The Rialto Books Review Vol.033--AVAILABLE NOW
The Rialto Books Review Vol.033 is now available for purchase. This Autumn, we offer six new works for your enjoyment.
We begin with an extraordinary poem, “Mountain”, by Kate Bluett. This piece meditates with poignancy on the conflict between the ease of love based on mere observation, and the painful fulfillment of experience.
“On Love and Friendship” by Zelda Catherine Gilbert follows. This poem, in concise and beautifully musical lines, weighs the passion of romantic love against the warmth of true fellowship.
We then offer Canto Three of Casey Dwyer’s “The Descent”, a magnificent long poem which honors Dante’s Divine Comedy while, at the same time, bringing forth a powerful new poetic voice. In this Canto, Peregrino at last enters the threshold of Hell.
“The Wheel of the Year” by Marie Brennan is a wonderfully evocative poem in terza rima in which the hallmarks of each season can practically be heard, touched and tasted, and we are haunted by the inevitability of cycles.
Adam Kozak then gifts us “Stelae”, a sonnet sequence of grandeur and dignity which, from a potent image of a shepherd dwarfed by a great city, ascends to make a forceful poetic statement about life and death, the power of motion and inanimation.
We close with Act Two of “Mayerling”, a new tragedy by Alexandra Block. This play recounts the events leading up to the double suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and his mistress, the Baroness Mary Vetsera, in 1889 at the hunting lodge, Mayerling, an event which indirectly led to the First World War. The second Act of the play may be read in Vol.033 in its entirety.
Please note: copies of “The Rialto Books Review” Vol.033, as well as our other volumes, may also be purchased at our physical store, Chess Club Coffee, at 3144 W. Irving Park Rd, Chicago, IL 60618.
We hope you enjoy these excerpts from Vol.033 of The Rialto Books Review.
Mountain
by Kate Bluett
How sweet to love the mountain from afar,
how easy, and how beautiful the view,
to wonder at the peak touching a star
or piercing with its white cap heaven’s blue.
So long and easily have I loved you,
yet when I come there, following your flock,
I break my ankle clambering on your rock. …
“On Love and Friendship” by Zelda Catherine Gilbert may be read in its entirety in Vol.033.
The Descent
Canto Three
by Casey Dwyer
Peregrino and Eliot arrive at the gate of hell. Peregrino struggles to read the inscription there. He crosses the gate, but trips on the way through. Then the travelers arrive at the waiting halls before lining up to cross the river Acheron.
“Aiuto!” rang out past the trees
As we reached the cusp of a well-worn path
Running into a fog that seemed
To hold close, as plaster to lath,
To a firm barrier behind the veil.
We stopped, listened close, when at last
More cries: some fresh, some sounding stale
Like the labored cry of the dying old.
As if walking against a gale,
Cries pressed our ears. I felt enfold
Dread and swift fear around my mind and head. ...
“The Wheel of the Year” by Marie Brennan may be read in its entirety in Vol.033.
Stelae
by Adam Kozak
I
Oh where are you going young shepherd tall
Driving your flock? To market or the stream
Of ancient Padus? Home by evenfall:
The hills, fields that embrace the olive green.
Where is your pipe, delight of the young maids?
Upon my lips I play a marv’lous tune
‘Neath spreading beech. And where the girl that swayed
Your heart, dancing by the shimmering moon?
She waits nearby with hair unbound, the Sun
Behind the light of each flashing bright eye.
The cicadas’ hum calls, the light undone,
Shade-dappled hills; as one beneath the sky.
Soft cheese, cooled wine, bread and naught else to seek,
But eat and watch smoke rise ‘fore distant peaks. …
“Mayerling: Act Two” by Alexandra Block may be read in its entirety in Vol.033.
You can read this journal with others on Papertrail.
