 ZYX 58-09 205th Street, Bayside, NY 11364, USA ISSN 1093-8621 read reviews of later issues Before commenting on this review please read the FAQ page Home page Notes for publishers Want to be a reviewer? Anthologies. Books. Audio. Magazines. Software. Video. Artefacts. Web design by Gerald England This page last updated: 12th January 2004. |
ZYX #23 | |
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For a journal with an ISSN, this has a somewhat homemade appearance. Five sheets stapled in one corner. Tiny margins, minuscule print, messy layout and a variety of typefaces don't make it easy for the reader. The first two pages contain a wordy but amusing essay by (presumably) the editor on the perils of writers taking proper jobs. There follows poetry-verging-on-prose by Kevyn M. Knox, Nathan Whiting, John Grey, Christopher Mulrooney and Alan Catlin, and a lengthy sequence of prose-verging-on-poetry by Stanley Berne. What stands out is a series of short poems by Giovanni Malito, extracts from a longer work called "TWISTS". This is number XIV:
the sea .../a great orator/pounds out/its punctuation/
and a great writer/it spreads/its silver ink/in a soft/
and beautiful/calligraphy/of circles
Much of the poetry in this magazine makes good use of interesting
language, but it's mighty hard to read and even harder to remember. It's
the poems by Malito that remain in the memory: taut, terse and to the
point, as poetry should be.
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| reviewer: Andrew Belsey. | ||
| ZYX #24 | ||
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ZYX proves you don't need to be rich to be an editor and publisher. This New York-based literary magazine consists of photocopied A4 sheets stapled together but crammed on its pages are essays, reviews, prose and poetry. Editor Arnold Skemer provides an informative general survey of the development and characteristics of the surrealist novel from the writer and reader's point of view in his opening essay. His reviews knowledgeably cover recent publications from the American small press scene. There is an extract from one of the books reviewed, James Chapman's DAUGHTER! I FORBID YOUR RECURRING DREAM! Chapman's book is definitely one to look out for; his narrative has a dream-like and compulsive clarity. I found his description of the traffic noise invading his narrator's flat especially striking: the vibration rumbled under the floor, between the dishes on the shelf, within the fork that lay there ringing and stopped dead when I picked it up; these were the same music material as the honking gearshift and tire rush.John Grey is another writer to watch for; his poetry is direct but packs a clever punch as in VETERAN FOREVER: It's not so much my grandfather relives the war as it relives him.ZYX also prints writers' addresses alongside their work which is useful if you want to know more about them and their work. ZYX is definitely worth getting if you want to know what's happening on the American scene. It contains a good balance of prose and poetry, and entertains as well as educates. | ||
| reviewer: L. Kiew. | ||
| ZYX #26 | ||
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Five A4 sheets containing a mix of prose pieces, poems and reviews. The words 'way-out' and 'alternative' could be applied to most of them. Consequent upon a review of the SECOND INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY ON PARADOXISM a copy of the PARADOXIST MANIFESTO is included, as developed by Florentin Smarandache in the 1980's in, and in opposition to, Ceausescu's Romania. Here is a flavour:
EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE, THEREFORE: THE IMPOSSIBLE TOO!
Hence don't wonder about this anti-book! If you don't understand it,
that means you understand all. That is the goal of the manifesto.
Because Art is not for the mind, but for feelings. Because Art is also
for the mind. Try to interpret the uninterpretable!
The work of three poets is displayed by a batch of poems from each;
they tend to be fairly hard-hitting and unrelenting. WATCHING CNN by
John Grey gets close to self-parody in its heavy-handed and humourless
approach, though still managing to put over an undoubted truth:
saw
everything that happened
in half an hour
then it started
over again
some of the same stuff
kept happening
other stuff happened
that wasn't happening
half an hour ago
there was even more
stuff that stopped happening
altogether
or wasn't happening enough
Some prose pieces, because they take themselves a
little too seriously, tend to end up as rather
sententious streams of consciousness. A lot of the
material here has meaning and worth solely (and quite justifiably)
within the terms of its circle of like-minded contributors
and readers; you need to be on the right wave-length
(esoteric concerns splashed with a cultish gloss)
to thumb through these pieces with any enthusiasm.
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| reviewer: Alan Hardy. | ||
| ZYX #28 | ||
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ZYX is a zine-type publication with decidedly down-market production values, consisting of just five double-sided pages held together by a solitary staple in the top left-hand corner. This issue has five contributors, one of them the editor. None of this sounds very promising, I know. But I have to say that I actually found it to be a very enjoyable read, especially Mark Sonnenfeld's short essay, THE WRITER, HIS LIBRARY. Sonnefeld's is a witty and well observed examination of the relationship between what we write and what we read. For him: a writer's library is the full reflection of his [or her] personality, knowledge, aspirations, fantasies, lunacies, interests, attitudes, prejudices, pretentions, illusions and private pleasures. It is, in essence, his immediate information resource to the production of his work.Our librarys are more though than just some bookshelves containing the books we love and have read several times, and those; in my case the collected works of Milton, Browning and Tennyson; which we know we should read, but can somehow never find the time; despite the fact that they've been sitting there for several years now. A writer's personal library is also the place where the necessary illusions — those which enable us to write — are created: We must surround ourselves with illusions, admirably clothed, as they certainly are, in the raiment of the utilitarian. But if the truth must be told, they may also be regarded as props to convince ourselves that our journey is purposeful and imbued with meaning. We can see both sides of the matter. One part of us joins the task ahead, our eyes filled with great purpose; another looks at our efforts with a cynical smirk, knowing just how ludicrous the effort is...what choice do we have? Not to try! We can hardly do that.This certainly rings true for me. The one criticism I would make is that Sonnefeld seems to take genetic determinism to absurd lengths when he claims: In the course of his life as a reader, the writer has been making selections as to what "style" he prefers and how he wants to present himself to the potential world of readers. This is a matter of personality, which we are largely born with. Predilections for behaviour are embedded in our genetic coding, though they may be altered somewhat by our experiences.Surely where in the world we happen to have been born exerts in most cases a decisive influence on the books we're likely to read. For example, almost 20% of the adult population of the United States are functionally illiterate. Is Sonnefeld suggesting that the reasons for this are primarily genetic rather than societal? I don't think so. I think it's just that he's wandered into an area he doesn't know very much about. A pity, because it's the only real blemish in an otherwise excellent piece of work. The standard of the rest of the work in this issue clearly indicates that editor Arnold Skemer is no dabbler, but takes what he is doing very seriously. I especially like the fact that he's prepared to publish blocks of poems by the same poet, instead of restricting them to the standard one or two poems each. This way one gets a real flavour of the poet's work. And the standard of the poetry is strong. The are seven poems by John Grey and four by Jon Cone. The poem that stood out for me was Cone's enigmatic CARNIVAL: It was winter and you were drinking vodka and looking up at the stage in the dark and everyone blew clouds from their mouths. The girls wore heavy coats. They smiled and laughed and you thought they were all pretty, it was impossible not to love them all. Their teeth shone. You wished you had a name and that all who lived knew it. You felt the drink warming your throat, your belly. You didn't know whether to laugh or cry...Yes, the production values may be basic, but the work published in this issue of ZYX is first rate. So often it is the other way around, and the glossy covers of literary magazines are opened to reveal mostly mind-numbing blandness. In many ways ZYX represents a back-to-basics approach, where what matters above all else is the quality of the work. In that sense it is the sort of publication which deserves whatever support we can give it. | ||
| reviewer: Kevin Higgins. |