https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2024/267/

TSR Winter 2024 Audio Gallery

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2024/268/

TSR Spring 2024 Audio Gallery

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Autumn-2024/270/

Our autumn 2024 issue features fiction by Grazia Deledda, Alejandro Puyana, and Woo Dayoung; poetry by Dominique Ahkong, Alice Friman, and Danusha Laméris; nonfiction by Gustavo Perez; artwork by Victoria Manganiello; and much more!

TSR Autumn 2024 Audio Gallery

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2025/271/

Ring in the new year with the winter issue of The Southern Review. You can take a stand against the passage of time in a new story by Dina Nayeri, or contemplate the possibility of romance in a small, icy town in Chris McCormick’s “You’re Not in Love, You’re in Minnesota.” Go on the strangest of honeymoons across a shifting landscape in a newly translated fable by the French surrealist Noël Devaulx, or consider the redemptive qualities of a thrift store in Samuel Cheney’s new poem “Deseret Industries Thrift.” Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins returns to The Southern Review’s pages with “The Mouths of Babes,” reckoning with the difficulty implicit in creating art that may feel simple on the surface. New poetry by Barbara Boches, Shara McCallum, and Miho Nonaka, among many others, are also featured. This issue highlights the artwork of Carolyn Zacharias McAdams, whose miniature paintings draw inspiration from the details and precision of doll houses and illuminated manuscripts. We also proudly announce the winners of this year’s Oran Robert Perry Burke and James Olney Awards.

TSR Winter 2025 Audio Gallery

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

Blossoms are beginning to drift across the wind, along with the new pages of The Southern Review. Join us for a trek to warmer temperatures in the desert with Mesha Maren’s “Tonopah,” contemplating the night sky and grief and light, or reminisce about the eighties with Marilyn Abildskov’s “Fur.” Ponder the sinister politics of a neighbor committee with Arnoldo Gálvez Suárez’s “The New Neighbor,” or endure the trappings of a disappointing after-wedding chain restaurant in Chelsea Rathburn’s “Love Poem with Bottled Steak Sauce.” You can also watch the Final Four with Bobby C. Rogers’s mother, or join Jane Hirshfield to consider the future, and also the wonders of the turnip. Philip Schultz, Mairead Small Staid, and El Williams III are also featured. This issue highlights the artwork of Keren Kroul, whose large-scale painting and watercolor installations evoke memory as landscape through fragmentation and white space.

TSR Spring 2025 Audio Gallery

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2024/267/

When my mother joined a cult—and I followed—I struggled to distinguish myth from reality. The absolute boredom of the everyday taught me a great deal.

"Reality Testing" by Esther Lin

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2024/267/

The cult built a bunker for persecuted Christians to hide. The cult taught us that the apocalypse would be hard on Christians, and no thought was spared for others.

"Church Bunker" by Esther Lin

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2024/267/

Burrow under the covers and savor the delights of a warm bed in Emily Tuszynska’s poem, ‘Nine Nights beneath the Red Blanket.’

"Nine Nights beneath the Red Blanket" by Emily Tuszynska

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2024/267/

“These are three more examples of the prose poems I’ve been obsessed with over these last 10 years.”

"February" by Charles Rafferty

"The Problem with Spring" by Charles Rafferty

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2024/268/

No one really knows how the scrolls of the Library of Alexandria were stored and filed, but this poem mentions one possibility. The Russian poet Osip Mandelstam died in the Gulag in 1938.

“The Library of Alexandria” by David Wojahn

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2024/268/

This poem is inspired by a poem by Borges that I've always loved. His poem is a sonnet; mine is a little longer.

“To a Minor Poet in the Greek Anthology” by David Wojahn

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2024/268/

“The Sketchbook (IV)” is the final section of a four part poem reflecting the artistic and personal three-part braid of its protagonists. “The Sketchbook (II)” appeared in a previous issue of The Southern Review.

"The Sketchbook (IV)" by David St. John

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2024/268/

When the electricity fails, the world transforms in Catherine Pierce’s “Abecedarian for the Power Outage.

“Abecedarian for the Power Outage” by Catherine Pierce

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2024/268/

A blazing new poem tears through decades of inherited silences to understand what unmade a father's embrace in Cindy Tran's "Blank Verse."

“Blank Verse” by Cindy Tran

"Humanity 101" by Denise Duhamel

Read about the regrets and the personal consequences of immigration in Lucia Cherciu's poem "Practicing the New Way."

