Online Poetry Specialist, MUDLARK

Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry and Poetics

Mudlark is an electronic journal focused on publishing the finest poetry available on the net. Editor and Publisher William Slaughter has managed to associate his site with an impressive list of such notable organizations as AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Program), CLMP (the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses), and the Electronic Poetry Center.

Though Mudlark's electronic footprint is modest and understated, it maintains an appearance of unforced sophistication. To the left of Mudlark's home page hovers a gray, rectangular band that provides sufficient contrast for its table of contents in blue font. The remainder of the page features a streamlined catalog of past issues in black font against a white background. The latest entries are marked by an emblazoned "NEW" in bold red. Though I concede favor to the innovative and highly interactive glitz of comparable online journals, Mudlark does well to concentrate its editorial efforts on producing quality publication.

My initial run-through of Mudlark, and despite its visual simplicity, was frustrating: entries and author references felt random, and the site's organization of hyperlinks and layout seemed confusing and diffuse. It was not until I stumbled across a link entitled "How to Mudlark," - which, in retrospect, should be positioned more visibly - that clearly outlined the site's format: "'issues' of Mudlark are the electronic equivalent of print chapbooks; 'posters' are the electronic equivalent of print broadsides; and 'flash' poems are poems that have news in them, poems that feel like current events."

Once I became familiar with Mudlark's unique nomenclature ("A-Notes" to denote an author index and "E-Notes" to indicate an Editor's summary), my enjoyment of the site's content grew exponentially. Mudlark's author bios are the most extensive and generous I've seen yet, not your typical deadline rushed bullet point in which past accomplishments and anecdotal information is mashed up in two or three obligatory sentences.

R. Virgil Ellis's poem "Smart Weapon" (Mudlark Flash No. 1), written in 1998, eerily predates the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was truly floored by its prescient insight into the callous use of "smart weapons" in which civilian casualties are masked behind the sanitized euphemism of "collateral damage." Ellis's free verse poem wryly describes the mechanistic, back door processes involved in weapons manufacturing, culminating in the personification of two missiles:

One of the Discriminators
(Exterminators was only briefly considered) turned
north and blew up showering money on the resistors.
Another turned around, its warhead become
landing gear. Back at the base as it rolled to a stop
a voice chip inside it kept saying "Hell no we won't go."
Another made it to Washington. "Now look," it began.

Ellis implies brilliantly that were weapons truly "smart," their choice would be to cease and desist.

One of the most moving and tastefully rendered poems is Susan Kelly-Dewitt's twenty part poem "The Limbo Suite" (Mudlark No. 38, 2009). Kelly-Dewitt's sequence of poems, which she also complements with her own paintings as thematic extensions, depicts her experience caring for her bedridden mother at the hospital days before her death. Kelly-Dewitt also captures a range of emotions and observations not limited solely to her mother:

their wheelchairs park hub to
hub in front of the sick fish
theater waiting for the rank
curtain to rise

Patients suffering from a variety of illnesses come alive in vivid detail as many of them struggle to reconcile their lives before it's too late. Jaded nurses, sheepish family visitors, and the routine din of a hospital all collide to expose a woman's grief within an atmosphere of fragile superficiality in the attempt to avoid addressing the inevitable.

Although navigating through Mudlark takes some getting used to (e.g. it took me a few moments to discover how to access all of the parts of Kelly-Dewitt's poems), I welcome their comprehensive author bios, intimate attention to featured works (each issue seems dedicated to only a few poets, and often, to just one), and the availability of audio readings via mp3.

Content is King: decomP Magazine

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.

Blending the Old with the New: Narrative Magazine

Narrative Magazine

Previous reviews of online literary magazines have concentrated on the emergent and inchoate; sites managed by tireless, unpaid devotees struggling for notice, gain, and honest invention. These do-it-yourself collectives, intoxicated by the desire to discover, establish, and assert, do so against the eddying specter of what's left of the traditional publishing mainstream. Where before the staid establishment of print publication rested comfortably on those formats proven and perfected by time, the depth and boundless nature of the Internet not only uprooted their working knowledge, but also led to an inundation of competing online publishers eager to embrace the limitless possibilities of multi-media. The triumphs and failures of this new crop of cyber-aesthetes are in equal measure, ranging from the frenetic, though brilliant visual, audio, and textual amalgamation of sites such as the Mad Hatters' Review, to the bland, prosaic html of sites such as, well, read my earlier reviews...

