30 review for Poetry Magazine January 2022

1. 

   5 out of 5

   nikki – Jan 20, 2022

   favorites: And Yet We Will Semblance To Give Uplight In the Beginning Black Girl Kintsugi maybe could have done without the several page long poem about drinking piss 🤨

2. 

   4 out of 5

   Ella S – Apr 08, 2022

   There were a couple really good poems but the rest were either lackluster or downright horrifying. There were three essays in the anthology: only one of which I found interesting. All were too long and esoteric. I really don’t understand their target audience for this; I came into reading this with an open mind (poetry isn’t my thing but I really wanted to enjoy it) but was pretty disappointed. The only reason this wasn’t a one star for me is because it was a collection of many artists, some of There were a couple really good poems but the rest were either lackluster or downright horrifying. There were three essays in the anthology: only one of which I found interesting. All were too long and esoteric. I really don’t understand their target audience for this; I came into reading this with an open mind (poetry isn’t my thing but I really wanted to enjoy it) but was pretty disappointed. The only reason this wasn’t a one star for me is because it was a collection of many artists, some of whom I actually liked. Final thought: they need a new editor.

3. 

   5 out of 5

   Jesse Field – Feb 12, 2022

   There is an undercurrent of anger to the United States, as tensions over inequality, race, gender and a host of other social factors tighten further and further. Poetry magazine, still re-shaping itself since editor Don Share resigned, seeks ways to express the anger usefully. Which, okay, fair enough. Lets be musically disturbed, then. Suzi F. Garcia, who returns in her rotation as interim editor for the January issue, starts us off in discomfort by reflecting on a move to the midwest that had There is an undercurrent of anger to the United States, as tensions over inequality, race, gender and a host of other social factors tighten further and further. Poetry magazine, still re-shaping itself since editor Don Share resigned, seeks ways to express the anger usefully. Which, okay, fair enough. Lets be musically disturbed, then. Suzi F. Garcia, who returns in her rotation as interim editor for the January issue, starts us off in discomfort by reflecting on a move to the midwest that had her thinking, "Where was my community?" "...I was also angry. I didn't see my community reflected in the books I was given, in my education, or in poetry at large." That is a strange claim for a poet to make. What does Garcia's notion of a community entail? What is the moral quality of the claim "I didn't see my community." "I," "my." A series on "crip ecologies" highlights the anger in Disabled voices, venting through anecdotes about the micro-aggressions that add up to non-inclusion, hence the need for "crip ecologies." "Crip ecologies, crip time, crip ingenuity, crip spirit radically aim to question root systems that keep our imaginations limited and starved," writes Kay Ulanday Barrett, channeling the kind of polemic anecdote that Claudia Rankine developed for Citizen: An American Lyric. Anger at the forefront. Is it peevish? Who's to judge? Another piece in the set, by Petra Kuppers, sticks tighter to goals, describing how Kuppers and her wife create artistic communities. "I invite you to write about your own ecologies now, your own sites of un/settlement." That's an invitation I will take seriously. And not all the poems seethe. There are a few crafty poets of the old type, word-smithing with the lyric line I used to think of as "normal," as with two poems by Kareem Tayyar, and a grotesquerie by C. E. Janecek called "The People Leporidae." Lukas Bacho, a first-year at Yale, offers a jazzy poem, "Semblance"; is it ironic the poet likely youngest here is also the most musical? ... / call me spirited / sly / slender-stalked gay carnation in thy forest of fragrances / incensing thy innocence / before i ever spied you / i was conceived by the snaky sorceress at the gate / & together we begat the cessation of breath itself / you call it incest / i call it theodicy / Not that musicality seems a big concern, in Ms. Garcia's curation of this issue. Visual effects are more the thing here. There is a graphic joy to many of the poems, like Christine Imperial's "Dual Nationality," which appropriates and consumes a government text about citizenship in a chant, "Someday I will receive the earth as it floats above me." Elise Paschen describes a town called Fairfax with a visual style that calls to mind the airy blusteriness of The Last Picture Show. Alson Thumel's "Coping" works out grief in a collage of lyric and course notes. And Saleem Hue Penny generates some kind of acrostic diagram, perhaps "rural hip-hop blues" as a kind of word game? With nods to Toni Morrison'sBeloved. Josh Tvrdy serves up some good old gay male poetry: the creation is sighted when a friend fucks a hollowed-out cucumber, and a confessor voice finds true love when he gets pissed on. Awe, so cute! Daddy issues loom. Not that I need to even write that sentence. Ben Kline also offers queerness and masculinity -- "Hayfield Prayer" is a wonderful meditation on the "r" sound in the Midwest. "Sparrows and starlings circled, only crows went through. They know, Dad said." A series of poems by Marissa Davis seem to be about the force(s) of Nature. These deserve a re-read, I think. All in all, I wasn't super impressed with this issue, but it had a few moments. Some of it was just too difficult to my own distressed mind at the time. I'm just starting on my February notes, though, and boy, is that a powerful issue. Just goes to show, you can't judge an editor on a single issue.

4. 

   5 out of 5

   A.B. Calm – Feb 01, 2022

   Gets five stars because a) it’s a strong issue overall! and b) the essays by Kay Ulanday Barrett and Petra Kuppers and Marissa Davis’s poetry could fivestarify any issue, wow

5. 

   5 out of 5

   Wayne – Feb 04, 2022

   Consistently good and a great way to discover current, relevant voices in modern poetry.

6. 

   4 out of 5

   Erick Mertz – Apr 06, 2022

   The most "meh" issue of Poetry magazine in a long time. Just one poem of note, and it was a truly weird one, was Josh Tvrdy's "Sliding My Tongue Along A Gold Mirror". The most "meh" issue of Poetry magazine in a long time. Just one poem of note, and it was a truly weird one, was Josh Tvrdy's "Sliding My Tongue Along A Gold Mirror".

7. 

   4 out of 5

   Simon – Jul 12, 2022

   Powerful issue I'll be returning to, particularly with the essays on Crip Ecologies (Kay Ulanday Barrett + Petra Kuppers) and then the section on "Flyover Country". Powerful issue I'll be returning to, particularly with the essays on Crip Ecologies (Kay Ulanday Barrett + Petra Kuppers) and then the section on "Flyover Country".

8. 

   5 out of 5

   Connor – Feb 01, 2022

   Some really cool use of form and printing ... two interesting essays as well.

9. 

   4 out of 5

   Michael Millington –

10. 

    4 out of 5

    Scott Strand –

11. 

    4 out of 5

    Gabriela Oprea –

12. 

    4 out of 5

    Nathan Bas –

13. 

    5 out of 5

    Cadence –

14. 

    4 out of 5

    Peter Green –

15. 

    4 out of 5

    Amanda Conover –

16. 

    4 out of 5

    Kimberly Nguyen –

17. 

    5 out of 5

    Lisa –

18. 

    4 out of 5

    Genevieve –

19. 

    4 out of 5

    Sophie –

20. 

    5 out of 5

    Mary Elizabeth –

21. 

    4 out of 5

    Amy –

22. 

    5 out of 5

    Timothy –

23. 

    5 out of 5

    Meghan –

24. 

    4 out of 5

    Sarah –

25. 

    4 out of 5

    Sarah Cook –

26. 

    5 out of 5

    Rachel Wisenbaker Turner –

27. 

    4 out of 5

    Heather –

28. 

    4 out of 5

    Rebecca Kershaw –

29. 

    4 out of 5

    mulki –

30. 

    5 out of 5

    Tiffany Hickox –