The Asheville Poetry Review

The 2008 Asheville Poetry Review is here! And it begins with an essay by its editor, Keith Flynn:

"The Imagination As A Redemptive Force"

FIFTEEN YEARS OF LISTENING

“The poem I want to write is impossible: a stone that floats.”
—Charles Simic


When the first issue of Asheville Poetry Review was released in
June 1994, the price of a gallon of gas was 1.05. The #1 song in
America was Whitney Houston’s cover of the Dolly Parton ballad,
“I Will Always Love You.” Kurt Cobain had shoved a shotgun in
his mouth and joined the immortals in April, the same month that
800,000 people were massacred in Rwanda. In late June, O. J.
Simpson was arrested for the murders of his estranged wife and her
friend. Richard Nixon and Jackie O left their mortal coils mere
months apart. For the first time in history, chain bookstores would
outsell independent stores. “Pulp Fiction” and “Forrest Gump”
were all the rage at the cinema, and the word “spam” was coined
to recognize the glut of promotional ads that would flood the
fledgling internet. In the 15 years that we have been publishing the
Review, the American population has grown by 50 million people.
Our own distribution has gone from three local stores to more than
600 in 35 states and six foreign countries. We have published more
than 1300 writers from 22 different nationalities, and receive over
8000 submissions a year. In this issue alone, there are eleven differ-
ent languages represented and poets hailing from nineteen states.
The world has grow considerably smaller, and faster, and as the
rest of the world catches up to American convenience, those cul-
tures too fall prey to our addictions. (to be continued...)




(Keith Flynn in Wales)

If you want to finish reading this introduction, which is well worth doing, go to your local bookstore to find a copy of the Asheville Poetry Review --and if they don't carry it, then ask them to do so---or buy yourself a subscription. Better yet, also buy some of your friends Christmas gift subscriptions!

If you are still undecided, then here are some poems from the new issue.

-------
Michael Boccardo

Edward Hopper’s “Room in New York”

Early evening, a man and a woman sit inside a room
the size of a heartbeat, the walls lit like honey. He is leaning

into his own shadow, elbows balanced on knees, thumbing
through the classifieds. Smudges of ink bruise his palms,

petals of purple hibiscus. Moments ago a slipper of glass held a clutch
of flowers on the small table between them—pinwheels of hydrangea,

daffodil, snapdragon—but the woman grew frightened of them,
their thirsty faces tilted upward, always huddled together

on the brittle stalks of their necks like children, imploring and expectant.
She tossed them over the window ledge where they landed like crayons

along the sooty pavement nine stories below. Afterwards, she drifted
to the piano, her dress blazing down her legs like the stain left

from a ripe plum. Another hour will pass this way: heads bowed,
bodies rocking in place, his tie a loosened cord, sleeves unrolled; her hair

cradled in a stiff knot at the nape of her neck, fingers dragging
the keys. Around them, notes stroke the silence, a lullaby of regret

tucking them in for the night, their gaze flat, hollowed, lingering
in opposite corners of the room like ruined blossoms.

(Michael recently won the Greensboro Writers Guild poetry competition. He's a new voice in NC poetry, so keep your eye out for his work.)



And here is the 4th section of my own "Searcher," based on an entry from the Forgotten English Calender of a few years back.

Searcher:

A woman employed to inspect the dress of a corpse, to ascertain whether
the law for the protection of the woolen trade had been violated by robing
the body in any other material.
—Anne Baker’s Glossar y of Nor thhamptonshire Words and Phrases, 1854

The sequence is spoken in the voice of such a woman.

4.

I wander the land
when I need something more
than the scriptures give,
words I cannot understand.

Here I read what the hawthorne
portends, what the flight
of a dragonfly signifies,
what wind withholds in its bellows.

Clouds clot and tangle
like wool before carding.
I watch them stirred
into the indigo dye pot

of sky where they bubble
and swirl while I lift up
my face to the sun
just a little while longer,

for I understand how
the earth waits,
so patiently, under
my good Sunday boots.
**********************************************


(Glenis Redmond)

p.1 9 0 from Sebastian Matthews's review of Glenis Redmond's "Under the Sun."

