Ploughshares Spring 2020 - Edited by Tracy K. Smith

This Spring 2020 Edition of Ploughshares really delivered on the poetry front. The crazy thing about poetry is how many different feelings and looks you can get in reading a handful of poems. Perhaps it seems like you could read them faster than a novel, but when you switch to a new poem you have to recalibrate your brain and expectations and feelings every time.

This edition had some great poems. Some of my favorites:

Beer Run by Jared Harel
Love Song with Contradictions by Ellen Kombiyil
Daughter by Danusha Lameris - "I always wanted a daughter, which is to say, I wanted a better self" wow.
Slither by Danusha Lameris - "That was when I knew I'd become a stranger to the world."
After the Funeral by Roger Reeves

As for Fiction
The West We Leave by Kailyn McCord was a post apocalyptic tale of an abandoned California following massive and sustaining earthquakes. I always love a good tale that imagines what will happen if the world completely changes.

Dead Horn by Kirstin Valdez Quade was a great story about a family coping in the aftermath of a parent's death and the way circumstances can bend familial roles when trying to account for an absence.

Plastic Knives by Koye Oyedeji was so intriguing in its development of the story about an elderly lady waiting for her caregiver to take her to the park, but gets a completely different unexpected visitor.

And finally, in Nonfiction

What Money Can't Buy by Dawn Lundy Martin about a back to school shopping trip between an aunt and her nieces. What is the role of a prosperous aunt to her nieces living in less than ideal circumstances? How much will one shopping trip change their outlook and expectations for life?

4/5 Stars. 

Other Words for Home - Jasmine Warga

The kids are alright. Mostly because they have great books to read to open up new worlds to them, like Other Words for Home. I live in a town lacking in diversity. My children go to school with classmates that are overwhelmingly white.

A couple of years ago we volunteered through Catholic Charities to be a host family to a refugee family in Nashville. This warm generous family welcomed us to their home and although there was a language barrier for the adults that made conversation difficult, the children took off to play and came back smiling and exhausted two hours later. Then federal funding for the program was cut and the kind interpreter who had facilitated and made everything possible was laid off and the program ended. And although we've emailed a couple of times, we haven't seen them again. They have family in the area and I know they are well taken care of by their family.

All this to say is that children have a wonderful capacity to understand and empathize with other children. They understand that fundamentally other children are the same as they are and they can find common play when given time and space, and maybe just a little direction. And this book highlights that capacity.

Jude, a seventh grader, leaves Syria with her pregnant mother and goes to live with an uncle in Cincinnati. At first things are overwhelming and even her cousin Sarah, who should be a ready friend for Jude, is distant and judgmental of Jude's differences. It's hard to remember that being in middle school is all about not wanting to stand out in any way that isn't socially acceptable. You can be a star athlete or the lead in a school play, but you better not wear different clothes from anyone or speak another language. It's a harsh time.

But Jude, though initially shy and overwhelmed by her new surroundings and new "home" finds her own path and her own voice. She sticks up for the people who matter to her, even when carrying a heavy emotional burden of her father and brother remaining behind in Syria.

Although written for middle aged readers, the book was moving and well written. Definitely a five star read I would encourage for middle readers.

5/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Winter 2019-2020

One of the best parts about the Winter Ploughshares edition is that it includes the emerging writers contest winners. The stories always feel fresh and vibrant. (Even though I'm an edition behind in reading). So in no particular order, here are some of my favorite stories and poems from this edition:

Poetry:
Contender - Traci Brimhall
"It's alright to overdress for the riot. Your rage is stunning." And that's just the opening line. This poem. Guys its urgent and truth and just great.
Losing - Kerrin McCadden
A poem for a lost brother. There's a longing here that is felt acutely even though this poem is short.

Fiction:
Once a River - Daryl Farmer
In this story a journalist struggles with his privilege in reporting conditions in a refugee camp while having access to the dictator whose cruelty is well known. "Evil relies on a belief of its own inevitability, that it is a force that cannot ever be eradicated." Thinks the journalist as he rides in a helicopter with the dictator back to the refugee camp for nothing that can be good. Amid such evil what can one person do?

The Age of Migration - Kai Maristed
Charley and Karim move to France and Karim undergoes a radicalization. Charley gets entangled with another man who wants to take her away to America. She has choices, but does she? Charley is caught between obligations and understandings. She may or may not be free. It's a very nuanced, well written story.

