The Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 Edition)
Bill Henderson kicks off the thirty-seventh Pushcart Prize compendium, as he does each year, with a shrewd and rousing introduction, this time coining an invaluable phrase to describe the digital crush that crowds out so many artistic and reflective voices, A new censorship of clutter. But he is quick to assert that the surge in electronic media also means that more good writing is appearing in more lively, small-press venues than ever before. Each Pushcart volume is magnetized by its best-known contributors, and this edition needs no stronger draw than Marilynne Robinson’s breathtakingly on-the-mark essay On ‘Beauty.’ Other arresting essays include Robin Hemley’s piece on rain forests, both ersatz and authentic, and Andrew Hudgins’ on telling jokes. Guest poetry editors Bob Hicok and Maxine Kumin select poems of startlingly power by Sommer Browning, Christian Flores Garcia, and Diane Wakoski. And the smart, vivid, and unnerving fiction selections include stories by Wendell Berry, Karen Russell, Shannon Cain, and Sarah Cornwell. This annual only grows stronger in its showcasing of imaginative, inquisitive, gutsy, witty, and superbly well-made literary works. --Donna Seaman