February 3, 2006

Red Hills Review vol. 1 no. 1 (2004). 48 pages.

The print zine is moving online to here apparently in the very near future.

In her intro, editor Julia Park tells us that RHR grew out of an online writer's group. The social aspect of this issue plays out with a large proportion of the poets and writers hailing from Park's stomping ground of Alameda, a stone's throw from Oakland, California. The social and the local, both good things, right?

As you might expect given the editorial model of focusing on such an insular community (literally, Alameda is an island), the level of the writing ranges from awful:

She had hair like wild fire running down her back,
cascading over her creamy skin (Liriel, "Untitled,"7)

to better:

Walking home,
I saw a glorious sunset
in a puddle
and trekked it
all over
the kitchen floor (Karen Braun Malpas, "Untitled," 21).

This miscellany collects poems, short fiction, and memoir.

I question Park's editorial/design decision to begin each poem with a drop cap, thus inserting a visual element into poems that are clearly not considering such vispo elements.