BlazeVOX an.online.journal.of.voice
Presenting fine works of poetry, fiction, text art, visual poetry and arresting works of creative non-fiction written by authors from around world
BlazeVOX 2k9 Fall 2009
Introduction: BlazeVOX [Kiss Your Elbow]
Geoffrey Gatza
Jane Lewty
Jason Harmon
John Biando
Kyle Flak
Kirsten Jorgenson
Maria Castro Dominguez
Marcia Arrieta
Nicholas Michael Ravnikar
Patrick Lawler
Philip Sultz
Santiago del Dardano Turann
Sarah Smith Richards
Shelagh Davis
Susan Lana Chen
Stephanie Skaza
Tony Mancus
Tiffany Iwalani Hervey
Whitney Eden
Adam Katz and Jackie Stluka
Alan Botsford Saitoh
Alan Britt
Aryan Kaganof
Austin Givens
Avel Venom
bani haykal
Barrie Mac Clellan
Bethany Price
Breonna Krafft
Brian Anthony Hardie
C.N. Bean
Christina Manweller
Clay Carpenter
Dan Brady
David M. Morini
Dayne Duranti
Duane Locke
Ed Makowski
Emily Brown
Elizabeth Zuba
Elaine Kahn
Even
Heather Fowler
Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Iain Britton
Ivan Jenson
James Mc laughlin
James Cook
Buffalo Focus : Sherry Robbins
Author Bios : Bibliophones
IntroductionIntroduction
In this issue we seek to avoid answers but rather to ask questions. With a subtle minimalistic approach, this issue of BlazeVOX focuses on the idea of ‘public space’ and more specifically on spaces where anyone can do anything at any given moment: the non-private space, the non-privately owned space, space that is economically uninteresting. The works collected feature coincidental, accidental and unexpected connections, which make it possible to revise literary history and, even, better, to complement it.
Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies these piece appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. In a search for new methods to ‘read the city’, the texts reference post-colonial theory as well as the avant-garde or the post-modern and the left-wing democratic movement as a form of resistance against the logic of the capitalist market system.
Many of the works are about contact with architecture and basic living elements. Energy (heat, light, water), space and landscape are examined in less obvious ways and sometimes develop in absurd ways. By creating situations and breaking the passivity of the spectator, he tries to develop forms that do not follow logical criteria, but are based only on subjective associations and formal parallels, which incite the viewer to make new personal associations. These pieces demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction over the latter half of the twentieth century. It challenges the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between our own ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ selves. Enjoy!
Rockets! Geoffrey Gatza, editor