Gregory Orr on YouTube

YouTube Review: Gregory Orr's nebulous mysticism of the "Beloved"

On November 10th, 2010 lyric poet Gregory Orr read a few of his poems at The Bowery Poetry Club in New York, New York. The event was organized by performance poet Taylor Mali for his series, Page Meets Stage (PMS...yikes!).

With only 614 views since its upload on March 3, 2011, Gregory Orr has yet to attract a public following equal to the praise that has been showered upon him by such distinguished organizations as the Virginia Quarterly Review (for which Orr was Poetry Editor from 1978 to 2003), National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Hmm...

Although Orr's presence on camera is inward and flailing, he intones his lines well, coordinating stress and release appropriately (disclaimer: for the habitual user of salt crystals for deodorant, you will find Orr's swaying gesticulation highly interesting and, dare I say, captivating even).

Unfortunately, Orr sighs and moans ad nauseam about the presence of the "beloved" moving "through the world, is the world" and how it refuses to "incarnate in a final form". He also offers plenty of gratuitous, Gaia inspired references such as "birds flitting" and "you can't see it, but you can here its song" that are sure to whip hoards of aging, wiry-haired hippies into a psychic frenzy. It's not that Orr is a bad poet. In fact, he demonstrates clear command of verse, imagery, and figurative language; it's just that Orr remains an antiquated throwback to the 1960s psychedelic movement. The 21st century artist should be well beyond the simplistic notion that there exists some mystic earth-fairy to whom we must attune for spiritual salvation and guidance. In the end, Orr's poetry fails to articulate a viable and sophisticated solution other than the vacuous, feel-good New Age spiritualism he's known for dishing out.

Denise Duhamel on YouTube

YouTube Review: Denise Duhamel reads "Egg Rolls"

Denise Duhamel is an accomplished poet who, in addition to being a successful teacher of creative writing and literature at the Florida International University, has seen her work published in several prestigious print and online journals and magazines. Despite all her awards, grants, and accolades, Duhamel has not achieved much success reading her poems publicly, especially those featured on YouTube.

Denise Duhamel projects an unwarranted degree of confidence during a YouTube video in which she reads one of her poems, Egg Rolls. With frizzy blonde hair and wearing a black turtleneck, Duhamel introduces her poem in a manner that should be banned from all future literary readings. Note to poets and writers, kindly spare us your tired and facetious introductions. They are almost always full of narcissistic pander and nauseating self-affirmation. It's best to reserve discussion and explanation of the work itself either inside the classroom, or after the presentation among a smaller circle of fans.

Duhamel's free-verse poem Egg Rolls provides a snapshot into Duhamel's days as a starving graduate student living in New York. It's the usual dirty realism fare of eating expired food, holding down menial jobs to make ends meet, and the aches and pains of being impoverished, hungry and full of longing. Of course, the point of the poem is that she "never [feels] so bad for herself really because she [is living and writing] in New York." Sure, why not.

Unfortunately, her work doesn't transfer as well when read. Duhamel's appearance is bland, and her overly emphasized facial gestures remind me of a fussy suburban house-marm attending a reading at a local coffee shop. Duhamel's reading quickly devolves into a droning sing-song and none of the grit and determination contained in her poem comes through. And although the structure of the poem is meant to capture the chaos and spontaneity of life in New York, Duhamel's verbal rendition presents a poem full of rambling run-ons begging for moments of pause and appropriate intonation.

Is Kara Jones a well-meaning mystic or a shameless charlatan?

KotaPress Loss & Compassion Journal Online

As an agnostic, I can sympathize with the restless, rootless hoards trying to seek answers to all of life's existential mysteries. For many, the cold materialism of science and the peer-reviewed pondering of the academic establishment fail to offer what the fakirs and mystics of the past and the urban spiritualists of the present shamelessly and wholeheartedly pander, the satisfaction of immediate enlightenment. Kale shakes, coffee enemas, and reverberation specialists abound; three sessions of Ayurvedic yoga, two Reiki consultations, and nightly, tantric meditation promise to prevent cancer, tooth decay and the hollow ache of persistent emotional malaise. Ohm. Of course, it's easy to dismiss the intangible, spiritual peregrination of the robed, sandal-donning seer, just pucker your lips, tighten your sphincter, and roll your eyes.

