It's Ploughshares Time! Do you subscribe yet? There are a lot of good stories in this Winter 2017-2018 Edition. So here are some of my favorites:Fiction:
The War Ghosts Bureau by Eric Fair was achingly delicious and dark. I loved so much about this story. Its subtle moments and its over the top moments. It deftly explores the theme of collective guilt and the dirty secret of the paltry percentage of Americans who serve in the modern all-volunteer armed forces. In order to avoid the burden of collective guilt, former military personnel are required to carry their ghosts around with them until they achieve understanding and forgiveness. If they start to lift the burden on themselves and forget their deeds in war, the War Ghosts Bureau is there to keep them in check. It's brilliant.
Almost by Carol Dines explores a complicated sister relationship wherein one sister seems to make herself the patron saint of lost causes (despite Jude already having that job) and the other sister tries to keep her distance so as not to entangle herself in the drama. I love stories that explore siblinghood. I think it's one of the most important relationships you can have in your life. And this story's exploration of siblinghood into adulthood was excellent and nuanced.
Minnows by Nathan Go is the story of five sailors living on a beached ship claiming territory for the Philippines, or rather, keeping the Chinese from claiming the territory. It's a lonely duty and frankly a situation I had just never thought of before. I love that Ploughshares can take me to far away lands and worlds and existences of which I know nothing about.
Il Piccolo Tesoro by Valerie Miner was a lovely story of strangers who live in a pensione in Italy and come to be a family under the watch of the Scottish proprietor. It was a cute diverting story that took me back to my twenties and days spent in a cafe in Italy and not quite grasping the novelty and luck that had brought me there.
Nonfiction:
Eulogy by Patricia Foster is a great story in which a wife uncovers the past of her mother in law. Her husband's painful childhood is brought into clearer focus as the wife comes to terms with the woman her mother-in-law had been. It has that muddy clarity of grace we can offer people as we get older.
Poetry:
It's so hard to describe what it poems are about or what makes them my favorites in Ploughshares. Some I like because of the lyrical quality. Others I like because of the meter, or I'm struck by
a single line, a single word. So without further explanation, here are the poems that struck me, stuck with me, inspired me, comforted me, or merely amused me:
Theodicy by J. Estanislao Lopez
Glimpse by Amy Gerstler
The Woman Who Had the Job by Jenny Irish
Pavlov was the Son of a Priest by Paige Lewis
Mementomori.com by Owen McLeod
Epistle from the Hospital for Cheaters by Jenny Molberg
Fine Despite by Dzvinia Orlowsky
4/5 Stars.
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