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

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

"Thunder" is part of an extended sonnet sequence in elegy for Kimberly Johnson’s late spouse, the poet Jay Hopler, in which nature’s lament for his death takes the form of a thunderstorm. 

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

"Thunder" by Kimberly Johnson

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

"Marking Time" by Til Punto

"Order" by Til Punto

"Palace Guards" by Til Punto

"Ornithomancy" by Maureen Alsop

"Eromancy" by Maureen Alsop

"Necromancy" by Maureen Alsop

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

"Stutterfied" by Adam Giannelli

"Emotionally Self-Aware Adoptive Parent: Contract for Service" by Nik Chang Hoon

"She-Bear" by Evgenia Nekrasova trans. Marianna Suleymanova

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.

"Thunder" by Kimberly Johnson

The Southern Review/LSUP

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