Black Warrior Review is a fantastic journal of serious poetry and fiction. Poems that appeared in Black Warrior Review have also appeared in The Best American Poetry anthologies of 1993, 1997, and 1999.
To say that this is serious poetry doesn't mean that it is strictly academic. The poets included in this issue pay very close attention to the rhythm of line breaks and stanza breaks, the form of prose poems and segmented poems. All have been well-crafted; no poem seems to be simple narrative chopped randomly into "poem-size" lines.
Poets in this issue also show a brilliant sense of humor, as in "French Narratives" by Joshua Clover:
"Meeting Yvette. A cafe in the suburbs. Raoul. Gunshots in the street.
The letter. Raoul again. The Champs Elysees.
Afternoon. Money. Washbasins. Pleasure. Hotels.
A young man. Luigi. Nana wonders whether she's happy."
Black Warrior Review devotes part of every issue to a mini-chapbook selection of poems by a single poet. This issue's collection, "The Lacemaker's Condenser", comes from Linda Bierds, whose fifth book of poetry, The Profile Makers, received the Pen Center West Poetry Award and the Washington State Governor's Writers Award.
The fiction in BWR is also quite impressive. "The Fisherman and His Wife" by Joshua Harmon is dreamlike in its careful use of language, and "July 4th", by Anthony Doerr, exhibits a great sense of play with the subject of an international fishing contest between globe-trotting teams from the United States and England.
BWR is a literary publication you can go back to time and time again. It is rich with a diversity of styles of both poetry and fiction, and therefore, a great addition to any home library or coffee table.
