Saboteur Awards – The Results

Saboteur Awards

The Saboteur Awards are a new award celebrating literary magazines. Over the last few weeks, a team of volunteer judges have been poring over the shortlist, posting to each other copies of the print magazines, getting angry at the mail and dealing with technical hitches. Whilst the top three became clear early in the discussion process, judges were impressed with many of the other shortlisted magazines. Positives could be found even in the magazines that were described as ‘not being my cup of tea’ (can you tell that the majority of judges were British?) In light of this, we would be happy to provide any of the magazines shortlisted with feedback, should they be interested in the particulars (get in touch at editor@sabotagereviews.com).

The magazines that most impressed us were those that had a unity of purpose, in other words a strong, cohesive editorial vision. Their design matched and enhanced their content. We feel that our top three deserve recognition for the contributions they’ve made to the literary world. They are exciting, innovative, fresh, and stretched the boundaries of what we thought literary magazines could achieve.

1^st Place: Polarity

Judges were impressed by Polarity’s ambition and praised the range of formal innovations within its pages. They commended its strong editorial and aesthetic vision and deemed the magazine as ‘not just displaying art, but being a piece of art itself, without the form taking away from the content’. The theme of ‘Tax vs Death’ was deemed broad enough to allow inspired approaches, whilst still being a cohesive and echoing thread. The integration of the visual with the textual was seen as a particular success. Finally, as one judge said: ‘Who would have thought that surrealism could feel so…welcoming? […]  I could pay no higher compliment to the magazine than to say it has fostered in me a newfound appreciation for surrealism in art/literature.’

2^nd Place: >kill author

Judges were all agreed that this was an outstanding magazine that successfully made use of the internet. Whilst conceptual and experimental, the content was still deemed accessible. Judges admired the integration of poetry with prose (and resulting cross pollinations). The slick, minimalist website received high praise; one judge said it was ‘like Jil Sander in website form’. As one judge said: ‘It was one of those things that made me glad that I’m alive now – in the times of the internet, anonymity and internationalist art. It really grasps the spirit of our time for me.’

3^rd Place: La Petite Zine

La Petite Zine was deemed a touchstone for experimental poetry in bite-size forms. The content was found to be of high quality with one judge commenting on the ‘brilliant variety of truly potent poems’. The website was admired for being minimalist, clean, functional, yet iconic. In particular, judges appreciated the taglines that led into each poem. La Petite Zine, again, has clearly embraced the internet as a medium, and its multi-platform presence was praised.

Highly Commended for its use of web-integration: Moon Milk Review

A running interest during discussions was whether the magazines fully made use of their chosen medium’s potential. In particular we paid attention to online magazines that attempted to go beyond what a print magazine could achieve. For instance, judges appreciated the integration of recordings/video in Stone Telling (as well as in Goblin Fruit) as an example of added value and accessibility.

However, the magazine that most impressed us in terms of web integration was Moon Milk Review. The magazine was praised for its abundant use of links, giving the impression that it was a fruitful launching pad. As one judge said:

‘that’s what beautiful (and dangerous) about the web – everything links up together and there’s a vast sea of information out there. Most other zines we’ve looked at feel much more insular by comparison, […]linking to other places is something you can’t do in print and as such is very much an advantage of the online form. Moon Milk Review gives us an article you can dig around if you like, or can skim over if you don’t like it.’

The use of YouTube was also appreciated, whilst the Prosetry section was praised for taking advantage of the online platform and reinventing communication between the visual and the textual.

The judges were Anna Bogdanova, Ian Chung, Caroline Crew, Claire Trévien and Richard T. Watson

Saboteur Awards 2011 – The Longlist

A reminder of the rules: this longlist will be added to as and when new reviews of magazines are posted up on the website. It will be closed to new additions at the end of the month. Reviewers will cast a vote on their favourite so as to make up the shortlist. If you want to be part of the jury that will pour over the shortlist and award prizes it’s not too late to get in touch.

Longlist for the Saboteur Awards, a Celebration of Literary Magazines.

