Edited by Alexander Pepple
This is the annual Able Muse Review (Print Edition) - Winter 2020/2021 issue, Number 28. 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).
Includes the winning stories and poems from the 2020 Able Muse contest (Able Muse Write Prize) winners and finalists.
". . . [ ABLE MUSE ] fills an important gap in understanding what is really happening in early twenty-first century American poetry."-Dana Gioia.
"Able Muse is refreshing to read for its selection of poetry that adheres to form . . . a quality magazine offering the reader informed and unexpected views on life."-NewPages.
CONTENTS:
WITH THE 2020 ABLE MUSE WRITE PRIZE FOR POETRY & FICTION – Includes the winning story and poems from the contest winners and finalists
EDITORIAL – Alexander Pepple
FEATURED ART – An Exotic Theme
INTERNATIONAL FICTION SPECIAL FEATURE – L.M. Brown, John McLennon, Nageen Rather, Guadalupe Sexto, Treena Thibodeau
ESSAYS – N.S. Thompson, Christopher Rivas
BOOK REVIEWS – Travis Biddick, Luke Hathaway, Matthew Buckley Smith
POETRY – John Beaton, Bruce Bennett, Catharine Savage Brosman, Dan Campion, Richard Cecil, J.P. Celia, Terese Coe, Barbara Lydecker Crane, Anna M. Evans, David Galef, S.R. Graham, Julia Griffin, Elise Hempel, Vera Ignatowitsch, George Kalogeris, Garret Keizer, Quincy R. Lehr, Amit Majmudar, Eileen Malone, Tim McGrath, Susan McLean, Estill Pollock, Anne Delana Reeves, Rainer Maria Rilke, J.C. Scharl, David Southward, Wendy Videlock, Marly Youmans
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