Created by Kara and Hawk Jones, Kota Press publishes books, art, blogs, articles and online lectures that explore a whole host of techniques in dealing with grief. Although I was quick to dismiss most of what this site hawks, taking a moment to suspend your disbelief will engender some sympathy and understanding not only to what inspires Kara Jones, but also to recognize some of the benefits to be had for those trying to cope with loss.

Kota Press' homepage is neither the most intuitive nor the most appealing. Although offering an index of links to the left of the introductory pane, and a menu bar across the top of the page, her site takes some getting used to. Additionally, the moment you begin toggling into the depths of her site, it's easy to get lost among any number of topic destinations.

Initially, I sensed the smoldering luster of a snake oil salesperson. For a fee, of course, its 12-module online course on creative grief coaching (based in large part on the theories of Joseph Campbell, whose work has largely been popularized and proselytized by charlatans of all types) is the site's principal certificate offering, which doesn't come cheap. It's at this point I'd usually smirk, shake my head, and click away.

The site focuses on helping individuals cope with the loss of a family member or loved one. Kota Jones herself has lost three children. The question then becomes, is she truly genuine in her desire to help others through grief, or is she merely capitalizing on her past for monetary gain? To answer this question, I delved more deeply into her body of work.

I chanced and decided to spend some time on her personal blog, motherhenna.blogspot.com. Here, she provides several "Creative Prompt" videos that feature Kota "exploring grief using radical creativity." I chose this branch of Kota Press because I needed to observe the demeanor and content of the creator herself.

On video, Kota Jones has a bubbly personality and projects motherly warmth. Her face is fleshy and her curly, shoulder-length hair trembles as she enunciates and emphasizes her points. Her eyes roll in moments of searching thought, and she often exudes smiles when broaching painful subjects. One of the videos I viewed depicts Kota offering an "open invitation" for those who've recently experienced loss. She is articulate and seemingly earnest in emphasizing the importance of being open to the process of healing and emotional expression. As someone who has experienced the death of a sibling, I saw value and relevance to the emotional comfort Kota Jones offers through art, words, movement and expression.


What helped suspend my disbelief and accept Kota's expertise is the extent to which she is willing to share her past experiences. In one of her columns, she writes in great detail about the still birth of her son, and how she overcame her grief through scrap-booking.

In closing, I can't say I endorse everything Kota Press links to and suggests, and it can easily be argued that some of her techniques border on the outlandish. It's in the least a useful source for anyone looking to find ways to manage the emotional pain and trauma of loss, and engage creatively with similarly experienced individuals.

How YouTube helps revive (or in some cases, discourage) page poetry

Tom O'Bedlam Vs. Pearls of Wisdom

As an itinerant and amateur futurist who suffers from episodic spasms of paranoid delight when imagining the near dystopian possibilities of human existence, it is imperative I take pause and acknowledge some of the benefits of post-industrial modernity. After all, we've not yet reached that point in time when prospective parents, their bioluminescent glazed eyes scanning information projected from nano-processors embedded within the folds of their brains, discuss without moral hazard the specific traits of appearance, habit and intellect they'll instruct an obstetrician to genetically engineer for their future children.

The social practice of sharing and disseminating literary works has always been disrupted by historical events and advances in technology, the most obvious example being Gutenberg's printing press. Today, it's YouTube.

I've been slow to peruse YouTube for those video posts that demonstrate genuine artistic merit. I've never been one to ogle into the private lives of individuals sharing their first guitar strum or the aspiring pundit offering a personal rant about some celebrity or political figure. Added to these examples of quaint domestic communication, the footage, especially during the early days of YouTube, was always grainy webcam or more recently, shaky phone cam. Clearly, this is no longer the case, as the scope and range of YouTube includes high resolution live streaming video that can be utilized for a whole host of purposes.

Boasting nearly 16,000 subscribers and more than 9 million video views, SpokenVerse by Tom O'Bedlam is a YouTube channel focused on poetry readings. This is not a channel either showcasing the often exaggerated theatrics of slam poetry or the falsely intoned ramblings of novice poets as can be found in almost any local coffee shop, but Tom O'Bedlam's vocal interpretation of the classical canon of international poetry. It is his voice, and his voice alone that can be heard reading any number of poems.

