 |
Reviews From newpages.com
 Alligator Juniper, Issue 11, 2006
This publication of Prescott College for the Liberal Arts and the Environment combines fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and black-and-white photographs from the college’s students as well as national prize winners, all chosen by guest judges. The fiction runs the gamut from the naturalistic treatment of a poor woman giving birth in a tobacco field (Vickie Weaver’s “Distance”) to the magical realism of a murderous mountain lion (Andrew Beahrs’s “Full”). I couldn’t dispel the impression that Weaver tried too hard in “Distance,” particularly regarding the king snake, which is jarringly anthropomorphic and gratuitous. Conversely, Deborah Setzer’s “We Know What to Listen To,” about a female “cowboy,” captivated me from the first line. The poem “Dugan’s Shift” by Jendi Reiter stands out (who wouldn’t be compelled to verse by the quirky fact that poet Alan Dugan was working in a plastic vagina model factory when he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1962?), as does Kim Kapin’s photo “Achille,” which is worth repeat viewings simply for the range of emotions it arouses. Finally, in his well-considered essay “Centered in Edge Effects: Poetry, Nature, Culture, and the Neighborhood,” David Williams succinctly encapsulates what seems the shortfall of much contemporary verse: “Each poem requires discovery. It’s pointless to obscure conventional notions with rhetorical flourishes and call it creative work. It seems equally pointless to collect startling images and arrange them for effect. . .”—Jeanne M. Lesinski
 Alligator Juniper, No. 10, 2005
This issue is dedicated to the theme, “Scars,” as evidenced from the dramatic black and white cover photograph of a man whose chest becomes a screen on which is projected several black birds in flight, their wings like the feathery reminders of what the body endures. While a theme dedicated to the visceral remnant of physical and emotional wounds could have solicited writing that was affected, tedious, or even cliché, this issue illustrates anything but. Instead, we read of the subtleties of pain, the nuances of grief, the faint reminders of loss or dejection, though many of these authors left me feeling hopeful—that glimmer of possibility that encircles our aches like a silvery light. Of particular note are Eliot Treichel’s poignant story “Procedure Four,” about a man who “thinks about when he first heard his dog calling to him,” about how that moment provided a vision that “would teach him something about love”; Kathe Lison’s insightful essay “Need is Not Quite Belief,” in which she measures her own desires against the limited scope of society’s sexual taboos; and Will Roby’s poem “Cotton,” which left me longing for my own sense of reconnection to the past. A bonus of this issue is also the inclusion of all national and student winners of contests in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and photography; they illustrate a deep commitment to investigating both the local and the exotic—a self-described hallmark of Alligator Juniper. It’s no surprise to me that this journal has received numerous awards, including the 2001 Content Award from AWP and the 2004 AWP National Program Director’s Prize for Undergraduate Literary Magazines.—Jen Henderson
 Alligator Juniper, No. 9, 2004
Contributors' notes and their remarks take up fourteen pages and while writers' comments can enrich the work or detract from it, these comments are both useful and interesting. This is especially true for the poetry, extraordinary work by fourteen gifted poets, including student prize winner Kat Darling. There is much variety here, work that ranges from lyrical to edgy, all of it strong and original. In his remarks, James Jay lets us know that his poem was inspired by a 19th century Muslim poet from India, a poet whose confidence he humbly professes to envy, though "Today Let's Call Ourselves Gahlib," is the work of a poet who deserves to have confidence in himself: "Ghalib, dig up that cougar your father / buried at the beginning of summer. / He wants to teach you about biology. Go find that corpse, // less cleanly picked / than his science / had hoped…" I must single out poems by Jendi Reiter, Christina Hutchins, and Richard Kenefic, too, although there isn't a poem in this issue I would want any reader to miss. Michael Petracca's essay, "Plover Mind," about his work in the Snowy Plover Docent Program in California, is marvelous, part science lesson, part personal essay, part primer on haiku. - SR
Prescott College received the 2001 Content Award from The Associated Writing Programs. Instituted by the directors of AWP member creative writing programs, the prizes are awarded annually in the categories of content and design. Magazines must be staffed and edited primarily by undergraduate students and must include some undergraduate writing. The staff and students who work on Alligator Juniper were recognized for their 2000 issue.
"The student editors were very discerning in their choices in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photography, and they did an excellent job in their melding of both established and emerging writers. The quality of work in the journal was consistently good, " said content judges Tim Schell & Brad Stiles of Clackamas Literary Review.
|
|
