NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
Tundra
22230 NE 28th Place
Sammamish
WA 98074-6408
USA
ISSN 1095-6727
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This page last updated: 4th February 2009. 		Tundra #2

This journal of short poems, edited by Michael Dylan Welch, consists of some carefully wrought essays, correspondence between Cor van den Heuvel and Robert Bly, poems, translations, reviews, haibun, a featured poet, and more.

The collection seldom misfires. It has a nice feel to it, an innovative cover by Garry Gay A CLOSER LOOK, clear print and layout. Welch contributes a WELCOME as an introduction to the journal that makes for some interesting reading.

If careful observation and good recall are the keynotes to a poem's success, then the limerick cycle based on Shakespeare's plays by Max Gutmann is a prime example. It is one of my favourites in this collection. The poet sums up in comic five-line poems all of Shakespeare's multi-faceted plays, for example, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM is succinctly summed up:

	In dementia tremens titania,
	A disease that attacks women's crania,
	   The afflicted young lass
	   Falls in love with an ass.
	It's a terribly prevalent mania.
Timeless and rich.

Some of the poems of featured poet Ted Kooser (with an excellent introduction to the poet's work by Lee Gurga) are enigmatic and some more than a little ominous, JUST NOW for instance:

	Just now, if I look back down
	the cool street of the past, I can see
	streetlamps, one for each year,
	lighting small circles of time
	into which someone will step
	if I squint, if I try hard enough —
Kooser is at his best, for me, in those simpler poems where fresh images abound — sometimes startling, as in A WIDOW, where 
	She's combed his neckties out of her hair
	and torn out the tongues of his shoes.
Very self-evident and obvious. But this obviousness is not the rule in most of the other poems. Kooser succeeds better when controlling the new and recalled images of nature: his past, people and struggles now subservient, become in STREAM BED, 
	In the poplars,
	the hot rattle
	of armies.
The poems in this journal hum with music and rhythms enhancing the subject matter in words most of the poets represented are so adept at producing. I like Mike Tuggle's CUTTING WOOD IN THE RAIN with its subtle rhythms and alliteration:
	Winter is here and the woodpile's almost gone,
But my special favourite has to be the haibun NOAH'S ARK by Michael McClintock; a mini story, illustrated by the haiku so expertly woven into it and that grace it so well. The Buddha's head at the foot of the driveway, whose nostril contains a roll of dollar bills, being a prime example: 
	   racing around
	in the Buddha's nose
	   — tiny spiders
Items in Tundra are very polished indeed. Things seem to be well compartmentalized, organized and under control: a compliment to Welch's expertise as an editor. In the haiku and tanka, one often gets the image of things glimpsed, but seldom realised into a full blown expression. There is an expression in most of the images that strikes a new note about something — poems usually end up saying things that may have been said before, but say it in a new way. I like Carolyn Thomas's tanka:
	In the mist
	the blue heron
	slowly spreads its wings
	and leaves behind the pond
	as if it never was.
Plenty of grunt in these poems and prose — very refreshingly so. These poets put "personality" back into poetry — plus political comment, satire, passion, humour and very good poetic craft to enable it all.

Welch is not only an excellent poet and editor, but an enthusiastic publisher who is promoting the very worthwhile work of others.

reviewer: Patricia Prime.