Tom O'Bedlam is an excellent reader, his voice is at once grave and gruff, and lends itself particularly well to older poetry. I was instantly captivated by his reading of John Keats' "When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be." What I appreciate most is O'Bedlam's insistence on not presenting himself before the camera, allowing the listener to bask exclusively in the aural experience of the reading. This is not to say O'Bedlam leaves his channel visually bare. While reading Keats' poem, O'Bedlam offers an introductory portrait of Keats, followed by related images that fade in and out against the written verse as background. O'Bedlam also takes care to properly cite the source of all his images, be they a picture of a constellation of stars or an artwork of pen and ink. The commentary field too is full of pithy exchanges, and O'Bedlam's occasional offer of social commentary on a topic covered in a poem is consistently thoughtful and well-written.


O'Bedlam's collection of classical poetry is vast, ranging from Ezra Pound, Ted Hughes, and Sylvia Plath to Pablo Neruda, Charles Bukowski and Roald Dahl. Additionally, if the viewer is interested in the works of a particular poet not readily appearing in O'Bedlam's playlist, there is a search box for one's convenience. In short, Tom O'Bedlam (and those whose channels I've yet to discover) helps revive page poetry from the confines of the bulky anthology typically reserved for college students.

In marked contrast to Tom O'Bedlam is Pearls of Wisdom, another YouTube channel featuring the voice of a single author (whose name is not mentioned) reading from the canon of international poetry. This channel proves the maxim, first appearances can be deceiving. Although beautifully bordered with the profiles of several poets, the quality of the readings is so shockingly terrible as to risk leaving most listeners with a profound and lasting distaste for poetry. Regardless of the poet or content read, the author's voice consistently warbles and modulates a tinny sing-song. Take for example her reading of Allen Ginsberg's "The Ballad of the Skeletons", an insipid interpretation characterized only in its habit of ending each verse with rising intonation. In fact, all of the poems I sampled are treated the same vocally. Stresses are at best seldom appropriate, and the timbre of her voice eviscerates and neuters almost all depth of intended meaning to be found in a poem.


Pearls of Wisdom is also fond of editing the beginning of its readings with an array of garish garden imagery that fades when presenting the word of each verse as they are read. For prospective slam poets and students of theatre interested in listening to examples of how not to read poetry, then perhaps Pearls of Wisdom remains of some use and import. Otherwise, this channel is definitely a pass.

A cyber-masochistic exploration of a once and future past

BeeHive: Hypertext/Hypermedia Journal

Not since the virtual sadism of Josh Harris have I been so enthusiastic to revel in the past. Seldom, as I age, do I look to the disjointed evanescence of memory for inspiration, for it is but a battered and despicable thing, this remembrance of things past, broken fragments of one's facade, its many shades of artifice once so ardently defended and justified, now painful shards offering nothing more than piercing flashes of debilitating truth among the ruinous rubble of one's own self-inflicted misery.

There was a time, or so I've been told, when the internet promised a brave new world of aesthetic freedom; a depthless realm into which our darkest and most exhilarated modes of creative expression would thrive. Neither fettered nor governed by the archaic conventionalism of societal norms, the digital cowboy, in all its craven anonymity and penchant for reckless constructivism, thrust fingers first into an expanse of code if it so dared. This was the matrix even William Gibson hadn't yet conceived. Of course, the internet will always remain a work in progress, but the marketing agents and crony capitalists have grown keen to the importance of establishing control. They hire hackers and programmers en masse, purchasing their freedom in exchange for helping them assert their dominance through the filter and reach of algorithms designed to track our every post and purchase online. Pop-ups lurk and abound, sneakily inserting themselves before our unwitting clicks, scrolls, and swipes; blossoming plumes of iridescent advertising tailored to your most treasured and most carefully guarded personal whims. Obfuscation is futile.

Talan Memmott's now defunct online literary journal, BeeHive, offers us digital archivists a reminder of the promise many of us once shared (and rightly still do) about the creative potential of the internet. Beehive, a hypertext and hypermedia journal, was first published in 1998, its last quarterly issue is dated 2002.

