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.

The element of surprise: Pif Magazine

Pif Magazine

Given the scheduled sequence of my reviews, it was with the sincerest of intentions that I endeavored to review an online literary website in serious need of a reality check. And so, with beady, sweat brimmed eyes, and my arched hunch of meanness shifting into position, I began looking for sites with even the slightest hint of inadequacy; clumsy HTML, clashing color panes, the shameless placement of ads, and of course, my favorite, the obvious forum for self-published first-time writers desperate to legitimate their existence through some hurried, slapdash online rag. Yes, after earning two degrees and a teaching credential, it is to this that I have succumbed...moo hoo ha ha!

I kid.

But of course, I had indeed set my thermonuclear-literary-critic-targeting-device upon Pif Magazine. I was ready; I sensed blood, the letter worn surfaces of my keys were longing for the adrenaline propelled press of my fingers, especially after stumbling across this enticing statement:

"We pride ourselves on working with new and emerging writers and artists. To this end we tend to shy away from previously published works, but will consider anything that is of high-quality, intriguing, and of interest to our readers."

My first instinct, amateurs: a ham-handed, albeit candid, excuse for entry level work that literary enthusiasts should nonetheless feel obligated to suffer through. After all, even novices deserve a high profile medium through which to hone their skills. Right?

Well, I am happy to state that I was grossly mistaken.

Pif Magazine, a print and online literary website, run by Lissa Richardson and Derek Alger (and staff), offers a surprisingly wonderful and varied collection of fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, and art work.

I was also impressed by the website's aesthetic design; ripped, ink stained borders, crinkled edges and textured surfaces successfully mimic the look and feel of print. The site's choice of aqua blue, sea green, and muted pink for color theme is pleasing and easy on the eyes. There are also a lot of well-placed design elements such as pop-ups when a cursor hovers above a recommended book selection, floating image banners, and a convenient drop down categories menu. My only complaint is the general sluggishness of the website; scrolling and clicking are always accompanied by an almost full second delay (sad isn't it, how impatient us web browsers have become).

After reading Pif's introductory disclaimer about catering to first time, unpublished writers, I was wholly surprised after reading Sheyene Foster Heller's creative nonfiction entry, California. This is not the work of a starry eyed literary neophyte. California is a facile, bold, and introspective exploration of a mother's struggle to manage the lingering psychological impact of early childhood isolation against the present challenges of life, work and family. But it doesn't end there. In the following passage, Heller anxiously reflects on her initial and enduring fascination with older men at the expense of suitable mates closer to her age:

"Their foreheads were too smooth, their bodies too unformed, like a block of clay dough straight out of the package. I knew it would take years of experience to form them, to give them the lines and curves and character I found interesting. Somebody had to shape them, and be shaped along with them."

Heller's piece also reveals the tensions and frustrations that accompany having a child (in her case, a stepson) with special needs. And despite such myriad personal and interpersonal complexities, Heller's narrative is never sentimental or forced.

Most of Pif's entries are solid, which then prompted me to do some research. Pif is hardly an exclusive site for first time writers. Most of the artists featured have at least some form of established publishing credits (even a casual, random search of artist profiles uncovered several with MFAs and Ph.ds), and Pif seems to have plenty of connections with reputable arts organizations. Either way, I truly enjoyed perusing and exploring Pif. This is a top notch sight well worth bookmarking and visiting regularly.

The West Coast's answer to the New Yorker: Slake Magazine

Slake: Los Angeles

Besides the accomplished fester of strung-out screen writers, obscure, self-aggrandizing university auteurs, and below them the naive and wide-eyed wannabes itching for their shot at instant fame, Los Angeles has yet to produce an iconic literary journal that can successfully embody the city's diverse social and cultural demographic. There is, however, a new Mag in town, and one that is putting forth considerable effort to establish itself as the go-to source for all that concerns the city beyond the glitz, gloss, and glamor.

Slake, recently co-founded by former L.A. Weekly editors Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly, is a quarterly journal whose stated aim is a devotion "to the endangered art of deeply reported narrative journalism and the kind of polished essay, memoir, fiction, poetry and portrait writing that is disappearing in a world of instant takes and unfiltered opinion." It is an ambitious agenda, and one that is being given wide acclaim by the LA Times, public radio (KPCC), and by an esteemed list of inaugural Slake contributors.

Although Slake's online presence is limited to excerpts and previews, they offer a satisfactory glimpse into the range of works featured in their main print publication. Certainly, it wouldn't take much for Slake to publish even a handful of exclusive selections online, as their general layout is clearly the work of seasoned web-developers.

Set against a blue gossamer background, Slake's homepage is designed for simplicity: across the top is a horizontally scrollable list of articles, each marked by a distinctive cover unique to the writer's content, followed by Slake's introductory statement positioned at the center while directly below a tiered promotional plea and a current list of contributors.

In terms of content, Slake casts a wide net. Take for example Anne Fishbein's "The Secret Lives of Stiffs," an article exploring Acme's eerie display of mannequins in its downtown Los Angeles showroom:

"At times we walk past these working stiffs without a second glance - their presence is so familiar that we don't question their odd existence. But sometimes a mannequin's outstretched hand, its fingertips seemingly reaching for some kind of connection, give us pause."

It's a fitting topic given the revolving veneer of trends that characterize LA fashion, and which subsume and homogenize the passions and interests of ogling downtown shoppers. Fishbein's series of pictures depicting mannequins in a variety of still poses forces the viewer to confront and question its own emotional and substantive depth, or lack thereof.

