The Endicott Review: Volume 27, Issue 1 Spring 2010

The Endicott Review
Volume 27, Issue 1 Spring 2010
Endicott College
Beverly Ma 01915

REVIEW BY IRENE KORONAS

The Endicott Review spring issue is teeming with compositions in verse and otherwise emerging phrases. A sacred space crammed with creativity, as opposed to the other sacred space, sparsely arranged. I for one, live in an apartment stacked with books in almost all the rooms, and most of the time I know where every book lives in any particular pile. Don't expect one poem to a page, expect the reality of most writers, an accumulation of words hidden within the already limited space:

"…They come in
carnivorous clusters
hungry for yielding flesh
they infiltrate
the safety
of a sequestered nest…"

Readers will find short stories and poems that relate the immediacy of an intimate occurrence, an identification to an action or the written being part of any given particular. The voices in this magazine redden truth:

"I hear the wind
push his broad shoulder
against the window.
He's looking to pick a fight,
and I have half a mind
to give him one.
I'm in the mood to rumble,
like the air over the ocean
on a night like this.
I'm in the mood to
tear or be torn
by an adversary
proportionate to my hostility.
I'm in the mood to fight,
and so,
it would seem,
is the wind.
Perfect."

Every writing petal, sings the experiences of the writer, whether student
or seasoned poet:

"1. Hold the banana up to your ear to get out of unruly conversations.
2. Peel the banana for an edible hat.
3. Cut out the seeds to make stick-on-freckles.
4. Mush the fruit like human organs.
5. Feel the skin - it is like the chin of a whale.
6. See the yellow. You are holding the sun."

I'm taking this journal with me when I travel to visit my son in Florida. The journal is my invitation to read in short spurts, and the collection offers me a chance to concentrate on new writing, on each writer who offers their song and I'll learn their tune so I can hum along with its message or lack there of, or their burst of spoken flowering on the page; a bouquet fit for anyone who likes to read:

"I'm against the rules, structure, norms, notions, stereotypes.
How on earth could you be yourself - with a world of such profound persuasion
How could you truly express emotions without being judged or marked as different by all
Break rules and boundaries and finally feel a sense of freedom
Be someone who does not discriminate and project hatred
I'm against it all.
We should all run around naked."

Irene Koronas
Reviewer:
Ibbetson Street Press
Poetry Editor:
Wilderness House Literary Review