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.