The Pushcart Prize XLV: Best of the Small Presses 2021 Edition Paperback – December 8, 2020

Hidden gems are strewn throughout this collection. Look carefully.My favorite stories --The Master's Castle by Anthony DoerrThe Red One Who Rocks by Aamina AhmadFall River Wife by Peter OrnerThe Samples by Kristopher JansmaHowl Palace by Leigh NewmanThe Missing Are Considered Dead by V. V. GaneshananthanLaramie Time by Lydia ConklinTurner's Clouds for Plumly by David BkerGive My Love to the Savages by Chris StuckFreak Corner by John Rolfe GardinerIt's Not You by Elizabeth McCrackenAnd above and beyond everything else, the brilliant and inspiring essayA Beloved Duck Gets Cooked by Lydia DavisMemorable quotes --from Freak Corner, about sign language and the deaf"Were you aware that people can have ideas before they have the words to express them? ... Is eternity on both sides of us?" p. 392[sign language] "was actually a complete language with a grammar beyond shapes and gesture, hidden in the fourth dimension of timing." p. 396"... American Sign Language had its own grammar... Gayle's best-known work... circled the globe with a jolt for the word's majority, 'sadly poorer, for the limitations of their spoken languages.'"from A Beloved Duck Gets Cooked"A third thing the stories [by Russell Edson] showed me, both the brilliant ones and the faltering ones, was how you could tap some very difficult emotions and let them burst out in an unexpected raw sometimes absurd form -- that perhaps, in fact, setting oneself absurd or impossible subjects made it easier for difficult emotions to come forth." P. 378"... A good poem is bound to offer you something surprising in the way of language and thinking, even if some of its meaning eludes you." p. 380"The most pressing question, of course, is one that would take us, if we pursued it, straight into the realm of translation theory and all its intriguing conundrums. Can you say the same thing in radically different ways? If you write it so differently, are you in fact, saying the same thing?" p. 386

A consistent yearly compendium, and a steadfast component of my private library for decades.

The only reason I did not give 5 stars is I thought there would be much more poetry!

of short stories, essays, poems in this anthology. A good gifting item.

Great stories. Contemporary issues. Used it for an Osher lifelong learning course.

I'm a writer and consider these stories and poems to be the top of the line.

I think they're out of touch. Long winded. I love classical lit and brilliant new thought but this was torture to read. If these are the best then I have no business reading shorts because I found it so uninteresting. Self-indulgent in a different way than blatant self-branding. This was smug long-winded self-branding. Exhausting. Neither deep nor fun. Yay!

The editors of this wonderful annual anthology go through a laborious and time consuming process to pick the best works of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction every year from the scores of literary magazines, and once again their efforts prove delightful. One standout, is "Aunt Job", which is utterly hilarious and outrageously original. You'll never find a story like this one in the Best American series.