Though it is tempting to outright discard the pillars of old, the "ancient regime" remains peopled with talent, ambition, and innovation, and many of them will indeed successfully extend much of their operational capacity across the various virtual media outlets that are quickly displacing the mediums of print and gloss. Advantaged as they are with access to financial resources, artists, and investor networks, it's difficult to conceive that a Simon & Schuster or a Random House will altogether disappear. Regardless, the era of literary hegemony exercised by the publishing old guard is definitely over. In its place is a virtual literary market that at its best demonstrates a viable and creative alliance between little known grassroots publications (bringing with them their knowledge of social networking and technological savvy) and the literary agents, editors, and financiers who once comprised conventional publishing (offering their expertise on how to create an industry through which artists can hope to earn an income!). Blending these extremes with great aplomb and deft is Narrative Magazine.

The co-editors of Narrative Magazine, Carol Edgarian and Tom Jenks, are no strangers to the world of professional print. Having contributed to, and held positions with, some of the most distinguished and sought after publications (Vogue, Allure, Harper's, and the Los Angeles Times just to name a few), the seasoned expertise of Edgarian and Jenks is clearly illustrated in the sophisticated and well coordinated layout of the site's homepage. The headers, print, and sub titles are easy to read, appropriately varied, and adequately spaced. Additionally, the images, font and background coloring, and the lengths of text consistently evidence control, balance, and restraint; no graphic flaunts, no type is sized to exaggerate, and no disclaimer begs needlessly for attention. Yet this is not to suggest a site whose appearance is lifeless and absent of the creative energy and verve that constitutes its content. Rather, it is a logical aesthetic that seeks to attract readers accustomed to the organizational arrangement of, say, a New Yorker or an Atlantic Monthly.

When I first tried to expand a particular selection, I was surprised by a prompt instructing me to create a user account. Typically, I dislike subscription based websites. They require the user to enter too much information and the benefits offered for setting up an account are not enough to justify the compromise in personal privacy. In contrast, Narrative Magazine's request for information does not extend beyond an email address and the process took no more that thirty seconds.

After registering and toggling about I was impressed to discover the convenience and ease of submitting works for consideration. Not only is there a dedicated pane system for submissions, but also an added feature that allows aspiring applicants to keep track of the status of their works, including admission/rejection updates, an archive directory, and posted commentary. The anxiety and anticipation that goes along with waiting for a response, which for many websites can take months, Narrative Magazine shortens and alleviates through its interactive submission system.

Opening the link to Richard Bausch's featured work, Blood, a short story about the consequences of obsession, familial isolation, and communicative delay that unfolds between two brothers, offers a neatly arranged page with a photo of the writer, a personal biography, and a body of text generous in its double spaced format; that the author's work can be downloaded separately as a PDF document is yet another example of Narrative Magazine's emphasis on an intuitive and user friendly interface. I experienced no discomfort or strain in reading all of Blood's 33 page length exclusively off a computer screen.

Impressive too is Narrative Magazine's dedication to a section titled "Narrative Outloud," where you'll find streaming audio readings by various authors. Check out the poetry of Michael Dickman, whose unassuming and subtly modulated voice wonderfully complements works full of vivid imagery, teasing ironies, and unforced metaphors.

Where most online literary magazines are oriented singly around contemporary works, Narrative Magazine maintains historical continuity when reintroducing some of the great works of the past. Along a column at the far left side of the site's homepage, and distinguished by its pale yellow background color, NM displays two sections titled "Story of the Week" and "Poem of the Week," which for the current edition highlights Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "First Night" and Anna Swir's "The Same Inside," respectively.

In conclusion, Narrative Magazine achieves an admirable balance of design and content, combining the stylistic elements of older print publications (in its efficient use of space) with the novelties available through the net (in its incorporation of multimedia and ease of access). Though Narrative Magazine does not revolutionize any one aspect of on-line publishing, what the site does accomplish is to perfect many of the existing tools pioneered on the net; not a single glitch was encountered when clicking on an audio, visual, or interview stream. In terms of the site's content, editors Carol Edgarian and Tom Jenks more than prove their taste and influence as most of their selected contributors are seasoned and award winning veterans.

