A Tale of Two First Issues
by Brooklyn Copeland
REVIEW

Sous Rature

Pair with Jackie-OMotherfucker and a glass of well water.

Edited by Cara Benson. The first place I read about this journal was on Duotrope's Digest, which is way for me to keep track of who's doing what more than a place to track poetry submissions. When I clicked through to Sous Rature's site, I found a clunky layout, a tongue-in-cheek "User's Guide," and not much else, but I recognized the editor's name. Right above it she'd written, "Welcome to Aristotelian bastardization, a Derrida slum, and anon sense. Sous Rature features work of erasure, inadequacy, and otherwise..." I was intrigued enough by the idea of inadequate poetry to check in with the journal when word of its first issue began appearing on poets' blogs. I ended up devouring the issue in one sitting, starting with the names I trusted and working my way around the cluster. With each piece, I was no closer to understanding what inadequate poetry was, but I did get a sense of most poets striving to match craft to theory: whether they were successful, their peers in the journal are better able to judge. I was drawn to many of the visual pieces, especially those by Drew Kunz, Christian Bšk and Derek Beaulieu, which were thoughtfully presented and just accessible enough for the casual wanderer to enjoy them. Text-wise, I would've liked more consistency in the background colors behind the poetry (I'm boring, I know), but I found Jennifer Calkins' mythical remix and Susan Scarlata's notes on anatomy more than adequate, and I enjoyed the thread of old-new running through pieces by Calkins, Mark Lamoureux, Marco Giovenale and Rachel Levitsky. This is a funky, smart first issue.


Sixth Finch

Pair with The Finches and iced white tea.

Edited by Rob MacDonald. From where I sit, Sixth Finch kind of came out of nowhere, and because I was unfamiliar with the names of all but two of the contributors, I immediately took the position that the content in this issue would be, above all, refreshing. Other words that sprang to mind as I clicked around: clean, bright, and of-the-moment, right down to the titular Tiny Bird (these days interchangeable with the sparrow, the wren, the hummingbird, and the robin). I am a sucker for clean, bright; luckily, the work in Sixth Finch, which includes poetry and art, is just as satisfying as the design. If you start at the first poem, arrows in the top right corner will lead you through the journal the way the editor intended, but I started backwards, with the art, where I found a friendly sort of "discussion" between the pieces that skipped from the grandeur of the elements to the absurdity of man's place among them. (I won't even tell you how many times I've clicked on Camille Seaman's Grand Pinnacle Iceberg.) A similar discussion takes place in the poetry section. Certain poems have more energy than others (my favorites were written by Heather Green and Chad Reynolds), but there isn't a dud in the bunch; this is a very solid issue, over all.

NB: Sixth Finch has since published a second issue, in which the lively discussion between art and poetry progresses seamlessly to the celebration of, and the wear and tear of, everyday living. Pair with Neil Young and a bottle of spicy ginger beer.