I’ve gotten behind posting, so am trying to catch up! I’ve got old poems and essays in new anthologies–Get Lit! 20th Anniversary Anthology and The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VIII: Texas–and you can find new poems in Poetry Ireland Review, Grist, and The Southern Review.
Issue after issue, I just love The Southern Review. For my money, it might be the best read out there. And the new issue rocks: Kevin Prufer, Malachi Black, Susan Blackwell Ramsey, Stephen Dixon, Albert Goldbarth, Alison Townsend–just stellar stuff. So pleased one of my newest poems, “My Son Asks for the Story About When We Were Birds,” is among such fine company.
My essay “All Apologies” is featured in the Spring 2012 issue of The Southern Review, which is, for my money, one of the best literary magazines in the country. Poetry Editor Jessica Faust had this to say about my essay:
Joe Wilkins, who sometimes contributes poetry to our pages, but this time has provided us with an honest and touching essay, “All Apologies,” writes about his relationship in high school with a friend named Justin, whose troubled family life eventually pushed him out town. The essay brilliantly captures the complexity of this moment in adolescence while also seamlessly weaving in the contemporary details of the era, grounded in Kurt Cobain’s lyrics, the words of another troubled soul whose genius would come to a tragic, too-soon close.
I’m more than pleased to see my poem “J & W Redemption, Highway 9, North Iowa,” along with a striking set of images by Edward Keating and work by luminaries like Bonnie Jo Campbell, Rodney Jones, Campbell McGrath, and David Wojahn, featured in The Southern Review‘s Americana issue.