Thursday, March 15, 2007

Notre Dame Review #23: Rejoice!



Rejoice! The latest Notre Dame Review is out, and there's almost too much to love. From the very cool cover photo by Catherine Gass (whom I met when she came up to the &NOW Festival to hear her dad, William Gass, read), to the reviews in the back (lots of good stuff, including Christopher Merrill on Merwin, and Igor Webb on the ever-amazing John Peck), it's a rock-solid issue, and admirably diverse. Poems by W.S. Merwin, William Logan, Michael Anania, John Peck, and Jesper Svenbro, among many others (if you read only one Swedish poet, it should be Svenbro, so give your transations of Tomas Tranströmer one last, yearning look, and set them afloat on the icy blue breakers of the Baltic). The issue also contains new work by Chicago's own Kristy Odelius, whom we've just convinced and cajoled and arm-twisted into coming up to Lake Forest for the Lit Fest this April (she'll read on the 17th). And, for those of you who've had enough excitement, there's my essay "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Poetry," perhaps an anomaly in this (ahem) most catholic of journals (it's probably for the best if you wince at that).