Noise - Katherine Sharpe
I really liked this story about an aging rock star and a young journalist who has come to interview her. They've shared a lover and Luce thinks of the absurdity of this while also dealing with some teenage rebellion from her daughter.

An Older Woman - Diana Spechler
I also liked this story of a man hiding from his pain in a casual relationship with an older woman. The story starts out and you think it's about the woman but it's really about the man.

Emerging Writers
And not to be missed are the emerging writers winners:
Nonfiction - Pojangmacha People - Jung Hae Chae
A fluid retelling of generations of family trauma caused by alcoholism and enabling.

Poetry - a psalm in which i demand a new name for my kindred - Aurielle Marie
A love poem to friends and friendships. Full of inside jokes that read more like clues than snubs to a reader outside the circle.

Fiction - Creation - Ruby Todd
A sculpture artists finds inspiration in a dress bought on a whim for a party she didn't want to go to. I loved the artist's surprise at her own talent.

4/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Summer 2019 - Edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen

I've been reading Ploughshares for so many years now and it continues to delight and inspire me. This edition was no different. All the guest editors bring their own tastes and ideas to the table and in this collection Viet Thanh Nguyen stated she was looking for voices that may not otherwise have a chance to be heard. 

In this edition, we get a fine collection of poetry from James Hannaham. His poems range from non-fiction to fantasy and everything in between. They are thoughtful and enjoyable. 

I really enjoyed Doorway to Darnkess by Kenneth Calhoun, which explored the themes of cowardice in a teacher by introducing a magical element amidst images of escape. 

The non-fiction story Prison in the Age of Euphemisms by Alex Chertok gives a stark look at the differences between pampered high school students and their counterparts in the prison system who certainly have a different outlook on the world in which we live. 

The always brilliant Roxane Gay's Immediate Family gives portraits of two generations of Haitian immigrants and the cruelties time and choices play on people between generations.

Yaron Kaver's I Only Had Eyes for You was a sad but hilarious look at one man's process of divorce and losing his wife and then his friend in quick succession. When he makes a quick decision to lie about something, the lie snowballs in unpredictable ways. 

Butterfly at Rest by Scott Nadelson tells the story of an artist/actor/comedian Henry who is dealing with the aftermath of being blacklisted in the McCarthy era. It's a stark look at the way the Committee on Un-American Activities ruined lives and reputations. 

Lynne Sharon Schwartz' Am I a Thief? was hilarious. It's about a woman who steps into the literal shoes of someone else at a movie theater and finds them so comfortable she walks off in them leaving her own shoes behind. 

I also really loved Rob Magnuson Smith's Glacier that deals so well with loss and the distance it creates between relationships. 

Solid solid writing and curating of these stories.

4/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Spring 2019 Edition

I finished reading Ploughshares Spring 2019 Edition on the flight home from Canada last week. It was a wonderful visit with family and friends and it reminded me of my entire extended network and the love I'm lucky to have. But my grandmother's house is the one my mom grew up in. We spend weeks during summer and winter breaks visiting as children. I slept in a room with my daughter that I've shared with my sister more times than I can count. If my daughter hadn't been there, I'm not sure I'd know quite how to "adult" in the space.

And so it was only fitting that I read "The Enchanted Tiki Room" by Daniel Chacon while there. In it, a man visits Disneyland where he runs into various versions of himself from the past. As he comes to grips with his own questions and dismay at the priorities of his younger self, his younger selves look for answers from the man. 

I also laughed through Brock Clarke's "One Goes Where One is Needed" about a former American administrator in Iraq who becomes a ski instructor when his skills are no longer needed (or wanted). And because I met a lot of very ineffective civilians in my time there, this was extra funny, but also very sad. 

I really liked the sweet but sad story "A Private River" by Alice Elliott Dark about an elderly couple and all the things the man wishes he could do but can't now that his freedom is limited by his cognitive decline. 

"Malcriado" by Edgar Gomez was a sad story of a young man coming coping with his family's failure to accept his sexuality. That this was nonfiction was touching in its vulnerability. 

"Jose's Girls" by Jonathan Winston Jones, also nonfiction, was also poignant in its analysis of the effects of drug abuse on communities and families. I loved Jones' moments with the Deputy Chief of Police in which the grandfather is seeking a way to extract Jones' sister from a bad situation and the Deputy is not sympathetic. Asking if there is anything the family can do, Jones interjects "I know what we could do. Let's get a working list of all the rich white people in our town who do drugs with impunity and we'll make a mural on Main Street."

