Let us get to the best first of Cave Wall’s winter 2007 issue: A. Van Jordan’s “The First Law of Motion.” Jordan writes lyric poems that bruise you. His semi-narrative style doesn’t lend itself to out-of-context sampling, but here are a few middle stanzas from “The First Law of Motion”:

This is confessional poetry in the best sense of the word— non-indulgent and authentic. Most good poets, at least every once in a while, attempt a poem in which they come off either stylistically or thematically as the kid who attempts to change his or her image—to invent some sort of tortured identity. Jordan tries more difficult tricks than most poets and still—as one can see above—deftly pulls the rabbit out of the hat.

Fred Chappell writes dense, pseudo-fatuous verse. He can be ironic, lyrical, and/or brusque. Here’s an example of Chappell’s lyricism from “All the Good Times Are Past and Gone”:

You almost want to love that final stanza for the mere fact that it rhymes “soon” and “moon” to an uncorny, even un-ironic effect—but it undoubtedly must be admired for its consistent, pitch-perfect detail, as well.

Jim Peterson and Charlotte Matthews are also featured in the issue. Peterson’s “Woodcreek 1977” is fantastically illustrative, and Matthews—in her depiction of her daughter’s concussion and playing dress-up—displays an alluring and distinctive voice.

Overall, Cave Wall winter 2007 is excellent in the way only the best literary magazines focused strictly on poetry can be. In other words, its editorial choosiness is apparent in the quality of the writing it presents. Nobody bats .1000 if they have more than a couple at-bats in the majors, but Cave Wall—to mix my sport metaphors—is shooting 75% so far, publishing a range of impressive writing athleticism.

Soon after I turned in the above review, the Luna Park editors told me they had just received the Cave Wall winter/spring 2008 issue, and asked if I could write a short addendum to my previous piece, the results of which are as follows.

Unexpectedly, Cave Wall winter/spring 2008 pales slightly in comparison to the impressive, vigorous writing in Cave Wall winter 2007. There seems to me a preponderance of two types of poems in the more recent issue: underwritten/overtopic and overwritten/undertopic. I would offer as an example of the former category Gail Peck’s series of poems based on artwork by children who died in concentration camps. Certainly I am somewhat jaded from my years of watching Holocaust movies in Hebrew School, but poetry based on dead children’s artwork has to be—well, really good, and Peck’s are somewhat less than crippling in their urgency. This is not to single out Peck (whose poetry is accomplished), because the issue as a whole is disappointing when laid alongside the above-reviewed issue of Cave Wall.

There are stand-outs in this latest issue, of course, one being the writing of Tracy K. Smith. Smith picks mid-level topics—men, promiscuity— and writes the hell out of them. Here’s most of the second stanza from “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay”:

I was thrown off by the disparity in quality between Cave Wall winter 2007— the magazine's premiere issue— and Cave Wall winter/spring 2008, the magazine’s third issue. I turned to Cave Wall’s second issue, summer 2007, to try and decipher the magazine’s editorial vision.

I was surprised, to say the least—astounded, really. Cave Wall’s summer 2007 is by far the best of the three. I enjoyed the majority of the poets, but my favorite was Elizabeth Hadaway. Here’s “And How I Dread Our Dying Separately”:

In all three of her poems, Hadaway is smart, and emotional but not sentimental. Also stunning were Patrick Phillips’ poems. Here’s from “Our Situation”:

Some poets can make the difficulty of simplicity look easy like this, and Phillips’ other poems indicate that this above poem’s organic, easy-seeming commentary was not luck on his part, but applied efficiency.

Of there three issues to date, Cave Wall summer 2007 is the more accomplished. Though, admittedly, I didn’t enjoy the latest issue nearly as much as the other two, Cave Wall has already made its mark in the poetry world—and, what’s more, still well ahead of the curve.

Greg Weiss is a Master's student in poetry at the University of Southern Mississippi. Before returning to school, he worked as an assistant teacher, nanny, barista, pizza delivery guy, door-to-door solicitor, ESL teacher, and flight attendant. He is the proud owner of a very handsome cat named El Bob "Precious" Dylan.