rob mclennan writes here an affectionate and well-read overview of the latest issue of FENCE in which we both appear. He has a poem there called “The Linden Lea Transitions.” Watch for a story of rob’s coming in a future issue of NC.
dg
Generally, I’ve been impressed by the breadth and the quality of each issue of Fence, and every issue contains a surprise, and there are more than a couple within. I’m intrigued by Graham Foust’s poem “Collected Poems,” that begins:
Names for poems—why do I, on Earth, bother?
Some untitled verse is out there just waiting
to be used, like a life vest or a rifle
or an almost impossibly large number,
my noise-only memory’s noise-only ghost.
Emily Pettit, with her poem “Water I Have Seen A Duck,” is slowly becoming a favourite, and there is some remarkable work by a number of other poets, both familiar and unfamiliar to me. I’m attracted to the oddness of Brandon Downing’s poem “DICK CARLA ASTRO,” a four part sequence that begins: “Her breasts shot right out her shirt. / I have one of the things instantly // In my jaw. Both her hands drop / Down—[…].”
via rob mclennan’s blog: FENCE magazine v 15, no 2: winter 2012-13.