Book #8: The Louisville Review, Spring 2005

I bought this a few years back because it was edited by my favorite author. Surely it must therefore be a trove of wonderful writing, poetry and stories I would enjoy for years to come!

Sadly, no.

Last night I reread it, skimming over poems that didn’t grab me, sinking into the one short story that did, always with the standard question in the back of my mind: do I give it shelf space?

Shelf space is at a premium. So no - no, I do not give it shelf space. Out it goes.

In memoriam, here are the poems I liked:

• Maureen Morehead: Morning
• Brad Davis: Anticipating Retirement
• Jonathan Weinert: Blazes
• Amy M Clark: Do you want to hold the baby?

All of these appeal due to the sense of recognition I get from reading them: here is someone who has described something I encounter, something I understand, pretty much exactly. I think I recall reading somewhere that appreciation due to recognition is the lowest form of enjoyment - but a) so what and b) I’m not sure I agree anyway. If someone has put into a words a feeling I’ve had trouble pinning down, and reading it helps me understand it, why isn’t that as artistically compelling as opening up a new idea?

I also sank into one story: David Brendan Hopes’ “Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers.” This wasn’t great - it was a little contrived and the ending didn’t match up with what had gone before - but I liked the idea. I liked what I imagine the story could have been. General idea is that a painter, very skilled, has his paintings stolen by a fellow student (an MBA, amusingly) - but the fellow student is stealing the paintings and resellling them for the painter’s benefit. In the end, the two characters interact less & less, and finally the painter disappears - which I thought was a bit of a cop-out. I would have rather seen the two characters go at it. There was nothing in the story itself that precluded interaction, fireworks, etc. - so why not indulge the reader’s curiousity?