Paper Darts, April 2011 (hard copy)

New Linear Perspectives, April 2011 (online)

Thieves Jargon #205 (online)

eFiction Magazine #12 (online)

Cake #2 (hard copy)

Horizon Review 5 (online)

Nutshell 2 (hard copy)

Goblin Fruit (winter 2011) (online)

Envoi 157 (hard copy)

Literary Bird Journal 1.2 (online version)

A Capella Zoo 5 (hard copy and online)

Willow Springs 66 (hard copy)

Terrain (Autumn/Winter 2011) (online)

Blip (Fall 2010) (online)

Earthspeak 4 (online)

Clementine 4 (online)

Stone Telling 1 (online)

Albatross Journal 21 (online)

Popshot 4 (hard copy)

Sparkbright 4 (online)

Turbulence 4 (hard copy)

Frigg 29 (online)

Moonmilk Review 7 and 8 (online)

Kill Author 8 (online)

Spilt Milk Mag 1 (hard copy)

Shot Glass Journal #1 (online)

Iota 87 (hard copy)

The Flaneur – Rolls Royce Issue (online and hard copy)

The Write Place at the Write Time (online)

Bicycle Review 7 (online)

New Fairy Tales 5 (online)

Polarity Magazine 1 (hard copy)

La Petite Zine 24 (online)

Pomegranate 11 (online)

The Battered Suitcase Spring 2010 (online) 

End of Year Round-Up: The Reviewers

2010 was the year Sabotage went from being just a thought to a fully-fledged website. To celebrate not just the wonderful reviewers who are the backbone of this site, but also the literature that has made our year what it is, I have asked several reviewers to answer these three short questions:

-Has 2010 brought to your attention any outstanding literary magazines (be they online or in print), if so, which?

-What event sticks out in your mind as the literary event of 2010 (it can be a personal accomplishment)?

-What was your favourite literary discovery of the year (it can be a single poem, a novel, a pamphlet, a press, …)?

Below you will find the answers of several of this year’s reviewers, and in a few days I will publish the answers of several authors, both of poetry and fiction, who were kind enough to take part.

To make things fair, here are my brief answers, then I’ll hand it over to the reviewers:

-Obviously the creation of Sabotage has brought my attention to several excellent magazines. My favourite discovery is probably Diagram. I reviewed its Summer 2010 issue for The Review Review. It was a bit of a surprise favourite as I tend to prefer poetry to short stories. This is what I said about it in the review: ‘The fiction featured displays an obsessive relationship to dissection and decorticates genres, voices, people. Sometimes this mad-scientist effervescence overwhelms the content to the point of un-readability, but more often than not, it elates. Diagram is a welcome shock-therapy to more traditional online journals – a breath of unruly air displacing paperwork.’

-There are several events that I could cite, 2010 brought the death of two personal heavyweight: Edwin Morgan and J.D. Salinger. Though with the latter, I could not help but feel a certain morbid curiosity for the work he kept hidden, as if he were the guardian of a treasure and finally defeated by a cocky young hero who knew the answers to the riddle. On a personal level, it was getting two poems accepted by Poetry Salzburg Review, a magazine I have long admired for the consistent quality of its output, and its vibrantly multi-cultural authors.

-Now that’s definitely a tough one. I discovered James Merrill’s ‘Charles on Fire’ and Charles Causley’s ‘Convoy’ thanks to Katy Evans-Bush’s workshop Making Poetry at the Poetry School, both have stuck with me for days beyond reading. Amongst pamphlets, my favourites were Mark Halliday’s No panic here, Jon Stone’s Scarecrows and Joe Dunthorne’s Faber New Poets pamphlet. As far as collections go two stand out: Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard and Karen Annesen’s How to Fall.

The Reviewers (in no particular order):

Richard T. Watson is a writer and director who has reviewed several works for Sabotage, most recently two of Sidekick Books’ publications, Pocket Spellbook and Coin Opera. You can find his review here, and his blog here.

-Its focal hero might make it seem a tad outdated, but I’ve enjoyed the Ben Jonson Journal (which I discovered in 2010, but has been running for much longer). It’s one of the many things I came across as a student that I wanted to get into in more depth, but never had time because of the looming deadline thing. But what I did read of the BJJ helped with my Dissertation, and all of it was fascinating.

