Sundress Stirring

That's not to say Stirring couldn't be improved. Letita Trent is probably a fine photographer, but the cover page always has one of her pictures, a woman, never the entire body, aslant. Perhaps other photographers or a variety of images by Trent would add difference from month to month.

Web del Sol says "the layout [of Stirring] is crisp and clean as a well-pressed shirt." The layout is satisfactory, but could be redesigned. The cover could be reset to columns so that more information is immediately available to readers. The poetry pages are too busy, with the author's name flush right, the poem flush left, and other matters centered on the bottom of the page.

But the poets in each issue of Stirring are always a pleasure to read. The issue for April, 2003, for example, has nine poets, three of whom publish only on the better online poetry journals. The others are unfamiliar names, but their poetry is very good. This, for instance, by Sheila Black:

     Stripping for bed, I stare at my own body
     like an unknown in the mirror printed
     with my children's jammy hands,
     brown splotches against my pale
     raddled skin, the stretchmarks along
     my belly, lovely and delicate
     as the silverfish that soundlessly
     devour the pages of books.... (Hyssop)

It looks as if the Stirring staff attend college in Binghamtom, New York. Hopefully, when they finish their studies, they'll continue at a distance the great job they're now doing.