On the fiction side, “In the Mouths of Insects” by Shelly Wass is perhaps the most powerful piece of writing, dark and unforgettable. A woman is experiencing the last moments of her life at the hands of a serial killer, and Wass handles the terrible situation with subtlety, never allowing the story to lapse into melodrama or voyeurism. “What happens” by Deborah Thomas was less convincing. A feminist professor at a university has her car vandalised, but it transpires she did it herself. The story’s representation of an extreme brand of tub-thumping feminism teeters over into anti-feminist caricature. “The Red Shoes” by Gary Fry is an amusing tale of a maid who tries to get revenge on her mistress, but things take an unexpected twist.

Rhys Timson’s “In the Absence of Angels” is a more serious story dealing with euthanasia. The writer handles the subject well - the dilemma of the doctor, and the woman’s son, both confronted with the inevitable. The only criticism of this story relates to the point of view shifts, where sections could have been separated by line spaces. However, the shifts are less of a problem in this story than they are in Asim Rizki’s “Rescue”, an otherwise interesting story which suffers from abrupt and confusing point of view changes. A blank line indicating a shift would have solved this quite easily. Other stories in the magazine worth picking out include Andrew Hook’s “Never Doubt My Love For You”, and Kay Woods’ “Note to Self”.

On the poetry side, there’s a lot of reading. The overall quality is not as high as magazines like Versal, however Aesthetica is a magazine dedicated to giving people a voice, particularly newer artists. More experienced writers, though, do appear alongside novices. The themes of the poems in issue 10 are varied, but include more personal works on relationships, observations on the natural world, and attempts to come to grips with life in general. Asylum seekers and their plight are also covered. Although there were no real stand out works, Nora Nadjarian’s “Poppies” has a particular appeal, in its beautiful simplicity. “Hands” by Anne O’Connell is another memorable poem.

On the negative side, much of the text in Aesthetica is very small, making it difficult and even tiring to read. The contents page has exceptionally tiny print, and the fiction text, though a little larger, is still below average size. The poetry tends to be a little bigger. It’s clear that the magazine is trying to present as many writers as possible, but the danger is that in doing so, it may render individual works more difficult to read. Aesthetica is to be credited for showcasing such a diverse range of artists, and the art section is always interesting to look at, but there might be a case for scaling down the number of works published, poetry in particular, which takes up a lot of the magazine - there are about 64 poems in issue 10, and 15 stories - and using the extra space to increase the size of the print.

© 2005 Laura Hird All rights reserved.