Tin House

I chose to review this literary magazine because the website was well put-together and aesthetically pleasing. After exploring literary magazines that had confusing websites and off-putting design, the user-friendly presentation of this literary magazine’s website and blog was refreshing and let me know that the publication cares a lot about what they produce. This professionalism extends over to the blog, which is set up in a way that focuses attention on the works published. Along with the posts written by staff, the blog also publishes posts containing essays written by various authors. These pieces seem autobiographical in nature. The staff at Tin House publishes posts containing interviews with writers, brief descriptions of what they are currently reading, and works from past issues.

Third Coast

Like Tin House's website, the layout of Third Coast’s website allows the reader to focus on the content. Each page prominently displays the cover of the current issue. I was interested to learn about the brief history of the magazine and that it is one of the few literary magazines to publish in four different genres. All of the information on their webpage was useful except for the “contests” page, which contained only a contest for which the deadline was January 15^th, more than two months ago. The blog for this literary magazine is not updated frequently and contains much of the same information provided on the main website. I thought that the fact that they posted the list of contributors for the current issue, along with the titles and genres of what each writer or poet had published, was impressive and, along with the easy-to-find submission guidelines, implies that the literary magazine values its contributors. 

Dictation (Send Help)

Misery loves company, but sadism requires it

(He says it’s only murder if they’re pretty)

(Metaphoric)

Bodies line the streets

But nobody notices, because everyone is dead

(I only write what he tells me to)

This isn’t my story,

just a movie trailer that has been re-summarized by a cartoon

(He’ll never be able to draw)

This poem was meant to show the dueling voices of a criminal and his reluctant associate. The criminal intends to convey a sense of deranged genius, but the other voice undercuts his sincerity and mocks him. The first speaker in this poem, the criminal, intends for this poem to be read by a team of police officers who are searching for him, but the second speaker's last line implies that the criminal is suffering from delusions of grandeur. 

The Wake

At her funeral we only spoke

In platitudes—

Like she would judge us for our memories

But when she was in the ground, out of earshot

Nothing changed

Cemeteries make us grievers

When we left for her sister’s house across the street

and stepped off grass and onto pavement

We turned into people.

People talk.

When we were children, our parents went to Bible studies to sit along the perimeter of a living room and talk to each other.

We reverted and sat

On sofas

folding chairs

pillows

each other.

In over-occupied rooms we belong.

Together,

We built her narrative.

If we had meant to, we would have hired a stenographer.

We didn’t, so she lives

in people, not paper

But paper melts and people die and

We will be forgotten, too.  

In this poem I attempted to convey the joint feeling of emptiness and comradery that is often present in a group of people after a funeral. I am a bit unsure of the effectiveness of the form of this poem; I tend to rely on the imposed structures found in limericks or sonnets, and so I am not very familiar with writing free verse.

The Great American Interchange by Charmi Keranen

The woman in the leopard print dress
Wants you to believe

It's all natural

The American lion much larger
13,000 years ago

(and living)

Long legs parting

The American Serengeti

Great gods of evolution!

(and silicone)

I believe--

In extinction

In the futility of calling
God good in the particular

(or of calling)

In the wireless clicking of the centipede


Even though I don't understand what the literal meaning the speaker is trying to convey, the poem is still incredibly enjoyable both because of its musicality and because of the overwhelming sense of mockingly cheerful nihilism that is especially present in the lines that are contained within parenthesis.

"California" by Cynthia Cruz

My friend Billy dressed as a boy.
She cut her long blonde hair off

So that her father would stop
Always touching her.

Night is when death and his daughters arrive.

She stood in the dark
On the side of the Imperial

Highway waiting for anyone
Who would take her.

We lived in the Blue House

In an abandoned car wash.

All of us, orphans and fucked
Feral children.

Most of us are dead now and
Cannot speak.

Nights, we inebriated and melted
Into the concrete floor of the Blue House.

Heaven was a sexless
Slumber party.

In the mornings we'd lose Germ,
The beautiful fifteen-year-old.

Outside the makeshift hospital,
He sold himself

For H. Do whatever it takes
To kill the breathing

Memory animals. We stayed
At the Blue House

Listening to Bowie's Heroes
In German. And watched the same movie

Over and over. The one about the thirteen-year-old
Junkie turned prostitute

In platforms and electrifying glamor
On Kurfürstenstrasse. And how we loved the White

Duke, living on warm milk and cocaine. Help me,
Billy said,

Her face a fixed mask
Of secret terror.

What her father did to her
In the night--

Help me, she said.
And we never did.




One thing that struck me about this poem was the juxtaposition of adult activities and a childlike way of communicating. It begins in the second stanza with the awkward inclusion of the word "always" to describe how Billy's dad touches her and continues towards the end when the speaker talks about watching a movie about a junkie prostitute "over and over."