Also loved "Color Therapy" by Marie Mutsuki Mockett about the change of color in leaves in Japan. I had never thought about leaves changing color and am woefully uninformed about the climate of Japan in general. So this was informative and really cool as the author seeks out the color red which is also my favorite fall color. 

So basically, I guess I liked all these stories. And this was a great edition. There was some really excellent poetry in this edition as well. Here are some mentions:

Ars Poetica - Sara Borjas
The Vault - Andres Cerpa
Delta Delta Delta - Tiana Clark
After the Breakup, I Encounter My Whiteness Again - James Allen Hall
Two Gifts - Safia Jama
Moon Cricket - Julian Randall
Cover the Mirrors - Callie Siskel

4/5 Stars

Ploughshares Winter 2018-2019 - Edited by Ladette Randolph and John Skoyles

The Winter 2018-2019 edition of Ploughshares really brought the short of short fiction. Most of the short stories are ten pages or less. And the poems in this one are interspersed. For only 221 pages, this one packs a lot of different feels. 

I've been doing this Ploughshares thing for a while now, so I'll stick to what was best, but know that every edition is solid and worth the time. 

What was the best of the best were the Emerging Writers Winners. While I enjoyed reading many of the stories and poems in the collection, it's these three that I return to again and again in my mind. Like running a new stone in between thumb and forefinger until it's worn smooth and I know the shape of it.

I'm not sure how the winners are deemed "emerging". For instance, in fiction, Anne de Marcken has been writing for quite some time. Her story, "Foil" she says took her twelve years to right. It's artistry is evident in the first sentence:

"My mother gives birth to me again and again, multiplying my body to outnumber the deaths she foresees, until I can do it myself and can no longer tell the difference between the first me and the many who follow."

I mean, what? The story is short but you have to stay with it - to feel it, again and again. Here's another which is a repeated theme and which is an example of the language I love here:

"My silence is lit by the stroboscopic flutter of an entire generation of moths clambering at a bare bulb. If I were a bare bulb, which I am, I would know what it feels like to be mistaken for the moon, to suffocate." 

The language is so strange but beautiful but not in a pretentious way that I found myself reading, re-reading and re-reading the paragraphs again and again. 

The same mood can be said for poetry winner Alycia Pirmohamed for her collection of poems that explore the second-generation distance between the origins of her ancestors and her own genetic make up. The poems are chock-full of metaphors that poetry judge Roger Reeves says are "at once embodied and cerebral, emotionally rigorous and intellectually arresting." I can't describe that better so I won't try. I'll just leave you with this phrase from "Ways of Looking":

"This mosque is a cut of apple-I mistake each slice for a mouth"

You can continue here after you're done puzzling on that one.

Lastly, the Nonfiction winner, Laura Price Steele's essay "These Bodies Will Undo Us" is such an open, honest reflection of her relationship following her partner's transition. This story has three things going on, the partner's transition, a hunting trip to Montana, and an ill dog. And for whatever reason it all just works. It's probably because of these arresting insights:

"It surprised me just how much of myself I had to cut away to avoid the subject, how my new tentative friendships seemed drained of the lifeblood they required to survive. The more I spoke about myself, the more misshapen my life became. Just saying that I had moved to the city where my husband found a job felt deeply dishonest, as if I was tapping into a long line of history that was not mine to claim."

4/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Spring 2018 - Edited by Lan Samantha Chang

I have to admit, after edition after edition of rave reviews, the Spring 2018 edition let me down a little. Not that there aren't stories inside that of themselves would rate 4 or 5 stars, but as a collection, this one was a little all over the place. 

Editor Lan Samantha Chang devotes only three paragraphs to her introduction so it's hard to know what theme she was working with or what she was going for (if anything at all) in putting these particular pieces She speaks of the possibility of dimensional change in our current time and the need to write for those who do not speak, but I'm not sure that's the message I got out of this collection as a whole, or even out of the individual stories themselves. 

But here's the pieces I found particularly striking in this edition:

Fiction:
Music Night - Natalie Bakopoulos: An American professor spends her summers on an island - bringing her daughter to spend time with her on and off again lover - the girl's father. The story tells of the couple's attempts to navigate a non-traditional relationship. They are drawn together but prevented from giving themselves over to each other fully. The little girl (Aspa) was adorable and the tension in the story was a light touch but pervasive. It was really well done. 