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Autumn-2024/270/

"Practicing the New Way" by Lucia Cherciu

Two daughters cut their mother’s hair after she begins chemotherapy in Dominique Ahkong’s poem “Ritual for Familiar Women.”

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Autumn-2024/270/

“Ritual for Familiar Women” by Dominique Ahkong

How are you holding up? Consider the skeleton, aging, and the geriatric dog in Suzanne Matson's "Bone Songs."

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Autumn-2024/270/

"Bone Songs" by Suzanne Matson

I was fifteen, and looking back from the high hill of my age, that moment is the only clear and meaningful thing I can recall from my four years of high school.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Autumn-2024/270/

"On First Hearing Gray’s ‘Elegy’" by Alice Friman

Here is an ode, a love song, to the West African city that is this speaker's past, present, and eternity. 

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Autumn-2024/270/

“Lagos” by D.M. Aderibigbe

In “Photographs from the Exclusion Zone,” Ciaran Berry considers photos long kept of the exclusion zone around Chernobyl.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2025/271/

“Photographs from the Exclusion Zone” by Ciaran Berry

In “The Making of Jaws,” Ciaran Berry contemplates a story of how the film was made almost by accident because the shark didn’t work.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2025/271/

“The Making of Jaws” by Ciaran Berry

A trip to John Adams’s opera with a friend in New York is recalled in Ciaran Berry’s “Doctor Atomic.”  Unfortunately, he forgot his glasses, and so missed a lot of what was happening on stage. A recording of a performance on the Met’s website filled in the gaps.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2025/271/

“Doctor Atomic” by Ciaran Berry

Shara McCallum’s “Parable” is an allegory of motherhood, the nature of the self and selflessness, and faith.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2025/271/

“Parable” by Shara McCallum

Shara McCallum’s ekphrastic sonnet, “The Storm” engages memory, bringing the past and future together through the image of the storm.

“The Storm” by Shara McCallum

Consider how the image permits us to look, slantwise, at the things we fear most in Shara McCallum’s “When the Night Comes in Its Dark Clothes.”

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2025/271/

“When the Night Comes in Its Dark Clothes” by Shara McCallum

Marilyn Abildskov’s “Fur” is an eighties story. In the eighties everything was big. Shoulder pads. Perms. Gas prices. Crime. But first, something small. A memory. A stretch of road. An unremarkable railroad town.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

"Fur" by Marilyn Abildskov

Andrew Hemmert’s “Who Would Destroy Me” catalogues potential sources of annihilation in a suburban landscape and turns towards joy regardless.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Who Would Destroy Me” by Andrew Hemmert

Fires, both wild and domestic, haunt but fail to overcome the speaker's landscape and homescape in Andrew Hemmert’s “Yellow Tanagers.”

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Yellow Tanagers” by Andrew Hemmert

Bobby C. Rogers, on his poem “Someone Else’s Story”: “Forgive me for not being a UCLA fan or showing legendary basketball coach John Wooden the proper respect, but just about anything can go in a poem.”

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Someone Else’s Story” by Bobby C. Rogers

As a renter, Aram Donovan can’t hoard survivalist gear (or anything really), but “I Worry These Are the Good Times” reflects a desire to somehow prepare . . . for later.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“I Worry These Are the Good Times” by Aran Donovan

p. e. garcia’s “Other Animals” is about troubled students, and the confusion a teacher can feel when trying to extend empathy.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

"Other Animals" by p.e. garcia

Olga Livshin’s “Deadbeat Gods” explores much of the world's passive stance on Russia's war in Ukraine. It blends the Deist belief in a disengaged god with humanity's indifference to war victims.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

"Deadbeat Gods” by Olga Livshin

Mairead Small Staid’s "Amnesia Sounds Like a Kind of Flower" is, despite its refrain, about remembering.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Amnesia Sounds Like a Kind of Flower” by Mairead Small Staid

Philip Schultz’s “Good News” is an attempt to balance the imbalance of bad news with good news, using an old black and white film as inspiration and “the smallest scrap of certainty.”

