We need your Funk (art)!

So, we've got this issue, 30.1, and it's super Funky, but we need visual art, for the cover and inside, that will reflect and enhance all the layers of Funk we got going on. Do you have any work that fits the bill?

This issue features a special section highlighting poetry, fiction, and visual art with a Funk aesthetic. IR is looking for a piece of art that will reflect the work featured in this issue. The cover will appear in color, so artists should feel encouraged to submit pieces that take advantage of this capacity. Our past covers (which you can find at indianareview.org) have ranged in aesthetic, so all submissions truly will be considered. IR is willing to accept pieces as e-mail attachments (Jpeg or Gif files) or as web links. Our e-mail address is inreview(at)indiana.edu.All submissions are due to our office by February 29th, 2008.

Mini-review: Seven Notebooks by Campbell McGrath

It’s always a pleasure to see poems first printed in Indiana Review find homes in books. So it was especially nice to see “Storm Valediction” and “Invitations” show up in Campbell McGrath’s latest collection, Seven Notebooks, just released from Ecco Press.

More on the book after the jump.



Divided, as you might guess from the title, into seven notebooks, McGrath’s latest book calls up Basho’s travelogues, where the writer uses poetry and prose to approach the same material. Indeed, some sections formally mirror those travelogues, while others echo Neruda’s Odes, Whitman’s litanies, and a whole host of borrowed and reinvented forms.

A great deal is said in these poems about other poets and about the practice of poetry. Ordinarily, I’m not a fan of poems about poetry, but something about the form of this book helps me appreciate them in a new way. And the expansiveness of these poems’ forms and subjects make it as easy to make a haiku about snack foods:

Even gulls disdain
these pretzel goldfish floating
in the baby pool

as it is to make one about poetry:

Elizabeth asks,
what’s up with this haiku thing?
Pinecones in the sand.

Like a book of hours, Seven Notebooks covers a set period of time, a year, during which we get to watch the workings of the artist’s mind. But instead of getting a glimpse into the writer’s unconscious, like we would reading Van Gogh’s letters, we see these thoughts arranged consciously and associatively. Nothing here is random. And everything is fair game, as with blueberries, which earn their own ode:
All the new poems are about blackberries.

But to praise the blueberry
is to praise the ordinary and easily obtained
pleasures of this world…

These poems are not only about those ordinary and easily obtained pleasures, they are pleasurable to read. And easily obtained.

--Hannah

Sha-boo-ya: Roll Call!

Hey IR Senior Staff, now that you're back in the office from working your butts off at the AWP Conference, let's debrief:

What was your favorite thing about being at the conference?

Jenny: Getting to meet former IR editors and seeing what they're up to. Some are teaching, one I remember is a student again, and another is working with Ploughshares--all while doing other projects, of course.

Hannah: The A&B Reading. The bar was really nice and the audience was fun. Not only did we get to present Ross Gay, but we got to hear poets I haven't had a chance to read before.

Danny: The All-Collegiate Afterhours Poetry Slam sponsored by Wilkes University and Etruscan Press. (thanks for organizing that Jim!)


What was the favorite thing you ate in NYC?

Jenny: A pistachio encrusted salmon (at the Flea Market Cafe). An absolutely enormous gulab jamun at Basil Leaf. And a really spicy dosa...somewhere, can't remember.

Hannah: Went to this Afghani restaurant in the East Village. Favorite dish of the evening: eggplant with lamb. And a classic bagel and cream cheese.

Danny: $3.50 Recession Special (two hotdogs and a smoothie) at Gray's Papaya. Okonomiyaki (Osaka-style stuffed savory pancake) and Takoyaki (octopus dumplings) in the East Village.

Great moments in Funk History II

Marvin Gaye was married to Anna Gordy, who was seventeen years his senior and just so happened to be Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, but let's just say that things didn't work out. Apparently Marvin was getting his sexual healing on with a younger woman and Anna filed for divorce. Although Marvin had made quite a bit of money by this time, he had been a stubborn kind of fellow when it came to paying taxes and was deep in debt. So, as part of the settlement, the judge decreed that Anna would get half the profits to Marvin's next album. Thus was born Here My Dear.


At first Marvin was going to go in the studio and mail it in, but once he started working on the project, he couldn't help himself. Although the album was universally panned by critics and fans, Here My Dear is a hidden Funk gem. With jams like "A Funky Space Reincarnation" (which features the classic line "Let's razzmatazz and all that jazz...Let's touch each other--let's touch each other's ass) and "Anger," you're missing out on some cold Funk if you don't have this album.

--Abdel

Indiana Review at AWP

Whew!

So, AWP 2008 is a wrap, and I have to admit that it was a bit overwhelming, but we had an amazing time. The nicest thing about AWP is it gives you a sense of how large Indiana Review's extended family is. We talked to former editors, contributors, submitters, subscribers, readers, and just about everybody else. Since we have a rotating editorship, it can be easy to lose sight of the unique relationship the magazine has with the people that support it, but we got showed a lot of love and it was nice. You can check out some of our pics on our facebook page. (Oh, if you see yourself looking crazy or incorrectly named, let us know)

Indiana Review Contributor Anthony Varallo wins Drue Heinz Prize

We just heard that Anthony Varallo's collection of short stories, Out Loud, has just been named the winner of the Drue Heinz prize, judged by Scott Turow, from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

The story "The French Girls" appeared in Indiana Review in 2003, and is part of the collection, which is due out this fall.

Congratulations, Anthony!

See We @ AWP

Aside from participating at the A&B Reading in New York this Thursday, Indiana Review will be rocking our own table at the AWP Bookfair. So come up and visit us.

Aside from premiering the gorgeous new 29.2 issue, the staff will be giving away bookmarks (wow!), discounts (ooh-la-la!), as well as the sexy hot-off-the-press chapbook preview of issue 30.1 "Funk Feature"...!