by Greg Schwartz

Created on: September 21, 2009

Barbaric Yawp is a quarterly small-press magazine edited by John and Nancy Berbrich. It comes in chapbook-style format, with a full-color cardstock cover. The current issue (July 2009, Volume 13 Number 3) is 45 pages long.

At first glance, the magazine is pretty typical of what you would expect from a small press journal - it contains poetry, short fiction, a note from the editor, and a few book reviews. But upon closer inspection, Barbaric Yawp takes on a life of its own.

The poetry is always of a high caliber. Typical poems appearing in the Yawp tend to be edgy, gritty, and no-holds-barred. They're not obscure poems that try to sound smart or mock the average reader, and they're not poems whose only point is to say that they're poems. They're poems that make sense, and that fit within the framework of the rest of the magazine.

Sometimes you'll find an exceptional poem hidden among the good ones, like "Ruins," by William Michaelian:

Dragonfly
prehistoric blue

these ants have made
of you a church

without
a bell.

(July 2009)

Barbaric Yawp includes a wide variety of poetry, with many short poems and even some haiku scattered here and there. Fans of speculative poetry will find a decent amount of dark and dreary poems, such as this one by Kate Duvall (also from the July 2009) issue:

Funeral Scene

Lying in the box,
I blink, and eighty mourners
Shriek in black lace gowns....

There is also plenty of short fiction to be found within the pages. The current issue includes six stories, most of which are under three pages. "Hook Up" by Chip O'Brien is a great story, well-narrated and with a nicely twisted ending.

In addition to the poetry and fiction, Barbaric Yawp also includes book reviews and essays, as well as an insert titled "From the Marrow." On this page you will find brief reviews of other small press publications - books as well as journals - and a list of chapbook titles available from the editors of the Yawp, published under the name of MuscleHead Press. (The list of chapbooks can also be viewed at the MuscleHead Press website.)

A subscription to Barbaric Yawp is $15, and single copies can be purchased for $4 each. Unsolicited submissions are accepted by snail mail, and contributors will receive a copy of the issue containing their work. See the Barbaric Yawp website for more detailed guidelines.

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