Pushcart at the one-third point

 kw: book reviews, story reviews, short stories, poems, collections

The cover logo for each year's Pushcart Prize volume has a different color scheme. This year's is red on low-key gray-blue, as seen here. The volume is 2025 Pushcart Prize XLIX: Best of the Small Presses, edited by Bill Henderson, leading "the Pushcart Prize editors."

I have sometimes wondered why the Pushcart emblem was chosen. It evokes a food cart. Were there ever itinerant booksellers that used hand carts? Anyway, the idea gets across.

In the past week or so I have (usually) read 22 of the 70 items. Ten are poems, as poems are currently understood: slightly evocative prose with line breaks at semi-regular intervals. No rhyme, no rhythm (I check, by reading aloud).

I have a marking scheme that I use on a copy of the Table of Contents:

• + , I'm glad I read it (I use as many as three pluses).
• ~ , It's OK. Well enough written, but nothing gripping.
• - , It wasn't worth reading.
• x , After a sentence or two, skipped the rest, for any of a variety of reasons.

So far I have just one story marked "+" and two poems marked "x". I'll comment a bit on that one story, and follow with some general comments.

"Epithalamium" by Bill Roorbach" seems initially to be about a dog, but it is actually about healing a relationship. The word "epithalamium" refers to a poem written for a bride just before her marriage. I'll leave it to the reader to figure out if there is even a bride involved in this story; I didn't find one, but I think I know what the author is getting at anyway.

I would characterize most of the other stories with, "Getting nowhere at no particular speed." In some cases, the author's point seems to be to present a slice of life from a culture that is familiar to the author, but not to an English-speaking readership. I considered the Introduction to the volume: the editors impress upon us the relative freedom of "small presses" compared to the big book or journal publishers. This is true. It also ensures that most of the pieces will appeal to niche audiences. That's OK. Based upon my reactions to so many stories, I am not in most of those niches.

Am I getting curmudgeonly as I approach the end of my Seventies? Somewhat, I suppose. But each Spring I seek out the latest Pushcart Prize volume, for the nuggets I find within. There could be a nugget or two in the next 48 items…