Burgin's World

Koneazny continuedfrom previous page Despite the anger and the devastation that inflect many of the poems in Shake, Beckman remains a poet of guarded optimism— an optimism modeled on friendship. In fact, in one poem, friendship is the template he proposes for what one should make and how one should go about making it: America REVIEW following this amazing chain of friends into the world and helping them dawdle there, but it's just not how it is. Once again, at the last moment, this poet bursts the bubble of his creation, but not so effectively, I think, as to invite pessimism. His poetry, finally, is simply world, to leave us in despair. Paula Koneazny lives in Sebastopol, California. Her poetry has appearedmost recently in Spinning Jenny and Double Room, and isforthcoming in 580 Split, The most optimistic version of architecture is too thoughtful and generous, too in love with the Volt, and Luna. Burgin's World Tom Williams The Identity Club: New and Selected Stories and Songs Richard Bürgin Ontario Review Press http://www.ontarioreviewpress.com/ 342 pages; cloth, $24.95 In my teens, when I was far more likely to buy records than books or literary magaziries, I often found myself wondering about greatest hits collections . As I usually had a limited amount of money, I was looking for quality and quantity, which made, say, buying Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits (1969) and Hot Rocks (1972) by the Stones a better option than going for Are You Experienced (1967) and Sticky Fingers (1971). After several listens, though, most of those greatest hits collections eventually led me to add the original LPs to my peach crates. Which, I suspect, was the plan all along of those who packaged the greatest hits collections. Nowadays, when it seems any musical act that lasts three albums cranks out a greatest hits, I stay away from such purchases, but I buy far more book's and literary magazines now than I did when I was sixteen and clutching lawn-mowing money in my damp palms. But the question is still the same when one's staring at, say. Carver's Cathedral (1983) and Where I'm Calling From (1989): whether to buy the "new and selected stories" or the collection that gives a better sense of where and when those quote-unquote good stories came into being. In the end, it's probably the wisest course, I think, simply to buy both. But I hope it's not just me. I hope others who purchase a "new and selected stories" by a short story master will also work backward and buy up all the original collections instead of sticking with the greatest hits. (Trust me, the musical analogy will make even more sense soon.) I hope for this in general , but in particular I'm hoping Richard Burgin's new book. The Identity Club, inspires new fans to track down copies of Man Without Memory (1989), Private Fame (1991), Fear of Blue Skies (1998), The Spirit Returns (2001), and some of the other books he's authored and collaborated on. That's what I'll be doing soon, as Bürgin has always been one of those writers who routinely appears in the best journals, whose stories I read and enjoy — and yet for one reason or another. I'm not the owner of any of his books. And that's a mistake on my part, as the stories in 7"Ae Identity Club demonstrate, again and again, just how good Bürgin is, and what a shame it is that he's not better known. A professor of communications and English at Saint Louis University, as well as the longtime editor of Boulevard—consistently one of the best journals around — Bürgin is much lauded in creative writing circles. Look at the back of a recent Pushcart Prize annual: only Joyce Carol Oates has had more stories appear in that prestigious series. Only Joyce Carol Oates! Yet his book publishers have been university presses — Illinois and Johns Hopkins, two of the finest, especially for short story collections—and, too often, their books don't get distributed widely enough. The Identity Club...