The greatest foe to our collective unbreaking is disillusionment. It is not hatred, not sorrow. The very existence of humanity (and maintaining that humanity in the face of those who would strip us of it), relies upon that which moves us; whether it be to despair, joy, or something in between. That movement in and of itself is action, and action is what propels us forward. In a post-pandemic era, …
Welcome! This is an overview of what we’re up to here at Northwest Review, what we’re curious about reading, and what we’d like to hear from you – our potential readers, writers, and subscribers. The original submission guidelines for the journal are still here. This post below is mostly a rambling “what I’m thinking about reading” in 2023 for our longer …
A few weeks after the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, I accidentally opened a bright-pink mailer addressed to my daughter. She was driving back to college in Northern California from our home in Los Angeles when I texted her: Call me as soon as you can. Seconds later, my phone rang. “Is everything okay?” she asked. Poor cellular connection made her voice echo like she was …
The most important aspect of Yusef Komunyakaa’s poems is that the emotive experience of the poem is not solely linked to image or lyric. Inherently, the page presents hierarchy due to the English language and its etymology as a coded system of colonial trappings. Komunyakaa’s poems expand away from the innate limitations of language. This is best exemplified by his recent work Everyday …
A calendar collects time neatly, sorted by numbers, geometry and pages to mark the periods we call days. And within those twenty-four hours that make up any day, potential manifests in myriad ways. “The Great World of Days” (Day Eight), a collection of poetry published in Bourgeon 2007-2021, edited by Gregory Luce, Anne Becker, and Jeffrey Banks perfectly illuminates these qualities …
Magic lets Elissa Washuta stay alive. She can’t control the world through magic, but witchcraft has helped her survive events that were close to hell. That premise is essential to Washuta’s new essay collection, White Magic, which is webbed with astrology and tarot, shot through with spirit encounters and velvety magic acts. In this book, time frays and doubles back, and sometimes you …