Even when judged according to the standards of its time, the layout and design of BeeHive's homepage is underwhelming. Centered against a light, pinkish-brown background is a current issue menu inset with a running list of thumbnails for each featured entry. Along the sides of the center table are three additional panes, quaintly titled ArcHive, BeeMail and BeeHive News. *sigh*

What urged me onward after first glancing at BeeHive's unimpressive homepage were the intriguing titles of its featured works: Landscapes by Bill Marsh, Viractualism by Joseph Nechvatal and Hyberbody by Juliet Ann Martin, just to name a few.

Landscapes by Bill Marsh is a five part multi-media poem. Its introductory piece, Desert Drive-in, presents an alien-shaped vessel in the middle of a barren dessert. Within the neon blue and green shading of the ship, and behind two rows of window portals, scrolls the phrase "my face I did not hide" and below it the phrase "from insult and spitting". Initially, I was struck by the simplistic absurdity of the piece, but the more I looked the more I began to enjoy the deeper meaning the piece seems to suggest. Fanning diagonally from the center of the ship are crudely rendered members of an audience subservient to the cryptic message running across the belly of the ship. Although the viewer is offered no more than a bright green circle to depict the heads of each audience member, they seem entranced and in a state of blind worship, a multicolored unison of arms upraised toward the alien ship poised as theater screen. Before the ship, and in between the audience, are pictorial representations of four separate theater screens, whose cursory position alongside its intended audience subverts the viewer and screen relationship. It's as if the pictures themselves are seeking to fathom the theater-audience dynamic. There is also an ominous hum of sound that adds a sensation of tension and anxiety.

The remaining pieces showcase several dystopian digital friezes; Marsh's "Variation on a Summer Theme" depicts skewed images of children in a trapezoidal frame, from which rainbow colored signals pulse across a forest of bulbed nerves. This culminates with "Fog at Sunrise", where fog spews forth from a crystalline city and tickers across a stretch of ocean. In the foreground is a dock, two of its planks scrolling the phrases "I will bring them back" and "from the depths of the sea", with a single boat moored at its end, its passenger a flashing photographic gallery of ads, except for a single image of a mother and her child.

At least for the sake of early internet nostalgia, take a chance to search this old site for the dreams and hopes of a collection of early multimedia digital artists. 

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.

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.

The internet as a virtual museum: The Central California Poetry Journal

The Central California Poetry Journal

I regret to admit that it was only after reading a news report describing how family members and friends of the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. explosion victim, Jessica Morales, are using Facebook to share their shock and dismay that I began to fully recognize the value of the internet as a permanent digital repository for preserving the legacy of one's life. In light of this tragic incident, I've also been forced to reassess my hitherto smug and dismissive attitude toward the thousands of online literary journals that for any number of reasons have been largely abandoned by editors, writers, and readers alike. It's no longer convenient for me to categorize them as merely the virtual remains of poor quality websites whose perpetual anonymity is deserved. Although many are indeed half-hearted attempts whose naive and immature content are rightly to be cast aside, if not deleted entirely (arrogance be gone!), some are in fact veritable virtual environments where the work, passion, and history of once thriving subcultures and modes of expression can and should be accessed for inspiration and reflection.

One such site I feel worthy of repeat visits is Scott Galloway's The Central California Poetry Journal, an electronic subsidiary of Solo Publications. Officially run and maintained from 1996 to 2003, Galloway's journal offers a vibrant collection of nature poems focused on the topics and themes exclusive to the geography of, and issues facing, central California.

In appearance The Central California Poetry Journal is nothing more than Times New Roman font and a running index column providing a straightforward annual publication list of previously featured poets. Click on the name of any poet and the reader will be directed to a brief author bio followed by his or her selected works.

Galloway's online journal (influenced in large part by the poetry of Robinson Jeffers) is by no means comprehensive; rather, it gives readers unfamiliar with the region an introductory, albeit meaningful, inkling into how California's diverse geography can give shape to the poetry of those who've either visited or resided within her borders.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised to chance upon the poetry of fifth generation California native Melisande Luna, whose work is featured in the online journal's 2003 edition:

To Reap

On restless nights I've hammered north,
hooked I-5 towards the valley,
came screaming down the Grapevine;
where August's breath blew
warm and pungent,

reeking of earth and onions:
the scent of Lily's last gasp.
I remember the night her cornflower
eyes set with the stars --
as dusty palms crushed her lips.

