Field Recordings

Well, it's been a full year since I took over managing duties at the Broadkill Review. We are a volunteer editorial staff/board/collective, and share the responsibilities of putting out a bi-monthly literary magazine with a focus on writing from the Mid-Atlantic. Largely, my job has been to put the journal out on the web. I did my best, maintaining the traditional feel of the BKR. If we were a print magazine, we'd look a lot like the American Poetry Journal; for nearly a decade the BKR published a pdf emailed journal, structured and modeled on a tabloid publication. It is possible that I may begin to tweak the website to make it more visually stunning. It takes work, though, and I have novels to edit, poetry manuscripts to arrange, new poems to write, and books to read and review. Anyhoo: here's links to some reviews: Grace Cavalieri  Joan Colby Grant Clauser HA Maxson Ramsey Scott Michael Tims FYI--The majority of the books we are asked/sent to review a...

HA Maxson and Claudia Young have crafted a crackerjack historical drama with savagery and grace. Comfort is one of those novels that unnerves the reader, the characters are vile, beautifully rendered, and it action unfolds cinematically.  It’s 1816, the summer that wasn’t, and Comfort, a freed slave, is sold back into slavery by her alcoholic, gambling-addicted husband, Cuff, who is as bad as his name suggests. Comfort’s historical premise is based in fact, and meticulously researched, but history doesn’t weigh the narrative down, in fact Comfort’s prose is poetic, moving, even when describing the evil that people do to each other. Cuff is the low life kind of antagonist that readers love to hate. He gambles, is superstitious, takes advantage of everyone. Cuff is ostracized for selling Comfort back into slavery. That’s one of the books’ hooks. Comfort has already escaped slavery once by buying her freedom. Talented and capable, she’s just barely free when Cuff betrays her. ...

And of course I've lost my notes. Alas. I am late to the party, again. Early December rang in the holiday season, for poetry lovers in Delmarva, with a rousing start to the 10th annual John Milton Poetry Festival. Following an interesting panel discussion of publishing poetry with Schyullkill Review's Peter Krok, Broadkill Review's Jamie Brown (organizer of the event), Delmarva Quarterly's Dennis Forney, Delaware Poetry Review's Michael Blaine, Beltway Poetry Quarterly's Kim Roberts, and Bay Oak Publishing's HA Maxson, was a three hour poetry reading featuring the best of the region. Only one picture survived and I'm not even sure who she is...did I mention I lost my notes? A fabulous time in the great redbrick Milton theatre.