Inaugural Issue a Success

I'm currently dating a Korean. Granted, having been adopted by an American couple at three months old and raised in Manhattan, she's about as un-Korean as it's possible to be. That, however, hasn't stopped my three younger brothers from making what seems like every Asian joke imaginable at every chance they get. Naturally, they have yet to isolate a distinctly Korean topic, instead citing stereotypes from what seems like every other nation and ethnicity from the continent. Distasteful, to say the least. In more ways than one. *Le Sigh.*

It is for either that reason (or because of the sheer overload of Asian American literature I ended up reading in college) that the inaugural issue of the Asian American Literary Review (AALR) sat around in my bedroom for nearly a full month before I picked it up.  Rest assured, no dust collected on this beautiful volume: it moved from here to there to yonder and back again, more than once, because I really did want to read it.

(It's important to note that when I finally did begin reading AALR, I was shown – as quickly as on the very first post-masthead page, in the forum section – that my entire Korean-but-not-Korean mentality is completely moot. In a mere handful of pages I was shown that the idea of being Asian American is a very complex issue represented by scores – if not hundreds – of different viewpoints which I am ashamed to admit hadn't even occurred to me.)

However, before I meander off discussing the content of this journal, I'd like to address its worth in terms of how it is laid out. The layout of AALR is flagrantly simple, understated, and coherent.  I could go on but, to make a long list of adjectives short, AALRs layout is downright beautiful.

The first thing you'll notice (I did, at least) is that every single page is numbered: there's none of that “this is the first page of this section/chapter, so lets not number it,” nonsense that you find novels and, if you are like me, are wildly frustrated by.

The second thing you'll notice (you did, right?) is the ease of use and the simple elegance of the Table of Contents. Eliminating a lot of clutter and confusion found in other tables of content, you'll find only three font styles. Further enhancing my love for AALR's Table of Contents is the fact that the page number of each writer is located directly next to the name of each contributor – that means you won't have to search for an index card to follow invisible lines across a blank expanse or squint to follow one path through a sea of often-incomprehensible dots or hash marks.

If it seems like I'm gushing about this topic, it's because I am. I've read a lot of journals, I've been on the staff of a few of them, and I've been published in even fewer of them – I even took a class in college dedicated to journals. In all that time I have seen few, if any, that are laid out in such a simple yet beautiful way as this one – I'm gushing because AALR deserves it. 

Now, on to the content!

The first thing you'll come across in AALR's first issue is its Forum.  Forum is, as the name suggests, a discussion (of sorts) between three Asian American writers: in this case, David Mura, Ru Freeman, and Alexander Chee.  The questions posed for Forum were:

What struggles does the Asian American literary journal face today? What struggles does Asian American literature in general face?

I shan't go into too much detail about Forum, as you've really got to read it for yourself to fully appreciate it. I will say that Mura, Freeman, and Chee discussed Asian American writers and writing as well as what it means to be Asian American, both in terms of literature and otherwise.

With more than 150 pages of creative text (Forum, Interview, and Book Review not included in that count), AALR is a large journal. The largest section of AALR is Poetry, which is okay by me. Some of my favorite pieces in the poetry section, and possibly the whole journal, are the “Dear Empire,” poems, by Oliver de la Paz. 

Though short, these six poems pack quite a punch: they are dark, brooding, and deeply moving.  On top of that, they're versatile – I've read them all about 10 times each, now, and they all read a bit differently each time.