Like the last one I read, this New Letters Journal, from University of Missouri-Kansas City, had some notable highlights. In fiction, Bradley Buzzle's In the Shadow of the Architect features an odd young girl with a twisted sense of friendship that leads her to manipulate a lonely neighborhood boy into digging up her yard to find the body of her deceased father. There's no body, but that doesn't preclude the event from leaving the boy with lasting scars. Maurya Simon offers a triptych of poems. Among them - Requiem, a child reexamines her mother though the woman's fantastical paintings, and Saturday Night Fever, featuring zombies discussing their hunger, and Creation Redux, describing God as tired and broken, unable to sustain his creation after creating it. The real highlights for me were found in the book reviews. First, a new translation of [Late to the House of Words, Selected Poems of Gemma Gorga], introducing me to a wonderful poet. And Patti Smith's [Woolgathering]. Both of these books went directly on my list to find.

3 1/2 bones!!! ( )