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

BlazeVOX14 Spring 2014

Hello and welcome to the Spring issue of BlazeVOX 14. Presented here is a world-class issue featuring poetry, art, fiction, and an arresting work of creative non-fiction, written by authors from around globe.

Spring Matters:

Is it spring yet?

Spring seems to be in the air, but it seems noncommittal. After a long, cold winter we have been sitting on our new issue of BlazeVOX until things started to blossom. But it is now mid May and even though we are not basking in a garden filled with sunshine and birdsong, it is spring and we are ready to roll. In this issue we have 50 poets and 11 fiction works and several creative nonfiction that make a spectacular issue. There are also book previews of 16 our newest books and an interview with Chuck Richardson to round it all off. We hope these fine writings shake out the chilly breezes and help us all remember that tingling feeling of anticipation and expectation.

Rockets, Geoffrey

 

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

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BlazeVOX14 Fall 2014

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BlazeVOX13 Fall 2013