Naked, she knelt in furrows
amid mute foliage and chittering
witnesses, who scuttled and chewed,
indifferent to a fast meal's fate.

Alabaster skin encrusted with clay,
her iron tincture blossomed in gullies,
bloodied the vagabond river's loam.

I went to reap memories
of Lily, in the deeply plowed rows,
where breath quit her tiny lungs.
I'd let my footsteps kick up clouds of silt,
puffs as brief as my sister's quick life.

The copper-bite of loss ripened
bitter among the onions,
where I harvested bumper crops.

Luna's word choice and use of imagery to depict the literal and figurative loss of her sister is accomplished with great subtlety and skill. The poet not only succeeds to couch the implication of human loss within the context of personal experience, but also to highlight and embed the contiguous, interdependent and inseparable bond our species shares with nature.

If you're interested in poetry specific to the geography it seeks to represent, and from which it draws its inspiration, then definitely take a moment to peruse The Central California Poetry Journal.

The perfection of simplicity: Blackbird

Blackbird

Regrettable and heartbreaking the aesthetic frill and technological fancy of those websites whose editors are more eager to unwrap the latest version of Adobe Dreamweaver than sustaining upon the arduous task of pursuing and establishing industry relationships that are essential to attracting the best writers, artists, and intellectuals for online publication. Furthermore, the obstacles that nascent online literary journals face in their attempt to surface from the depths of obscurity, especially when they do so without the aid of grants or at least some form of support from an academic institution, are such that a significant portion of my time is spent scouring through a virtual graveyard of long defunct online literary start-ups. Although a few of these abandoned sites are clumsy visual throwbacks to an earlier era in which blocky HTML graphics prevailed, many of these sites are in fact expertly constructed; for all my advocacy of novel web design, the success of, and the quality to be found in, Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts clearly proves that good content can still thrive among flashier competitors.

Blackbird is principally the product of the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and the non-profit organization New Virginia Review, Inc. Additional editorial contributions include undergraduate and graduate students, community volunteers, and former alumni. It is because of this seemingly exhaustive willingness to collaborate that Blackbird has managed to cull an impressive list of literary and artistic talent. And I'm not one to flatter.

Although Blackbird's layout does not seek to thrill and stun, its six button navigational toolbar and attendant sidebar menu will never leave readers either wanting or confused: genre categories are distinctly visible, author bios are easily accessible, and a list of works published, either from a current issue or from the archives, is conveniently located regardless of the page viewers may happen to stumble upon. Works featured ranges from poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essays, and streaming audio and video submissions.

Given the popularity of documentary films, the growing trend of video essays among online literary journals is an obvious extension; video essays as a relatively new sub genre offer a wonderful blend of narrative and imagery whose range of innovative possibilities remain largely unexplored.

Take for example one of Blackbird's Spring 2010 feature contributors, John Bresland, whose video essay Mangoes was shot and edited almost entirely using an iPhone. Although Bresland expresses regret in not having utilized advanced video and editing equipment, the transitions, sequences, and narrative dubbing are perfectly suited to the overall tone and mood of his essay: an understated comedic exploration of the unintended consequences of modern conveniences upon the modern family, in which Bresland discusses his initial distaste, reluctance, and eventual acceptance of using a papoose to carry around his infant son.

In closing, Blackbird's published content is consistently strong; also check out Hal Crowther's essay In Defense of Straight-Chuters, in which he emphasizes the importance of confronting life in all its gruesome peril and import, and Dilruba Ahmed's poem Qawwali, a free versed implication of an unrequited form of Sufi prayer on behalf of the world's afflicted and downtrodden.

The promise and pitfall of Postmodernism: The Argotist Online

The Argotist Online

Imagine the following disclaimer after accessing the online version of the New York Times: Some readers have pointed out that the text on the site is difficult to read. To remedy this, there is a freeware program called Readability that lets you change various aspects of a site's presentation and layout for easier reading.

Given the New York Times' reputation for journalistic excellence, most subscribers would, with mild annoyance, forgive and accommodate the inconvenience.

Unfortunately, this is not something novice websites should risk assuming; lazily asking users to download fix-it patch ware, which is exactly what I discovered upon first viewing The Argotist Online, successor to the now defunct The Argotist arts magazine.