Contemporary Noir on the Net: Part 2

Ascent Aspirations Magazine

Ascent Aspirations Magazine is an independent press and quarterly online literary publication. A print anthology is also distributed semi-annually.

I chose AAM as a companion site to last week's review of Underground Voices Magazine, as both publications emphasize short fiction, poetry, and science fiction that cover the themes of social alienation, political angst, and cultural malaise. Implied is a body of work whose dark diction and bleak narrative offers a stark and gritty examination of social interaction and human emotion not found in the sanitized alternatives now available across the net. In light of the content presented and the audience sought, to what extent have they succeeded in creating an online presence immediately recognizable for its subaltern yet metastasized originality of voice and layout? The results, unfortunately, are mixed.

Unlike UVM, the layout of Ascent Aspirations Magazine is well organized and easy to navigate. The home page conveniently offers an index column listing current and past issues in addition to a set of recommended links that borders the center graphic of AAM's logo. Clicking on the "current issue" hyperlink leads to another intuitively arranged page where AAM displays author names by genre category. To the far right hovers a featured work of visual art, which, for this quarter, is the abstract expressionism of Patricia Carroll, who conveys her pieces with a surprising freshness despite the over saturation of the genre itself.

Although the layout is straightforward, it is quintessentially bland and not at all suggestive of literary audacity; AAM's alternating font colors of light blue, red, and yellow are neither striking nor provocative. Though it is understandable that such an underground outfit may not have the necessary resources to craft a visually sophisticated website, limited financial means has never precluded creativity. Take for example the avant-garde literary and visual movement of Vorticism that took place in London just prior to WWI. Hardly known and struggling within the suffocating vestiges of Victorian hypocrisy, founder Wyndham Lewis still managed to distinguish his underfunded publication of BLAST with its iconoclastic and erratic font size that continues to attract admirers even today. The most typographic creativity AAM displays is an italicized font for headers and the occasional water colored "Ascent" logo that hovers awkwardly in hues of smudged purple and orange. For a magazine that claims to publish the works of subversive authors its layout is in serious need of overhaul.

The content put forth by AAM is fairly typical of most online literary publications, a varied blend of literary and visual amateurs, veterans, and talents in progress. I, for one, welcome such a mixture because few other mediums allow for writers and artists of such contrasting styles and degrees of skill to share and compare their works. One such gem among AAM's short story submissions is Lee Gimenez's "Enzyme." Gimenez imparts narrative through the format of several email exchanges that takes place between two scientists, Samantha Ryker and Leonard Smith:

From: Samantha Ryker
Date: October 11, 2012
To: Leonard Smith
Subject: Enzyme

Leonard,

I have some great news! While working (as always) on the enzyme project, I came up with a new formula. I think this will give us what all of us have been working on for the last five years. Yes, you heard me right. We'll now be able to make ethanol from wood chips. I know it sounds incredible, after all of the dead ends. I can't wait to get in the lab and start working with this.

Regards,

Samantha

This is just one of a series of emails to follow, through which Samantha's scientific break through is subsequently challenged by Leonard. What unfolds is a psychological exploration of scientific single mindedness whose consequences can portend and lead to great disaster. Gimenez's short story executes this format flawlessly. His handling of telling a story through email correspondence is the embodiment of experimental online literary content at its finest.

Of course, there are in AAM plenty of Charles Bukowski imitators and overly maudlin and tired relationship pieces to go around. Asides from Patricia Carroll, I was none too pleased by the crop of visual artists available for the current quarter.

In conclusion, I enjoyed UVM and AAM's selection of entries. It is clearly evident that much effort is given to ensuring the highest quality of submissions. Nevertheless, the primary weakness of both magazines is their less than stellar internet layouts and the near absence of thematic organization. In addition to random entries, why not collaborate with writers around a particular style or theme? Perhaps, and again through collaboration, why not seek to articulate a new philosophy not only in content but also in terms of layout?

