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
BlazeVOX15 Fall 2015
Table of Contents
Poetry
Fiction
Patrick Chapman — Juniper Bing
Nicholas D. Nace — from [Vic]
Alexander Beisel — Delenda Est
C Davis Fogg — Electric Jesus
Daniel Adler — The Acheron
Erika G Abad — Corners
Jamie McFaden — Three Flash Fiction pieces
Christien Gholson — Trinity-Site’s Last Stand
Jessy Brodsky Vega — White Thoughts
Josef Krebs — Body of Work
Kristen Clanton — Who are the Fantasy Girls?
Jingjing Xiao — The Lives of Flowers
Text Art
Soil — hiromi suzuki
5 visual poems, asemic — Stephen Nelson
Creative Non-Fiction & Reviews
Jennifer R. Valdez — Lady Liberty Meets Big Ben
Maureen Coleman — Close Observations of a Distant Father
15 Questions | Interviews with BlazeVOX Authors
BlazeVOX Interview with John Tranter on his forthcoming book Heart Starter
Jeffery Conway interviewed on his new book Showgirls
Eileen Tabios interviewed on her new book Against Misanthropy, A Life in Poetry
Cornelia Veenendaal interviewed on her new book An Argument of Roots
Anne Gorrick interviewed on her marvelous book A's Visuality
Acta Biographia — Author Biographies
Hello and welcome to the Fall issue of BlazeVOX 15. Presenting fine works of poetry, fiction, text art, visual poetry and arresting works of creative non-fiction written by authors from around world. Also presented are previews of our newly released books of poetry and fiction. Do have a look through the links below or browse through the whole issue in our Scribd embedded PDF, which you can download for free and take it with you anywhere on any device. Hurray!
Happy Fifteenth Anniversary
Hip Hip Hurray!
I have been sitting at my desk typing away on my large screened apple computer dreading what I am about to write. BlazeVOX is now in its 15th year of operation. We have great moments to look back upon in our history, as well as some moments that bear careful consideration. It seems incredible to me that we are not merely still in operation we are vividly alive!
To commemorate who we are at 15 we plan to celebrate. We are planning to have some special events throughout the year. We plan to have readings, videos and even a party sometime in the fall. Keep an eye out for your invitation it will be a year to revel!
And before I go, I would like to thank you all for your wonderful support over the years. You are an important part this press and your help makes a real difference in getting innovative works by undervalued writers read worldwide. Your act of reading our work is incredibly helpful means so much to me but even more to BlazeVOX authors whose work might not see the light of day without your giving us a part of your time, a part of your day! We thank you a thousand times.
Rockets! Geoffrey Gatza, editor
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