In a society where we constantly apply filters to images, swipe on them, and leave comments underneath them, the collection of poems in the Summer & Fall 2018 issue of Poetry Northwest offers uncropped views of the realities often diluted in today’s world. The issue, although hailing from the northwestern corner of the United States, is comprised of poetry by more than fifty contributors from all over the country,…
Candid and Perceptive Essays: The Devil Says Maybe I Like It by Wendy Bourgeois
The Devil Says Maybe I Like It (Propeller Books, 2018) by Wendy Bourgeois is seventy-four pages of funny, thought-provoking, and fulfilling prose. Each of the seventeen essays in this brief and lovely book offer meaningful and challenging bits of wisdom and humor. An hour and a half into my reading, I found myself inspired to compose my own “Public Apology for Lack of Sexual Integrity,” armed with…
Uncomfortable Intimacies: Virginia Quarterly Review’s Summer 2018 Issue
There are many ways to tear a person apart, and the stories and poems within Virginia Quarterly Review’s Summer 2018 issue prod and poke at the external and internal causes. From Hannah Louise Poston’s nonfiction about a scandal in the beauty community to Kaveh Akbar’s poems that feed the unknown, the writers in this issue of VQR capture the unrest in our current American climate. Part of the appeal…
Taking Back Agency: A Review of Tin House Magazine’s Poison Issue
In the midst of the #MeToo movement, Tin House’s poison-themed issue addresses the uncomfortable and toxic times we live in. In this collection, many of the stories, essays, and poems show the struggles women face and the ways they take back agency of their own bodies, making Tin House‘s Fall 2018 issue more important than ever in America’s current political climate. In her essay “Intrusions,” Melissa Febos recounts…
Raw and Humorous Realities: A Review of Taddle Creek (Summer, 2018)
Taddle Creek is a semiannual Toronto, Canada-based literary magazine that proudly proclaims itself as “an odd mix, to be sure, which is why Taddle Creek refers to itself somewhat oddly as a ‘general-interest literary magazine.’” This description could not be more accurate. The magazine’s Summer, 2018 issue reveals a hodgepodge of content, including fiction, poetry, cooking recipes, comics, and historically-educating essays. The raw humor throughout the summer issue is…