"A first rate collection of today poetry. Work to admire, to reread, to make you think."
--Bryn
G. Fortey
(England)
New Hope International Review, Vol.20, #1 1998
"If you are looking for poetry to read you could do worse than Free Lunch. It offers variety and personality and the occasional surprise."
--Wayne
Edwards
Small Magazine Review, January-February 2002
"There is nothing too academic, too literally allusive or really elegant in Number 26 (in, say, the Merrill-Wilbur manner), but there is considerable variety in technique, subject, and stance."
--Judy
Kronenfeld
Literary Magazine Review, Vol. 20, #4 Fall 2001
"Free Lunch has an authority that belies its size. Readers who wish to sample new American poetry need look no further."
--Michael
Bangerter
(England)
"A simply produced magazine of 32 pages, whose modest appearance belies the high quality of the poetry inside. There are poems from the famous and not so famous, and most of them are well crafted and interesting."
--Ian
Seed
New Hope International Review On-Line
"Among the journals that I simply cannot give up are Sewanee Review and Hudson Review...The editors are among that rare breed that is committed to literature...I also love Free Lunch, Ron Offen's little magazine, because of its avant-garde flavor and because of Offen's open-mindedness."
--Neal
Bowers
From an interview in The Cortland Review #5
"Free Lunch has a staying power and a patient editor who spends years working with a poet to get a poem just right."
--Magazine Rack
"This zine-styled publication should be on the required reading list for college-level creative writing and poetry classes: a jewel of a compact scholarly literary supplement that can provide the basis for numerous discussions and approaches to poetry."
--newpages.com
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To view the complete review, go to http://www.newpages.com, then to Lit Mag Reviews Index and scroll to Free Lunch.
"Seriousness becomes solemnity with this issue's initial hospital theme. The standard is high throughout...Top rate. Excellent value."
--New Hope International Review, Vol. 20, #3
"Ron Offen is an old favorite--I've reviewed a few past issues of his here before. This issue is especially diverse. Taylor Graham spawns an enviable grace. Vern Rutsala's ghazal breaks meditation for a chuckle or two. Robert Peters charges up with rural leanings...This issue seldom strays from the wit and wisdom that has made this journal so durable."
--Edward
C. Lynskey
Home Planet News
"This issue is dedicated to prisoner poetry. With today's administrations regarding prison only as punishment and containment, in his editorial Ron Offen laments any genuine or cohesive attempt at rehabilitation, details the difficulties he encountered contacting prisoner writing groups, or any other constructive/creative enterprise, within the US prison system.
Imagine time having to be filled and within that time a paucity of reading material: the editor knows, one trusts therefore, that great care will have been taken in the selection; because, for it to be of value, there has to be, and is, an evangelical certainty about this poetry as poetry...
Not that many of the poems are about actual prison life, rather they appear to be observations from within--of another time, of another species of self, type of being. What slips through this selection is the how of brutalisation, and the wish to refute it while still revelling in its sorry details..."
--Sam
Smith
New Hope International Review On-Line
