Edited by Alexander Pepple
This is the seminannual Able Muse Review (Print Edition) - Summer 2016 issue, Number 21. This issue continues the tradition of masterfully crafted poetry, fiction, essays, art & photography, and book reviews that have become synonymous with the Able Muse—online and in print. After more than a decade of online publishing excellence, Able Muse print edition maintains the superlative standard of the work presented all these years in the online edition, and, the Able Muse Anthology (Able Muse Press, 2010).
". . . [ ABLE MUSE ] fills an important gap in understanding what is really happening in early twenty-first century American poetry." – Dana Gioia.
The vicissitudes of pain, a stranger who won’t leave, a talking hole in a shoe. These are just a few of the poetry plot lines in the Winter 2015 issue of Able Muse which individualizes itself by publishing work “with a focus on metrical and formal poetry.” . . .Able Muse is refreshing to read for its selection of poetry that adheres to form, and is overall a quality magazine offering the reader informed and unexpected views on life. — Valerie Wieland, NewPages.com
Although it’s slightly twee, David J. Rothman’s Able Muse conversation with poet David Mason exemplifies the sort of experimentation that makes the magazine well worth reading. Rothman plays with the interview format by occasionally posing questions in poetry, wondering why “prose is what we have to use when we / Decide to have a conversation on / Why we write verse?” . . . — Tanya Angell Allen, NewPages.com
I am glad to have the opportunity to review the Winter 2015 (#20) issue of Able Muse, as it is a local (to me) production out of San Jose, California. Although one could say that in this Internet Age, location doesn’t matter, I have a particular fondness for literature and poetry that comes from the West Coast, and especially Northern California, my native habitat. San Jose is, of course, very close to Stanford University, with its amazing Creative Writing program, and world-famous Stegner Fellowship, so a literary tradition runs deep there . . . — Esther Fishman, TheReviewReview.net
CONTENTS:
EDITORIAL — Alexander Pepple.
FEATURED ARTIST — Andy Biggs.
FEATURED POET — Amanda Jernigan; (Interviewed by Ange Mlinko).
FICTION — Andrew Valentine, Terri Brown-Davidson, John Christopher Nelson, Timothy Reilly.
ESSAYS — Ron McFarland, N.S. Thompson, Barbara Haas.
BOOK REVIEWS — Amit Majmudar, John Ellis.
POETRY — Midge Goldberg, Jean L. Kreiling, Sankha Ghosh, Timothy Murphy, Pedro Poitevin, Joseph Hutchison, Pierre de Ronsard, Heinrich Heine, Catharine Savage Brosman, Rachel Hadas, Stephen Palos, Bruce Bennett, Doris Watts, Jeanne Emmons.
