Of Clowns, Cows, and Crowes

Now Culture

Many quip that the more letters one accumulates after their name, the less they are able to exercise common sense. Of course, if you are a comparative lit professor reading this entry (right), you are undoubtedly bristling at the notion that there is such a thing as 'common sense.' Arguably, what constitutes 'common sense' is merely the product of cultural forces acting within a given historical context, and where meaning is relegated to the momentary consensus of buffoons struggling to fathom and negotiate their insignificance amid the material confines by which they have unwittingly enslaved themselves. But the sight of a distinguished and learned man in his fifties dumbfounded, incredulous, and powerless when half his class disappears forty minutes into lecture...yes, I'm sorry to say, there is such a thing as common sense, or lack thereof.

"Why don't you demand their presence, and give an exit quiz toward the end of lecture?"

"Because I don't want them to feel as if they are being held hostage."

The nature of work governing modern industrial nations exists within multiple, and often competing, layers of absurdity. Because of rapid technological advances, and given that we've transitioned into a period of perpetual change, tasks are managed not only by fewer individuals, but also in ways that seem redundant; we keep paper records in warped, metallic file cabinets alongside virtual, cloud-based data management systems, and the two hardly ever match. Additionally, companies are constantly changing platforms, ensuring an endless state of flux in a desperate attempt to keep pace with the ever fickle tastes and habits of the hyper-informed consumer.

Hang in there, a review is indeed forthcoming.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Luddite. In fact, I love and obsess over technology. But during moments when I'm juggling an iPhone, laptop, PC, and iPad, each of which demands conversation with several people at once over an equally overwhelming number of issues and topics (and in the end accomplishing nothing), I am but forced to acknowledge the absurdity of existence.

It is for these reasons that Ernest Hilbert's online literary magazine, Now Culture, is a welcome and must-read addition to the bevy of tired, overly pedantic journals bobbing obnoxiously across the increasingly commercialized virtual seascape many still so foolishly regard with great excitement, enthusiasm, and hope...the internet. Editors Don Zirilli and Gene Myers venture into literary online territory that rivals the Mad Hatters Review.

Behold, the raven with a doughy-eyed cow's head with bristled snout nudging for endearment as Now Culture's introductory homepage graphic. It is a bizarre and reckless presentation that few will comprehend first glance. Begin clicking on links and you'll soon stumble across an even more obscure series of images, culminating, and only if you are lucky, in a vacant-eyed, mouth-gaping clown with an erect horn protruding from his right hip pocket. Ok, now I'm getting a little carried away, but this clown is one of two key directional icons the reader must decipher, the other is an equally obfuscated map with strange pencil etchings on a blurred glass background.

I will speak of this no more, for therein lies the fun (and madness) in trying to navigate through Now Culture's entries.

I despise the word "edgy." This is not an edgy online magazine but one that is visionary. Oh god, I hate that word too, "visionary."

Hmm...it is playful, brusque, imaginative, challenging, brilliant, and an utter failure.

The first publication that caught my prying critic slits is Sean Burke's poem, Guided Meditation.

"Now think of the sun as peremptory to a certain understanding of the sun think of horses felled think of field mice and think of egrets flown as forms of living mineral thing of all their bodies are capable of as you would think of a person you could love given different circumstances consider cold wrought iron"

It is a wonderful example of free association that challenges and disrupts the reader's perceptual and interpretive processes that are otherwise accustomed to the predictable schemata of the day-to-day. Be patient, don't rush trying to connect each phrase into a continuous and contiguous whole, rather, take a moment to digest and decode each phrase, most of whose self-generated meanings you'll be startled to discover has more to do with your own set of prior experiences as opposed to what the author is inherently attempting to convey.

I also enjoyed unearthing Leni Zumas's poem, And you will know us.

by the bars
on our eyes
you will know us
without wanting to
see our teeth
black from sugar
so much play
and no work
makes me ennui
said the hotel

Zuma's poem continues in this fashion; short controlled phrases whose seemingly cryptic meaning, and unique arrangement, entices the reader to revisit and delve, to subvert the cliche and reinterpret them in ways that broaden and expand sense impressions.

If you are looking for absurdist fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, I urge you to check out Now Culture. Although by no means a polished endeavor, it's on the right track, and I sincerely hope they gain greater traction.

On the question of artistic integrity: Restrepo vs. Elyse Fenton

Restrepo vs. Elyse Fenton

During the shooting of their documentary, Restrepo, filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington spent 14 months following a company of soldiers in one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, the Korangal Valley.

