new Big Bridge now out

The giantic digital annual, Big Bridge, is open for travelers. Bypass rush hour at print journals and head directly out of town. Check out this year's installment of the War Papers, where you'll find features by John Bradley (on Abu Ghraib), Francesco Levato ("War Rug" poems), and my introduction to Come Together: Imagine Peace.

BIG BRIDGE 2009

CHAPBOOK:
A Time in Fragments
Poem by Clark Coolidge; Drawings by Nancy Victoria Davis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FEATURES, 1

Slow Poetry
Edited by Dale Smith
One of the most refreshing and promising developments in poetry in recent years, Slow Poetry does not propose another sectarian or clique position, but rather methods of reading and attitudes toward production which could apply to most genres in the current scene or likely to emerge in the near future. The approach has a strong base in concepts and needs made more apparent than ever by current ecological and economic concerns.

Beauty Came Groveling Forward:
Selected South African Poems and Stories
edited by Gary Cummiskey
This collection was meant to show the diversity and spirited character of current South African writing. It contains work by some celebrated writers, and some whose work has not received wide circulation even in its home country. Without the problems caused by canon formation or trying to be totally comprehensive, this group of poems and stories is free to work outside the stereotypes and preconceptions of South Africa and allow the participants to show what they can do as individuals.


All This Strangeness:
A Garland for George Oppen
Edited by Eric Hoffman
Commentary on Oppen has grown slowly, unobtrusively, and steadily, until it now forms a major body in itself. This collection of essays evaluates that body of criticism in less partisan terms than many of its predecessors, seeking to focus on individual poems and prosody in a broad historical context, going beyond the dichotomies that dominated the 20th Century and making room for further types of relevance in current literary and social dispensations.

Sephardic Proverbs
Collected and translated by Michael Castro
Proverbs act on many of the same principles as other miniatures, such as haiku. Like stand-alone couplets and quatrains used in everything from toasts to insults, they also include a strong element of collaboration and evolution. As a look at a tradition or a type of poem, this collection can stay with a reader a long time.

Post-Beat Anthology
Reprint from the Chinese anthology, with brief intro
Edited by Vernon Frazer
How would you edit a collection of poems with that title for a Chinese audience? Probably not the same way Frazer has. That's one of the things that makes it interesting and refreshing.

as per Le Roman de la Rose, for example
An Anthology of Middle East Genocide Edited by Arpine Konyalian Grenier
How does the cruel and unusual work for you through art, whether it comes from direct experience or direct/indirect memory. Be Genet, for example; lemon to lemonade, for example. How does one turn to Le Roman de la Rose (a Middle Ages Poem) when one is mired in or sorting out or faced with what happened or what is happening that is cruel and unusual due to human intolerance: racial religious cultural gender related and other.

Charles Olson and the Nature of Destructive Humanism
by Craig Stormont

One Man Blues:
Remembering Thomas Chapin
Reminiscence by Vernon Frazer

Excerpt from
Autobiography
by David Bromige

The India Journals
by John Brandi

Genius and Heroin:
by Michael Largo
In this essay, the author reviews his own book. The themes of psycho-chemistry may stretch back to pristine civilizations in China, Egypt, and Mexico, but they seem inexhaustible. Perhaps associate chemicals with genius is because our brains produce such sophisticated bases to start with, and self-review also finds a base in that phenomenon.

WAR PAPERS (3)
Poems and essays against war.
Sub-features by John Bradley, Joel Lewis, Philip Metres, Vincent Katz, Francesco Levato, and Louise Landes Levi, plus reflections from around the world on the election of Barack Obama, and, of course, Halvard Johnson's continuing anthology of anti-war poems.

A Retrospective of the Publication Work of Karl Young

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FEATURES, 2 &mdash ONGOING:

ROCKPILE

ROCKPILE is a collaboration between David Meltzer — poet, musician, essayist, and more — and Michael Rothenberg of Big Bridge Press. David and Michael will journey through eight cities in the U.S. to perform poetry and prose, composed while on the road, with local musicians and artists in each city. ROCKPILE will serve to educate and preserve as well as to create a history of collaboration. It will help to reinforce the tradition of the troubadour of all generations, central to the cultural upheaval and identity politics that reawakened poets, artists, musicians, and songwriters in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. The project will end with a final multimedia performance in San Francisco. Check out the ROCKPILE Blog for calendar and discussion!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still Coming to Big Bridge this Year:
FEATURES, 3

Big Bridge New Orleans Sturm und Drang Anthology
edited by Dave Brinks and Bill Lavender
Introductory notes for work by 30 artists and 90 writers whose work will double the size of this issue when it appears at the end of summer.

