NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

An A4, 28 page magazine containing poems, articles, and stories. Overall, the standard is reasonably high, although some of the poems seem a little wordy. The format is pleasing, with writing interspersed with little sketches by different artists. Susan Carmen's poem, MARCHING ORDERS, has a light-hearted touch:

	My neighbor's lawn is Emerald City green,
	trimmed like a Marine's
	buzz cut, short and tight,
	not a blade out of place.

	She tells me how he
	laughed at a picture
	of me and my boyfriend;
	our heads together,
	smiling, goofy, drunk.
	I pace myself,
	redwoods and firs
	surround us.

	sun shines on snow-scape
	we are flying
	above the clouds

	spreading wobbly marmalade
	at 29,000 feet

	Schiphol Airport
	miles and miles of walkways
	between the gates

This is a 28-page magazine, bound in gray card, folded to North American A4 size, with the contents arranged in one, two or three columns. In this issue's REGULARS section, there are two editorials (both interesting ones) and a very useful column called WEB NOTES, which gives a brief précis of several web-sites dealing with matters of interest to readers and authors who want to learn more about recent developments in web resources. This is an unusual feature for a magazine of this kind, and it is a very welcome one, I think. There is also one short story, fourteen monochrome illustrations by various artists, and a total of forty-six poems by thirty-two poets. The editors describe the magazine's stance as 'modernist rather than post-modernist', and this is evidenced clearly in the work published.

My favourite poem here is the curiously-titled piece, JIFFY POP FOR JESUS, by Donna Biffar, in which pop-corn effectively becomes a symbol for the colonization of the Americas. The poem begins with the immediate, or post-colonial experience:

	Long after she sent us to bed I listened
	for the spill of seeds against metal,
	the sound of parched corn popping
	into Cortes' white flowers
	crushed beneath the teeth of conquest.

	we dug our nails into the cob meat,
	yanked the teardrop seeds
	and peered into our blue glass jars,
	blue as the sky should be—

Other poems in very different styles are also impressive. Patrick Dobson's NEW LIGHT sequence is vivid and controlled, and I especially like the concluding lines:

	the river
	mirrors ignited
	wineglasses of sun

	I should confess
	I was once the angel
	who pressed his hands  over the Virgin's lips.

	This afternoon, I'll get on my knees
	to wash the church steps
	and paint her robe a deeper shade of blue.

	the next day you return,
	dressed like a black swan,
	and drive me to a dreamy alleyway
	where you sit on a stone step,
	your chin on your knees,
	wind whistling in our ears,
	and you talk about love and salvation.
	you see right through me,
	to the confusion,
	but you smile with dark eyes and long lashes,
	waiting to bring order through innocence.