Rena Potok

English Department
University of Pennsylvania
rnpotok@sas.upenn.edu

 

On-line literary and university reviews.

 
Search the Web for on-line creative writing, and you will find a burgeoning number of electronic literary reviews, or literary zines, ranging from the downright tacky and macabre to high quality poetry and fiction. Whatever their level of literary merit, one thing is clear: the Web is rapidly becoming a new medium for the production of literary culture. Indeed, we are witnessing the emergence of a new literary era, in which narrative and poetics interconnect with the world of artificial intelligence and computer-generated graphics to redefine our notions of how and where literature is produced.

 

Yet, this literary-electronic interconnection produces a curious irony: the best of the literary zines are the most traditional, and the least experimental. While they offer high quality fiction, poetry, art and criticism, they do not explore the possibilities of the Web–hypertext is the first example that comes to mind–in the manner that might be expected. And those zines that do attempt to make use of the world of the Web tend to do so poorly, boasting experimental writing and hypertext links, but in fact presenting amateurish poetry and prose, and links that lead nowhere.

 

One might think that an electronic narrative experiment like on-line zines would be an excellent way to explore the idea of crossing boundaries between literature and cyber culture, and of breaking down barriers between author and reader. Hypertext can afford a reader a large element of narrative authority, and can produce a collaborative experiment between reader and author–a collaboration that seems in keeping with the notion of synthesizing digital technology and established literature. The editors of these literary zines might expand their horizons and take advantage of the imaginative possibilities presented by the electronic medium they use. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see how they might respond to the challenges that would be presented by trying to translate hypertext from the zine forum to print media.

 

Literary zines may be divided into two broad categories: high-caliber, traditional literary reviews that happen to be produced electronically, and low-caliber experimental zines that often try but more often fail to explore the potentially exciting possibilities of electronic literary writing. Put otherwise, these zines may be classified as the good, the bad, the ugly, and the university reviews.

 

Among the better literary zines is Oyster Boy Review, published in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which offers a combination of fiction, poetry and essays. The writing is strong, traditional and complex. Oyster Boy presents good quality writing, with the feel of a seasoned literary review. Other top-tier zines are The Abraxus Reader, The Richmond Review, The Mississippi Review , and The Paris Review (the latter two are electronic versions of the long-standing print reviews).

 

In a category almost unto itself is The Jolly Roger, originating at Princeton University, and calling itself the “Flagship of the WWW literary revolution,” and “The World’s Largest, Most-Feared Literary Journal Ferrying over 12,000 to Greatness, While the Rest of the World Waits.” One could pause here, and say no more, but this unusual zine is worth characterizing, if only for its quirky qualities. The Jolly Roger has been described as prose and poetry for Generation X, and indeed has sections devoted to X-ers and their (presumed) interests and desires. The home page of the latest issue boasts many offerings, among them the warning: “Anyone trying to deconstruct anything aboard the Good Ship will be keelhauled.” Among other offerings are ghost stories, pirate tales, pseudo-literary criticism, “conservative environmentalism” (articles on “conserving Great Books and the Great Outdoors”), and an essay titled, “What I Learned in Toni Morrison’s Long Fiction Writing Class.” The visual presentation and text bullets are designed on a pirate-ship theme. While this zine cannot boast the best literary writing on the Web, it deserves points for originality and personality. It is a smart-alecky, skillfully written and provocative on-line magazine lampooning literary, academic, generational and traditional politics.

 

Along other lines entirely is 256 Shades of Grey, which calls itself a “progressive” literary magazine, and features new writers’ works of poetry, art and fiction. Our first introduction to this zine is the home page, depicting a graphic of an alien creature literally ripping itself apart….One wonders if that is the editors’ expected response from readers accessing its offerings. From there we can link to poetry that is mixed in quality–some is strong, but overall, there is not much sense of poetics in the verse. The fiction, on the other hand, is awful, consisting mostly of vignettes with no plot and no narrative structure.

