THE CRITICAL FLAME

:: Volume 1, Issue 1 | May–June 2009 ::

From the Editors

Daniel E. Pritchard on the mission of The Critical Flame

"A life of constant education is a life lived well, and the heart of our continued education is a public discourse that is free from small-minded influence, sanitation for the sake of weak wills, and cowardly censorship. With that in mind, we at The Critical Flame seek to clear a space in this wilderness that is the internet for articulate discussion and learned debate."

on Verse

Daniel E. Pritchard reviews Geoffrey Hill's Selected Poems

"What will be left, when the reviews and the criticism are nothing but ink-blackened dust, will be the finest body of poetry produced in this age. This selected edition, despite its several omissions and flaws, bears this out. Geoffrey Hill is our great poet, as much as Whitman and Milton were to past generations."

Nora Delaney reviews Andrew Motion's The Mower: New & Selected

"Indeed, something boyish remains in Motion’s poems, like the boy skating or boat-stealing in Wordsworth’s Prelude: ecstatic, innocent joy in observation and sensation. And clearly this sense is deliberately drawn from Wordsworth — a vestige of Motion’s literary heritage."

on fiction

April Pierce reviews Emily St. John Mandel's novel Last Night in Montreal

"What is unbelievable, however, is that the characters also witness life through Lilia’s eyes, carefully documenting light and color during moments of crisis in precisely the same voice. The technique is either a choice by the author or a lack of impartiality; in either case it makes the characters’ feelings seem empty and, at best, contrived."

Letters to the Editor

Misspellings? Incorrect dates? Wrongly attributed works? Missing piece of information? Praise? Disagreement?
Send your letters to the editor to info@criticalflame.org.

Call for Submissions

The Critical Flame is now accepting book review and critical essay submissions on fiction, verse, and non-fiction titles. There are no explicit length requirements or limits, we only ask that essays be a reasonable length for their topic and that an article’s length never exceed its coherence. We have no requirements or quotas for positive or negative reviews — but essays that acknowledge both the flaws and virtues existent in all titles will be given preference over essays whose content are merely laudatory or simply vitriol. Although we seek learned and well-researched essays, please remember that The Critical Flame is not an academic publication and the audience for us, always, is the intelligent reading public.

There seems to be a gap in our culture between the academic and public mind, a certain incongruity of expectation and focus, a certain disdain each for the other. This disjunction is not an impasse, but a challenge to our imaginations, and one we gladly take up; and we hope you'll undertake this project with us.

If you have an idea for a review or essay, but are unsure whether it is appropriate for The Critical Flame, the editors welcome you to send us an email query. We are also happy to contact publishers on behalf of our reviewers. We look forward to hearing from you.

The Editors