It's Impressive When

a journal is so good I can't stop reading and re-reading BOTH the prose and the poetry, let alone looking at the art. That's where I am with Copper Nickel. It's been my bedtime reading companion for the last week or so. I picked up a couple of issues at AWP, and I'm currently reading Issue 11. The story "Throw Him in the Water" by Matthew Kirkpatrick was so engaging and haunting that I keep replaying it in my head, days later. The next night, I read "Limo" by Cate Witter, another fresh and interesting voice, this time reframing the theme of loss in an indirect light, exposing a facet I hadn't considered before. There are so many poems that deserve notice in the issue that I'm not going to single any one out. Just trust me that you NEED to read this journal. I love the large size that allows the poems to play out on the page as they need to, either with tight/concise lines or sprawling/crawling ones.

One thing that draws me to this journal is its publication policy. Here is the blurb from the website:
Unlike traditional campus literary journals, Copper Nickel publishes work by student authors and by professional authors. Selection is competitive, and more like a national literary journal's editorial process than a traditional campus literary magazine's. The idea is that the best student work is worthy of publication in the best journals, so we created one of those "best" journals so our students could have the best showing possible. Copper Nickel is recognized as a national literary journal, but unlike other national journals our staff is 96% undergraduate students.

One last note, the staff is sponsoring a subscription drive for National Poetry Month. See the info on the website linked above.

Happy reading!