Crazyhorse 75

Just about every time I see a print journal advertised, it’s somehow “the best” or “the most important” or it publishes “the best” or the “most important” things. It reminds me just how subjective “best” and “most important” is. Maybe in hindsight there will be something like consensus, but for now, such things are highly personal. (And as so many journals and newspapers and aspects of our print culture move to the web, what will be around for the future to look back on seems something of an open question. But that’s a thought for another day . . .)

What are your favorite print journals?

More often than not, I’m finding Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Pleiades (especially the huge book review section), Denver Quarterly, and Field to be the journals I look forward to the most. There are many others that are quite wonderful, but these five continue to be the ones I can count on. Others, like Black Warrior Review and Gulf Coast, have had some really excellent issues, but journals that change editors every year or so are inconsistent, though that very inconsistency also is a reason why I look forward to them very much, which I do. So make my list of five a list of seven, then.

Anyway, this was all brought on by Crazyhorse putting up a free pdf of selection from the new issue, Number 75:

http://crazyhorse.cofc.edu/

Click here to download a PDF sampler of selected Number 75 stories, essays, and poems. Editor: Garrett Doherty / Poetry Editor: Carol Ann Davis / Fiction Editor: Anthony Varallo

Here’s one of the interesting surprises I found in this issue, which reminded me once again how much Dubie’s way of working the dramatic monologue has contributed to the style of so many younger poets writing today:


Norman Dubie
The Magnesia Caesar


I killed the big wharf rat
with the rack of my abacus,
many red numeral beads
appeared in the rue and poppy spray—
I took the paper poppy of trade,
I took the opportunity
to inventory missing sacks of grain
for poor towns in Palestine,
for the messengers of the nearer towers
of rubies and glass—
those future cities, little Miza and Puy.
Awk, but

I’m haunted by the illustrated houses
of the magnificent christians—
the faces even of their old women;
sure they’re a pain in the ass
but the colors
of their sunsets behind skull hills
are an actual visitation of the future . . .
This is not my sickness
flaring, thank you very much. Dearie,
put the wine there. I am
shaking inside this morning. Agreed,
their sunsets
can not be forgiven by me.

Their blood is not everywhere.