The literary magazine I chose was "Poetry." The poetry foundation published the magazine and was printed by Cadmus Professional Communications whom I had never heard of before. The journal did not look like a magazine at first until I found out that the magazine is printed every month. The magazine is made up of twenty-nine poems and translations after each author's section. The cover of the book is what first attracted it to me; it is bright and colorful and had a funny picture of what seemed like a man's head. The size of the magazine is very small; it is the size of a short read (I.E. less than 100 pages) and also has a hard cover compared to other magazines but, if it were a book, it would be claimed a soft cover. After I read the magazine I wasn't able to make a connection between the cover and any of the poems. Inside the book the pages are plain and came across very book like. The overall main attraction to the magazine was the simplicity in the layout. The theme that I gathered from the magazine was that each and every poem had a sense of eeriness. Many of the poems in this journal related to a time of war or another tragic time in history. Other poems related to the bible, relics or religious figures.
Many of the poets in the magazine I found out to be very renown writers. Some of the poets were editors or still are editors, others have appeared in many literary magazines and newspapers such as The New York Times. The older poets I noticed, are authors of many novels such as Watermark, The Long Meadow, and Hurry Home Honey.
My favorite poet in the magazine happened to be Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936-2005). She was one of the greatest Hebrew woman poets of her time. Dahlia was a peace activist and awarded the Israel Prize which was cited as "a central pillar of Hebrew lyric poetry." For the first time in English (W.W. Norton, 2009) presented the full trajectory of her life in poetry.
My Favorite poem of Dahlia Ravikovitch was The Love of an Orange. The title didn't come off as grotesque and when I first read I didn't think much of it, until I read through the translation and went back to reread. The first read through I understood the poem as a man who just liked eating oranges. However, while reading the translations I understood the poem completely differently. The man that loved oranges represented a man who desired maidens. The oranges were maidens in disguise. The overall poem weaved the desires of the man and the Garden of Eden story. When I realized the poems underlying theme I noticed a densely allusive style while the author acquired an ironic modernistic tone. The theme all made sense when I understood here expressions summon up an entire universe of discourse.
After I read The love of an Orange I heavily read into each translation of every poem in the magazine. As I began to understand the underlying tones and themes of the poems, I began to enjoy them. I went back and reread all the poems I was questionable about and I couldn't find one I disliked. Overall, I would say I would go by another issue of this magazine or at least this issue!