Restrepo received numerous accolades for its candid and unabashed portrayal of US soldiers fighting not for pride and country (the shot up, mangled face of your best friend after a 360 degree ambush quickly dispels such childish notions), but for each other.

There was much that was depicted in the film; the unflinching determination of bare-chested soldiers digging an outpost while alternately taking fire from unseen enemies, the blank-faced paranoia of soldiers sensing an impending attack during an early morning reconnaissance mission, and the reaction of soldiers when stumbling across the charred remains of dead Afghani children after an air run gone wrong.

I was also impressed by the people not shown, namely, Mr. Junger and Mr. Hetherington. Too many documentary filmmakers ruin an otherwise good production through self-promotion, placing themselves at the center of attention, as if to assert the indispensable nature of their extraordinary investigative cunning and fortitude, showcased through any number of gratuitous action cams and idiotic, tongue flailing displays of socially disruptive behavior. No, Mr. Junger and Mr. Hetherington work quietly behind the scenes, near anonymous participants engaged in the harrowing job of capturing humankind's ultimate act of primordial barbarity, war.

In contrast, there is poet Elyse Fenton whose collection of war poetry, inspired by her husband's experience as an Army medic in Iraq, was awarded the University of Wales' Dylan Thomas Prize. Garnering $47,000 for her work, an impressive amount for any modern day poet, she is also the first American to claim the prize.

When I first heard about this on NPR, I was happy not only for the fact that a poet was receiving media attention, but also for the fact that it was a discussion offering a window into the range of emotions experienced by a husband and wife separated by war.

But excitement and interest soon dissolved into disillusionment.

Allow me to preface. It's not that Elyse Fenton is a poor writer. In fact, she is an excellent poet, whose verse, imagery, and tone are consistently strong. No doubt, what she has achieved stylistically is most certainly worthy of praise. Rather, what disturbs me is the questionable source of her inspiration, and the poetic license that she seems to have taken.

On December 22, 2010, NPR's Susan Phillips interviewed Elyse Fenton and her husband Peenesh Shah. After introducing the poetic merits of Elyse Fenton, Phillips quickly addresses the growing controversy surrounding Fenton's work. Namely, the authenticity of Fenton's reflections on the anxiety and emotional stress experienced as a result of her husband's deployment.

"Shah worries about how other soldiers may view the poems. He says he was safe for the most part and didn't see combat. And he struggles with the idea that he was his wife's muse."

Apparently, Mr. Shah was a Green Zone Army medic.

Put simply, he never saw combat and was seldom, if ever, in danger of losing his life. So why, despite Shah's repeated insistence on his safety, did Fenton persist in dramatizing her emotions, labeling herself a "war bride"?

Staking fencing along the border of the spring
garden I want suddenly to say something about
this word that means sound and soundlessness
at once. The deafening metal of my hammer strikes
wood, a tuning fork tuning my ears to a register
I’m too deaf to understand. Across the yard

each petal dithers from the far pear one white
cheek at a time like one blade of snow into
the next until the yard looks like the sound
of a television screen tuned last night to late-
night static. White as a page or a field where
I often go to find the promise of evidence of you

or your unit's safe return. But instead of foot-
prints in the frosted static there's only late-
turned-early news and the newest image of a war
that can't be finished or won. And because last
night I turned away from the television's promise
of you I'm still away.

According to Fenton, it was the uncertainty and awareness of war that inspired her poetry. Cast in this light, isn't Fenton's emotional response justifiable? After all, her husband was thousands of miles away, subject to the unpredictable whims of war-mongering politicians and their eager-to-please generals, and the steady ticker of IED casualties steadily scrolling across the bottom of every major news channel.

I'll therefore temper my own criticism, and allow one of her husband's comments to speak for itself:

Mr. SHAH: Whenever I hear Elyse talk about her work, I think about the potential of my peers, people with whom I had served, hearing it and what they would think. And I have no regard for what poets or the academy might think

(as an alternative, check out the poetry of Iraqi war veteran Brian Turner)

Addicted to Opium

Opium Magazine

Launched in 2001 by Editor Todd Zuniga, Opium Magazine's online aesthetic is contemporary and elegant; black brush strokes, rolled columns of paint for texture, and cloud crawling cherubs amid complementary shades of blue.

There are also hints of innovation and concern for user-ease; each entry is assigned an estimated time of reading, a viewer comments section, and a mercifully brief author bio at the bottom of each publication post. There are, of course, a few gripes begging for attention. The comment fields are often filled not with reader input, but with the intrusion of spam and random advertisements. There is also the want of organization by issue or edition; a history of entries can be found only either in a running archive or a "Last 5 Things" list which, oddly, generates posts not sequentially but randomly. Of course, these are minor, forgivable annoyances.

