Euphony

Next up in the literary journal queue is Euphony, a six-year old biannual journal produced by undergraduates at the University of Chicago. The Summer 2005 issue is a slim, tidy little volume of poetry and short fiction which reads easily and quickly--no small consideration for someone whose reading backlog is as daunting as mine.

Charles Reed's "A Useful Distance" is an unsettling story of a man's disconnection from humanity and the appalling act of omission it causes him to commit, Jonathan Ullyot's "Shorts" is an interesting series of short-shorts told in an array of styles, and Rachel Bentley's "The Director" is a parenting tale with an odd twist at the end, one which again underscores how relieved I am that my daughter is homeschooled.

On the poetry side, I quite liked Laura Freedgood's image-laden "Country Time":

Country Time
by Laura Freedgood

Wreathing the horizon
starlings thicken the telephone wire,
their wings urged by that low rustle,
the whisper of Southern trees.
By November,
a thick rope of scarlet chokes
the day in its prime.

My house sits on a plain
stretching two miles
to the ocean.
From my bedroom
I watch the weather
ride in on the sea spray.
Outside, the row of dark birds
fattens on the wires,
months of calendars
yellowing in the attic.

This issue also included notable poetry from John Wall Barger, Dan Beachy-Quick, and Hannah Craig, plus an insightful review of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore by Julianne Werlin.