davidkm

Paper Crow, volume 1 issue 2 (Fall/Winter 2010), bi-annual, $5/issue or $8/year. Saddle stitched, card-stock cover, 32 p. ISSN 2152-9116. www.electrikmilkbathpress.com.

I don't often review periodicals, but this is not the first time. Paper Crow is a fairly new genre poetry zine, and it's very nice. In fact, about several of the poems in this magazine I thought "she should have submitted that one to me!" 26 poems by 25 authors in 32 pages and they are all good.

This is a passionate magazine. There are poems about love, lust, and death, and in no case are these subjects treated lightly. These poems have weight, and it's not ballast.

From "The diluted soldier," by Marge Simon

Sometimes he sees in perpetuity
memories of a lover,
returns to it again and again,
something that can't be soiled by words,
even those in confidence a moment or so

From "In the garden with my lover," Pam Marin-Kingsley

The tulip shoots emerge,
force their way upward.
Their tips in bud as straight
and pink as his.

There is a commonality among the poems in this magazine. Things are not always as they seem. In fact, they usually aren't. As Jane Gwaltney says in "The Lady and the Mirror"

Quietly, she punishes her knuckles,
not once, but twice – positive that
illusion is all it's cracked up to be.

One thing I find very interesting about Paper Crow is that the poems are all very personal. They seem so full of emotion, most of them are about relationships, and it certainly seems like they must have been very close to the hearts of their authors. Why, then, is the name of the editor printed nowhere in the magazine? Perhaps this is an oversight. If not, I can't make out the purpose, but it's certainly unusual.

Never mind all that, though. We don't really read poetry magazines for the editor anyway, we read them for the poems. If you're thinking about what to pick up next, Paper Crow is a good choice. You won't have to give up anything, except perhaps your equanimity.

From "Drinking," by Brian Rosenberger

Forget the cab, call the hearse
brunette blind dates the coroner now
Both running on empty

I've quoted a few poems; I can't quote them all. Other names you will recognize include Donna Burgess, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, James S. Dorr, Jaime Lee Moyer, and Bruce Boston. I think in every case Paper Crow has gotten close to the best these poets have to offer. But enough of this, go order the magazine already.

Lone Star Stories 29 (http://literary.erictmarin.com/archives/Issue%2029/issue_29.htm), as is usual for this publication, contains three short stories and three poems. The lead story is "The toymaker's grief" by Hal Duncan. It is a recursive tale, in which the fantastic elements slip in somewhere near the middle of the story. The accompanying illustration is quite simple, and charmingly appropriate in this story about the simplicity of complexity. Curiously, although Duncan's story has the feel of a folk tale that might have been at home in a book your grandmother read from at bedtime, the setting is contemporary, or nearly so. I found this a little offputting. I expected the story to be set in the 18th century or earlier. I don't think the only problem here was my expectation. Nobody makes a good living making wooden toys by hand in this day and age.

"This is how we remember" by Jaime Lee Moyer is a powerful tale of sharing and memory. Like "The toymaker's grief," Moyer's story is about grief. Unlike Duncan's offering, Moyer's story is a braid in which grief is only one strand. In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I know Jaime well and have published some of her poetry. This story reveals to me a new aspect of her writing, which is characterized by strengths that simply don't apply to poetry.

Darkness held the sounds of day in suspended animation, the constant shrill screech of birds and monkeys replaced by soft trills of tree frogs and the monotone buzz of crickets. Even the village dogs slept at this hour, curled up on woven mats in front of each house.



I ... flopped onto my cot, bunching the pillow under my head. Clouds, tattered as old lace curtains, veiled the moon, hiding his grief. Mist filled the space between stars. At some point I closed my eyes and dreamed for the first time in days. Dreams of leaping shadows stretching across the ground, of drums and flames reaching for the sky.

I look forward to seeing more of her fiction.

The last story in this issue of Lone Star Stories is "Needle and thread" by Ann Leckie (http://www.annleckie.com/) and Rachel Swirsky (http://www.rachelswirsky.com/). This is a standard story of how mortal power, the Sidhe, and ordinary folk interact. Once again, grief plays a big role. Here, as in "This is how we remember," grief shows up as something to be overcome. The story is uplifted by skillful characterization and a richness of storytelling not common even in prestigious periodicals. However, because nothing here is really surprising or unfamiliar, this story had the potential to be much better.

And now for the poetry. One can read the 6 items that comprise Lone Star Stories in any order, but the 3 stories are listed first, followed by the 3 poems. This is the order in which I read them, and I believe this is the order in which almost everybody reads. So, on to the poetry.

"Seven steeds" by Elizabeth Bear (http://www.elizabethbear.com/) is layered in allusion. This is the norm for good poetry, but this poem has no real surface layer. If you don't "get" this one, you have nothing. So read it again, slowly. It will be worth the effort. In "What the stars tell," Rusty Barnes (http://www.rustybarnes.com/) sugar-coats a pill. The pill is a warning and, well, maybe the coat's not so sweet after all. I should mention that I disagree with the poem's thesis. Although I don't think one has to agree with a poem to like it. But both of these first two are mainstream poems written about genre subjects and I don't particularly care for such things. That's my personal prejudice; they aren't bad poems. Sonya Taaffe, "Logos." This is the last and most accessible of the three poems in this issue. Sonya Taaffe is the perfect person to write a poem about words, and about people who think about words.

who might never have laid
            ten words together in his life, but his memory
            browses on them like blood.

If those aren't shiversome words about a librarian, I don't know what are!

I also don't know why Eric Marin chooses such different works in poetry and in prose for Lone Star Stories. The stories are as direct as narrative can be; the poems play Twister™ with your mind. Maybe it's the same aesthetic principle that made sweet and sour sauce a staple of Chinese cooking. Can't say it's a bad thing, but I'm afraid these poems might appeal to a completely different set of people than those who particularly enjoy the stories.

Every piece of writing in this magazine is accompanied by an illustration. The illustrations don't detract from the words, but, for me, they don't add much either. The biggest effect any of them had was a photograph of running horses that accompanied "seven steeds." Count them as often as I may, I get either six or five. Does this mean anything? Nothing, except I was distracted rather than focused or enlightened.