 

5ive Candles “seeks to exploit the non-linear qualities of Hypertext.” Unfortunately (and, perhaps, ironically), all efforts to call up this zine went unanswered. Also inaccessible were Swiftsure Magazine, publishing reviews, poetry and fiction, and In Vivo, a Florida State University literary magazine rumored to publish choice poetry. blood + aphorisms is a journal of literary fiction from Canada. Its table of contents is set up with only a few links to the actual contents of the zine, and the fiction that is accessible is only of fair quality.

 

Among the university reviews is The Trincoll Journal, a student magazine from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. An award-winning zine recognized as a Magellan 3-star site and a Top 5% Web site, Trincoll Journal claims to be “the Internet’s first Web ‘Zine.” The journal publishes no poetry or fiction, but presents articles on life, culture, and the arts, skewed to a college-level perspective–articles address graduation, job-hunting, and semi-arty, semi-juvenile ruminations on love and life after college. Other university zines are Deep South Journal, a publication of literary criticism and poetry by graduate students in New Zealand; Harvard Advocate, now on-line, is the oldest of the college magazines in the US, publishing collegiate poetry and fiction; Qui Parle is an on-line companion to a UC Berkeley journal that publishes literature, philosophy, visual arts and history; Threshold is an award winning zine containing, interestingly enough, only high school work–but from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia; Cyberkind: Prosaics and Poetry for a Wired World publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry–all on the theme of cyberspace, and comes out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Enormous Sky is the literary publication of Temple University.

 

One of the best university literary zines is CrossConnect: Webzine of the Arts, produced at (but not under the official auspices of) the University of Pennsylvania. It deserves special attention not only because of its high quality, but because it has done what no other on-line literary review has done to date: in the spirit of crossing over between media, the editors of CrossConnect have published a print anthology, reflecting the “best of” the six issues now available on the CrossConnect Web site. In so doing, CrossConnect, in a quintessentially postmodernist trope, disrupts the barriers between printed and electronic narrative and attempts to create a kind of hybrid literary experiment.

 

While the stated mission of this zine is to connect the art of electronic communication with that of literary and artistic production, the attractive logo–visible on a computer terminal but not always on a print-out–reminds us that while CrossConnect has crossed over into print media, its primary form (and forum) is electronic. And though the print anthology does contain some dynamic and well-crafted poems, it does not yet compare to top-tier literary reviews, such as Granta or The Kenyon Review. The /~Xconnect (the print anthology’s title renders CrossConnect in this glyphic form) anthology purports to reverse the more common trend of turning print literary reviews into literary Web sites by printing a selection of the best Web site publications. Interestingly, the best work remains on the zine, an award-winning trail-blazer of electronic literature.

 

The CrossConnect Web site note on the print anthology claims that the stories and poems contained within it “collectively grapple with the questions and issues of our society, as well as the very function of art itself in this new age of technology,” but other than its name and stated mission, the anthology contains little to identify it as the product of cyber culture, or as an attempt to explore the challenges and functions of technology. (Hypertext links would provide an excellent opportunity for narrative experimentation.) An exception is Nathalie Anderson’s poem “Clinophobia,” whose quick, clipped pace seems apt for the rapid pace of exchange characteristic of electronic communication:

 

Here's the toad. Here's the edge of the well.
			      Steeped
leaves, steep water. Still noctambulist.
Bolt hole. Bed rock. Never see, never go
under. Yes you will. Shut eye. Drowse. Drown.

Cock light. Burrow. What's quick? What's mired?
				    Quilt
crawls. Flicks. Licks the dust. Gulch. Gully.
Bed fast. Bed fellow. Never stir, never
stare. Yes you will. Twitch toad. Rattle bones.

