Pushcart Prize XLI: Best of the Small Presses, 2017 Edition

Henderson dedicates this year’s expansive and mostly impressive anthology to Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, who despite being “far from the centers of publishing and political power has reached an international audience with his poetry, fiction, criticism, essays and environmental activism.” Pieces in the Berry tradition include fellow Kentuckian Chris Offutt’s emotionally nuanced essay, “Trash Food,” on class, food, race, and regional origin; Douglas W. Milliken’s incisive, stern short story, “Blue of the World,” about a grieving horse farmer’s slow estrangement from his son; and Jericho Brown’s potent, delicate poem, “The Tradition,” which yokes the names of flowers and the names of young black men killed by the police. Humankind’s relationship to the natural world appears as a theme throughout, as in Liz Ziemska’s rigorously imagined tale, “The Mushroom Queen,” of a restless wife who swaps bodies with a sentient network of mycelium and Cate Hennessey’s family history, “Beets,” told through notes on the seasons and gardening. An emphasis on setting and place recurs as well. Kalpana Narayanan’s essay “Dr. J” considers the meaning of home in Atlanta, India, and Brooklyn. Cecily Parks’s poem “Hurricane Song” elegantly observes the subtle shifts and motions of a forest before a hurricane. In a mild, unobtrusive way, the nonfiction trends personal, the fiction realist, and the poetry short, clear, and powerful. Stellar, distinctive entries from familiar names—Deb Olin Unferth, Lydia Davis, Elizabeth McCracken, Steve Almond, Barry Lopez—compensate for the handful of too-conventional ones. The collection succeeds as a broad yet cohesive array of excellent writing. (Nov.)