Literary Journal

The literary journal I chose to read was The Georgia Review, the Spring 2010 edition. It is published by the University of Georgia and the professors at the school are usually the editors of this journal. It features well known poets as well as poets who have never been published before so it involves a good mix of writing. It is published four times a year during each season. This literary journal involves stories, essays, poems, book reviews, and art. They do not separate it into sections but rather go back and forth so the reader can read a poem and following it might be a story. I think this is a good way of organizing the setup of it so people can read it from cover to cover without getting too bored with too many of the same styles of writing in a row. The copy of The Georgia Review that I looked at was very well put together and had nice cover art and the pages and typing were good quality. This journal was originally published for writings and works that were based about Georgia but as time went on, more editors wanted a national feel to it so there are much more diverse works in it now than there might have been fifty years ago.

I really enjoyed this literary journal because it had a really wide range of topics and styles with the poetry. It seems that any poet might have a chance to get their works published here because they are open to up and coming poets and seem to involve as many diverse pieces as possible. One of my favorite poems that I read in The Georgia Review was The Girl in the Neon Tank Top by Stephen Dunn. It was a poem about how people assumed certain things about a girl for what she was wearing and in truth she was just trying to disguise herself from showing her true personality. It had a fun and playful tone to it and it really made me re-read it many times in order to understand the subtle details that were included. Other poems in this journal were about landscapes, history, and ideas that all revolved around different themes so a reader would not know what to expect when they turned the page. There is such a wide variety of literature in The Georgia Review that I think everyone would be able to find atleast one piece that they might enjoy.