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May Zine Reading Part 2

Good afternoon! I'm making good use of the cool mornings we've been gifted this week to explore the zines I ordered to celebrate Poetry Month (April) and really enjoying what I've been discovering. My favorite way to discover zines is in person at local art/author fairs but 2020 trained me to look at spaces like Etsy as well, which has worked well as we wait for in-person events to begin again. The zines I've received have been in excellent shape and this has proved a fun way to discover authors. 


Which brings us to today's round-up of zines. 

After settling down with a dog on the back porch, I read Hannah Smith's Alchemy. This was full of gorgeous phrases ("mica sunlight" is my favorite and one I'll remember when walking by our local arboretum's pond). Smith has a captivating way of describing nature and her inclusion of daily activities alongside these descriptions makes these poems read like a missive from an observant and talented friend. Really enjoyed this. 


From there, I picked up Nora Boyle's "wild & wise." This was a smaller zine, split between describing wild women and wise (tending toward conflating wise & witch). My favorite poem in this collection was "lake", leading me to think I'm in desperate need of getting myself to some sort of shore. Although the typewriter font set the mood of something found, it was at times hard for my (admittedly older and not that strong) eyes to follow. I was glad to read this outdoors for the sunlight and because it went with the poems. The illustrations were very cool & added to the atmosphere of the piece. Look forward to reading this again in October (and maybe including in my Halloween decorations).


The longest piece I read was Alfa's I Find You in the Darkness. This makes me want to formulate another language to discuss these pieces. I'm not going to litigate what poetry is but I want an extra category for poems like these, that read like a syncopated memoir in places and like a compilation of life lessons in others. I love the idea of a separate genre for short pieces that exhort and remind and support; a genre that says sometimes you need that supportive voice to take the place of the inner editor or whomever. The use of "you" in several poems was a little disorienting, as it varied from poem to poem in who the poet addressed. A few poems that stood out to me were "Questioning love" as a reminder not to torture/interrogate every statement, "Singing canary" for its dark humor, "I am not an enigma" for its strong statement of self, and "Something clicks" for its lovely metaphor of things suppressed growing hardened seed coats for future growth, and "Forever" for its pithy statement.


Next, I read Deborah Chava Singer's Geography of Ghosts. This, unfortunately, was a missed connection for me. I enjoyed some of the poems ["California (a play/poem)] but hope to return to it again.


A short piece that surprised me was "Ker-bloom!" #145, July - August 2020 ("The Green Dragon Always Wants Something"). Although this was a short (super short) piece, it was a class in creating a narrator that encourages you to keep going. If there was a follow-up volume, it would already be on its way to me...except that I'm not going to be distracted from this post. Not yet. This is an anecdote about a story that almost came to be. And, oddly, I'm ready for the rest of the story. 


The last one for today was Rachel Bard's "Growing Hope." This was a comic printed in bronze ink on a folding sheet of heavy navy paper. Once again, I was glad to be sitting in the sunlight. Really enjoyed this and won't spoil it but I was both happy and slightly sad at the end. In basically the front and back of a single sheet of paper. 


This was a really fun morning of reading and I'm glad that I found each of these. If you have any suggestions about places to find zines, please let me know!

-- Chrissa

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