Arty Nelson's "Abstract L.A." surveys a revitalized movement in abstract art that is unique to Los Angeles. Nelson's review offers a convincing argument that despite risking the same mistakes of old - namely, total exhaustion of the genre's ability to maintain its inchoate energy - these new works of abstraction are indeed full of "intriguing techniques" that "[include] the deconstruction of the canvas, the use of stencils, [and] even the exposure of treated surfaces to heat." Of the abstract artists Nelson discusses and whose work he shows, I particularly enjoyed Dianna Molzan's ability to extend her medium beyond paint and canvas, and with a minimalist bent no less, and the fabric based artwork of Matthew Chambers, whose strips of colored cloth for canvas create a warm, spiraling effect of texture that is sure to appeal to the wealthy, Eco-friendly garbed L.A. earth mother.

There are also plenty of essays and poetry, although Ray DiPalma's poem, "33," does more to tell than show through an intangible and unnecessarily disjointed sequence of ambiguous imagery:

"Individual traits and external expedients, pauses and omissions-
the imaginary tracks of compulsive reality and fine detail,
an investment in contradictions
caught between layers of purple and scarlet light
amid the eerie scent of cold smoke"

In contrast, the consistency of quality demonstrated in Slake's essays addressing a myriad of issues affecting Los Angeles is impressive. C.R. Stecyk's "Fortress L.A." is a magnificent expose on the ever present military-industrial complex located throughout Los Angeles. Stecyk charts the industry's earliest experimentation in their attempts to break the sound barrier to the advanced surveillance technologies and remote controlled UAVs that comprise the industry's death machinations today. Stecyk's article shocks readers into acknowledging the hard realities of not only our world's obsession with perpetual war, but also our complicity in its maintenance.

Slake's enthusiasm to establish itself as the West Coast's answer to the New Yorker is both a bold and uncertain endeavor. Nevertheless, so long as Slake is able to sustain its inaugural depth and scope of content, as well as embracing the web in the near future, they are certain to garner considerable respect and attention.

A Journal in 80s Neon

Los; Contemporary Poesy & Art

In middle school, I was a fairly typical-looking child of twelve; a tangle of awkwardly sized limbs, large feet, and an oval-shaped head that bobbed shyly whenever eye contact was demanded. I was also very poor, the son of a visual artist still struggling to make a name for himself whose meager source of income subsisted mainly on selling paintings at various weekend mall shows, corner tucked municipal festivals, and makeshift beachfront carnivals. Of course, it was also our family's creativity that helped sustain us through difficult times.

I mention this because I often forget some of the more idiosyncratic events that shaped my young life, and it was not until this article's review of the online literary journal "Los; contemporary poesy & art" that I remembered one of the more humorous incidents that influenced - or shall I say, traumatized - my middle school years.

At one point during the eighties, anything neon was considered fashion forward. And how I envied my peers for their name brand fluorescent bright green and pink t-shirts against black shorts cut just above the knee...oh yeah. Of course, these suckers were expensive, but sensing my disappointment and not to be outdone, my jack-of-all-trades father discovered a solution. On a sunny late afternoon, while pedaling furiously on my bicycle, I saw him come home with a generic set of neon-colored t-shirts and shorts tucked under his arms.

"But Dad, these don't have a logo!" I yelled shamelessly.

In response, my father, applying his knowledge of the process of silk screening, drew up and copied two name brand logos which he then transferred onto the surfaces of his stock neon t-shirts. And voila! The next day I levitated into class as bright as a glow stick.

Now, before some company, 20 years later, seeks to bust my dad for this innocent offense, I must offer the disclaimer that this was a one-time deal and was never, at any point, sold to market. This was merely a poor father's attempt to help out a son.

Is this a review of an online journal?

Yes, because the moment you click on Los's website, you will be struck by an absurd display of the most reckless alternating neon colors ever to be graced since the 1980s. It only took three painful seconds before I was forced to turn away and close my eyes while screaming bloody murder.

After the throbbing, searing pain subsided, I again faced my computer screen, but this time, wearing the kind of darkly-colored shades that only post-operative Lasik eye surgery patients are given. Frankly, I can't even begin to fathom how the editors of Los arrived at the conclusion that eye-piercing neon makes for an attractive layout, let alone expecting a user-friendly reading experience. And it gets worse, its list of past contributors are all marked in fluorescent light green. Wow.

Although the site's organization is comprehensible, it is far from intuitive; the home page depicts a running textual excerpt written in what appears to be size 34 font. I had to scroll around a bit before realizing that a small partitioned box at the upper left hand corner of the home page is the table of contents, listing the following four categories: "texts," "art," "correspondence," and "sites."

Los's content is a witty mix of the historical, polemical, and political. As a collection the entries are adequately vetted for quality (still, a few disappointments do abound), and although sometimes abstruse, they are almost always intriguing. Here is a passage from Sean Brendan-Brown's dystopian poem, Benedictus:

On deck our freshly caulked clipper
Akiko (Japanese for "fall") we bid
the Twentieth Century farewell
with Safe&Sane brand fireworks;
ashore the condo cave-dwellers
tend the winter landscape with Adam's
Needle, dogwood, and Bright Edge;
may blooms and birds fill sieved skies
and sea-beasts flourish in scoured seas:
the consequence of cyberspace was once
the best selling dreamboat in Athens.

Los also features the works of visual artists who, for the most part, seem second fiddle to the site's published poets. Take for example Christopher Mulrooney's unimpressive photography of beach scenes whose stylistic perspective is no better than some laymen's passing snapshot of the same landscape. His Wilshire Blvd. street and building shots; however, do show some promise, although again, there's no unique angle to be discerned, other than the drab images of building facades that fill his collection.

Alright, now go ahead and dig out your old neon garb, put on Grandma's shades, and sift through some of Los's trove of brightly-colored PoMo; for the most part, it's worth the pain.