After digging deeper, discovering pages Zuniga would be wise to make more accessible, my feelings of tempered approval were instantly provoked into excitement. I was glad to learn Opium Magazine is also available as an iPhone application: an option soon to spread like wild fire among most online journals.

After downloading Opium's free application, it's obviously a work in progress. Readers must shake their iPhones in order to access actual entries, a feature that quickly wears out its appeal, generating more frustration than enjoyment. Additionally, the text for each entry often appears jumbled and misaligned. Regardless, I remain enthusiastic about Opium's iPhone app, being among the first online literary magazines to offer such an extension of platform.

I feel obligated to mention Todd Zuniga's most recent statement in which he promises a forthcoming redesign of the website, as well as larger plans for an upcoming print issue (which is typically offered semi-annually). As there is no specific date mentioned, one can only anticipate.

The quality of Opium's entries appear strong, most of the posts read were well written and always consistent in substance and rigor. Kseniya Yarosh's prose poem, Lemons, is full of readily accessible images that are delightful and enjoyable. In fact, after reading it for the first time, I chuckled like a doting grandmother reading a bedtime story for her sleepy-eyed, rosy-cheeked grandchildren. Yet, Yarosh's piece is so much more, repeat readings inevitably reveal Yarosh's clever subtly:

I stole the lemons you had been saving for your mother,
and peeled the skins off, so, even if discovered, their origin
would be uncertain and proof that they were yours
would be destroyed.

I suspect the narrator is an unappreciated girlfriend or wife looking for ways to annoy and, ultimately, end her relationship with her significant other. What makes this poem intriguing is Yarosh's ability to reveal the narrator's intentions through an inner dialogue of calculated scheming.

Rae Bryant's [Jeezus] Changed My Oil Today is also deserving of attention, an artful flash fiction entry about a woman's desire for her mechanic's systematic and thorough approach in servicing her car, even despite her husband's presence, who, sitting in the car, can't help but observe her barely concealed advances:

Jesus takes my money, smiles, gives me the change, waves me on my way. Have a good one, he says, then turns to the next car in line, pops the next hood, pulls out his oil wand to service another and I imagine he's cleansed my car saintly, extracted my sins and my guilt, my oily intentions like a drive-through confession. Bryant's piece is full of religious allusion, sexual fantasy, and marital ennui through the lens of a wife struggling to compensate for an otherwise sexually unfulfilled relationship with her husband. This is flash fiction at its finest.

So long as Opium Magazine maintains its momentum, conducts its contests in a fair and ethical manner, and accomplishes even half of Zuniga's stated goals, I foresee much acclaim and success in its future.

The Blathering of Bass

The Blathering of Bass

No longer motivated to hone specific regional styles and voices, MFA programs have fast devolved into an entrenched and homogenized business collective who feel it their obligation to churn out the same brand of frenetically paranoid, overly cautious, and substantively meek linguistic aesthetic to which thousands of wide-eyed literary dreamers are expected to conform. Gone are the days of morphine addicted dandies roughing it across Europe in shoddy horse-drawn buggies in search of the sublime, or booze swilling individualists leaving behind thick trails of exhaust as they drive from city to city hungering to fathom the neglected decay of old America - of boxcars, rail, and blood - or even the dwindling vestige of the American writer, fat, full of anguish, and homeless, hopping from bar to whore, desperate to preserve a shred of dignity within the ever encroaching push of globalization.

No, none of the above, but the blathering drones of the MFA canon. Enter, Ellen Bass.

Ellen Bass's credentials seem impressive, boasting several print and web publications, literary accolades, and a teaching position at Pacific University. In fact, she is considered by many (read hoodwinked understudies and their immediate families) as a darling of contemporary poetic achievement.

Now, take a moment to watch Ellen Bass read four selected poems from her Chap Book "Mules of Love & The Human Line."


During an interview, Charles Bukowski once described the process of writing poetry that relies on outlandish metaphors and ornate imagery as taking a "good hot beer shit." Referring, of course, to the pungent fumes of pretentious hyperbole to which many artists succumb. And it is this that largely characterizes the work of Ellen Bass, who, after being introduced by the pandering warble of Co-host Larry Colker, proceeds to shamelessly intone her poetry before an anesthetized, Redondo Beach café audience.