It should come as no surprise to those intent on creating a successful website that first time visitors often predict and judge the quality of a site's content based on nothing more than a shallow, casual glance. If the site fails to attract readers based on an initial impression of ease, function, and accessibility, and regardless of how brilliant and insightful the site's content may be, viewer traffic will hardly extend beyond an immediate circle of friends, colleagues and contributors.

Added to The Argotist Online's garish fluorescent yellow disclaimer, is its use of muted white font against a black background, with bright green and blue highlights for works and titles featured; were I not obligated to appraise the entirety of The Argotist Online, I'd have missed indefinitely much that is good about the site's published content.

The Argotist Online is devoted exclusively to poetry and poetics, and what I appreciate most about Jeffrey Side's website is the studied care taken to explore and legitimate a set of philosophies particular to the style of postmodern poetry he's chosen to promote. Two such articles stand out; first is Jeffrey Side's 'Empirical and Non-Empirical Identifiers,' a superb discussion comparing the limitations and elements of conventional, signs based poetry (distinguished by its use of metaphors, similes, and grammatical syntax, to list just a few) to an experimental poetry utilizing inter-textuality, among various other techniques, as a means to invite reader participation in the generation and negotiation of meaning:

Aside from suggesting some further critical tools that may be of use to criticism there is also the possibility that this undertaking will have artistic value in that it may encourage the individual reader to ultimately decide upon the meaning of a poetic text, either unconsciously or by volition. By "volition" I mean the conscious determination of the reader to decide upon any one of a number of associations the words and phrases of any given sentence suggest, and to choose this particular association as the constituent of meaning despite its being the less obvious or appropriate choice (in comparison to the others) given the complete denotative meaning the sentence's lexis implies. This sort of practice is possible because the poetic text is arguably without intentionality: both in the sense of having no meaning inherently, and of the impossibility of its having an authorial intent conferred upon it.

The second article is Eric Denut's interview with Charles Bernstein, Regan Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, who offers a compelling defense against the critics of postmodern poetry:

Poetry's social function is to imagine how language works within its culture, while pursuing a critique of the culture; this suggests that poetry can be a countermeasure to the reinforcement of cultural values at the heart of both popular entertainment and consumer politics.

While The Argotist Online boasts an intriguing and distinguished collection of essays, interviews, and articles, exploring a wide array of topics on the philosophy, aesthetics, and cultural significance of poetry, the quality of the poems presented is mixed at best.

Postmodern poetry is immediately problematic; the line that separates effective and meticulously wrought grammatical and stylistic innovation from the slapdash practitioner who breaks rules for no other reason than their inability to first adhere to the rules of convention is fine indeed. Regrettably, there is simply too much mediocre poetry to sift through to warrant a prolonged search for the few jewels that do exist.

Why women should rule the world: Belladonna

Belladonna

Other than a vague and nondescript email address of the purported editor, located in small print at the bottom of Belladonna's main page, one can only assume a quiet, passive-aggressive ensemble of feminist agitators bent on surreptitiously initiating a matriarchal new world order, one word at a time. Of course, I'm being absurd, but Belladonna is indeed a literary online journal focused on the various issues concerning all things Woman. Now, before I delve into a review of Belladonna, I feel compelled to sincerely and emphatically state my wholesale support of anything having to do with feminism; the history of discrimination, oppression, and prejudice women have endured, and continue to endure, should always warrant serious discussion, address, and activism.

After reading Belladonna's description tag posted on an online directory, I expected a bold, incisive, and unabashed exploration of feminist leaning fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and criticism. So too was I under the immediate assumption that the site's appearance would, with equal gusto, challenge many of the accepted conventions of online literary layout and design.

Unfortunately, I was instantly disappointed in Belladonna's unappealing home page; a slapdash of two columns composed of headers inscribed in rectangular buttons against an unflattering, cut-and-paste, black marbled backdrop. Equally frustrating is the site's want of an organized and easily accessible table of contents; with most internet users accustomed to any number of readily convenient, intuitive, and immediately recognizable browsing features, Belladonna's dizzying arrangement is simply unacceptable (it only takes one second of first time user frustration to discourage further exploration).

