UNSAID has drained my brain. In the very best of ways.

February 22, 2010

I’ve spent the last few weeks reading the giant UNSAID volume sitting on my coffee table. My husband has asked why I don’t just read the thing all at one go, and I have had to explain that the contents are much too intense and I have to take a break now and then or I would probably lose my mind.  I think, though, after reading Peter Markus’s story “Bird,” I lost it anyway. Wow.

There is so much amazing stuff in this UNSAID. So much. And from so many different amazing writers. And so varied, such different styles, so much from across the literary scene represented in poetry, fiction, and essay. So many new writers here, including a beautiful piece (the first one in the volume) that happens to be the first published piece she’s had! Not so bad for a first publication credit, huh?Along with newer writers and writers I’ve never heard of are some wonderful pieces by favorites like Sam Pink, Scott Garson, Shane Jones, Blake Butler, Brian Evenson, Joanna Howard, and Peter Markus. Editor David McLendon has done a fantastic job.

This is one of the best things I’ve owned/read in some time, and I’m going to have to leave it on the shelf to go back to again and again.