Contemporary Noir on the Net: Part 1

Underground Voices Magazine

One of the most important aspects of the Internet is the opportunity afforded to various talents to showcase their unique works outside of the mainstream media.  Though corporations and their marketing adjuncts are now fully vested in the limitless power and reach of the Internet, their efforts, thus far, have not hindered the ability of a certain class of innovative artists to present works particularly edgy, dark, and raw.  Foremost among this list of creative daring is "Underground Voices Magazine," an LA-based print and online literary magazine.  

Gripping the viewer instantly on UVM's home page is a monthly feature of a visual artist who, for the site's May 2009 issue, is Russian born George Grie.  The fact that Grie's work is displayed so prominently, to such an extent as to marginalize even UVM's own introductory header and navigational panes, is a testament to UVM's commitment to the artist.  Grie's digital 3D neo-surrealist rendering, entitled "Mind scape or virtual reality dreamscape," is a captivating collage of provocative and playful imagery full of paradox, alienation, and tension: observe as an 18th century ocean vessel sails through an arched window and out towards an unknown horizon of vaunted mountains.  All this is placed against a foreground of aristocratic furniture, spiraling staircases, and hanging Gothic chandeliers.  

Once the visual impact subsides, however, the two rectangular index windows that edge the sides of Grie's impressive work are neither the most intuitive nor in keeping with the stylistic content of the site's larger body of works featured.  The left-hand side of the page displays the site's genre categories, though to the far right, and completely disassociated from the genre to which each author belongs, hover the names of the month's contributors.  It would be nice if the two were merged.  Furthermore, only after fortuitously scrolling around does it become apparent that under Grie's work are listed the titles of monthly features, but again, no indication of authorship.  Lastly, though the choices of font color (alternately white and red) and the background color (black) allows for easy reading and a fairly streamlined appearance, overall the layout fails to capture the unconventional energy and intriguing titillation that distinguish the works themselves. 

In the category of Fiction, Zachary Amendt's "Marvelous Time Starving," is a respectable attempt at modern noir in its portrayal of a sell-out, booze swilling novelist full of calm sarcasm and self-deprecating, yet uncannily honest, irony.  Zachary's narrative, though in need of some minor editorial shearing, is generally strong and refreshing:  In an example of his brightly colorful literary illustrations, he describes the dive bar "Taqueria Arandas" as "cheap beer and deep leather booths and saucy Canadian fishermen, grizzled and hulking, Baffin Bay and the St. Lawrence Seaway to Loreto and the Sea of Cortez."

UVM's May 2009 poetry submissions are equally varied in style and content, ranging from Michael Shorb's gratuitous political poetry, "Rush Limbaugh Smokes a Cuban Cigar, Alone on the Balcony of his Florida Mansion," to Paul Hellwig's poetry of wry self affirmation, "Confessions of an Amateur Drunk," and most notable, Sinta Jimenez's penetrating, yet measured, poetry depicting the enduring and haunting experience of racial and ethnic discrimination. 

The artists whose works Underground Voices Magazine brings forward are commendable.  To most submissions, UVM adds a complementary image as an extension of the author's content, a nice touch and one whose collaborative potential I am always eager to see tested.  Though UVM's layout lacks the originality reflected in the depth of its content, this literary magazine succeeds in establishing itself as an appropriate forum for those writers, visual artists, and readers interested in publication oriented around material that is fearless in its exploration of the darker shades of the human psyche. 

Of sheep and understatement: Apt Journal

Apt Journal

"Apt: an online literary journal," subsidiary of Aforementioned Productions, was co-founded by editors Carissa Halston and Randolph Pfaff in October 2005.  Against the often overly designed bevy that largely constitutes online publication today, replete with any number of outlandish graphics and awkward navigational formats, Apt's elegance of design proves that, despite the overwhelming visual rococo in which the web is today awash, less can still be more.  The site's simple font easily stands out against an understated background color of muted yellow.  Even Apt's literary mascot, "Leopold," an unassuming sheep rendered by Jesse Farrell, is poised in such a manner as to reinforce the site's emphasis on literary content.   

