Poetry Magazine
In the vast cyber recesses of the internet, there nestle little known a myriad of sites maintained by lone individuals who by persistent stubbornness manage to cull an enduring and intimate artistic community. Fitting neatly into this category is Poetry Magazine.com, a bare bones and exclusively online poetry publication run by founder and senior editor Mary Elizabeth Barnet.While most high traffic commercial websites are known for eye catching graphics and slick interactive features, the layout of Poetry Magazine is streamlined html; set within a three columned table that includes a link index, cover, and body, respectively. Upon first view it's easy to get distracted as the content font does not vary enough from the advertising font. But once the viewer gets accustomed to the monochromatic backgrounds and garish banners that distinguish each section, some pleasant surprises become clear. Most notable is Richard E. Schiff's film montage set against the voice of T.S Eliot reading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Although the film, a series of visual stills depicting the imagery of Eliot's poetry, is far from masterful, the attempt is praiseworthy and does an adequate job of helping the reader gain a deeper appreciation for Eliot's poem. On the other hand, the site's poetry submissions are your typical rag tag fare of amateurs, underground veterans, and near seasoned professionals. The higher caliber poets enjoy a brief bio and picture with, on average, three to five works posted while those of lesser quality can be found under the general heading "current poets." In sum, Poetry Magazine is a modest yet excellent forum for aspiring young poets looking for homebrewed poetry of decent quality.
Exquisite Corpse
Companion to the print journal Exquisite Corpse Annual and published through the Department of Writing at the University of Central Arkansas, the cyber edition of Exquisite Corpse features a bewildering patchwork of literary works and arts media. Founder and Editor Andrei Codrescu spares little space as he fills each page with an ample number of experimental contributions.Take for example the playful vulgarity of Jim Lopez's American Dementia: Castro's Kitchen, filed under the column "Techne & Psyche," whose bawdy prose illumines the glaring narcissism and enduring sloth of the worst in American consumerism: "That's right. Slurp till your stomachs content. Mind no one. Regard no one. Apologize to no one. Just keep on scraping and slurping and sniffling in your indignant unawareness." Although this brand of confrontational and unremitting sarcasm permeates much of the online content of Exquisite Corpse, Codrescu also includes an array of book reviews, comic strips, and audio and visual excerpts to entice the reader's interest.
What ails the site, however, is any semblance of thematic unity. While the layout of the site is intuitive, where each genre is appropriately and easily marked, the lack of organization in the contents of each section often leaves the reader feeling overwhelmed and disoriented. Within in each genre-page the reader is mercilessly bombarded by nothing more than titles and brief excerpts. Nowhere is there a mention of what, for example, such disparate titles as "The Commy," "Sea Dreams," and "Banter" have in common. Titles alone are not adequate to pique interest. Perhaps their organization along specific narrative techniques and/or character portrayals may help aid their navigation. This lack of coordination hurts the journal when a work of lesser quality is randomly chosen, immediately deterring the reader from future visits, and leaving the higher quality works unnoticed.
Overall, Exquisite Corpse offers enough variety for the literary enthusiast searching for works outside of the publishing mainstream. A more structured format to help make sense of the hundreds of pieces merely listed, however, would make this a more appealing and approachable online journal.
Mad Hatters' Review
It would be an insult to describe The Mad Hatters' Review as just another edgy, experimental online journal whose sole purpose is to challenge, confront, and even define the common notions of what constitutes the stylistic possibilities available to contemporary literature. Such definitions deviate and distract, artificially categorizing and packaging an otherwise richly varied stock of intriguing literary works that includes fiction, docu-fiction, drama, book reviews, audio text collages, poetry, interviews, music, and feature films. Unlike other "avant-garde" e-zines that only posture innovation, publishing at best an inconsistent and desperately messy compilation of "experimental" works, it's evident that the editors behind The Mad Hatters' Review are careful to post only the most meticulously of wrought contemporary works.Take for example Tim Horvath's short fiction A Box of One's Own in which the main character becomes obsessed with the mysterious contents of a box, only to be inadvertently enmeshed in a series of strange and unexpected turn of events that ultimately leads to the narrator itself turning into a box. A Box of One's Own neither "plays" with nor "employs" nonlinearity in its narrative structure but rather demonstrates how easily the form can work when properly utilized; this is not nonlinearity for the sake of nonlinearity.
Overall, there is very little to dislike about The Mad Hatters' Review. The layout is playful and quirky but does not stray too far visually as to confound the viewer's ability to navigate through each genre category. Although the random musical tracks that accompany both the main page and each genre entry is by now an old and tired feature, it nonetheless manages to create a pleasant ambience, and of course, can always be manually turned off.
Bibliobuffet
Bibliobuffet owes its existence, as Editor Lauren Roberts explains, "to the collapse of a weekly newspaper" for whom she once worked. The site features mostly book reviews, commentary pertaining to books, and on the experience of reading books. The quality of the reviews is sound and after having read Frank X. Robert's "On Marking Books," Andi Miller's review of "Silent Girl Speaks Volumes," and Anne Michael's "On Being Seen and Not Heard," it's evident that Lauren Roberts encourages from her contributors an urbane country charm similar in style to Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion."My feelings about the online journal, however, are mixed. I do appreciate the homely and quietly informational tenor of each article, but I often found myself losing interest. While the site's gray to white tapered backgrounds and muted gray side panels are easy on the eyes, they do not effect sufficient contrast to the text font, making for a very blurry and hazy reading experience. Also lacking were images complementary to the substantive content of each article. Although Frank X. Robert's illustrative examples of various book markers are adequate and appropriate, many of the other contributors had only large blocks of text.
Now, I'm not one to advocate the shallow dressing up of literary websites, however, today's web savvy audience expects a novel use of layout as a way to extent and deepen content. Plainness and occasional monotony aside, Bibliobuffet's writers are strong and offer a surprising variety of discussion topics about books. The extensive list of links on the said subject matter is also a nice touch.
In sum, with a few tweaks to the color scheme and with the addition of interactive graphics Bibliobuffet should enjoy significant readership.
Farrago's Wainscot
Farrago's Wainscot is a quarterly journal that specializes in interstitial literature. Its content is unabashedly experimental featuring such diverse works as John Poch's poem "To Recover From Lightnight, Etc.," Daniel Braum's fiction "Mystic Tryst," and A. Ross Eckler's genre breaking "Geographical Curiosities."Poch's poem is formatted like an 11-step instruction list, however, instead of offering useful information each line functions rather to confront, mock, and satirize: "4. Behold the bedhead of deconstruction. Twice. And then be done with it.” Braum's fiction mingles realism with fantasy in which a recently divorced couple seeks to fathom the ghostly appearance of fish, a mystery whose pursuit uncovers a few startling truths about the couple's past relationship. Finally, Eckler's work is by far the most innovative, and frustrating, of Farrago's current crop of entries. "Geographical Curiosities" is a study of opposites, of otherwise useless statistical fact made poignant when considering the relevance, or irrelevance, of the peculiar mathematical patterns that emerge when the structural settlement of human civilization collides with nature. Although Eckler's work certainly makes a great point, it does not make for an enjoyable read.
In sum, the content that fills Farrago's Wainscot is not summer reading. Each work challenges and elevates the narrative expectations of the reader, albeit, not always in a manner that offers much in the way of delight and entertainment. The format of this online journal is unadorned yet sleek. No musical bells or flashy graphics populate the site. Farrago is a starkly inventive journal, and as with all experimental works, one finds either unwarranted obfuscation or glittering originality. Fortunately, it is the latter that distinguishes the archives of Farrago.
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