-It’s not that long since National Poetry Week, which included a BBC adaptation of Chris Reid’s poem The Song of Lunch on BBC Two – which I think is probably my literary event of the year (and not just for the connection to my own University). The poem was translated more or less directly to the screen without addition or abridgement, a rare case of bringing poetry to mainstream popular culture. Having Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson involved helps as well.

–My favourite literary discovery of 2010 is Julia Bird’s poem ‘For my Brother, Relentlessly’, which is published in Coin Opera, a micro-anthology from Sidekick Books. It’s a poem in nostalgic praise of  arcade game classic Space Invaders, laid out like the screen of a Space Invaders game. The text itself is simply the repeated question ‘Can I have a go on the Space Invaders now?’ – but what I especially like is the way that the title’s comma conjures an image of a small girl asking this of her brother without pausing for breath for several minutes. Then, when she does finally take a breath, she says ‘please’.

Juliet Wilson is a poet who has written a series of reviews on environmental literary magazines for Sabotage, her most recent review can be found here whilst her website is here.

-2010 was the year I really became aware of Anon Poetry magazine. I knew it existed and had read an old copy but this year they accepted two of my poems and I found myself at the wonderful launch party at the Scottish Poetry Library and bought more back copies. The current editor Colin Fraser really knows how to choose good poetry (not just because he chooses mine!) and there are also a selection of intelligent and thought provoking articles about poetry in the magazine. Add to this that its a lovely neat format and fits quite easily into a handbag or pocket for reading on the bus, definitely a great read. The anon website is here and they’re on Twitter too:

-The event that for me was the literary event of 2010 was (sorry to blow my own trumpet!) the launch of my poetry chapbook Unthinkable Skies by Calder Wood Press.

-My favourite literary discovery was Lorsque j’etais un oeuvre d’art by Eric Emanuel Schmitt, an amazing, weird and wonderful novel about a man who is saved from committing suicide by an art entrepreneur who offers him the chance to become a living piece of art. A thought provoking exploration of what it means to be human written with the narrative drive of a thriller. I don’t know whether it’s been translated into English. I always find that reading an exceptionally good book in a foreign language intensifies the experience for me, as I meed to concentrate more and there’s a real sense of achievement in the reading!

Ian Chung is a poet who blogs here and tweets here. His most recent review for Sabotage is of the arts-collective website Lazy Gramophone.

-Polarity Magazine comes to mind. I came to it quite by chance, as the chief editor happens to teach on my university course as well and there was a launch event held at the university. It’s a print magazine, very professionally done, with each issue being ‘organised around two falsely polarised concepts’. The magazine’s website has some excerpts from the first issue.
-I’m going to go with a personal accomplishment here, and that was getting a couple of my poems accepted by The Cadaverine. It was my third time submitting, so I guess it’s true, third time’s the charm! Seriously though, it was an honour for my work to be chosen, and I’m looking forward to seeing it appear on the newly revamped website.

-I’m going to say it was Tom McCarthy’s Remainder. In a seminar last year, I’d read the Zadie Smith essay, ‘Two Paths for the Novel’, in which she reviews Remainder and Joseph O’Neill’sNetherland, and was intrigued by how she saw them as representing opposing futures for the Anglophone novel. I’d meant to read Remainder since then, but only got around to doing so over the summer holidays. It’s definitely an interesting read, in the way that its protagonist escalates the cycles of repetition that are the only means by which his life can anchor itself meaningfully. Smith notes at the start of her essay that Remainder took seven years to find a publisher, which isn’t surprising, given how its structure deliberately defies the sort of marketable narrative that would sit nicely in a chain bookstore’s window display.

Caroline Crew is a poet and a prolific blogger of all things poetic here.  She reviewed Blue-eyed boy bait for Sabotage here.

