NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Ten stories, and a large number of poems in this family-friendly magazine. The mass of poems are capable enough, without scaling any great heights or achieving any particular vibrancy. STAIRCASES by Nancy G. Westerfield is a well-crafted poem juxtaposing images of her father at different stages of his life. One memory is of a strong, protective father who, on her catching a finger between some door-hinges,

                   on the landing above races down
       To care for it.

                                        At the landing,
       He calls, waiting for me to come to him there.

       his zipper still at half-mast,
       a smudge on his jaw
       even I couldn't miss.

Subtitled "Fiction for the Family", the feel of GREEN'S MAGAZINE reminds me a little of READER'S DIGEST, which I found initially a little off putting.

However, the short stories are in general well written and interesting, though not astonishing. I especially liked ERNIE AND ALICE by Jess Bond, in which the entire history of the married life of an old couple is evoked in just a few pages. The story has an unexpectedly optimistic ending.

I also enjoyed MELNYK by Jaroslaw Zurowksy — the dark story of a peasant's son's revenge on his father's aristocratic murderer — and DIGGING DANDELIONS by Del Palmer with it's nostalgic, but subtle description of a boy's world in relation to his grandfather's.

Unfortunately, there is also a whole bunch of sentimental and banal poems, though I am sure they will appeal to some. Judge for yourselves — FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND by Celine Rose Mariotti:

	What else can I call you,
	But my fair-weather friend,
	You never call me on the phone,
	You never invite me to your home.
	What else can I say,
	I try to be a friend,
	To reach out and send you a card,
	I used to call you on the phone,
	But I don't do one-sided friendships anymore...

A5 stapled booklet, containing 96 pages packed with short stories and poems.

There is a mixed bag of poems and short stories. This is from THE ROAD WEST by Beatrice Fines:

	The road west follows the river
	dips into ravines and climbs rounded hills
	Spruce, birch and tamarack crowd its shoulders
	and old barns settle comfortably to earth
	small houses sit in shadows
	of wide spreading willows

	The spent summer's descent is red and brown
	beneath the trees, a coloured wreath, a life
	transfused, bequeathed, a bronze-gold radiance
	staining grass and seeping as from one slain
	with rustled breath in the season of death,
	the season of solace and shade retraced
	where sweet days are no more elite
	and the nights advance on a flame-red flight

Immediately, it became the most romantic name we'd ever heard. At home we took turns saying his name. We stood in front of the mirror and watched the way our mouths moved. The more we stood there looking at our reflections, the more ridiculous we looked, only we refused to admit it. It was necessary to practise if the big day came when we might have to speak his name. It had to sound perfect.

I admit to being a trifle suspicious when I read a sub-title like FICTION FOR THE FAMILY. I mean it does (or should) set you wondering, shouldn't it? Does this imply there's something there for everyone? Kiddies' jokes and adult stories sitting side by side, that sort of thing. Or does it mean that Censorship has been striding about wielding a hefty pair of pruning shears?

I also squirm a little when I see the poets' bio notes up front and given more importance than the poems. We all like our bio notes, of course we do, but on page one? Okay, I'm being a cad, as it is not entirely clear to me whether these are prize winners or contributors. On the inside cover the top three in the Harding and Wright Prizes are listed, but the poems mentioned are not in the mag. Maybe I'm just a duffer.

All this goes to show this is the first time I have had Green's Magazine in my hands. Maybe it needs to be a little more new-user-friendly, that's all.

Anyway, to get in the family spirit, I tried reading the poems out loud in bed. I started with HOUSE SITTING, an endearing free verse poem about guinea pigs teeth too close to jugulars for comfort which suddenly went pear-shaped — the last line being

	in anticipation of fresh water and store-bought vegetables

I read on. Read the dial a funeral bit in YOU BUY A MONA LISA poem three times. I think I get it now. I tried VISITORS too, about a girl crossing Vancouver with holly sprigs as red as the heart of God — There was silence on the other side of the bed.

I was enjoying THE WINNING TICKET story by Shalom Camenietzki until I suddenly felt the family moral peeping out between the lines. THE HANGING by Jim Sullivan is a breath of fresh air and quite hilarious — maybe the ending is two lines too long.

But then maybe I was in the wrong mood.

The next night I read out PORT-O-POTTY, WASHINGTON PARK, DENVER, thinking, as I got to the corpses and the vomit, oh dear he's not going to like this. Wrong. — That's a bit better — came the comment from the other side of the bed. Which surprised me, coming from him.

But the best piece in the book, for me, is LEWIS AND JOHN AND LONNIE GNOME. I had left it till last, thinking, wrongly, from the illustration and the title, and that bit about family reading, that it was a child's piece. It is a most chilling of condemnations on human nature and our attitude to race. The author, Shane Nelson, had another story in the magazine last year, THE WINTER GIRL — I'd like to get hold of that.

Green's Magazine is now in its final year. The January 2005 issue will be the last one. The editor is

trying, meanwhile, to print all accepted work on hand.

Among the poets included are Giovanni Malito and R.L. Cook. From the bio-notes it would appear that the editor hasn't yet heard about the recent deaths of both these writers. Cook's SONNET IN ABSENCE is especially poignant:

	There will be days of pain and emptiness
	With many desert oceans to be crossed;
	Long hours of continence will grimly press
	The sweat of yearning from the iron frost
	That hangs, unmelting, in the body's cave,
	Whose icicles lay bars across the mask
	That shields the heart, and we shall only have
	The chills of solitude to line that cask.
	Then sleep beneath the blanket of a sigh
	For in these times there's little else to do
	But dream myself returning where you lie
	To thaw this ice in love and rest with you:
	So, while nights stretch dark roads and tired dawns break,
	These dreams will serve to keep the heart awake.

	... scavangers are great survivors.