Two-Tissue Minimum: A Journal That Will Break Your Heart

The seventh issue of Saranac Review contains some of the most quality work I have read all year, and I’m so thrilled to end 2011 with this gorgeous and moving collection of stories, poems, and essays. The experience begins with the cover. It is the first time Saranac Review has used a photograph for the cover, and the photograph is taken from Steven Diaber’s art installation—a piece entitled Book Wall 2000—in which a wall of books (sort of like a stone wall) has been constructed in a forest. The books have been breaking down from exposure to the elements for a decade. This is a chilling reminder of the possible mortality of print publishing. In the seventh issue’s editor’s notes, J.L. Torres remarks that there is irony in this cover, as Saranac Review is as print as a print publication could possibly be: the publication does not yet accept online submissions. When I began to dig into the content of the journal, it was clear to me that it has not suffered one iota as a result of the exclusivity of snail mail submissions. Every piece in this journal has been chosen lovingly and with precision.

The first poem in the collection is Faith Shearin’s “Three Dog Night.” It is a poem to curl up inside. The author writes about a time when houses were cold and people did not sleep alone.

        Rooms were
lit with lanterns and children were
encouraged to jump on their beds,

warming themselves, before they
crawled inside. You might sleep with
your cousin or sister, your nose

buried in the summer of their
hair.

Roger Mitchell’s poem, entitled “Up Early,” reveals the perfect core of why we wake up early when we do.

I want to see what a day is
before it is a day, a city
before it disappears into
its own enormity, the sun
a grid of orange glare off thirty
floors of glass, where even the first
siren, hollow, three blocks away,
sings the song of rescue, wail
of breakdown, cry of breaking dawn.

The first story in the collection is “That Dance You Do,” by Katherine Heiny. When I turned the page and saw Heiny’s name, I made some happy sort of noise like “oh!” This is one of my favorite parts of reviewing these literary journals: running into authors like old friends who I’ve never actually met. Heiny’s stories have appeared in The New Yorker and on NPR’s Selected Shorts, and I was so psyched to stumble across one of her stories in this issue of Saranac Review. The story is about a birthday party for an eight-year-old son. It is told in a grabbing and glorious second person, from the perspective of the struggling and loving mother. There is a lot of humor in the piece, and a lot of very human sadness, too. For this reviewer, who happens to be growing more pregnant every day, it is a story with a two-tissue minimum. Heiny writes:

By then you have blown up all the balloons and tied most of them in bunches around the house and yard, and even wrapped blue crepe around the oak in front of the house. You do not ask yourself how many of the little boys invited to the party will notice these decorations because you do not want to know the answer. This is merely something you do for children’s birthday parties, something that is always done. For you and countless other parents, it is just part of that dance you do.

This issue contains several translated poems, including a small collection by François Cheng, translated by Anne C. Magnan-Park. One of these poems is entitled “The valley where they live and die.” It is lovely, cold, and haunting.

The valley where they live and die
    is like an old broken bowl
        where they no longer eat their fill

On the doorsteps at night they remain silent
    knowing the words are spoken
        and all desire already spent

Eric Liu’s nonfiction, entitled “The Year of Ming,” highlights the joy of one’s child wanting to identify with her Chinese heritage and to be called by her Chinese name, and finally the heartache of the same child changing her mind: “Ming said somewhat casually, ‘I think I’m not going to be Ming anymore.’” The piece is lovely.

A long and awe-inspiring poem by Louise Warren, translated by Karen McPherson, deals with the abstract issue of time and its inhabitants. The poem is entitled, “We, unquiet words.”

You never know when. When it comes, it is bigger than we are, as if we
might see all the way back to our first day. The face is still near. Loving. To
drink is calming. The present holds warm milk. We need only turn and
the moon is sliding toward our shoulder. We are so close to one another
when we create at night. We cover the sky with our actions; we’ve
been touching it for centuries. Our words shine. They, too, grow old.

Dennis McFadden’s story, “All About Hearts,” is written with sad and perfect authority over the subject of unsatisfying love. It is another tissue-grabber, and the characters are presented to the reader with their entire lives behind them—told in precise and few words—making them equally sympathetic, and giving them each permission to break the reader’s heart.

An interview with artist Steven Diaber is included in this issue. (You’ll remember him from the photograph on the cover: he’s the artist who created Book Wall.) He explains this piece:

The wall of books was built before digital ink was a buzz phrase. The idea for the wall is about recycling and marking territory. What happens to books that no one wants? And like biological death, no one really likes to talk about it.

Susan Glickman’s poem, “earth,” is about perspective, and makes the reader want to take a break from whatever he or she is doing to consider it. She writes:

From space the whole planet looks watery, remote, elegant; our cosseted
handfuls of soil merely incidental. But lying on my back in the garden, the
rotation of the planet makes me dizzy, its energy climbing up my spine, andthe flowers and I breathe each other, intimate as lovers.

Madeleine Stein’s nonfiction, entitled “Conversations with Samar,” takes the reader to Egypt, where the narrator begins a phone-based friendship with a young Egyptian girl. The narrator observes the struggles and decisions the girl makes for years, guiding when she can, until their friendship ends over a quiet and heartbreaking clash of cultures.

I could go on about this journal. I could cite from each piece, gushing over the craft that is so present in each of them. That would take a very long time, and you, dear reader, would be better off just ordering a copy of Saranac Review, issue seven. These are the stories and poems I wish I had written, and they are the pieces I will read again.

 

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