-For me the publications that have really sung that this year have all had a really strong sense of identity and of purpose. Literary magazines and projects that eshcew the normal manifestos on the submissions page. The ones that have really struck me this year have been Fuselit– a gorgeous magazine that runs of a spur word. Popshot, the illustrated poetry magazine that brings together the visual and the verbal to stunning effect, and my current favourite, > kill author, an online magazine that helped me rid myself of the silly preconception that print is inherently better.

-Sadly, for me that would have to be the passing of Edwin Morgan, at the grand age of 90. He was the first Scots Makar, and when it comes down to it, just a absolutely stellar poet. The death of such an imagination leaves an abyss.
-Well, moving across the Atlantic has been strange for me in many ways, but the epic differences in the poetry being written was definitely the most astounding. My favourite discovery so far would have to be Ada Limon. I saw her read recently and bought her excellent collection, sharks in the rivers, and cannot let it be out of my reach.

Jared Randall is a poet who blogs here, his first book of poetry, Aprocryphal Road Code, is now available from Salt Publishing. He reviewed >kill author for Sabotage here.

–The Offending Adam is probably the most intriguing online lit mag to catch my eye this year. TOA has taken the online lit mag format and run with it. Editors Andrew Wessels and Co. present weekly features that you can read in a relatively few spare moments because they focus on (usually) a single poet’s work. This focused brevity includes a brief statement from the author or a third party about what they think of the work and how it has come into existence. What is more, TOA takes care to ensure this glimpse behind the scenes/recommendation lends a sense of literary justification and thoughtfulness without descending into either facile interpretism or the chance to merely sound off on one’s poetic opinions.

Rather than browsing for a mag’s hidden gems among a multitude of works that may serve as mere fodder, every entry of TOA leaves me excited for next week’s installment. TOA’s eye for quality and the breathing space they leave to really consider the work at hand fly in the face of the common “dime-a-dozen” argument against online literature journals. You can sign up for weekly updates via email or Facebook and always know that your next poetry fix is in the wings and that you won’t have to wade through scads of authors to get to something you’ll truly want to consider.

-I don’t know that I’m qualified to give a grand literary pronouncement of what event was most important on a grand scale, but I did experience a very personal circle of memorable events at the end of 2010. The circle involves the publication of my own first book of poetry (Apocryphal Road Code) but really centers on the National Book Award in fiction as won by my former Western Michigan University undergrad professor, Jaimy Gordon.

The background of this story goes back a decade. Jaimy’s was my final fiction workshop before I dropped out of school for nearly four years after ignoring her advice to stick with it (no exaggeration). Of course, she was right, and, in 2004, I went back to school, finished up my degree, and from there received my MFA at the University of Notre Dame. How ironic that, barely a week after my first book came out, I was privileged to hear Jaimy read from her award-winning Lord of Misrule at the Kalamazoo Public Library.

This event, with its local southwest-Michigan flavor, was a culmination for me. I reflected, while waiting in line to have Jaimy sign my copy of her book, on the good fortune I had to study with great writers in the Kalamazoo area while in undergrad. I realized, after Jaimy spoke on the importance for her of finding a character’s voice, how I, too, learned the importance of voice from her all those years ago. Voice is important in my recent book, and I knew in that moment that I owe Jaimy more than I had either suspected or remembered.

Though it comes from a true prodigal, I believe I can safely say that all of us who have studied with Jaimy know how good she is, how careful and precise and insightful are her critiques. I could not be happier on her behalf for the recognition she has received, and I can only hope to enjoy a touch of the same in the future. Also, if you have not picked up a copy of Lord of Misrule, do so. A great book to curl up with over the holidays!

-I did not have to think long in order to settle on Chad Sweeney’s Parable of Hide and Seek from Alice James Books. Chad is a writer who is also local to a Kalamazoo area rich in talent, and I fell in love with his new poetry during a reading he gave recently. In particular, his poems “Little Wet Monster” and “Holy Holy” struck such a personal chord with me that I had to acquire his book right away.

The first is an incantation, a welcoming, a calling forth of an unborn child: “Come antler through the gates my thingling/ Your grapes contain the houses// Unmask the stones my darkling grief/ Come whole my homeward early// You alone devour the night,” and so on. The child comes from the dark womb but brings the secret of light, a rich paradox among many in Parable. Mother and father voices merge somehow in a poem that Chad reads with a lot of courage and all the real passion of a father who appreciates the mystery and precious gift that is life. I jive with that, being a father of four with another on the way.

