Oyez Review

Oyez Review is published here in Chicago, at Roosevelt University. The Winter 2002 issue was a very solid effort, with engaging short fiction and poetry as well as an interesting section of black & white street photography by C. Taylor. Highlights for me were Frank S. Joseph's "Dora on the Bus," a poignant monologue of a middle-aged black nanny who looks back in regret at the life she left behind in Mississippi; Hillary O'Connor's "Hillbilly", a moving account of a confused, fatherless young boy in rural Iowa trying to adjust to his new life; and, most vividly, Pulitzer nominee Saul Bennett's poem, "Herman's":

Herman's

German,
his mother and father Hitler
refugees who disappeared
when you entered their dark apartment
to swap comic books and press your head against
    the war
adventure serials sparking from their dinette radio.
Unlike regular parents they never offered
milk or cookies but appeared instead
to hide,
even from their only child. Once,
Herman's father offered
an ashen head
from behind a corridor wall shushing
us to be quiet
although the radio was off
as we sat reading, I swear,
our comics in incredible silence.