I Happy Am - Jamel Brinkley: I loved this story of a boy from a difficult home who signs up to go on summer field trips with a nearby religious school. He's expecting an escape from his life and is drunk on the stories his friend has told him of large houses, plentiful food, and beautiful swimming pools. Kindly white people who open their homes to these underprivileged youth. The story has some odd elements and things are slightly off kilter that gives it a curious feeling. 

Hungry Ricky Daddy - Jamil Jan Kochai: Love makes young men do strange and stupid things. Like go on a hunger strike to support terrorists. Students sharing a room at college go through roommate angst and arguments which eventually leads to them all supporting their friend through his hunger strike. It's too odd to fully explain but it's well done and details the gruesome effects of going without food for weeks. 

Milk Blood Heat - Dantiel W. Moniz - Ava and Kiera are best friends and navigating the early teenage years together. Ava's parents don't approve of the friendship. The girls talk of all the heavy things 13 year old girls are obsessed with, but still trying to hang on to their imaginations and their childhood. One of them makes a very grown up decision. 

Non-Fiction
How to Become a Monster - Nyssa Chow: This devastating little story discusses the corruption of Dillon, the author's boyfriend as he joins the police force on Trinidad. We watch Dillon through the author's eyes as he stars as a fresh faced recruit and then is overcome by the brutality of his every day life. I had to remind myself several times that this was non-fiction. 

Poetry
They Came by Jill Bialosky - a touching tribute to those interned in Jewish cemeteries targeted since January 2017. 

Cynthia La'Gail by Tameka Cage Conley - A mother lamenting on her growing daughter and their estrangement. 

Why They Hate Us by Jill McDonough - a short statement on privilege and us v. them mentality

So I am One by Mary Szybist - I really like the way this one rolled off the tongue more than anything else. It really flowed.

3/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Winter 2017-2018

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. 

Ploughshares Spring 2017 Issue Guest-Edited by Jennifer Haigh

I loved Jennifer Haigh's introduction to this edition. She was editing the edition during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and it clearly shows in the selection of stories and poems. 

J. Scott Farrin's, The Weeds, is the clearest example of this - showcasing a young man in a border town deal with dwindling employment prospects and urban decay. The young man's girlfriend, Tamara is also dealing with depression and Farrin's writing feels visceral. The struggles and fears of the lower and middle classes often discussed during the election are strikingly portrayed in this story. 

Likewise, Kevin Fenton's Negative Space about an artist going through a bit of a breakdown who gets a temp job at a factory to try to clear his head. Not even the breakroom vending machine can cut through the ennui as the artist tries to convince himself his current life is temporary. 

Joshua Ferris' Life in the Heart of the Dead takes a different tone, following a man on a work trip in Prague. The man doesn't care anything about the history of the place or the hows and whys of the country. He's in the fog of jet lag and unable to see the detail through the exhaustion. 

Smith Henderson's Muscles tells a story of Trevor and his sister Lesley-Ann as they spend a weekend with their absentee father, their new stepmother, and their new step-siblings. Trevor has a young romance encounter with his stepsister, which leads to harsh criticism from his step-mother. You can sense that something is off with the family and Trevor seems unable to reconcile the harsh words of this woman and the behavior of her own children. Through very brief flash-forwards, we learn that the father, stepmother, and step-siblings go on to lead troubled lives. 

The Taster by Kristen Iskandrian is about Gary, a CPA in Indiana who learns he has a special gift for tasting subtle flavors. He becomes a world-renowned food taster, but his personal life starts to fall apart as his career takes off. The tasting is the only thing going well in Gary's life, and he clings to it for all it's worth. 

E.K. Ota's haunting story Silk and Dust about a man who tries to recreate his life with is dead wife through a look-a-like had the right notes of sad. An unattainable love developed by an inability to let go. The story is from the look-a-like's perspective. Through the role, she is exposed to a life she could never have on her own. 

In Poetry, Geffrey Davis' Self-Portrait as a Dead Black Boy was heartbreaking for all the reasons you would expect. Poem with Warehouse FIre & Disaster Recovery Team by Erika Meitner was also well done. What kinds of things would be blown around and found if a storage warehouse was burnt to the ground? What kinds of things are stored that have little meaning when it turns out they are destroyed? I also enjoyed Rough AIr by Maggie Smith. "Motherhood never kept anyone safe, though it's no fault of mothers. There is no such thing as safety - only survival and the absence of survival." I think of this sometimes when I hit turbulence when flying. "I hope this work trip was worth creating two motherless children," I think. Lastly, Gary Whitehead's Wild Columbine asks the obvious question of when we will ever be able to separate that word from tragedy again.

