Wild Goose Poetry Review, Winter 2011
One of the things I enjoy about editing Wild Goose Poetry Review is seeing the connections between poems that arrive from poets who have no knowledge of what each other is submitting, or writing. In most cases, these poets don’t even know each other, but similarities in theme, style, imagery, and setting always seem to arise from the poems I find most appealing. As I consider the placement of the poems for each issue, I try to take advantage of these similarities to create a sort of dialogue. Thus, in this issue, for example, you will find a sequence of poems dealing with our relationships with our parents. Each of the poems in this issue, in fact, is intentionally placed to relate to the poems that come before and after it. I hope as you read through them, you’ll look for, enjoy, and even comment on what their juxtaposition says about the theme or style they share.
Conversely, another characteristic of this issue is its diversity. There are poems from writers who have been published in Wild Goose before: Jessie Carty, Helen Losse, Doug McHargue, Ann Chandonnet. There are poems from well-established “local” writers whose work will be easily recognized by poetry aficionados in the Southeast: Joseph Milford, Scott Douglass, Richard Allen Taylor, Gail Peck, Ralph Earle, Ron Moran, Mary Ricketson. There are poems from writers who are relatively new to publication or who write in parts of the country more distant from our home base in NC: R. Keane, Tyler Bigney, MJ DeAngelis, David LaBounty, Eric Luft, Lisa Zaran. And among the preponderance of free verse poems, there are also a few that are decidedly more traditional in form. But new or familiar, local or distant, formal or organic, they all provide a fresh and deeper perspective on themes and situations that are familiar to us all because they are based in the world we all share, and this is what keeps them relevant.
Finally, the diversity of this issue is apparent in the 8 reviews included at the end. The authors of the work reviewed range from the very young Annalee Kwochka to the more experienced Al Maginnes, from area writers like Sara Claytor and Bill Griffin to those from farther away, like Connie Post and John Morgan. Similarly, there is great range in the style of the work being reviewed as well, including everything from free verse to traditional forms to haiku.
I hope that you will each of the poems and each of the reviews, that you will join the dialogue by leaving a comment for the author and for other readers, that you will share the experience by posting links to help others find Wild Goose, and most of all, that you will enjoy the work collected here.
CONTENTS
M. Scott Douglass, To the Drama Queen in Room 218
M. Scott Douglass, Bobby McMullen Died Last Night
Jessie Carty, What I Thought after Fabio was Hit in the Fact by a Bird at Busch Gardens
Doug McHargue, Denim Sky
Doug McHargue, Flimsy Green
Lisa Zaran, Nothing Abiding
David LaBounty, A Collection of Frost
David LaBounty, in the image of
M.J. DeAngelis, I Hate Vacuum Cleaners
Ann Fox Chandonnet, My Mother’s Poems & My Father’s Poems
Joseph Milford, Pissing with My Dad
Joseph Milford, An Education Acquired
Ron Moran, November
Ron Moran, The Doctrine of Fair
Eric Luft, Epistemology
Eric Luft, Hairy Samson
Eric Luft, Immortality
Helen Losse, After Reading Enough to Jump-Start My Muse on a Cold Day near the End of January
Ralph Earle, Red Sun Reflecting
Ralph Earle, Haiku
Tyler Bigney, Afternoon
R. Keane, Serenity
Gail Peck, Prayer
Mary Ricketson, Done In
Richard Allen Taylor, I Want to Live Like Hemingway
REVIEWS
Connie Post, Review of Connie Post’s Trip Wires
Sara Claytor, Review of Sara Claytor’s Memory Bones
Al Maginnes, Review of Al Maginnes’ Greatest Hits
Steven Sherrill, Review of Steven Sherrill’s Ersatz Anatomy
Annalee Kwochka, Review of Annalee Kwochka’s Seventeen
John Morgan, Ann Chandonnet Reviews John Morgan’s Spear Fishing on the Chatanika
Stan Absher, Review of Stan Absher’s Night Weather
Bill Griffin, Bud Caywood Reviews Bill Griffin’s little mouse
Wild Goose Poetry Review 