Perfiles de la Noche / Profiles of Night
Mujeres poetas de Venezuela/Women Poets of Venezuela
A Selection from the Bi-lingual Anthology
Original complete text selected and translated by Rowena Hill
Co-edited by Pen de Venezuela and bid & co.
Selection for online edition by Terri Carrion

Poetry by
María Auxiliadora Álvarez, Edda Armas, Enriqueta Arvelo Larriva, María calcaño, Laura Cracco, Ida Gramcko, Patricia Guzmán, Veronica Jaffe, Maritza Jiménez, Rowena Hill, Martha Kornblith, Luz machado, María Isabel Novillo, Cecilia Ortiz, Hanni Ossott, Yolanda Pantin, Emira Rodríguez, Margara Russotto, María Clara Salas, Elizabeth Schön, Blanca Strepponi, Ana Enriqueta Terán, Alicia Torres, Elena Vera, Carmen Verde Arocha, Miyo Vestrin

Tri-lingual Anthology of Galician Writers
Compiled, edited, and translated from Galician to Spanish by F.R. Lavandeira.
Translated from Spanish to English by Terri Carrion.

Poetry and Prose by
A.Nerium, María do Cebreiro, Estíbaliz Espinosa, Miro Villar, Olga Novo, F.R Lavandeira, Antón Riveiro Coello, Anxos Sumai, Diego Ameixeiras, Inma López Silva,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ART

Enigmas
paintings by Jim Spitzer
As a regular contributor to Big Bridge, these paintings, variations on an enigmatic theme, show Spitzer's continuing evolution, as well as being koan-like meditations in their own right.


The Kingdom of Madison:
Photographs from Madison County, North Carolina
by Rob Amberg
Selections from three sets of photos, exploring a still relatively isolated place, where landscape still has functional meaning. When Amberg arrived, not as a tourist, but as one seeking community: "Planting was still done by the signs of the moon. Water came from springs and heat from forests" and traditional music still part of daily life. These photos add to the tradition begun in the WPA projects of the Great Depression, but decidedly retain an identity of their own.

These Are My Angels
by Tasha Robbins
Small paintings done in Brooklyn on found cardboard by one of the Post-Katrina diaspora. Celebrating the C-Train stop at Franklin + Fulton Avenues, as the artist writes, they "kept my heart, eye + hand moving with a spirit of life close to the timbre and vibration of the Crescent City, still healing. . .

Lectura en Tránsito
Project Created and Directed by Carmen Gloria Berríos
Set based on combination of public art and poetry from Santiago de Chile.
Poems translated by Terri Carrion and Carmen Gloria Berríos.

Animal Night Photography
by Felicia Murray; notes by Louise Landes Levi
New techniques in photography allow us to make photographic images of phenomena we could only imagine in previous eras. We might debate whether the nature of cameras and software brings us any closer to the spiritual world, but these haunting images of animals should make us feel less alone, and more in touch with the continuum of life.

12 Collages
by John Brandi
These colages can be read as a non-verbal counterpart and extension of his India Journal and related work.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FICTION

Fiction by
Mel Freilicher, Eric Beeny, Stefani Christova, Lynda Schor, David Madgalene, Stephen-Paul Martin, Mark Wallace, Susan Smith Nash, Kirpal gordon, Richard Martin, Peter Conners, Ann Bogle, Jeffrey Hansen, Carol Novack

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REVIEWS

Reviews of:
Wanda Phipps, Lewis Warsh, Simon Pettet, Larissa Shmailo, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Ed Sanders, Bill Berkson, Colter Jacobsen, Mark Young, John Roche, Philip Gounis, Rich Kruse, Michael Rumaker, Annie Le Brun, George Kimball, and Ashis Gupta.

Reviewed by:
Kirpal Gordon; Svitlana Matviyenko, Garry Parrish, Jackie Sheeler, Jim Feast, Allan Graubard, Charles Thorne, Barbara Henning, Tom Hibbard, Steve Elmer, Stephen Lewandowski, Joe Wetteroth, Vernon Frazer, Leverett T. Smith, and Katherine Hastings.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LITTLE MAGS

Plastic Ocean
Green Dragon
Untamed Ink