Edited by Alexander Pepple
This is the seminannual Able Muse Review (Print Edition) - Winter, 2011 issue. 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 the third issue of the print edition is here, highlighting works of the same superlative standard as presented all these years in the online edition, and, the recently released Able Muse Anthology (Able Muse Press, 2010).
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:
WITH THE ABLE MUSE WRITE PRIZE FOR POETRY & FICTION — Includes the winning story and poems from the contest winners and finalists.
EDITORIAL — Alexander Pepple.
FEATURED ARTIST — Alper Çukur; (Interviewed by Sharon Passmore).
FEATURED POET — David Mason; (Interviewed by David J. Rothman).
FICTION — Gilbert Allen, Rachel Bentley, Bruce Bromley, Keith J. Powell, Mary Widdifield, Douglas Campbell.
ESSAYS — Michael Cohen, Seree Cohen Zohar, André Naffis-Sahely, Frank Osen, Andrew Frisardi.
BOOK REVIEWS — Stephen Collington.
POETRY — Suzanne J. Doyle, Midge Goldberg, Catharine Savage Brosman, Amit Majmudar, Richard Wakefield, Philip Morre, Paul Bone, Maryann Corbett, Timothy Murphy, Alyce Miller, Kathryn Locey, Susan McLean, Rebecca Foust, Lyn Lifshin, Stephen Collington, George Witte, William Conelly, Lew Watts, Jean L. Kreiling, Susan McLean, John Beaton, Joshua Lavender, Catherine Chandler, Gabriel Spera, T.S. Kerrigan.
