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www.softtargetsjournal.com The opening photo is (I believe) a malfunctioning sub-launched cruise missile, turning corkscrews in the air, a spiral cloud with an flaring power-symbol at the front. There is so much about this work's POV on the world in this image. And so much about their technique. In some reviews, the 'illumination of the burn', the coherence of message here has been missed. This block of a journal is more like a hefty book made to accompany a large museum exhibit. We have poetry, some Continental Post-Mod historical critique, a great assortment of contemporary art in pictures, cultural tours, political invocation, locations all around the world, and a pervasive focus on the instrumental peculiarity of human organizations. The list of cool things to see and think about (or chuckle over) is vast. Even with the high page count, the contents are very dense on average. I picked some excerpts, but they just swamped my note-cards. The authority/protest physical/mental choreography of J. Schuhl. The blase psycho-sexually nihilistic nibbles of A. Reines. The crazy woman-machine surrealistics of L. Glenum. (she actually makes concrete techniques do something!) Cultural-slice critiques of Russia, Korea, Germany, Algeria, and more. A. Badiou's tracking of "Anabasis" across the millenia. Phan Ba Tho and Ly Doi of the new Saigon absurdist types. Justin Marks' amusing corpo-manipulo-speak. Lucy Harrison's stabbed-pulp text with horrors, casting shadows on at least 3-4 current themes. These are just a sampling. I cannot say I am leaping at some solutions suggested, but there is a care and intelligence that forces one to think. And think I did. There is a coherence in these interesting erratics, when you consider the sweep: patterns in pomo chaos. I see an important trend emerging in publishing now. The editorial-collage/common-theme book is emerging, and it demands we take a look from a higher altitude. Searching, publishing, and recruiting technologies now make a journal/book its own piece of composition, and this makes more sense out of the individuals. Soft Targets is a great journal to watch this happen. It will be tricky for the editorial team to keep things fresh, but if editors look around, issue-wise, it will grow with them. "Exploration" should be the watchword for us all. I really enjoyed exploring this.
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This is an extensive collection, weighted toward experiment/thought/language/surreal poetry. There is also some concrete poetry, and a few essay/quasi-interview pieces. It leans hard into the current scene, and seems to take risks to tell a fairly complete story of what's going on. There are shadows of influence evident here and there, such as of Ashbery and even Armantrout. There is some which is starker than both, but I am not super-informed on the language poetry. There are a fair number of pieces where I couldn't really get the drift, but such is the risk, especially with language poetry. Some of them satisfied more after 24 hours away and a re-read. Some remain lost to me. But there were some very enjoyable pieces. OK, so, the notables (only by my experience): Mark Bibbins stands out strongly on the first reading, and the intrigue only ripens on the revisit. It seemed like Brenda Iijima's work simply walked off with my thinking; it was a rare combination of thought, language, and concrete play. Light yet deep. Cool. K. Hanlon and E. Green were good technique snippets. The micro-episodics from Anne Heide were more effective than I could have imagined.. a stark epic, really clear, grabbing. I show plus factors "language", "theme", and "intruigue" for her piece. J.Magi's ruminations with the Penelope vehicle were fascinating. Koshkin's concrete poetics did indeed bear fruit the day after. I had to loosen up my POV for that. S. Glassman's thematics and philosophical skew were great. Hauser and Williamson chat on the city po scene, which is fun to look in on. I did not waste my time reading Fagin and Bowen. Brandon Shimoda's language, image, and eery sparse-story were a wake-up. Others were worth reading, too. I'm sorry I can't go on.
Overall, I'd say this was a challenging
read, but there were some great sites, places I will definitely
revisit. Well collected. |
