NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
The New Formalist
PO Box 251
Dayton
WA 99328
USA
ISSN 1532-558X
Appears to be defunct.
www
NHI review home page
FAQ page
Notes for Publishers
book reviews
anthologies
magazines
other media
Web design by Gerald England
This page last updated: 13th October 2008. 		The New Formalist Vol. VI ##1-2

A mix of poems (predominantly), fiction and essays. An eclectic bunch of seventy-odd poems, nearly all with rhymes and half-rhymes and a few reinforcing their traditional feel with old-fashioned diction, as, for example, in WHEN SHADOWLESS by Jared Carter:

	When shadowless you stand, with folded wings,
		and watch from some high place—it still may seem
	The storms that sweep across the sea can bring
		no change upon the deep, nor in our dreams,
			When shadowless you stand.
The exigency to give a shape in terms of beat or rhyme often forces the poems out of any recognisable shape determined by progressive meaning or intelligibility; some are a bit messy, some sink to schoolboyish doggerel, and others just have that antiquated feel about them. Conversely, those poems with tight stylistic structures which also work in terms of meaning and content are thereby even worthier of applause; the rhymes and beat contribute to the balance of the whole poem, and are not an impediment either to their structure or their intelligibility. There is a wonderful piece by Anna Evans, entitled SIMPLE VISION, exploring the intensity of love and imagination that can transcend space itself:
			Though I'm not there,

	I can detail your smile, your face and hair,
	your breath hot on my cheek, as if you might
	pull me toward you like an easy chair,
	as if you loved me, as if I were there.
Another fine piece, ON SEEING MY EX-WIFE AT KROGER'S, by Michael Battram, manages a chatty and sober clarity:
	I say, "Well, you look good—you losing weight?"
	"I've got to go. There's someone in the lot
	Waiting for me, "Oh, sure, you've got a date.
	I'm seeing people too, don't think I'm not!"
	"Take care," she grimaces, and leaves me there, 
	With my toilet paper, frozen dinners, beer.
Here is a rather vulgar, yet original enough piece, TRUE TO HIS ROOTS, from Richard Moore:
	Rural developer, urbanized clown,
	always a seeker and hunter, he
	founded a whorehouse in his home town.
	Now he delights in the cuntery.
Fitting in with the traditional feel of many poems, a fair number are bucolic, as in a nostalgic piece, SUMMER SNOW, by T.S. Kerrigan:
	What slopes I see these days appear
	in dreams of summits far away.
	I pull my sled across that ridge,
	still seeking drifts of summer snow.
Annabelle Moseley is also able to produce this fairly straightforward pastoral panegyric, as in UMBRIAN PASTORAL:
	The valley of Perugia was stretched
	Before me, fields of farmland, gold and green,
	The nearby church bells rang; their sound was caught
	And spread upon the air, a pureness etched
	With accurate precision, though unseen.
There are three quirky fictional pieces by Jared Carter, philosophical, and, if rather impenetrable at times, quite compelling. Of note also is a combative and interesting essay on satire—or the dearth of it—by Joseph S. Salemi; he has a good sneer at what he calls the self-styled intelligentsia:
These little nerds have been raised on the gospel of sensitivity and caring. They live in a stifling atmosphere of faculty meetings, editorial conferences, corporate policy sessions, seminars, tea parties, commencement addresses, and pious lectures on the demands of race, class, and gender. Like high officials in the Third Reich, their livelihoods depend on rigid adherence to an ideology.
There are also a small number of reviews to round off the double issue.

reviewer: Alan Hardy.