LITERATURE: Next Up – Ploughshares, Spring ’05

Before I allow myself the pleasure of The Best American Short Stories, I’d like to work on the backlog of lit journals a bit more, especially when I’m so close to clicking the "print" button on one of my own pieces.  This particular issue of Ploughshares has only six fiction, two nonfiction and about a million poems in it; this last which I do not feel obligated to read immediately since nothing’s going to help me there except a new soul filled with poetic and lyrical language automatically attuned to meter and imagery.