In “Holy Holy,” Chad also manages to get me where I feel it deep down. It begins, “For me speech is/ a way of touching,/ a rummaging under/ for what’s not meant// to be moved,” and continues, “a sentence begun// before my father was/ beaten for his stutter.” I adore the double to triple meanings of these enjambed lines as they turn on one another. The poet then asks for “courage/ to fail publicly// in ordinary tasks,/ give/ me corner beams laboring/ without grace.”

The humility and gentle sensibility of Chad Sweeney’s poems are, judging by his reading and conversation, wholly genuine. Their surreal yet familiar landscapes pull me in, and I think they will you, too. Give him a try at http://www.alicejamesbooks.org or your favorite seller. In fact, treat yourself to an entire Kalamazoo, Michigan, literary romp! There are plenty of authors to choose from, whether recently published or from years gone by.

>kill author # 8

– Reviewed by Jared Randall –

Grown tired of your summer reading list? Need a break after that last 600-page novel? Having trouble keeping your comatose left eye in line with your hay-fevered right? (Maybe that last one is just me…?)

Then give >kill author a try. I guarantee it won’t bore you (unless you happen to be my brother-in-law). Currently up at http://killauthor.com, the eighth issue of the literary journal for the mostly alive is “…made for summer reading. […] our own equivalent of the holiday getaway doorstop.”

Now you’re probably wondering, what is > kill author? (Hereafter, >ka.) Simply put, it’s an online journal that takes its name from one of many well-known Roland Barthes quotes—“The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.”—and the anonymous editor(s) dedicate(s) each issue to a particular dead author (Issue One to old Roland himself, Issue Eight to Vladimir Nabokov who, incidentally, died the same year that I was born, in 1977).

In actual working out, the “death of the author” has become for >ka “the death of the editor”—the “editors” have intentionally kept themselves anonymous. He/she/it/they explain that this anonymity forces writers to read and think about what constitutes authentic >ka content without the distraction of guessing the tastes and reputation of a particular editor.

The question of editor as author, however, is a task for another day. What you really want is a rundown of the most interesting bits of electronic literary bravura that Issue Eight of >ka has to offer. In that case, read on!

“Flight: SFO to LAX,” by Andrew Roe.

Nutshell: Touchable hair, the kind of hair to turn anyone into a five-year-old kid again. The kind of hair a Steinbeck uses to lure a Lenny to his inevitable end…

Quote: “The challenge: to remember the woman, the hair, the possibilities you felt. But you know you won’t. It doesn’t work that way, and it’s not like this hasn’t happened before.”

Verdict: What an excellent way to open an issue!

“Dogs and cats are ugly,” by Cameron Pierce

Nutshell: Raw physicality engendered by mere words. Will make you think twice before nibbling on your lover’s ear…

Quote: “[…] and we’ll go down to the doughnut shop/ and we’ll get married in the doughnut shop/ and please remember I am just a skeleton and some canned food and so are you.”

Verdict: Not for your grandmother! (Nor mine, for that matter.)

“The Labyrinth,” by Cezarija Abartis

Nutshell: Yes, THAT labyrinth, but this time the Minotaur is something less fierce, more pitiable, what we see in the mirror (or maybe that’s just me…)

Quote: “…he moaned and said, ‘Mud.’ She was sure he said it. Her deepest prayers had been answered. This redeemed everything—all the pain, the hope, the curses. This would make her life normal, give her a normal future, give him a normal life.”

Verdict: Perhaps not everyone will find the final turn convincing.

“Four Turns,” by Daniel Carter

Nutshell: Four prose “stanzas,” the last sentence of each leading into the first sentence of the next—thus, “Four Turns”…

Quote: “O, the cowl o’er my head, the rough black sack, the bag over the moon, I jumped off the castle, the moat, the monster, the golden man down there[…]”

Verdict: Don’t be fooled by this one: it gets more interesting each time you read it.

