Rebecca Resinski is one of the founding editors of Heron Tree, an online poetry journal. She also designs and produces hand-bound chapbooks and pamphlets under the imprint Cuckoo Grey. A professor of Classics at Hendrix College, she lives in Conway, Arkansas.
Please describe Heron Tree and your duties as editor:
Heron Tree is a poetry journal founded in 2012 and online at herontree.com. We aim to publish a poem weekly, and all of each year’s poems are also collected in a volume. I read and weigh in on all of the submissions, as do the other editors, and in addition I prepare the accepted poems for publication on the website. Formatting the poems for publication is an especial pleasure because it gives me a chance to inhabit them, to notice and appreciate every word and line break.…
...continue reading
I hate the pain. I hate the mindlessness torture of loving someone. I hate the meaningless of it all.
– Leza Cantoral, Cartoons in the Suicide Forest
“Spawned” in 2013 as an imprint of JournalStone Publishing, Bizarro Pulp Press has quickly become a major name in the realm of speculative prose, as it specializes in offering “dark pulp fiction for readers who enjoy art that challenges the boundaries of ‘normal’ in the literary world.” With over two dozen wonderfully weird works under its belt, it’s fair to say that B.P.P. champions the bold, unusual, and fearless, which is why its newest release, Leza Cantoral’s Cartoons in the Suicide Forest, feels perfectly at home next to its twisted siblings. As an editor at both CLASH Media and Luna Luna Magazine, Cantoral is no stranger to hard-hitting explorations of topics like sexuality, femininity, abuse (be they physical, emotional, and/or mental), subjugation, and identity, all of which she touches upon here with poised eccentricity, imagination, and valor.…
...continue reading
Evan Mantyk is the president and co-founder of the Society of Classical Poets. He teaches courses in literature and history at Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, in upstate New York. He previously worked as a news editor and reporter in New York City.
Please describe your website and your duties as editor/writer.
The Society of Classical Poets is dedicated to the proliferation of classical poetry. What does that mean? It means poetry usually with rhyme and/or meter. It also means poetry of good character that puts the reader first, not the poet. The government’s “Survey on National Participation in the Arts,” found, over the last twenty years or so, a sharp decline in the number of people who had read or listened to a poem within the last 12 months while other literary forms stayed static.…
...continue reading
Now that we have the Internet it is very easy to get at lists of the greatest things – movies, books, records, kings, criminals, snacks. Of course, we had such lists before, but now we have them in abundance and naturally enough they reflect the changing times. For example, while old lists of the greatest movies always included popular or Hollywood films alongside what we would call art house films – Gone with the Wind and The Godfather, E.T. and Star Wars, alongside Bergman and Fellini, Goddard and Truffaut – lists of the greatest novels did not, that is, did not include popular novels – no Gone with the Wind and The Godfather alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Kafka and Mann. Now they often do, and even the Harry Potter books.…
...continue reading
And I always wake up screaming, don’t you? I will always remember the screaming. And, if this doesn’t bother you? I’m not imposing myself on you, am I? After all, you were there. You remember, don’t you?
– Harold Abramowitz, ‘Blind Spot’
Indie art usually—if not always—strikes an interesting balance between commercial success, critical appraisal, and creative liberty. By its nature, it’s unlikely to ever reach mainstream audiences and find widespread attention, yet what it lacks in popularity and marketability, it radiates in boundless experimentation, unhindered, often vital perspectives, and invaluable insider appreciation. This is true of music, film, television, video games, and, perhaps most overtly, of literature, where countless writers and presses are challenging conventions every day. One of the most notable examples is CCM (Civil Coping Mechanisms), a publisher whose staff and roster relish every opportunity to subvert expectations with affective and atypical works.…
...continue reading
Bruce Bauman, an instructor in the CalArts MFA Writing Program, released his second novel, Broken Sleep, last year on Other Press. Chronicling both the individual struggles and tense interrelationships between several family members (via several shifting perspectives), it’s a humorous yet heartfelt saga that touches on several themes, including the search for identity, the uncertainties of religious devotion, and the quest to fulfill one’s purpose in life. In this first episode of Cover to Cover with . . . , Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Bauman about the book, as well as the processes of writing and teaching, what it’s like having a visual artist as a spouse, the importance of music, and the 2016 election, among other things.
– Bruce Bauman…
...continue reading
One of the top reasons I’ve heard for why people don’t read is because they don’t have enough time; they work full-time, have a family, and/or their schedules are otherwise filled up with extracurricular activities. In an effort to guide those who have a desire to read but not the time, I’ve compiled the following list of my top eight books under 200 pages. Feel free to let me know how many you’ve read, or if you have any other suggestions!
Animal Farm
by George Orwell
This was a book I didn’t appreciate until I was older. I remember reading it in high school and thinking, What does this book about talking animals have anything to do with the government? When I read it again at age 30, I had a completely different take-away.…
...continue reading