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Good News” by Philip Schultz

“Spoiled Prayers” is inspired by a photo of a lone American soldier walking amidst Jewish pillage piled ceiling high in a German cathedral just after WWII.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Spoiled Prayers” by Philip Schultz

“The Art of Wailing” uses the comedy of personal astonishment to deal with and understand the upheaval accompanying a heart attack.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“The Art of Wailing” by Philip Schultz

During the first round of fires in California, in a New York Times photo Tom Sleigh saw a herd of deer, mostly young bucks, huddled at the bottom of a field, all of them staring in what looked like shock at the flames racing toward them.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Deer Fleeing a Forest Fire” by Tom Sleigh

Weston Cutter’s “Just the Whole Ocean” is sort of about how we reckon with the lives we end up with after (for most of us) spending the first twenty-plus years wanting—in other words, how we contend with having (or, anyway, how I do).

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Just the Whole Ocean” by Weston Cutter

Rasaq Malik Gbolahan’s "Here, God" is an elegiac poem for every homeland wrestling with unrest and war. It's also a memorial, a way of remembering the victims of this unrest and war.

https://www.thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2025/272/

“Here, God” by Rasaq Malik Gbolahan

Huey fancied himself a musician and a songwriter. "Every Man a King" is an attempt to turn his down-home socialism, the so-called Share Our Wealth plan, into a hit song. This performance has been broadcast several times as part of documentaries and news clips. It was looped at the Vetter Communications Company studios in Baton Rouge, and its use is restricted to this audio appendix. 

"Every Man a King" by Huey Long and Castro Carazo

Susan Browne reads “Aubade Ending in Elegy” and “Variations on Texts by Cesar Vallejo, Donald Justice, and Patrick Phillips,” the latter in which the gravediggers finally rest their shovels.

"Aubade Ending in Elegy" by Susan Browne

Hear Arianne Zwartjes reflect on her experience in a Greek refugee camp and the burgeoning, devastating humanitarian crisis in her essay, “These Dark Skies: Seeking Refuge on Europe’s Shores.”

"These Dark Skies" by Arianne Zwartjes

In Dina Nayeri’s “A Big True,” we follow Rahad’s peripatetic life through relationships from Tehran to Times Square.

"A Big True" (excerpt) by Dina Nayeri

Listen as Susan Browne reads her “Prayer,” a poem about questioning God and searching for answers amongst rocks, wisteria, Camus, and Phyllis Diller.

"Prayer" by Susan Browne

Imagination is the path to memory in these two poems, "Ars Poetica" and "Rasp, Spoon, and Pestle" by Orlando Ricardo Menes.

From the winter 2019 issue: https://thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2019/247/

Two Poems by Orlando Ricardo Menes

"You Fell Forward on Both Knees" by Shane Seely

"Partial Solar Eclipse" by Shane Seely

TSR Autumn 2019 Audio Gallery

"Almond Rabbit" by Jane Hirshfield

In her poems "Rachel Carson at the Deathbed of Mary Scott Skinker" and "Rachel Carson's Father Buys a Homestead," Jennifer Loyd imagines intimate moments from the pioneering environmentalist's life.
From the winter 2020 issue: https://thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Winter-2020/251/

"Rachel Carson At The Deathbed Of Mary Scott Skinker" by Jennifer Loyd

Befriend a woman in three hats outside a Vienna nightclub in Maria Fink's translation of "Postcard Sea" by Paula Köhlmeier.
From the spring 2020 issue: https://thesouthernreview.org/issues/detail/Spring-2020/252/

"Postcard Sea" by Paula Köhlmeier translated by Maria Fink ENGLISH

"Ghazals of Ghalib" by M. Shahid Alam (in Urdu and in English)

The Southern Review is one of the nation’s premiere literary journals. Hailed by Time as "superior to any other journal in the English language," we have made literary history since our founding in 1935. We publish a diverse array of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by the country’s—and the world’s—most respected contemporary writers.

Established at Louisiana State University, The Southern Review immediately became a literary tastemaker. The launch of The Southern Review came about "On a bright Sunday afternoon in late February, 1935," when Louisiana State University’s president drove his black Cadillac to Robert Penn Warren’s house in Baton Rouge to invite him, his wife, and their friend Albert Erskine on a drive to discuss creating a magazine of "distinctive character and quality." Cleanth Brooks and Charles W. Pipkin were consulted; both joined the editorial staff. The Southern Review’s first series ran 1935 to 1942 before closing due to the war. In 1965, the journal was revived under the editorship of Lewis P. Simpson and Donald E. Stanford, who launched the second series to great acclaim. LSU Press became The Southern Review’s publisher in 2011, allowing the journal to undertake new initiatives, such as reaching readers through a digital version in addition to the print quarterly.

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