The Hollins
Critic
A leading American literary journal, The Hollins Critic enters its 46th year in 2009 with essays on writers like Kelly Cherry by Casey Clabough, Christine Garren by Allison Seay, and Jason Shinder by Liz Rosenberg.
The Hollins Critic, published five times a year, presents the first serious surveys of the whole bodies of contemporary writers’ work, with complete checklists. In past issues, you’ll find essays on such writers as John Engels (by David Huddle), James McCourt (by David Rollow), Jane Hirshfield (by Jeanne Larsen), Edwidge Danticat (by Denise Shaw), Vern Rutsala (by Lewis Turco), Sarah Arvio (by Lisa Williams) and Milton Kessler (by Liz Rosenberg).
The Hollins Critic also offers brief reviews
of books you want to know about and poetry by poets both
new and established. And every issue has a cover portrait
by Susan Avishai M.A. '02.
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Edward P. Jones
June 2007
Critic |
Dawn Powell
December 2007
Critic |
John Engels
June 2008
Critic |
Jane Hirshfield
December 2008
Critic |
December 2009 Issue Excerpt
"Jason Shinder’s Work: The Poet Laureate Of Loneliness"
By Liz Rosenberg
 The late Jason Shinder was a poet’s poet, which sometimes is shorthand for saying a poet that ordinary people do not read or understand. That is not the case with Shinder’s work. It is in fact marvelously accessible and hits the reader hard at heart-level. It is sometimes raw, always daring, carefully constructed, deceptively casual in tone—somewhere between rabbinical parable and stand-up comedy.
By a poet’s poet I mean simply that Jason Shinder’s life was extraordinarily, intricately involved in poetry at every level. You could not separate poetry from the poet. He believed in poetry; he lived, breathed, wrote and spoke it. He felt that poems could and should be available to everyone, no matter what their background—on a personal, and community, culture-wide level. One of his early bosses was Phil Dwyer, the director of the YMCA in Chicago. Dwyer had heard of this strange young man who’d made an office for himself by reconfiguring one of the bathrooms in the basement of the Y, a young man who was always talking poetry. So he found this kid—Jason, of course—and told him, “I’m not a poet, so I may be wrong, but I think we could create a program to bring poetry to every YMCA in America.”
Jason answered, "You’re wrong." Then he added, "I mean, you’re wrong about not being a poet."
Cover portrait © Susan Avishai 2009
Writer's Guidelines
The Hollins Critic reads poetry submissions from September 1 to December 15 each year. Poetry must be submitted to The Hollins Critic using the link below. There are no rules about style or subject. One to five poems may be submitted.
The Critic pays $25.00 per poem, upon publication. All rights revert to the author following publication, but if the poem is reprinted elsewhere, the Critic should be credited.
Besides poetry, the Critic publishes an essay on a contemporary author in each issue, and book reviews as space permits. The Critic does not accept unsolicited essays. Rarely do we accept unsolicited book reviews. When a review is published, the author receives a copy of the issue, and two copies are sent to the book’s publisher. Only poetry may be submitted through the link below.
The Critic does not publish fiction.
Click here to submit to the Critic.
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