A photo essay by Curtis Steele, chair of the Arkansas State University Department of Art, emphasizes this theme.

The Department of English and Philosophy at Arkansas State University publishes the periodical three times per year with an interdisciplinary focus on the seven-state Mississippi River Delta.

Of particular regional interest in the April issue is an illustrated article on the houses constructed by the Singer Company for its employees in Trumann. The article’s author, Richard Allen Burns, associate professor of English and folklore at ASU, pays particular attention to those structures built according to the vernacular design commonly known as a "shotgun house."

Featured articles also include an interview with Arkansas blues performer Ce Dell Davis by Barry Lee Pearson, a blues scholar from the University of Maryland; and an article on Faulkner’s use of color symbolism in his novels by Amity J. Brown of North Carolina State University.

A sonnet sequence by Gordon Osing, founder of the creative writing program at the University of Memphis, headlines creative materials in the April issue, which includes other poetry by Errol Miller and William Miller. Fiction by Eric Miles Williamson and a personal essay by Paul Ruffin also appear in the issue.

In addition to that by Steele and Burns, work by other members of the ASU community is included. Guy Lancaster, Frances M. Malpezzi, Frances Hunter, and Janelle Collins have contributed book reviews. Lancaster has prepared a guide to Delta-related web sites. Photographs by Shannon Kyle Beasley, Leif Hassell, and Lancaster also appear in the issue.

Copies of the April issue cost $7.50; a year’s subscription (three issues) costs $20. Address payment -- made out to "ASU Foundation" with "Arkansas Review" on the memo line -- to Arkansas Review, P.O. Box 1890, State University, AR 72467.

For further information, call 870-972-3043 or send e-mail to delta@astate.edu.

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