The Cafe Review

Winter 2012 Issue of The Café Review

Cover for the Winter 2012 Issue of the Cafe Review

Check out our new winter 2012 issue featuring poetry by David Antin, Maxine Chernoff, Clark Coolidge, George Economou, Clayton Eshelman, Larry Fagin, Gerrit Lansing, Steve Luttrell, Daphne Marlatt, Thomas Meyer, Barbara Moraff, Rochelle Owens, Ron Padgett, Kenneth Rosen, Jerome Rothenberg, Hugh Seidman, Nathaniel Tarn and Diane Wakoski with artwork by Andrew Abbott and Eero Ruuttila.

Every issue is a limited edition run. Once it is sold out, they are gone forever, so buy yours today! Subscribe today to guarantee that you will always get a copy!

Click here for a couple excerpts
Click here for bios of the poets in this issue
Click here for the Reviews
Click here for more info on our artists featured in this issue

Nov/Dec issue of Poets and Writers

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As seen in the Nov/Dec issue of Poets and Writers…

Every issue of the Café Review is a limited edition run. Once it is sold out, they are gone forever, so buy yours today!
Subscribe today to guarantee that you will always get a copy!

Click here for a couple excerpts
Click here for bios of the poets in this issue
Click here for the Reviews
Click here for more info on our artists featured in this issue

Fall 2011 Issue of The Café Review

Cafe Review 2011 Cover art by Robert Branaman

Check out our new fall 2011 issue featuring poetry by Amiri Baraka, Bill Berkson, Mei – Mei Berssenbrugge, Robert Branaman, Diane di Prima, Jonathan Greene, Jen Hofer, Hettie Jones, Ilya Kaminsky, Robert Kelly, Lewis MacAdams, Gerard Malanga, Joanna McClure, David Meltzer, Charles Plymell, George Quasha, Margaret Randall, Joe Richey, Julie Rogers, Edward Sanders, Will Staple, Charles Stein, Anne Waldman and Lewis Warsh with artwork by Robert Branaman, Harvey Bialy and Larry Keenan, Jr.

Every issue is a limited edition run. Once it is sold out, they are gone forever, so buy yours today! Subscribe today to guarantee that you will always get a copy!

Click here for a couple excerpts
Click here for bios of the poets in this issue
Click here for the Reviews
Click here for more info on our artists featured in this issue

Summer 2011 American and Russian Issue

American and Russian Issue

Our Summer Issue for 2011 is out featuring American and Russian poets. Including Bill Edmondson, Alicia Fisher, Jack Hirschman, Anselm Hollo, Kendall Merriam, Alexander Mironov, Harvey Mudd, Tom Pickard, Anzhelina Polonskaya, Aleksey Porvin among others. We are also please to showcase the work of artists Kyle Bryant, Matt Grubb and Michael Johnston and reviews about Farang, Almost A Remembrance: The Selected Shorter Poems of Jack McCarthy and Bathsheba Transatlantic done by Michael Macklin, Peter Manuel, and Zara Raab.

Every issue is a limited edition run and once it is sold out, they are gone forever so buy yours today! Subscribe today to guarantee that you will always get a copy!

Spring 2011 Issue – Tribute to Shahid

Cafe Review-Spring 2011 Shahid Tribute

Our new Spring 2011 Issue is out! It is a special tribute to Agha Shahid Ali. Buy it in stores or online while supplies last. We have a very limited run of each issue we produce including this one.

Here is an excerpt from the forward for this issue written by Shahid’s sister, Hena Ahmad:

“Agha Shahid Ali was a poet, an Indian – American, a Kashmiri – American, an “all – American Shiite” (as he sometimes said), and above all, a true global citizen. He died on December 8, 2001 at the age of 52 just before reaching the pinnacle of his career as a poet, a career cut cruelly short by brain cancer. Critically acclaimed by the world of poetry both in America and internationally, author Amitav Ghosh said of Shahid: “He was perhaps the greatest South Asian poet ever to write in English.”

“Shahid once said: “My poetry has all along revealed a triple heritage . . . Hindu, Muslim, and Western.” Nevertheless, the cultural pluralism that encompasses his artistic oeuvre clearly derives not only from an upbringing with visibly imbricated Hindu, Muslim, and Western influences, but from a plurality constitutive of, among a myriad of others, secularism, Christianity, Bollywood, Hollywood, Stravinsky, Begum Akhtar, and Billie Holliday — in short, the music of the spheres. ”

Shahid once said: “My poetry has all along revealed a triple heritage . . . Hindu, Muslim, and Western.” Nevertheless, the cultural pluralism that encompasses his artistic oeuvre clearly derives not only from an upbringing with visibly imbricated Hindu, Muslim, and Western influences, but from a plurality constitutive of, among a myriad of others, secularism, Christianity, Bollywood, Hollywood, Stravinsky, Begum Akhtar, and Billie Holliday — in short, the music of the spheres.

While his poetry continues to be taught in college classes, Shahid’s lasting impact might very well rest on his contribution to the rejuvenating of the ghazal — a lyrical poem meant to be recited or sung, written in rhyming couplets — as a poetic form in English. Shahid is the first poet to have written an entire book, Call Me Ishmael Tonight (2003), of true ghazals in English — that is, ghazals which obey the strict rules of rhyme and refrain. Moreover, an anthology of ghazals, Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (2000), edited by Shahid, underscores unequivocally the significant contribution he has made to poetry in English by inviting American poets to write ghazals in English, bringing the cadences of the Urdu ghazal into English. For this we cannot praise him enough.

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Poet’s Cafe – Episode 10

Portland’s Poet Laureate Steve Luttrell hosts this half-hour monthly program highlighting local writers and singer/songwriters, peppered with great interviews and commentary.

Poet’s Cafe – Episode 9

Portland’s Poet Laureate Steve Luttrell hosts this half-hour monthly program highlighting local writers and singer/songwriters, peppered with great interviews and commentary. This episode welcomes poet Dennis Camire and singer Pete Miller.

Poet’s Cafe – Episode 8

Portland’s Poet Laureate Steve Luttrell hosts this half-hour monthly program highlighting local writers and singer/songwriters, peppered with great interviews and commentary. This episode highlights poems from poet Nancy Henry and live music by Emilla Dahlin.

Winter 2011 Issue

Winter 2011 Issue Cover

Our new Winter 2011 Issue is out!! Buy it in stores or online while supplies last. We have a very limited run of each issue.

Click here to subscribe and receive new, regular issues of our quarterly journal.

Click here for a couple excerpts
Click here for a list of poets in the issue

Poet’s Cafe – November 2010

Portland’s Poet Laureate Steve Luttrell hosts this half-hour monthly program highlighting local writers and singer/songwriters, peppered with great interviews and commentary.