Modern Review

Modern Review emerged in Canada as a quarterly literary publication issued by the Parsifal Press Literary Arts Association, a nonprofit literary-arts organization. The journal’s first issue was dated September 2005 and contained 58 pages. It was based in Richmond Hill, Ontario, placing its production in the Greater Toronto-area publishing environment while giving the magazine a broader North American and international literary identity. From the beginning, the publication defined itself as a North American literary journal rather than as a narrowly local review. Its editorial statement called for an international challenge to literary borders and linked publication to three connected purposes: education, the cultivation of appreciation for the written arts, and the promotion of demanding literature. The statement also emphasized independence from literary alliances and an absence of preference for any one class or movement. This positioned the journal as an open forum rather than as an organ of a particular school. Modern Review’s editorial philosophy treated literary development as a balance between continuity and experimentation. It sought literature that could preserve access to tradition without making tradition an opponent of innovation. Similarly, it resisted a rigid separation between personal and objective writing. The publication’s stated ambition was to support relevant literature through a combination of artistic seriousness and risk-taking methods. Its identity therefore rested on editorial breadth and principled independence rather than on a single genre or commercial format. The journal was also distinctive in its physical production arrangements. Parsifal Press carried out printing, binding, and finishing in-house using professional machinery. For a literary periodical, this represented a relatively integrated publishing process, bringing editorial publication and material manufacture together within the same organization. The available account does not provide circulation data, distribution arrangements, advertising information, or detailed financial records, so the commercial scale of the operation cannot be established. The recorded masthead named Simone dos Anjos as editor-in-chief and Pietro Aman as editor. Jennifer Moxley and Geoffrey G. O’Brien were listed as advisors. The contributor roster included a broad group of poets, writers, translators, and critics, among them John Ashbery, Robert Bly, Landis Everson, Espido Freire, Peter Gizzi, Fanny Howe, Andrew Joron, Robert Kelly, John Kinsella, Ángela Labordeta, William Logan, Marjorie Perloff, Socorro Venegas, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson. The range of names is consistent with the publication’s declared interest in international literary exchange, poetry, criticism, and experimental writing. Modern Review carried ISSN 1557-265X. Existing reference material confirms the first issue, the publishing organization, the production method, the editorial mission, the masthead, and contributors, but does not document a complete run, a closing date, later ownership, or a current publication schedule. The magazine is therefore best described as a historically documented Canadian literary title whose present status remains unconfirmed.

• 2005

  First issue published

  [1]Modern Review (North American)en.wikipedia.org

  The inaugural 58-page issue of Modern Review was dated September 2005.

An independent, nonprofit literary journal focused on internationally oriented writing, literary criticism, artistic integrity, and formal risk-taking across boundaries between traditions, movements, and genres.

• Quarterly literary magazine · 2005

  Modern Review

  The publication’s core product was a quarterly literary journal issued by the nonprofit Parsifal Press Literary Arts Association. Modern Review presented poetry, literary writing, criticism, and internationally oriented work under an editorial philosophy that valued artistic integrity, educational purpose, and formal experimentation. Its stated program avoided allegiance to one literary movement and aimed to connect tradition with innovation rather than treating them as opposites. Printing, binding, and finishing were performed in-house with professional equipment.

1. 1Modern Review (North American)en.wikipedia.org