4/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Winter 2016-2017

When I didn't receive this edition in the mail right away, I went to the Ploughshares website and signed up for three more years in subscription because I was so afraid I had run out of my old subscription. That was silly, I still had the rest of this year left, so no at least I know I'm locked in for four more years of this fantastic publication. If you're still not reading Ploughshares, perhaps you'll be lucky enough to find my old copy at the gym, in the work breakroom, at my kids reading center, or any of the other random places I leave these after I read them for people to find. 

This staff edited edition is full of poetry and short fiction which I read with relish, but it also contains the winners of the Ploughshares Emerging Writers contest and those entries did not disappoint. So as per usual, here are a few highlights:

Poetry:
Rob Arnold - What We Did Under the Tree
Yes, you can imagine, sometimes what they did was naughty. But when it comes in verse like:
"Holding our breath, muddied and spent
while tectonics shifted
]imperceptibly under our feet, 
the late century sputtering onward"
It's all quite lovely.

Anders Carlson-Wee - Asking for Work at Flathead Bible
I loved the storytelling quality of this poem and the sense of time as fluid but ever moving. 

Stuart Dybek - Moderation
I love poems and stories that make me feel the passage of time, the lessons of growing up and growing older. This poem was one of those.
"Back then regret hadn't had time to grow. It arrived as suddenly"

Daniel Lawless - The Dean Has No Comment
A streaking girl at the zoo startles everyone it seems except the gorillas.

Jo Sarzotti - Waiting for Achilles
Are we brave in ourselves? Or are we waiting for a hero? 

Hilma Wolitzer - The Separation
Another poem about siblings. I loved it. 

Non-Fiction:
Roohi Choudhry - The Undertaker's Home
A writer living in Ireland at the historic home of a famous writer as part of a fellowship was brilliant. The narrator, of Pakistani descent, is drawn to the cliffs by the cottage and the stories they could tell on their own. His own past lingers like an extra character in the story. 

Beth Ann Fennelly - When Dusk Fell an Hour Earlier
A woman who returns to the Czech Republic after a 20 year absence. Her earlier stint, as a ESL teacher in a far flung coal town was nothing like the study abroad stories of emerging cities and carefree spending in newly independent eastern Europe. She was in a coal town where the people had lived hard and knew nothing of excess or easy friendship. When she returns, she learns that her memories are colored by her own youth and inexperience and she learns a new appreciation for what she experienced. 

Farah Peterson - Illness and Identity
This story also involved siblings, a brother and sister, and how the sister deals with her brother's mental illness. As the title suggests, it really digs into illness and how that shapes or informs identity, not only of ourselves, but how we see others who suffer from illness. Who decides the identity of a mentally ill person?

Fiction:
Tristan Hughes - Up Here
This story centered around the boyfriend of a park ranger, living mostly off the grid. At the beginning of the story, the ranger asks the boyfriend to shoot her dog, an old girl for whom even getting off the ground in the morning has become an extremely painful experience. There's a wisp of something more happening with the ranger in the background, but we don't really get to see it and the mood this lays over the story is supremely effective.

Katie Knoll - IED
I love sibling stories. I'm currently listening to Cutting for Stone, which is about twins in Ethiopia and so this story fell right into that vibe I'm getting from Cutting for Stone. This one is from the sister's perspective. Her brother, the "love of my life" has been injured by an IED. And the story ticks back and forth from their childhood to the present. We're not entirely certain the extent of the devastation the IED has wrought to the brother, but I got the impression it was rather severe. The feeling in this story was so convincingly solid, I was certain this story was not fiction. 

Magogodi Oampela Makhene - The Caretaker
This story really delved into guilt and responsibility. It involved a rabid dog and an injured teen and people who have nothing and a slightly more than nothing. 

Josh Weil - The Essential Constituent of Modern Living Standards
I loved this one about a group of farmers who take on the power company in order to gain electricity for their rural area. I'd never thought about the setting up of the electric grid, and how prohibitively expensive it would have been to provide power over long distances to small populations. 