Though I applaud Apt's finesse in design, after reading several entries, many of which vary drastically in technique, I found myself yearning for graphics as a distinguishing extension of the stylistic content of each entry.  When reading John Grey's delightful poem "Gardens," I felt Apt's austere layout nicely complements Grey's open-versed imagery.  I was then thrown off by Petra Whiteley's poem "Copper Coin Miracles," as I was unprepared to transition so suddenly from Grey's delicate verse to Whiteley's provocative and visceral diction on the turbulent experience of past and current love relationships.

This is to suggest that elegance does not have to be sacrificed with the use of multi-media. Contemporary standards of online taste emphatically demand a well-coordinated and consistent simultaneity of various media: there is just too much possibility to ever again warrant its outright rejection.  I would therefore love to see Apt's streamlined approach translated into a format that incorporates mixed media.  Overall, I recommend Apt, not only for its high caliber literary works, but also for its experimentation in visual understatement.

The international eclectic of 3:AM Magazine

3:AM Magazine

There is an energy of purpose and orchestrated vision to 3:AM Magazine that clearly sets it apart from other online literary journals. The introductory homepage banner is sleek, intense, yet appropriately understated in style. The site's color scheme of layered blue for borders and plain white background for each entry section together create a warm consistency of appearance, theme, and design. Though a few textual typos stand out, especially in works of translation, this is forgivable in light of 3:AM's sheer volume of output.

The editors of 3:AM have managed to construct a site that is graceful in its suggestion of innovation. The viewer is eased into discovering two particularly good uses of media, flash fiction and blogging, favorable to an audience often weary of having to read long excerpts on a computer screen.

Flash fiction is an appealing format that enables the writer and reader to engage in an intimate and immediate moment. Take for example Jana Lisboa's "Daddy," a seemingly personal portrait of a daughter struggling to reconcile her father's militaristic and staunchly Catholic parenting skills. Though such an experience can be drawn out at length in the form of a novel, Lisboa's brief, but intense, personal narrative succeeds to effect in the reader a heightened sense of the emotional dynamic that often exists between father and daughter: "It was so. He called and I burst into tears. It was just like that one time, when once he was big, I was tiny." Flash fiction forces the writer to create the leanest, and thus the most emotionally charged sentences.

Perhaps 3:AM Magazine's most notable achievement, in addition to featuring an excellent variety of underground literature, is its concerted effort to publish a wide range of international voices. One such example of 3:AM's dedication to cultural plurality, and again within the genre of flash fiction, is Brazilian born Adriano Queiroz's "The Opportunity" (translated by Maisa Dabus) which depicts the defiance and subversion of a South American septuagenarian against the prevailing attitudes of bias toward the elderly. The manner in which the main character treats old age is revealing and surprising to a western reader. The comparative possibilities of a multi-cultural narrative experience as a movement are now taking full shape, and its nice to see 3:AM participate. It would be welcome if they took this a step further by devoting a specific section to works of contemporary foreign literature. While this topic is hardly new within the circles of academia, only now have such international works been displayed for universal public access.

3:AM's blog roll "Buzzwords Blog" includes a novel mix of multi-media; combining text, YouTube, video excerpts, photography, and an equally diverse fare of quirky and insightful commentary. A February 9, 2009 post titled "The drivel parts, or we'll tell him we're frightened and have to go home" weds humor, a TV sitcom, and literary history as it details an anecdote from the life of writer Richard Yates. What 3:AM accomplishes here is the clever threading of several mediums and genres to convey and expand the discussion topic. This is multi-media at its best; collaborative, focused, and inclusive.

The sections devoted to criticism and interviews are well researched and cover a broad spectrum of artists. Check out the Sophie Erskine interview with Meat Poet Steve Richmond and Mikael Covey's interview with 'Bizzaro' poet and fiction writer Tom Bradley.

When selecting entries for publication, the editors of 3:AM Magazine do not sacrifice quality simply for the opportunity to fill its pages with eclectic works. Those whose artistic products have been published are truly deserving of notice, and this against an international pool of contributions makes 3:AM a pioneer in reaching out to writers of all backgrounds.

Jan. 2009 Reviews of Literary Magazines - Poetry Magazine, Exquisite Corpse, Mad Hatters' Review, Bibliobuffet, and Farrago's Wainscot

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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