EPOCH Literary Journal Review

For my literary journal review I read the journal EPOCH vol. 51, issue 2, which is published by Cornell University in Ithaca, NY three times a year where it is also based. It’s a small literary journal that includes poems, short stories, some personal essays as well as original artwork on the cover. The journal overall carries a colorful and good looking appearance, however despite it’s clearly professionally done image, its price per issue is very cheap, merely $5 as indicated on the cover. Within the journal the first few pages make mention of the contents, contributors and editors by name, but no clear purpose of the journal was outlined or written within the issue I read. However this in its self was not a bad thing to me. Sometimes I find I enjoy magazines and journals, which simply attempt to act as the median between audience and writer rather than commentator. Of course as a reader I understand that journals like these obviously choose which poems and fictions appear within them, but after reading the issue I felt that the main purpose of this journal was simply to publish and put truly interesting tales, and poems together that demonstrate the diversity of people’s voices from our time.

As for the poetry within the journal, I found most of them to be quite enjoyable and interesting to read. As I was reading I must admit I found it hard to see any commonalities with them, but re-reading them again I managed to notice some slight similarities. For one, most of the poems carry a lot of metaphors and symbols tying to mythology, history, and ancient works. For example both “Letter of Intent to Horace from the Sabine farm” and “Beautiful Nero” reference the Roman Empire in great detail, while “Pomeii” and “Gold Rush” make historical references within their titles. My guess to why this is such a prevalent theme in this journal would be that the editors enjoy works that tie connections to our modern existence with the famous events and works of the past. My favorite poem however, hands down out of this issue would be “The Empire in the Air” by Kevin Prufer. The small poem describes a bomb on a plane as a hopeful empire which I found to be a unique and twisted paradox, since such a bomb would represent a radical act of terrorism which to many is considered the very opposite of an empire, rather a radical act against an empire done in protest and hatred. Ultimately, while I did enjoy most of these poems and fictions within this journal and while I would certainly pick up another issue I don’t think I would ever summit any of my poetry to this journal. The reason why being that most of the poems within this journal pertain to world and societal issues, while most of my poetry in contrast deals with personal issues, emotional development, and inner thoughts and conversations.