Shearsman 55

Tony Frazer

Recent Magazines

Chicago Review Vol. 49 No. 1, Spring 2003.
(Ed. Eirik Steinhoff, 5801 South Kenwood Avenue, Chicago, IL. 60637, USA. 132pp, pb, $6. Subscriptions $18 per volume, $38 overseas.)

Fanny Howe, Ian Davidson the best of the poets; Emily Shelton the pick of the prose writers; Joan Retallack's essay indigestible, for this stomach at least. Good short reviews, several other good poems. Much the usual mix, then, and CR continues to be one of the best around.

Oasis 108, 2003. (ed. Ian Robinson, 12 Stevenage Road, London SW6 6ES. 32pp, centre-stapled, £2.50 single copies, £6 for a 4-issue subscription, £12 for 8. Ex-UK: $30 / £22 for 4 issues, $ checks payable to Robert Vas Dias.)

Let's see: excellent line illustrations by Ann Usborne; a sad farewell to Richard Caddel with some posthumous pieces, intended for a now-cancelled Oasis Books project; an odd German tinge to the issue with three Germany-based English expats represented (Alistair Noon, Richard Dove and Matthew Mead); good poems by American poet Tom Whalen. I'll confess that I found Richard Dove's poems somewhat weak, ditto Phil Simmons, but the issue as a whole is a good one, if not quite as good as some of the extraordinary ones that Ian has been dishing out since number 100.

This issue carries the unifying title Movement Motion Notation, and is much concerned with the intersection of poetry with walking, and other forms of movement. Poetry by Sean Bonney, Karen MacCormack, Elaine Randell, Stephen Vincent, David Kennedy, Allen Fisher; prose by Colin Simms, Lawrence Upton, Malcolm Phillips; interview with Stuart Mugridge. An unusual collection, and all the better for it. As with previous issues, this is worth acquiring and/or subscribing to.