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.