Finally, I should note that all three Emerging Writer selections were fantastic.
Poetry - Leila Chatti - Confession 
As a Catholic, this view of Mary laboring, as a woman, not as a saint, was a wonderful look at a venerated person.

Nonfiction - Mimi Dixon - Breath
A daughter copes with the loss of her father, a famous oboist. The daughter works to finish her father's book while also dealing with her own medical issues. The story centered around the concept of breath and breathing, and it kept coming back to this concept in so many ways. 

Fiction - Lydia Martin - The Adjustment Act
A Cuban immigrant deals with feelings of guilt and dissatisfaction as he works to bring his sisters and stepmother to America at any cost. 

I'm so thrilled to be exposed to so many great writers with every Ploughshares edition.

4/5 Stars.

Ploughshares Spring 2016

When I started reading the Spring 2016 edition of Ploughshares I thought it would be a quick read before I sunk my teeth into Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton - a book I've promised myself I would finish prior to seeing Hamilton on Broadway June 10. Typically Ploughshares is something I can devour in a couple days - five at most. But apparently that was not to be this time around.

Ploughshares has given me so many delightful editions over the past three years of my romance, subscription. It was bound to fall short sooner or later. I can't really explain why I couldn't get excited about this edition. Both guest editors, Alan Shapiro and Tom Sleigh are great poets, and their ideas about poetry - as noted in the profiles of the editors at the end of the edition (one of my actual favorite parts of the edition) - jive a lot with mine. 

The issue of Ploughshares is dedicated to four poets, Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013), Philip Levine (1928 - 2015), Mark Strand (1934 - 2014), and C.K. Williams (1936 - 2015). Perhaps the fact that I don't know any of these men started me at a particular disadvantage. Shapiro and Sleigh note in their introduction that the poems chosen for this edition were a "lament for the makers . . . praise of the highest kind, an affirmation of enduring value." Shapiro and Sleigh write that in each poem they were looking for a "simultaneous reckoning with life and language, innovation and tradition." Seen from this perspective, they were successful, because the poems, and the limited short fiction included, all touch on the sense of the abnormal within the normal. It makes the reading slow going and thoughtful, but not necessarily something I connected with. 

That said, there were, as always, poems and stories I absolutely adored:

Catherine Barnett - Lyric and Narrative Time at Cafe Loup
I absolutely loved this poem's exploration of time. Time as a relative concept, time as a tangible object. "Time is one part of the body that never gets washed." Is going to be a line that sticks with me for a long time.

Katherine Damm - The Middlegame
This short story also explored time. Time as a concept of what happens when our mind wanders. It starts out with the question of whether you can have two thoughts at once. In the story, the narrator is playing a chess game while simultaneously thinking of her family life, and our own attention wanders with hers back and forth from the game. It's a really brilliant way of showing narrative control and the passage of time without observation.

Kirby Gann - The Obscening of Engine Kreuter
I appreciate any story that uses a made up word in its title. This was a really fun story about a rock-n-roll guy finally selling out after eeking by. 

Mary Karr - Psalm for Riding a Plane
This poem delved into the experience of flying in a plane and the sort of ridiculousness of the concept of being inside a contraption that then lifts into the air and flies us somewhere. 

Michael Ryan - Three Days Flu No Shower
Some of the rhyming in this poem just really made me happy. And it painted such a grungy picture I could really smell and feel. "Between the showroom and the shop, he leans his push broom and he stops. Beef Barley soup as it plops out of the can into a thin tin pot." 

Jason Sommer - Grudge
Also a poem I really liked because of the way the rhyming worked, but also because of the concept of having the last word in a late night argument. 

Helen Schulman - In a Better Place
This story, about a woman who sees her supposedly dead father while on vacation in Normandy, France was entertaining and an interesting play on the concept of saying someone who has passed on is "in a better place." Her dead father certainly was, galavanting at outside cafe's with a young new companion.

Other poems I really enjoyed:
Christopher Merrill - The Red Umbrella
Honor Moore - Night Cafe
Katie Peterson - Note to Self
Paisley Rekdal - Astyanax
Maurice Riordan - Fleet
David Wojahn - Two Minute Film of the Last Tasmanian Tiger

I did enjoy the end of this edition more than the first half. The majority of the stories and poems I really liked came toward the end, but overall my own appreciation of the poems was uneven and this edition was not my favorite.

3/5 Stars.