Here is an incomplete list of some places I read the stories and poems in Weave Magazine: I read two in line at the coffee shop, over a salad on my lunch break I read seven, on the bus I made it to five and a half before I reached my stop and, in part of an hour before bed I managed to pack away nearly a dozen, holding the densely packed but relatively lightweight journal easily against my knees. But this is just what I remember, and as there are nearly seventy pieces of short prose, flash fiction and poetry contained in the pages of Issue 7 this is truly an incomplete list.
Weave Magazine comes to us from Philadelphia, PA and San Francisco, CA, which I find fitting for a magazine that seems interested in covering a lot of distance in the metaphorical sense, and perhaps the literal as well. Flipping through the pages it is easy to see that most of the text is broken into blocks, either the small paragraphs of a short piece of fiction or spread across the page in poems utilizing white space and form. “The Cleave of Color” is a poem that blooms from the fold of the page, allowing Nancy Long to utilize shape to add meaning to her poem.
As I read through Weave, I felt as if I never knew what to expect on the next page. Though the start of the magazine was devoted to the winners of 2011 Poetry and Flash Fiction Contests, the rest of the magazine was not ordered into sections of any kind. I found this to be pleasing when I picked up the journal to read just a couple pieces, but felt somewhat unconnected and bounced around when reading for longer periods of time.
This, of course, can be the affect of diversity, both in form and voice. Because Weave did not seem to set out for a uniform reading experience, some pieces spoke to each other better than others. By concentrating on flash fiction, for example, each story is truly a slice of a story, the words not written looming large behind what is on the page, a phenomenon that is nicely illustrated by the flash fiction contest winning “White Bread” by Kelly Brice Baron. Indeed, most the poetry bent towards this similar theme, drawing neat but rarely elaborate images and invoking more hints than outright details, such as in “Female Poet Writes Cowboy Poem,” where Lauren Hilger pulls in the expanse of a western sky in four quick stanzas.
Weave also includes a small collection of images in its pages. The images are all in black and white and tend towards looking at something, whether it is a flower or a human face, from an unexpected angle and almost always framed so that the subject took up most of the frame. Ultimately, this is also how I saw the poems and prose in Weave, as well, close up though never squarely head on.
Though Weave is a magazine I enjoyed reading, it is not the type I’d hand off to my non-writing friends. The contributors ranged in age and education level, from young MFA students to high school teachers to artists that work in visual as well as literary mediums. I wouldn’t say one needs an MFA to either submit or enjoy reading Weave. I do think one needs a somewhat quirky love of words and a sense of adventure in reading that will renew itself even after reading a piece or two that failed to make much of an impression. It will prove to be a rewarding journey, when you make it to the end.