decomP Magazine
decomP, an exclusively online literary magazine, is the brainchild of founding editor Mike Smith. Currently, the website is managed by Jason Jordan, Jason Behrends, Jared Ward, and Jac Jemc as Editor-in-Chief, Art Editor, Prose Editor, and Poetry Editor, respectively. According to the site, an inaugural print edition is scheduled for release sometime in 2010.decomP is what you'd expect from a revolving group of newly minted MFA grads bent on nurturing an online literary website. As each genre editor is either an accomplished writer or well on their way toward garnering legitimate literary recognition, decomP is light on visual style but heavy on the quality of featured works. This is not to suggest; however, that decomP is a hastily assembled website. On the contrary, its layout hones graceful simplicity for the sake of immediate accessibility. Arranged within a three columned, four rowed table, first time visitors will undoubtedly find the site well designed and appealing enough to warrant a closer look. decomP's Verdana font and alternating light browns and light blues for background make for easy reading and lend the site an overall pleasing appearance.
After having read countless erotic poems inadequate in their treatment of gender and sexual identity, I was pleasantly surprised by Corrina Bain's poem "Task At Hand." Where most poems employ the simplistic ruse of descriptive shock and awe in their depiction of the media's subversion and manipulation of human sexuality, Bain's exploration of the distorting effects of pornography is expertly rendered through the first person perspective of a woman watching an X-rated sex flick. As the speaker of the poem observes a typical scene of pornography, full of graphic and dehumanizing acrobatics in which the woman is always relegated to tortured subservience, the reader is given a deeper sense of how each scene stands not only to belittle and caricaturize women, but also how such scenes narrow and limit the range of intimate possibility:
The girl, meanwhile, is perfect
how empathy slides off her aquatint skin
how unimaginable it is that I could be that body
the hiccough of flesh that appears as she forces the throat over the c***
I wonder if she ever thinks of me
With each successive image, Bain forces the reader to experience the full range of the speaker's developing sense of trauma. Though the actors and actresses of pornographic videos are often flat characters, Bain's gives voice to their inner worlds through the speaker's internal dialogue, a sophisticated technique that accomplishes to both demystify the "harmless" nature of male dominated pornography and to reveal how exactly such imagery stands to shape an individual's perception and expression of sexuality.
Alan Stewart Carl's flash fiction submission, "Just the Truth," is a superb example of just how effective and sufficient this often contentious genre can be when well written. What better genre than flash fiction to illustrate life as a construct of a fleeting multiplicity of moments, and thus, micro narratives. Carl's "Just the Truth" instantly immerses the reader into the unrealized, though always closely harbored, love that characters Milli and Grant share. Where Milli thwarts and fears open acknowledgment, Grant is hopelessly persistent and encouraging:
They'd pledged to always tell each other the truth. "I'd kiss you," she said. And she did, the two grappling each other, tongues darting. He had a girlfriend visiting family in Texas. She had a boyfriend upstairs. They'd never been able to drink together without one of them kissing the other.
There is little room for narrative waste, and Carl uses each sentence and paragraph to impart in the reader the intensity of Milli and Grant's brief exchanges of teasing affection, though which just as quickly fade and disappear.
It would be tempting to exhort decomP Magazine for graphic innovation and interactive appeal, however, the more I delved into the content of the works featured, the less I felt it necessary. decomP is fiercely devoted to good content and the results more than make up for an otherwise temperate visual organization.