“Attention,” by Daniel Romo

Nutshell: A FAUX News corrective? Yeah, maybe, or maybe more than…

Quote: “The patriotic fibers bleed into your fingertips causing everything you touch to be left with imprints of stars and stripes. The paper towel dispenser in the bathroom at Walmart. The salt and pepper shakers at the Mexican restaurant. Your lover’s breasts.”

Verdict: Accessible, meaningful, sharp-edged, a prose poem as prose poems should be. If you can’t stand this, well, leave left and right behind, ascend to the airy top of the political divide, and cozy up to an honest voice.

“The Anatomy of the Novel, or Steve,” by David Laskowski

Nutshell: If you’ve been paying any attention at all you’ve probably realized that there is an ongoing discussion/debate about the supposed “death of the novel.” Mr. Laskowski enters his own rather humorous take…

Quote: “What is interesting is that the novel’s suit against Steve comes at a time when many question the role of the novel in everyday life, a state that wishes to succeed, according to Dr. Myers Default, author of It’s You, Not Me, because of ‘the federal government’s intrusion into its knickers.’”

Verdict: Read and then mark off the rest of your summer to-do list. It’s done! What else could there be?

“Italo Calvino People,” by Elaine Chiew

Nutshell: I knew I was going to like this one from the title. Can anything with Calvino in the title be less than interesting? A speculative glimpse at a future world, it also contains a reference to “Godot-like plays”…

Quote: “They were Italo Calvino babies, so called not because they were the embodiment of magical realism, but because they were an experiment—in the spirit of Italo Calvino experimentation—riddled with hopeful optimism camouflaging a deep misanthropic belief that humans were flawed and needed to be perfected.  And because they could read Italo Calvino at five.”

Verdict: I’m pretty sure I’m biased for this one, so go ahead: read and let me have it!

“You Enjoy Myself,” by Frank Hinton

Nutshell: You wake up and find yourself all too close to the body of an apparently middle-aged single Asian (Korean?) man named Yem who eats only frozen dinners and has somehow managed to convince people he should be an elementary school teacher. Yes, and it gets better…

Quote: “He never stops at 4 minutes in to mix the potatoes or stir the gravy. He’s grown used to eating the potatoes cold in the middle.”

Verdict: To be honest, this is a sadder story than I’ve portrayed it. Not for the queasy reader, but—poor Yem!—many readers will find this a guilty pleasure.

“This Is What I Do,” by Jennifer Spiegel

Nutshell: First-person fiction with a (dated?) World Trade Center reference…

Quote: “I felt like Lily Bart in The House of Mirth, not like myself one lousy bit.”

Verdict: This is the whole package. It’s an excellent piece of fiction in a journal that features excellent fiction.

“There Was Nothing We Could Do,” by Lauren Becker

Nutshell: Behind the scenes of tattoo parlor romance…

Quote: “We bit and smacked and punched and sliced and scraped and burned night but it still kept coming and we kept leaving and coming back. Nobody else gave and took as deliberately as we. We were gracious in keeping track.”

Verdict: Definitely on the bondage side of summer love stories, but with a deep truth to tell…

“The Final Neural Firings of The Eternal Starlet (Takes 1-3)” and “I Will Make an Exquisite Corpse,” by Matt Mullins

Nutshell: The same words lineated three different ways—always an interesting exercise!—and Mr. Mullin’s stab at the surrealist “Exquisite Corpse” exercise…

Quote: No quote… [What, the titles aren’t enough?!]

Verdict: A great reminder that, yes, lineation matters in poetry. Not to be missed!

“The Charge That Struck Us,” by Melissa Lee-Houghton

Nutshell: A fiction story in which I sensed some Edgar Lee Masters Spoon River Anthology influence…

Quote: “Dean did not wish his wife were dead in real life, but every time she so much as sneezed he had the overwhelming urge to smack her on the back of the head with a spade[…]”

Verdict: This refreshing piece steps back from the typical first-person/close third-person narrative. Worth a look!

