A Muted Blue Star Muses
Saturday, September 28, 2024
Review of the book "Hortensia: in winter" by Megan Merchant
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Is(sue) 15 and New Schedule - AvantAppal(achia)
Is(sue) 15 is live! There are 7 countries total and 10 states within the US represented. This includes our first contributions from Egypt and Peru.
The work chosen to be arch(ived) from Is(sue) 14 is JWM Morgan's story, Volodymyr Bilyk's art, and Joshua Martin's poem. Read it on the Arch(ive) page.
Check the Sub(missions) page. We have made our longstanding policy regarding how we arch(ive) past is(sues) even clearer so that there can be no confusion that you as the author of your work bear responsibility for keeping records of publication and not us. Also, the date of deadline for each is(sue) has changed.
Deadline for Is(sue) 16 is October 31, 2024. So send us your avant-garde and experimental poetry, art, and short stories! You make this ezine the foremost home of the Avant in Appalachia. We are special and weird because of you. Thank you!
www.avantappalachia.com
Sincerely,
Sabne Raznik
Poetry/Art Ed(itor)
Monday, May 27, 2024
Review of "Word Troubadours" by PJ Swift and Ellyn Maybe
Friday, April 12, 2024
Review of "Fill Me With Birds" by Scott Ferry and Daniel McGinn
Scott
Ferry and Daniel McGinn, Fill Me With Birds (Meat for Tea
Press, 2024) 104 pages, poetry, $16.95. Order here.
Those
nights when you stay up past midnight and the conversations go silly and then
profoundly deep, that's what this is.
Two
mature men muse on everything from aging parents to children, to marriage, to
health issues, to overcoming addiction, to God, to the changing of seasons, to
resentment and forgiveness. The poems are written as if letters or emails going
back and forth. But in my head cannon, they are sitting in a late-night living
room in front of a fire passing a (legal) smoke between them.
At
times, it can feel almost too intimate and honest for the reader to eavesdrop
on politely. This is good stuff.
Most of
the lines I made note of were Scott Ferry's, I think, though I didn't track who
wrote which line. If you want to know that, you can read it. But here are some
of the lines that stood out to me:
"I
know now it is too late for/ bargaining// the best I can manage/ is
obsolescence"
"the
face of god: is the inside of longing when there is no waiting left"
"Nerves
are like brains,/ remember how we used to be? The body knows/ what is and isn't
there."
"I
lost the easy talk/ I did not want to impress anyone anymore"
"solve/
hate like a controlled burn/ near a freeway"
"I
still have a fire a fire a fire"
On
meditation, some of these poems are darker and heavier than they appear. The
request to "fill me with birds" seems to be a wish for a lightening
of the soul from the burdens voiced through these conversations.
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Review of David B. Prather's "Shouting at an Empty House"
Thursday, December 28, 2023
Watch Sabne Raznik at the Wadza International Festival (Digitally) on Facebook
Saturday, December 16, 2023
Is(sue) 14 is live!
Dear Kinfolk,
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Book Review of Sacha Archer's "Cellsea"
This is a book of avant-garde poetry that is the genre "vispo": visual poetry. This is where poetry and visual art become one. It's a fascinating genre.
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
2023 Wadza International Festival (Morocco) Digitally
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Review of john compton's "blacked out borderline from an exponential crisis"
john compton, blacked out borderline from an exponential crisis (Ethel Press, 2023) 54 pages, poetry, limited run of 60 copies, $10.00. Order here.