The Hudson Review

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The Hudson Review Quarterly magazine of literature and the arts, founded in 1948. Poetry, fiction, essays, and more.

The Hudson Review was founded in 1947 by Princeton University alumni Frederick Morgan '43, Joseph Bennett '43, and William Arrowsmith '45. They were students in the first creative writing course taught at Princeton, by the poet Allen Tate. The students became editors of the college's Nassau Literary Magazine, and Tate advised them to begin their own literary magazine once they completed their serv

ice in World War II. The first issue of The Hudson Review was published in spring 1948, and the magazine has been in continuous quarterly publication ever since. In 1998, Frederick Morgan turned over the editorship to Paula Deitz, who joined the magazine in 1967 and became Coeditor in 1975. The journal's name denotes its origins in a makeshift office in lower Manhattan, across the street from the Hudson River, in the trustees' room of the Sapolio soap factory owned by Morgan's father.

Like many literary works from antiquity, the poems of Catullus survived by the slenderest of threads…We have to imagine ...
15/11/2024

Like many literary works from antiquity, the poems of Catullus survived by the slenderest of threads…We have to imagine also that at one time in the early transmission of the Catullan corpus, some scribe, in an increasingly Christian culture, thought well enough of the poems to copy them from scrolls into a codex, dirty words, out-of-date political invective, antiquarian vocabulary, homosexual verse and all. That broad-minded scribe and undoubtedly many others after him allowed Catullus to “last . . . beyond one lifetime,” as he expressed it in the dedicatory poem to his book, a destiny not shared by any of the other poets in his circle, whose works are entirely lost.

—Bruce Whiteman on Catullus and the new translation by Stephen Mitchell from Yale University Press. Full review free to nonsubscribers. https://tinyurl.com/4kwvy7dt

Keatsian autumn, its “mellow fruitfulness,”long, golden hours, the sky within the lakesubliminal, sublime, so quiet even...
15/11/2024

Keatsian autumn, its “mellow fruitfulness,”
long, golden hours, the sky within the lake
subliminal, sublime, so quiet even
the insects in the weeds seem loud in contrast
to the stillness of the water and the air.
Three years since you were here. Who could have guessed
what you were thinking, that in spite of this—
warm weather, gilded leaves—you’d had enough
of pain and were deciding when to die.

—Part 1 of “The Mists of Autumn” by Patricia Hooper. Full poem at https://tinyurl.com/3mr927wz . Free to nonsubscribers.

Image: Abbey Road Fall Leaves Holy Trinity Abbey Utah, 19 October 2005. ExorcisioTe, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The show has powerful moments....But the score is a case study in the ineffectiveness of rock for plot and characterizat...
13/11/2024

The show has powerful moments....But the score is a case study in the ineffectiveness of rock for plot and characterization. The music is of an incessant sameness, with no differentiation between the story’s warring factions, let alone specific characters. Protagonist Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant) sounds much like his dreamy friend Johnny Cade (Sky Lakota-Lynch), and they both sound like their preppy antagonist Bob Sheldon (Kevin William Paul). Characters change and grow over the course of the story, but the music does not reflect this. There are certainly songs with memorable licks and a few standout melodies, particularly the song “Great Expectations,” but the harmonic simplicity and rhythmic sameness do a disservice to Hinton’s original invention. And with a few exceptions, the songs don’t linger in the memory.

—Erick Neher reviews The Outsiders at the Jacobs Theatre https://tinyurl.com/2ahawp92

Image: The Cast of The Outsiders. The Rumble, photo by Matthew Murphy


Since their deaths (Wilhelm in 1859, Jacob in 1863), so many legends have accrued about their lives and works that they ...
12/11/2024

Since their deaths (Wilhelm in 1859, Jacob in 1863), so many legends have accrued about their lives and works that they almost seem fairy-tale figures themselves, quaint Hobbit-like creatures trawling the peasantry for stories. Nothing could be further from the truth, which is why Ann Schmiesing’s brief, eloquent and moving biography, The Brothers Grimm, is bound to prove enlightening to English-language readers.

—David Mason reviews The Brothers Grimm: A Biography by Ann Schmiesing from Yale University Press. Free to nonsubscribers: https://tinyurl.com/4u7zbybc

Even though I know I won’t see a hellbender, I sit for a long time and look. I see shadows under rocks and try to convin...
11/11/2024

Even though I know I won’t see a hellbender, I sit for a long time and look. I see shadows under rocks and try to convince myself. I now understand why Mazie said that. It was less about what she saw, and more about what she wanted to see.

I’m with her. I don’t need eyewitness verification. I just want to believe they’re still possible.

—From “Salamander” by Evan Howell, the first-prize winner of our fiction contest. Free to nonsubscribers. https://tinyurl.com/yj3vta56

Image: Brian Gratwicke, Hellbender, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Only 3 weeks left to submit fiction to The Hudson Review! Submit your stories at https://hudsonreview.com/submissions/ b...
09/11/2024

Only 3 weeks left to submit fiction to The Hudson Review! Submit your stories at https://hudsonreview.com/submissions/ by 11:59 pm Nov. 30, or postmark by Nov. 30. More info https://tinyurl.com/22dm4st3. As always, NO FEE. We look forward to reading your work!

