INBOX – The INBOX Page from the original MVSR Website Reproduced for Old Subscribers

INBOX

The editors have been reading a lot lately, so a mild San Francisco summer hasn’t proven much of a bother. At a reading at Dog-Eared Books last month a friend stumbled across the work of JEN HOFER, whose as far as, an engaging and attractively produced chapbook, invites thoughtful and repeated readings (Jill Stengel, a+bend press, 3862 21st St., San Francisco, CA 94114, $5 +$2 shipping).

Jeremiah’s been doing a lot of underlining in Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks (Wayne State University Press), which he calls “a brilliant critical investigation of the world’s most underrated and overindulged television show, questioning boundaries between art and commerce all along the way.”

So there you go. On more than one recent occasion we’ve caught Jeremiah mulling over his old DIARY quite a bit, and has this to say: “Never have so few done so little in so much time.”

He’s also been savoring old issues of Unpaved Road, an Oklahoma-based zine of the backwoods in which JOSHUA BLEVINS PECK explores regional eccentricities and interviews his porch-sitting, buckshot-loading grandparents. Peck also has a fat chapbook of poetry, where I was, available from Inklab Works (P.O. Box 4126, Seattle, WA 98104) –

– and all between marathon stints of web work on the new issue of MICHAEL ROTHENBERG’s massive poetry site BIG BRIDGE, which you may notice is accessible directly from our home page. There’s a feast of exciting work there, including a web version of an 80-page chapbook collaboration between ROBERT CREELEY and Bay Area artist ARTHUR OKAMURA.

Other good books we keep picking up: contributor JOHN BIRKBECK’s Longitudes (Carmine Creek Press, 121 E. Washington Street, Iowa, IA 52240-0075), ditto Rothenberg’s Favorite Songs (available through the Big Bridge website), the Moyer Bell Grant Seekers’ Guide (any leads, anyone?), the new Gary Snyder Reader, The Baffler #12 and its purity of essence, Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from The Baffler, HOA NGUYEN’s Dark (Mike & Dale’s Press, 1999) RACHEL LEVITSKY’s Cartographies of Error (Leroy Press, 1999) and The Adventures of Yaya and Grace (Potes and Poets, 1999), KEVIN OPSTEDAL’s Like Rain (Angry Dog Press, 1999), CARL THAYLER’s Poems From Naltus Bichidin (Skanky Possum, 1999), BILL SCHEFFEL’s I Saw the Letter 5 (Three-Legged Dog Press, forthcoming), Clamour #4, Vol. 7 of Charles Olson and Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence (Black Sparrow Press, 1987), the many fine chapbooks in JOSHUA BECKMAN’s 811 Books (including Arabia Felix by DALE SMITH, Blueprint by RICK SNYDER and Fraction Anthems by CATHERINE WAGNER, the instalments in the series –

– nine so far — are only $3 each) and RODERICK NASH’s Wilderness and the American Mind (Yale University Press, 1968). June’s Blue Book #3 (Blue Press) features work by DALE SMITH, JENI OLIN, LISA MILLER and MICHAEL PRICE, each of whose work can be found in this online issue or in our archive, and also features work by Lewis MacAdams and Duncan McNaughton, whose work we have reviewed in MVSR (both reviews are online).

We’ve also been enjoying the second issue of Skanky Possum, an inspiringly high-quality poetry magazine published out of Austin, TX by HOA NGUYEN and DALE SMITH. So much so, in fact, that we asked the two poet-editors if they’d mind putting some of the new issue’s poetry online. Click on the link above to read selections from the second issue.

Online, ARCHIPELAGO has been a current favorite (www.archipelago.com), and a new issue of JACKET is now previewable (www.jacket.zip.com.au) but we haven’t abandoned our favorites: NERVE (www.nerve.com) and )ISM( (www.poetryism.com). Additional web recommendations will follow once we can relax and get online.