enjoyed the succinctness and power in each piece.
 
Final Rating: 4/5