Text in image:
The Hudson Review open call for fiction submissions
Word limit: 10,000
No simultaneous submissions
No previously published work
No fee.
Submit online or by mail with SASE to 33 W 67th St, NY, NY 10023
3 weeks left! Closes Nov. 30, 2024
hudsonreview.com/submissions/

We're excited to announce the launch of our autumn issue! Featuring the first-prize winner of our fiction contest, Evan ...
08/11/2024

We're excited to announce the launch of our autumn issue! Featuring the first-prize winner of our fiction contest, Evan Howell; essays by Antonio Muñoz Molina and Hilary Spurling; poetry by Charles Martin and Joan Murray; and much more! All essays/fiction free to nonsubscribers. https://hudsonreview.com/

Congratulations to Evan Howell, first-prize winner of our fiction contest! Further congratulations to second-prize winne...
08/11/2024

Congratulations to Evan Howell, first-prize winner of our fiction contest! Further congratulations to second-prize winner Reyumeh Ejue, and third-prize winners Annie Zaidi and Brecht De Poortere. We're so honored to be publishing their stories.

Thank you to everyone who submitted last year! Our next fiction contest will open in September 2025.

The earth is frozen.It’s winter now,but spring will come.New plants will grow.Their roots reach upfrom underground,alrea...
07/11/2024

The earth is frozen.
It’s winter now,
but spring will come.
New plants will grow.
Their roots reach up
from underground,
already stirring
toward the sun.
You turn to me.
I turn to you.

—From “The Pool,” by Rachel Hadas https://tinyurl.com/2s4x62m8

The delight and fascination in reading the Essays, still fresh after four hundred years, comes from the experience of wa...
06/11/2024

The delight and fascination in reading the Essays, still fresh after four hundred years, comes from the experience of watching a mind at work watching itself work. In the essay “On Idleness,” Montaigne explains that his “concern is with the manner of speaking, not the matter.” In this case, the manner makes the man as the man has made the manner.

—Tess Lewis on translating Michel de Montaigne https://tinyurl.com/3pz3bxc3

Image: Artist: Augustin de Saint-Aubin, Portrait of Michel de Montaigne, 1774, Etching and engraving; fifth state of five (Bocher). Mount: 18 1/8 × 13 7/16 in. (46 × 34.2 cm), sheet: 11 3/16 × 8 7/8 in. (28.4 × 22.5 cm). Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917. Public domain via Met Open Access.

Let me forget all that reminds me ofYou: the shoes, heels worn down the way your gaitWould wear them, the photos, rings ...
05/11/2024

Let me forget all that reminds me of
You: the shoes, heels worn down the way your gait
Would wear them, the photos, rings pledged with love,
The documents from your dissolved estate,
Our wedding china, sons, notes to yourself,
The boxes, stones and shells that you collected,
The old ski gear, the stylish belts, the shelf
Of jewelry that you carefully selected
With instructions to give it to friends.
And let me soon forget the sound of your
Low voice when you said “After my life ends,
I hope you wait a while, but then live your
Life. Find another woman. Live your life.”
If I forget all that, will you return, my wife?

——David J. Rothman, "Unforgettable"https://tinyurl.com/2s47bdte

Even before one opens the book, the title has suggested a host of associations. Silver is a chemical element, but it als...
04/11/2024

Even before one opens the book, the title has suggested a host of associations. Silver is a chemical element, but it also connotes quickness, privilege, age, song, and betrayal among many others...Each of these variously glimmer and flash in Phillips’ lines, but the association that seems most apt is alchemical, in the sense of transformation and speculative thought.

—Lorna Knowles Blake reviews Silver by Rowan Ricardo Phillips from Farrar, Straus and Giroux https://tinyurl.com/yc4zed8x

I’m not a great believer in the truth of back cover blurbs, my own or anyone else’s, but I was impressed by the plethora...
01/11/2024

I’m not a great believer in the truth of back cover blurbs, my own or anyone else’s, but I was impressed by the plethora of advance praise for Good Material, the most interesting from the actress and writer Lena Dunham, who called the novel “p*e-your-pants funny.” I didn’t p*e in my pants, and I didn’t laugh out loud, and if there’s the least opportunity to laugh, I am first in line. The novel is amusing but not hilarious. Andy is sad, his sadness is on every page. There is a poignancy about his quest to win back Jen that made me love him rather than laugh.

—Louise Marburg reviews Good Material by Dolly Alderton from Alfred A. Knopf https://tinyurl.com/32pdfxd9

…the few clouds unsure if they should rain,The way the thick limb of the cottonwoodHe walks under every day can’t decide...
31/10/2024

…the few clouds unsure if they should rain,
The way the thick limb of the cottonwood
He walks under every day can’t decide
If today it lets the wind that cools his skin

Bring the branch down.

—From “Summer Summation” by Michael Spence https://tinyurl.com/yv8h8utt

This new play feels like a therapeutic attempt to understand and exorcize the legacy of a mother who was clearly difficu...
30/10/2024

This new play feels like a therapeutic attempt to understand and exorcize the legacy of a mother who was clearly difficult. Phyllis reacts with furious disapproval to Carl and Martha’s respective revelations of their q***r sexuality, and we can imagine that Vogel’s mother probably had a similar reaction. But the play never coheres as drama, feeling instead like a series of journal entries by a daughter who’s trying to make sense of a mother she resents and loves. Tina Landau’s tonally erratic production, which included bizarre dancing cockroaches, doesn’t help matters.

—Erick Neher reviews Paula Vogel’s The Mother Play on Broadway https://tinyurl.com/yvkdz495

Image: Celia Keenan-Bolger and Jessica Lange in Mother Play. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Some of us will look to the horizonKnowing all the while how it fades beyondThe curve of circular earth forever.—From “O...
29/10/2024

Some of us will look to the horizon
Knowing all the while how it fades beyond
The curve of circular earth forever.

—From “Old Men” by Terence P. Paré. Full poem: https://tinyurl.com/rx7mxres

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