kw: story reviews, fiction, poems, short stories, collections
It didn't take long to finish the last eleven pieces in 2026 Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, 50th Anniversary Edition, edited by Bill Henderson and other editors. Eight were poems, all perhaps eloquent and evocative, but most were pointless, except perhaps to insiders.
Poets, if your writing is only for yourself, your audience is limited to some (not all) of your closest friends or associates, and a smattering of others who happen to think like you do. Don't think you are quite so universal. We have only so many archetypes to go around.
There was a time that a poem was a piece of craftsmanship. A few still are. Poetry arose before prose and even before writing, for good reason. It's easier to memorize…that is, if it has rhyme and rhythm. So-called "free verse" is too free. If someone has something worthwhile to say, even if they break the sentences and phrases in odd places so it looks like "verse", the content is the content. Too many "free verses" are free of content, or at least, of content that means anything to someone except yourself.
- "Refuge" by Sheema Kalbasi. The skeletal images make the tragic almost bearable.
- "After the Fireworks" by Jessica R. Gordon. At times it is good to linger. The accompanying image is the fruit of running the prompt, "Remember to slow down and enjoy your surroundings" through Leonardo AI's Flow State, culling a few from several hundred images offered, and selecting one. FYI, most of the images Flow offered were abstract.
The one story I liked was "Lessons of the Line" by Dana Levin. It's about poetry, by someone who actually works at it, who practically coerced an established poet to mentor her.
This volume of Pushcart Prize has been better than some of the earlier ones. I'll keep looking for its successor volumes.
Posts
1 comment:
Hi - I thought I'd left a comment here a few days ago, but apparently I misclicked on something. Oh well, I'll try again.
I'm delighted to find someone else who pays more than a sentence or two of attention to Pushcart (and BASS, I see in looking through your prior posts). I seem to be having a better time with it than you are - I very much enjoyed the first short story, and am now digesting the Norwegian Salmon story quite happily. It will take me another couple of months to work through the entire volume.
I've been following Pushcart and BASS for about 15 years now, at a bit slower pace than you do: I post about each story. In Pushcart, after a few years I gave up on poetry, only writing about those that showed something of particular interest to me, be it a technique or something to say; poetry isn't my strength, and I got tired of figuring out new ways to say 'I don't have any idea why this is a good poem.'
It's true that BASS is far more mainstream and commercial than Pushcart, so I tend to prefer the fiction in the latter (and I always learn something from the nonfiction). But I do love the contributor notes in BASS.
I'd love to discuss any of the stories from either volume in more detail with you. I know you're rather more disappointed than I am with most of the selections, but I welcome the opportunity to find out why, as well as to better understand those pieces you ++'d. I can be found at https://sloopie72.wordpress.com/category/writingreading/what-ive-been-reading/pushcart-2026-l/ for the current Pushcart, or at https://sloopie72.wordpress.com/category/writingreading/what-ive-been-reading/bass-2025/ for the 2025 BASS. I also dabble on Bluesky under the same name.
I've put your blog on my Feedly so I can see what you're reading; I must admit I will skip over your spider posts (I'm quite phobic). Is that your primary area of science?
Post a Comment