Fjords Review Publishes Special Issue of Writing by African-Americans (Clara B. Jones)

Fjords Review Publishes Special Issue of Writing by African-Americans*

Review of Fjords Special Edition 1, “Black American Edition” (2015) Reviewed by Clara B. Jones

Price: $10.00

Rating: 4 stars (quite good)

Fjords Review (www.fjordsreview.com) is a relatively young, widely available, and sometimes themed literary journal publishing a variety of genres, including, poetry, fiction, translation, reviews, and photography. Its literature is mostly conventional and free-form, though experimental work is considered. The journal, founded and edited by John Gosslee, is published twice yearly in print, with online content changing monthly. Submissions are received by post or online (for a small fee), and decisions are usually reported within 45 days. The editorial staff of Fjords will comment on a submission for $15.00, a useful service often costing significantly more at other venues. My review evaluates the first in a series of special issues titled, “Black American Edition” (“Special Issue 1”), guest edited by Geffrey Davis, a professor at the University of Arkansas and illustrated with drawings by the controversial African-American artist, Kara Walker.

It may not be an exaggeration to say that the contemporary art scene represented by young black creative writers, especially, young black male poets, is undergoing a Renaissance. Ishion Hutchinson, Gregory Pardlo, Terrance Hayes, Saeed Jones, Roger Reeves, and Dante Micheaux come first to mind. Perhaps we are witnessing a renewed emphasis on the black male voice influenced by political events highlighting the vulnerability of the black male body, often the victim as well as the perpetrator of violent crime in the United States. Brit Bennett has recently pointed out in an article in The New Yorker that, statistically, the black female body is at risk, also. However, the frequency, rate, and proportion of violence associated with the black male body in the United States is staggering and, effectively, without comparison.

By choosing to initiate their Special Edition series with a focus on (mostly emerging) African-American writers, Gosslee acknowledges the centrality of Race in the American discourse and the important role black literature and art have to play in the revision of that narrative. In his introduction, Davis, a poet, sees the black creative project as a “counterforce” to “trauma” as the country decides “what must come next for America”. Davis paves the way for a radical critique of structural racism in the United States; however, as noted below, most of the contributions to this Special Edition are not overtly political, concentrating, instead, on personal experience and intimate relations.

Thirty-one writers, mostly poets and mostly female, are represented in Special Edition 1, addressing topics with varying degrees of relevance to Davis' conceptual framework, “trauma”. Contributions examine sexual violence as well as romantic love, anger and hope, resignation and acceptance, suicide and birth, the challenge as well as the promise of assimilation, “lack” and ambition, fracture as well as repair. This reviewer had the impression that, for the most part, there are no revolutionaries among this group of writers; although, some of the contributions are provocative (see, for example, works by Ricardo Cruz, t'ai freedom ford, and Remica L. Bingham-Risher). Diamond Sharp's treatment of mental illness in her noteworthy poem, “Mal de Ojo” (tr. “The Evil Eye”), is a complex statement about History on two scales, the personal and the national. However, Kamilah Aisha Moon's poem, “The Emperor's Deer”, is the only contribution directly addressing structural racism. In Special Edition 1, fear and confusion are more often sources of imagination than anger or politics. Most of the trauma described in “Black American Edition” is of a personal nature, often attributed to pain experienced in intimate relationships (with fathers or partners, in particular).

Several of the poems in Special Edition 1 are excellent by any standards, though the “personal” voice, contrasted with the “abstract” position, is ubiquitous. An exception is the voice of Dante Micheaux, represented by three exquisite poems showing why he is among the most highly regarded of young black poets currently writing in the United States. His “Slaughter of the Geese” takes one's breath away (“With the scrim of green and crimson/leaves lost to winter/the bottom of the garden/was conspicuous/bare....”). Also transcendent is the humanity expressed in Isaac Black's poem, “Visiting Daddy, the War Dead”. Black's effect is heartbreaking, exhibiting, at the same time, pain and the will to transcend it. In Micheaux's and in Black's poems, the universal supports and enhances the particular, as a change in seasons denotes, as well, loss or mortality, themes we can all relate to, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, and the like.

The writers in “Black American Edition” bear witness to trauma but do not address how we can transform the personal or the political, though, based on my online research, some of the represented poets are engaged in community outreach projects. Many of the works in Special Edition 1 suffer from a didactic quality. However, it is important to “hear” each writer's story and to think seriously about the narratives that emerge when writers do not have the privilege of taking History for granted. As such, “Black American Edition”is a document worth having and reading as a scholarly as well as an artistic text, with a particular focus on the concerns of young black writers. Gosslee and his staff have produced a visually appealing and professionally crafted text, though the failure to include contributors' biographies is a serious oversight. Nonetheless, Fjords deserves praise for the high quality of its selections and for its creative vision. I look forward to future issues and Special Editions and will begin to visit the journal's webpage on a regular basis.

*Originally published in The Review Review, 2015