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La Petite Zine, Issue 24
Issue 24 of La Petite Zine is out now. It is a fantastic read. I’m halfway through. Here are some lines I particularly liked from the first half:
friends there are no limits to my understanding I understand my head off -Heather Christle, “Line Up In an Orderly Fashion”
Sleep the day. Bleep the motherf******* day. Blah day, gray as a motherfucker… -Sheera Talpaz, “Birthday Poem”
friction bound
clam observant tell –Elliot Figman, “Little Recipe”I lingered in my lingerie –Denise Duhamel, “Third Wake Haiku”
that is the
art of the bedroom
a little disorder roses –Matthew Rohrer, “Enough With Abstraction”I signed my name “Human Resource” when I wrote out a check to my rapist yesterday. I forgot all of my settings. This was the second time this time it happened. –Megin Jimenez, “Copy Writer”
A FUNERAL IN JULY
People are hot and dead. –William Minor
This excer(pt)cise doesn’t do the issue justice. I’m leaving out a lot of great lines because there is too much to quote, or because the great thing about them is the way they loop back in reference to an idea several lines earlier. Good poems aren’t good at being excerpted, and these are great poems.
Tags: La Petite Zine
Is there more overuse/abuse of the declarative voice like pretty much everywhere else in contemporary literary writing? Seriously, shit is like the fuckin’ plague right now. Make it stop somebody, anybody!
I was not alone. The tree found its wig and ate me to death. The badgers were ready too. They tarried with stained aprons. They found us in heat, helmeted. The sun sinks to get closer, to know.
declaring things sucks.
Seriously, though: look in a smattering of journals and I bet you’ll find a good portion is that tripe I generated in two minutes that’s stupid and means/does/says nothing.
I don’t want to argue, but wouldn’t you say that the declarative is sort of necessary? Well, you did say overuse, not just use, but seems like maybe your main complaint is more the “means/does/says nothing” part, which I guess is arguable to an extent, but I think maybe doesn’t have a lot to do with the declarative voice?
Sounding really wishy-washy here with all the “maybes” and “I thinks” but oh well.
made a smoothie of ~12 oz lawn gnome, 3x tammy faye bakker, ~.5x venison while reading issue #24 of la petite zine.
Every emotional rescue is the best thing ever.
I definitely agree that the declarative voice is necessary, but it shouldn’t be used at the expense of others; this is precisely the problem of which I’m speaking. My beef isn’t with content, it’s with the framing of said content. I realize this thesis was muddied a bit by the “means/does/says nothing” part. Actually, I have no problem at all with “nothing” and would rather read something comprised of it than the alternative. It’s just that every time I encounter some nifty startling, disquieting imagery, it’s conveyed in the same fucking voice. Like that episode of Seinfeld where George gets a book on tape so he doesn’t have to read it—only to find out the voice sounds exactly like his own. Except in this case, the voice isn’t mine (that would definitely suck, too, but I’m not going there now) but the Other’s, in the same guise, over and over. It’s like the writers are hostages of some ventriloquist, and the ventriloquist divests them of personal identity and forces them to assume his diabolical monotone.
“It’s such a beautiful issue,” Daisy sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds.
Is there more overuse/abuse of the declarative voice like pretty much everywhere else in contemporary literary writing? Seriously, shit is like the fuckin’ plague right now. Make it stop somebody, anybody!
I was not alone. The tree found its wig and ate me to death. The badgers were ready too. They tarried with stained aprons. They found us in heat, helmeted. The sun sinks to get closer, to know.
declaring things sucks.
Seriously, though: look in a smattering of journals and I bet you’ll find a good portion is that tripe I generated in two minutes that’s stupid and means/does/says nothing.
I don’t want to argue, but wouldn’t you say that the declarative is sort of necessary? Well, you did say overuse, not just use, but seems like maybe your main complaint is more the “means/does/says nothing” part, which I guess is arguable to an extent, but I think maybe doesn’t have a lot to do with the declarative voice?
Sounding really wishy-washy here with all the “maybes” and “I thinks” but oh well.
made a smoothie of ~12 oz lawn gnome, 3x tammy faye bakker, ~.5x venison while reading issue #24 of la petite zine.
Every emotional rescue is the best thing ever.
I definitely agree that the declarative voice is necessary, but it shouldn’t be used at the expense of others; this is precisely the problem of which I’m speaking. My beef isn’t with content, it’s with the framing of said content. I realize this thesis was muddied a bit by the “means/does/says nothing” part. Actually, I have no problem at all with “nothing” and would rather read something comprised of it than the alternative. It’s just that every time I encounter some nifty startling, disquieting imagery, it’s conveyed in the same fucking voice. Like that episode of Seinfeld where George gets a book on tape so he doesn’t have to read it—only to find out the voice sounds exactly like his own. Except in this case, the voice isn’t mine (that would definitely suck, too, but I’m not going there now) but the Other’s, in the same guise, over and over. It’s like the writers are hostages of some ventriloquist, and the ventriloquist divests them of personal identity and forces them to assume his diabolical monotone.
“It’s such a beautiful issue,” Daisy sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds.
Now I totally understand you, maybe even agree. Sweet.
Now I totally understand you, maybe even agree. Sweet.
Saying nothing can sometimes be more than that.
Saying nothing can sometimes be more than that.