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C H A R L O T T E ' S _ W A Y
Norman Fischer’s long poem takes as its place Charlotte’s Way, a house on the California coast, but mostly the poem takes things in. Fischer, a Zen priest, meditates on talk, the passing of time, the brain, catness, bills to be paid, poems, search parties, birds and myriad other subjects as they flicker in and out of thought. Terri Wada’s design emphasizes the fluidity of Fischer’s thinking; rather than turning from one page to the next, the chapbook opens out, filling both space and time.
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T I N F I S H _ 1 8 . 5 _ : _ T H E _ B O O K
TINFISH 18.5: THE BOOK introduces five young poets from Hawai`i in a format modeled after the word puzzles and games books people carry onto airplanes as they go on vacation. Vacations and games are both respites from practical preoccupations; many people come to Hawai`i for their vacation. But there is another Hawai`i, too, one well known to its residents. This Hawai`i is riven by historical and ethnic conflicts, drug adiction, homelessness, economic downturns, environmental problems, and the near extinction of the Hawaiian language in the 20th century. The poets included here all write about these stern facts in beautiful poems, a paradox that befits the place itself. This interactive book is illustrated by five exceptional artists. |
F R O M _ U N I N C O R P O R A T E D _ T E R R I T O R Y
In the preface to his first book, a lyrical epic on the violent convergences of colonialisms on Guam (Japanese and American), history, family, and language (Chamorro and English), Perez writes: “On some maps, Guam doesn't exist; I point to an empty space in the Pacific and say, 'I'm from here.' On some maps, Guam is a small, unnamed island; I say, 'I'm from this unnamed place.' On some maps, Guam is named 'Guam, U.S.A.' I say, 'I'm from a territory of the United States.” On some maps, Guam is named, simply, 'Guam'; I say, 'I am from Guam.'” Written in the spirit of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictée and Barbara Jane Reyes's Poeta en San Francisco, Perez's book promises to add significantly to a growing canon of Pacific poetries. |
I S S U E _ 1 8
Tinfish 18 airs it out, offering an issue devoted to the Long Poem. Contributors include Mani Rao, Alysha Wood, Lynn Xu, David Perry, Stephen Collis, Endi Bogue Hartigan, and Norman Fischer, engaging issues of translation, form (including collage, the sonnet sequence, and the elegy), contemporary politics, and more. Covers by Alan Konishi, Interior Art by Sara Hertenstein, centerfold by Gaye Chan.
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A _ C O M M U N I O N _ O F _ S A I N T S A Communion of Saints takes us on a harrowing trek through denial, descent, and resurrection in the Honolulu gay community of the 1980s. This book of prose poems, each glossed with a Biblical quotation, is an extended elegy for those who frequented the bar Meg Withers tended. She tends it - and them - still in this echo chamber of voices and stories.
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T H E _ E R O T I C S _ O F _ G E O G R A P H Y
Hazel Smith, author of the creative writing text, The Writing Experiment, shows us how it's done in this spirited book of performance poems, collages, elegies, meditations, explorations of gossip, uncertain identities, bodies and the city, to say nothing of “acts of omission.” An accompanying cd-rom includes new media and performance works by Hazel Smith and Roger Dean.
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F A R O U T _ L I B R A R Y _ S O F T W A R E
The collaboration between Pam Brown (Australia) and Maged Zaher (Seattle) came about due to the absence of a poem. Maged sent Pam a submission to Jacket, of which Pam is associate editor. But Maged forgot to enclose the poem. In an effort to atone, Maged proposed a collaboration between them; this collaboration was to last for a year and a half and comprise the poems published in this chapbook. The collaboration is seamless; even Pam attests she could no longer tell whose writing was whose as she proof-read. Among the poems' subjects: change, constant change of jobs, friends, cities, and of course the software with which we mark time's passing.
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