An
illuminating experience of being published in a literary journal is
how I become more familiar with that journal and its contributors. A
plethora of lit mags, now on the internet, present quite a dilemma if
a person chooses to read new writers. With more publication, I've
enjoyed a wider range of journals. These are my recent publications
and reads.
Ginosko
is a semi-annual litzine based in California since 2002. I have six
poems in their Summer 2018 issue, #21. This is a big issue, about 250
pages that can be viewed online .
A definition for this Greek word ginosko,
"The recognition of truth from experience", tells my
absorption in reading.
A
short story about a lawyer and his wife, “Two
Secrets”
by Norbert Kovacs, really hit the spot this last month. I also
savored "On a Sweet River" by Elizabeth Buechner Morris,
about a young Guatemalan, and "Assembly Heart”
by Laura Valeri where an inner reality is told to the paranormal.
Doug Mathewson's short shorts expressed the vitality of today's West.
James
Grabill's poetry uses scientific imagery in a flowing style that
gives sense to his themes. The strong thoughts in Jonathan Jones'
poetry are rendered with interesting sound patterns.
There
is so much more in this issue to peruse for readers of varied tastes.
Animal:A Beast of a Literary Magazine
has, since 2012, been publishing monthly creative work about human
encounters with animals, “on
the divide between wild and domestic.”
My short story “The
Recluse and the Raccon”
was published last May.
The
reading, I found, was at that edge, providing unusual insights into
our interface with the natural world, and unique from the personal
perspective. I was drawn to a short story about octopuses by Brigitte
McCray and how they affected a musician's decisions while she lived
in Greece. There are stunning and disturbing images of box turtles
in traffic - non-fiction by Allan Stein - and cougars - fiction by
Heather Durham. Judith Roney maintains surreality in her poem, “Bird
in a Brick House.”
Upcoming
for me is The Courtship of Winds
publishing two poems. William V. Ray, the editor, has re-launched
this bi-annual literary journal to digital. His contributors come
from fascinating backgrounds which are reflected in the poetry there.
I also savored the fiction in the last issue, especially Denise
Kline's moving and ominous story about Ali, a young herder who
crosses the Mediterranean as a refugee.
At
The
Courtship of Winds,
Ray provides statistics about digital literary journals and readers.
I keep lists and then want to branch out again, discovering reading
and opportunity that was once confined to small press print and fully
stocked bookstores.
One
of my ideas about literary work is that it handles the news that
couldn't be published as news. While I like highly imagined work, I
still appreciate a work of literature for giving the sense that it
really happened. In a time when people can press a few buttons and
see hard facts or false accounts about the globe they live on,
reading convincing details from inner or personal angles often
provides another tether.