After agonizing through various pages for at least fifteen minutes, it's clear that Belladonna is essentially a forum where writers congregate to test and practice their craft in a format based on the Japanese manga series, "From Eroica With Love," first popularized by Yasuko Aoike. Limited to a certain number of characters, and loosely structured around a particular set of themes, the writers of Belladonna take alternate turns to fashion, shape, and continue the story almost any which way they please. But then why should readers care, especially when such a format so easily lends itself to attracting an inconsistent collection of writers, many poor, some decent, and even fewer, great?

One of Belladonna's better writers is the anonymously named, "The Disreputable Duck," whose flash fiction contribution, "Moth Attack," offers a humorous and intriguing addition to the Eroica series:

Dorian Red Gloria, the Earl of Gloria, watched idly as his young nephew Philip puttered around the room. Being openly homosexual, Dorian wasn't planning on siring a child, and was thus considering other possibilities for an heir. Philip was his sister Elizabeth's oldest son, and a promising candidate. It was not often that he saw Philip, since the boy's mother was always suspicious that Dorian would be a bad influence. However, ten-year-old Philip was far more interested in his current hobby of pet bugs than in emulating his gay uncle. Dorian was hoping it was just a phase. He'd rather the next Earl of Gloria not be a bug geek.

Full of sexual innuendo, the Duck deftly juggles historical allusion and literary whim while subtly challenging some of the traditional roles assigned to gender identity.

Belladonna also includes several critiques and analyses; one of my favorites being the section entitled, "Gynotopias," which examines the competing perspectives and treatments in literature of both all-male worlds and all-female worlds.

I truly hope the persons responsible for maintaining Belladonna's web presence re-examine the nature of how the site is designed and organized. Although there is much good writing and analysis to be discovered, Belladonna's lack of focus and intuitive design severely hinders its intended goal of attracting and sustaining an audience.

The struggle to sustain and innovate, Arbutus

Arbutus: Reviews & Criticism

It would be inconsiderate and cruel not to admire, respect, and encourage any undergraduate's attempt to pursue and establish a serious literary publication. That then undergraduate students Jeremy Voigt and Jordan Hartt created a respectable online literary site, Arbutus, featuring fiction, non-fiction and poetry, is a wonderful testament not only to the enduring appeal of literature in all its forms, but also to the passion and commitment of its young practitioners. But that was back in 2000, and after ten years of being online Arbutus has neither matured into, nor carved out, a sophisticated and insightful literary presence. Yet this is not to suggest that Arbutus is entirely bereft of technical skill and analytical depth. In fact, most of its articles and samples of works featured do exhibit earnest literary care and endeavor. Take for example, Anselm Parlatore's review of poet Anita K. Boyle's "Bamboo equals Loon":

It is a robust and bracing read. Most of the poems won't let you go. They announce themselves with a sense of urgency and commitment that is at once not only reassuring but also, at times, alarming, yet healing.

Parlatore's analysis is well written and cogent, a playful mixture of literary criticism and artistic advocacy. Unfortunately, and after a studied discussion about the merits of the collection reviewed, I was a bit taken aback after reading an actual excerpt from Boyle's poetry. Notice the incongruity between Palatore's enthusiastic support of Boyle's work and the actual quality of the poem under review:

Don't get me wrong: despite a stunning dexterity in the book's orchestration, these poems are all clear and precise, declarative statements of discrete disclosure. That's where the grace, I mentioned, becomes evident. The poems: "Lure of the Loon" in its entirety;

I was unaware that this world
could become an anxious monstrosity.
But it does hold doubtful comforts
like unearthly calls I hear from the loon at night.
I did not know things out there
would urge me to lose my mind:
beasts and cries and barraging undercurrents
pushed me toward the edge of the world I knew.

Needless to say, I felt somewhat let down and cheated, and not because Boyle's poetry is average, at best, but because Palatore is suspect in her enticement of the reader into believing that "Bamboo equals Loon" is that piece of poetic craft that not only stands to revitalize the genre itself, but which also thoroughly expresses and represents all that ails us hapless denizens of the digital age. And don't get me wrong, Palatore is a fine writer and Boyle's poetry is acceptable; but what is at stake; however, is the founding and maintenance of an online institution reflective of a degree of literary credibility to which Arbutus aspires. Far too many sites exist that either pander to their own set of preferred writers, or seek advancement through the unwarranted praise and adulation of others.

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.