Clockwise from upper left: (1) The Believer, June 2009, sixty-third issue: eye crayon; (2) A Public Space, issue 08; (3) sub-TERRAIN, #52; (4) Poetry, July/August 2009.
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New issues of my four favorite literary journals are floating about my bedroom and home library, making brief stops for rest on the nightstand, the kitchen table, the reading table, or the wing back reading chair before once again taking flight. I like them because they each contain a mixture of poetry, fiction, reviews, and essays. Some are weighted more heavily toward poetry (Poetry); some more toward review and essay (The Believer); and some are a more equal mixture (A Public Space and sub-TERRAIN); yet all entertain and challenge and frustrate and enliven. And all definitely bring me joy.
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My favorite piece so far in the sixty-third issue of The Believer is "Doomed Sitters: A Cultural History of Wing Chairs" by Rozalia Jovanovic. Reading this in my own wing chair after just completing Ben Parzybok's novel Couch was synchronicity at its best. I can't claim the power, corruption, and lack of manners that Jovanovic associates with the owners of wing chairs in the past, but then I have a whole life ahead of me. After reading her brief historical summary of wing chairs, I still find myself rather attached to mine, even if it may be a harbinger of doom (or "controlling" me like the eponymous furniture in Couch).
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My favorite pieces in the summer issue of Poetry are the collection of poems from the Flarf and Conceptual Writing camps (or at least their disciples). These poems are self-referential and strange and force me to think about my relationship to writing as both a reader and a fellow writer. All of that is good stuff.
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I haven't read as extensively in either A Public Space or sub-TERRAIN yet, but I know that there are nuggets of joy and wonder awaiting me in both. I will read and read and read until they shine forth.
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