The Rialto Books Review Vol.031--AVAILABLE NOW
The Rialto Books Review Vol.031 is now available for purchase. This Spring, we are delighted to offer an issue entirely comprised of formal verse for your enjoyment.
We begin with the first Canto of “The Descent”, a new, extraordinary poem in Terza Rima, inspired by the work of Dante, by Casey Dwyer. We follow Peregrino as, confronted by a She-Wolf, he is helped by a mysterious figure, who leads him in a descent to reclaim his life.
Two very fine poems by Marie Brennan follow, “In the salt-drowned lands” and “Gorgoneia”. The first is written in a form new to the Editors, a Thai form called “rai”, here expertly brought into English. “Gorgoneia” is an excellent sonnet on the Basilica Cistern of Istanbul. Due to these poems’ short length, we cannot offer excerpts, but we highly encourage our readers to seek them out in Vol.031.
“The Ever Distant Day”, by frequent contributor Adam Kozak, is a stunning ballad following a Traveller whose labors after “the ever distant day” are incessant; a very moving tale, and reminiscent of the Odyssey.
Lastly, we offer the fourth book of “Beauty and the Beast”, a new narrative poem by Alexandra Block.
We hope you enjoy these excerpts from Vol.031 of The Rialto Books Review.
The Descent
Canto One
by Casey Dwyer
Peregrino walks a dark path in the early hours of the morning. After being ambushed by the She-Wolf, he is delivered by someone he doesn’t expect, who invites him to begin a journey…
When the April thaw had begun,
The Wisconsin mud now mixing with blood,
I walked a dark path before the sun.
On either side of me the glut
Of fog and spring-sweat settled undisturbed
Over the cornfields with fall-cut
Corn-stalks in low shorn rows. The dirt
Molded by the wind, held mingled water
With iced edges, and the immersed
Bones of a thawing deer, slaughtered
And left there to rot among the winter birds. …
“In the salt-drowned lands” and “Gorgoneia” by Marie Brennan may be read in Vol.031 in their entirety.
The Ever Distant Day
by Adam Kozak
The leaves had long since blown away
Driven before the West Wind’s run
And leaving all beneath the snow
Just lit by winter’s thinning sun.
The lonely Trav’ller tall and bold,
Though head is bowed his stride is swift
Upon the dreaded pathless waste,
Terror of ice and plunging drift. …
Beauty and the Beast, Book IV
by Alexandra Block
I.
The house is dark. Abroad the jay doth scream;
The old day’s sun shows but a thin red seam
Of light. As yet no fire’s in the grate,
Nor candle growing darkness doth abate,
But the two figures abide silently
And still, as women carved from wood might be
That but appeared to breathe, so near to life
The carver’d shaven with his whittling knife. …
You can read this journal with others on Papertrail.