Oh toad. No kiss, no golden ball. No one
loves you. Yes it will. Quilt's rucked, rumpled.
Something seethes. Something shivers. Jaws unhinge.
Yes you will. Like stone. Kick toad. Leap frog. (2)

 

The collection overall is strong, although the quality of work is uneven, ranging from complex, well-crafted writing by recognized poets and novelists (such as Nathalie Anderson, Sharon Ann Jaeger, and Helen Norris), to less refined musings on the level of an introductory college writing workshop. As in the on-line journal here, too, the poetry is stronger and more interesting than the fiction. Among the best work in both the print journal and the zine is Linh Dinh’s poetic translations and refigurings of Vietnamese aphorisms and poems, especially his translation of Bao Linh’s “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” (Vol. II, Issue II). These texts are alternatingly humorous and deeply touching, and always hauntingly evocative of a place and time no longer existing except in memory and nostalgia. Dinh’s “Translations of Vietnamese Aphorisms,” appearing in the print journal, is quirky and playful, amusing and touching at once. Organized in thematic form, it builds to a crescendo in its final arrangement of aphorisms:

 

Rich at dawn
Poor at dusk

The rich eat
The poor smoke

His eyes are rich
His hands are poor

The rich have easy manners
The poor lie

Man not quite
Monkey not quite

Old hair old teeth
Old gums old ears
Old penis
Young testicles (14)

 

Among other strong poems is David Bolduc’s emotionally complicated “Other Side,” a stark, plain, and honest look at the secret gay street life of a married (presumably) heterosexual man (3). And Sharon Ann Jaeger’s “Faring Well” is poignant, with strong images–as in the line, “it haunts you like a fog that fades to touch”–and nice alliteration:

 

There are filaments of affinity--
fragile, but they hold: with dawn the new sun sends
shadows through their constant Web like lace. (56)

 

Also of note are Helen Norris’ “Consider” (136), a finely-formed pearl of a poem; Meredyth Smith’s “This Little Girl” and “Eleven Times Twelve Times Two” (150-3); and Barry Spacks’ “What Breathes Us” (155). Judith Schaechter’s stained-glass art works are unexpected, vibrant, and disturbing (and they are reproduced well in print), especially “Voice of a Sinking Ship,” which served as the cover of CrossConnect Vol. I, Issue I.

 

The Webmag phenomenon may be a peculiarly postmodern one, in that it pushes back the boundaries of traditional literary expression and regularly crosses the boundaries between electronic and print media. Yet if it is to survive as more than a digital trend, this literary genre will need to explore more fully the wealth of opportunities provided by its medium; on-line literary reviews will need to become more than merely electronically produced companion volumes to print reviews. Perhaps, now that the trend has been set, and the forum of electronic literature has been established, editors of literary zines will become more creative and daring, and will truly show us what can happen to literary culture in cyberspace.

 

Top-tier On-line Literary Reviews:

 

• The Abraxus Reader
• CrossConnect
  And see the print volume:
  /~Xconnect: Writers of the Information Age. Ed. David Deifer, Alexandre Edelman, and Leah Sheppard. Philadelphia: CrossConnect, Inc., 1996.
• The Mississippi Review
• Oyster Boy Review
• The Paris Review
• The Richmond Review

 

University Reviews:

 

• Deep South Journal
• Harvard Advocate
• In Vivo
• Qui Parle
• The Trincoll Journal

 

Other Web Sites of Interest:

 

• 256 Shades of Grey
• blood + aphorisms
• InterText
• The Jolly Roger
• Swiftsure Magazine
• Excite! Review This useful site offers a directory of other on-line literary magazines, but it is not always up and running.
• Virtual Reading Group This site has a short list of links to on-line literary zines as well as an “Internet Book Information Center,” featuring booksites, links to literary magazines, book resource guides and reviews.
• Also of interest is The Book of Zines. Ed. Chip Rowe. New York: Henry Holt, 1997. A guide to a broad range of zines (mostly non-literary), from the vaguely interesting to the downright bizarre.