“The Sadder of Two Places,” by Mitch James

Nutshell: An old lady remembers sexuality after hearing the neighbor girl and her boyfriend late one night…

Quote: “They both figured that her closet and dresser drawers were filled with light, lacey things, with bright colors, things made seamlessly by an artist on a sewing machine. […] They were right.”

Verdict: This is one intense story, however you cut it.

“Featherbedding,” by Rae Bryant

Nutshell: Who needs food when they have love? Short and sweetly erotic without going over the top…

Quote: “He digs a trench for her, forms a mote around her body, rips mattress and blanket and sheets and feather pillows to better pad the nest. He says: we can wait out the winter here in feathers and mattress springs.”

Verdict: You may or may not find you like this one, but it’s too short to pass up…

“The Pueblo Is In My Name,” Raymond Farr

Nutshell: What a rant! What an all-out-perfect-for-your-end-of-summer rant!

Quote: “Back then it was 1977/ and the tree I speak of/ was a grapefruit tree and/ the silence of just before/ dawn was a squirrel or/ white tail deer paralyzed/ in yr head lights[…]”

Verdict: Read it out loud!

“Cat’s Ice” and other poems, by R L Swihart

Nutshell: This is poetry in what you might call the “grand tradition”…

Quote: “Now a smithy is on one knee hammering chaos into cosmos[…]”

Verdict: Let’s face it, poetry isn’t on everyone’s menu, but you’ll like this if you let yourself.

“We Were Listening For The Shattering,” by Ryder Collins

Nutshell: In a matter of a few sentences you’ll feel you’re in Stephen King’s The Stand…

Quote: “Mama said, They’re not called package stores in every state.”

Verdict: Gives you that apocalyptic feel in such a short space that it’s worth a look.

Jared Randall’s debut book of poetry, Apocryphal Road Code, is due out from Salt Publishing in December 2010. He writes the occasional blog at http://wanderingstiff.com/mainstem.

Tidbits of News

Apologies for the lack of a proper crit of anything for the last few days. I’ve been ill and I’m still recovering. I rather feel as if I have hooves instead of fingers when typing. Expect service to resume once fingers become human again.

In the meantime, here are some things to keep you busy:

1) Kill Author, an online magazine I personally didn’t know about but am discovering with glee, has a new issue out. I was made aware of it thanks to Fawn Neun (of Battered Suitcase fame). Below is their inspiring manifesto:

“What we’re looking for: a manifesto

Imagination
Writing that burns with a desire to step out of the everyday and into its mirror image, and from there allows the reader to see something different and go someplace else.

Impact
Writing that knows how to leave the reader shocked and reeling, not necessarily just via the events the author is describing—anyone can take the easy way out and labor over gruesome violence or explicit sex—but through the extraordinary power of their well chosen words.

Individuality
There are too many writers aping the style of other writers, especially online. And far too many authors still want to be Charles Bukowski. We love Bukowski, but his work’s been done. He did it and it probably can’t be bettered, so why try to repeat it? We want writing where the author dares to explore the outer reaches of their own voice, and then has an urge to see where it takes them.

Invention
We’re excited by writing that experiments with form and language. That doesn’t mean we’re looking for all-out surrealism, though; we still value work that knows how to tell a story and can take the reader from A to C via B. But it should make that journey in extraordinary ways.”

I always like to check out the ‘About’ sections on website, sometimes they’re barely a line long, sometimes they make you excited. This About falls in the latter category. It makes you want to submit, it wants to make you be worthy of their manifesto, and even better, it makes you want to read what they’ve put together. Not bad.

2) I doubt it’s a thought that’s been keeping you up at night, but if you want to know the influence of servants on Emily Dickinson’s poetry, check out this interview.

3) And for something completely different, I urge you to read Betty’s blog ‘The 52 Seductions’ on a married couple’s attempts to rekindle passion by seducing each other once a week. It’s not as smutty as it sounds. Betty is an intelligent and funny woman who knows how to write irresistible entries. What I particularly appreciate is that she doesn’t shy away from the more icky and embarrassing aspects of sex and, without wanting to sound like an X-factor contestant, it’s quite a journey.