Her first poem, "Everything on the Menu" immediately commits one of the first cardinal errors in literary production, telling instead of showing. This is a favorite tactic among MFA poets, the use of direct address ("In a poet...") followed by an absurd use of figurative language:

Sand spilled from a boy's sneaker,
the faceted grains scattered on the emerald rug
like the stars and planets of a tiny
solar system.

What meaning is Bass attempting to convey, other than a moment to dazzle her audience with her smoldering brilliance? And are we to accept that "in a poem, joy and sorrow are mates" who "lie down together" with their "nipples chafed to flame?" Ouch.

Bass's second poem exhibits yet another common MFA tactic, cobbling together various images that have almost nothing to do with each other, but from which the audience is supposed to gather great spiritual import. Here, Bass combines deer imagery, full of dubious warm furs and ankle-wet eroticism, with Elizabethan collars and, of course, an obligatory line of male bashing, "...did the man know what to do...?"

Yes, and with all due respect, I know exactly what to do, run for the hills.

Switched-off Gutenberg

Switched-on Gutenberg

I never cease being amazed at the discovery of an online literary website whose layout and design is so antiquated as to be constructed within a virtual vacuum. Indeed, I subject myself to intense self-scrutiny, in whose prolonged state I question and doubt my own better judgment. Perhaps the site's developers are aiming for an edgy, streamlined appearance; an almost brutish defiance of graphical innovation where the stark, thick-yellowed border framing an introductory, granular image of a philosopher a purposeful and brave testament to the visceral hunger and social alienation of the site's featured artists. Or maybe it's my naivety in failing to recognize the overly cautious and chronically paranoid motivation to emulate the latest postmodern aesthetic.

But once the anguish of introspection settles, I am left with the hard cold truth of incompetence illuminated before me.

This brings me to state that I am dismayed by the clumsy and lifeless quality of Switched-on Gutenberg's layout. Although Founder and Editor Jane Harris provides a compelling and insightful discussion on the importance of providing on-demand printing specific to the challenges faced by writers within the digital age, there is very little to suggest that Switched-on Gutenberg exerts enough energy to fulfill even a modicum of Harris' lofty statement.

Besides the site's preference for oddly placed rectangular panes, the most unforgivable design flaw is the absence of a homepage link. Once you click on "Current Issue," there is no turning back. Furthermore, the inconsistency of font size and style makes many of their introductory pages painful to read. The background color, unique to each issue, is alternately ghastly and unappealing, chosen undoubtedly from a monochrome color pallet.

Regrettably, I sampled Switched-on Gutenberg's poetry soon after reading Anis Shivani's "New Rules for Writers: Ignore Publicity, Shun Crowds, Refuse Recognition, And More." This may have been a mistake, establishing a mood in which I was largely averse to much that is going on in the world of contemporary poetry.

I detest name dropping, especially in reference to obscure places, names, and things. Take for example Rick Agran's poem,"Birding," in which imagery is prefaced with bird nomenclature:

vireoed beech limb
black-throated green blackberry bramble
hawked Nissittissit River
looned late summer eve
bluejayed cat slink
cedar fence bob-o-linked
whip-poor-willed night porch

Vireoed? Looned? Whip-poor-willed? After researching each word, I learned a lot about different bird types and their distinctive appearances. Fair enough, but this is common to contemporary poetry, instead of relying on the age old practice of artful description, poets find it increasingly preferable to name drop, further alienating an ever diminishing population of poetry lovers.

Also trendy among the avant-garde is the association of pictures to text that have almost nothing to do with the text itself. To the right of Rick Agran's poem is David Francis's photograph "Memory Shutters," a bizarre assemblage that includes a half-opened window shutter whose blinds are taped with newspaper, a red colored grill placed within the center of the window frame, and three circular-shaped mirrors running across, and just below, the window's top frame. Hmm, ok. I guess I'm just not that smart.

To be fair, Switched-on Gutenberg does feature several accomplished and competent poets. Anna Catone's "From My Grandfather's Notebooks" is a wonderful pastiche of journal excerpts, placing the reader into the role of detective and historian, and Scott Wiggerman's "Strike: Variations on Ten Words" is a brilliant three stanza poem in which a set of recurring words and phrases are frequently rearranged for interpretive and metaphorical variation.

Until Switched-on Gutenberg addresses its atrociously designed website, they will find it exceedingly difficult to attract more than their proudly stated and current statistic of 2,000 annual visitors. Please note that the publication of art on a poorly constructed website is akin to publishing a novel on a loose-leafed three-ring binder.