And thus Under the Sun presents Redmond’s mature work. These
poems get the audience on their feet, sure, but they also bring this
reader in. She has lowered her voice a little; she has dug deep.
Here are the openings lines to “Burying the Dead”:

Through Kenilworth
runs an Indian trail,
a forested hill
I could call my own,
I don’t.
Not too far from downtown
living beneath the tangled brush
a cemetery of slaves merge with the Cherokee and their trail
unmarked lines carrying both streams of blood
that courses unceasingly through my veins.
Both trails have found my heart
intersecting where spirit meets bone
and I have taken to walking the block
putting down feet and prayer
on both foreign and familiar ground.

Redmond is at her passionate, clear-eyed best in poems like this,
where she addresses a loved one and speaks her truth both as a
daughter and as a wise woman.

----------------------



Well, still not persuaded? Then, here's a partial table of contents! The rest of it you will have to find for yourself.

William Matthews-- Living By The Long River: Interviews • 81
Lauren Lawrence --The Climbers Of Mount Everest • 107
For The Schoolgirls Who Died In The Chinese
Earthquake • 108
Janice Lierz --Training Camp • 109
Ray McManus --The Gospel As Acid Reflux • 110
Ana Minga --Dogs of Tobacco V • 111
Lorentzos Mavilis --Lethe • 112
Connie Jordan Green --Varied Philosophies: A Review of New Books by
Bill Brown, David Lawrence and Richard Chess • 113
Darren Morris --Tractor-Jacking • 120
Harry Newman --Crystal Lake • 121
Simon Perchik * • 122
Carol Peters --The First Rabbit • 123
Carl Phillips --Lighting The Lamps • 124
Luke Hankins --Riding Westward: An Interview with Carl Phillips • 125
Umberto Piersanti-- Red Thistle • 134
Water Lily • 135
Jonathan Rice== Apocrita • 136
Patrick Bizzaro --Poetry and Healing: A Review of Four First
Collections • 138
David Rigsbee-- Late Night • 147
Ron Paul Salutsky-- Dear Buck Fever • 148
Michael Shewmaker--- Flashcards • 149
Sally Buckner Voices From Two Generations: A Review of
Lenard Moore and Gary Lilley • 150
Patricia Smith --The Reemergence of the Noose • 159
The Blood Sonnets • 160
Mark Smith-Soto --Word Weary • 162
Phebe Davidson --The Thing About Second Books: A Review of Georgia
Popoff, Janice Moore Fuller, Lynnell Edwards, Linda
Parsons Marion and Becky Gould Gibson • 163
Therese Halscheid ---The Poem As Blessing: A Review of Jennifer
MacPherson’s Rosary of Bones • 174


(Mark Smith-Soto)

As for myself, any journal with poetry by Mark Smith-Soto, Reviews of Becky Gibson's, Linda Marion's, Richard Chess', and Bill Brown's excellent collections right away gets my attention. And, oh yes, there's also William Matthews, A.E. Stallings, Dede Wilson, and a host of others.





HERE'S THE INFO. ON HOW TO SUBSCRIBE AND SUBMIT!


©2008 by Asheville Poetry Review: all rights reserved.
ISSN: 1091-9864
Submissions
Reading period is January 15–July 15. Please send 3–6 poems of any length or style
with a self-addressed stamped envelope and biographical information to: Asheville
Poetry Review, c/o Keith Flynn, PO Box 7086, Asheville, North Carolina 28802
Subscriptions and Back Issues
Single issues $13.00. Two issues: $22.50. Four issues: $43.50. Back issues (specify
volume and number) $13.00. Send payment to Asheville Poetry Review, PO Box
7086, Asheville, NC 28802.
Asheville Poetry Review is available at fine bookstores near you. If you are unable
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