NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Editor Christopher Harter focuses on the nature of the American small-press scene, past and present, and how the value of it has to be recognised before vital documents are lost forever. He cites the increasing disappearance of first drafts through the use of computer technology and wonders if future generations will be able to consult prime documents the way we can at the moment. On the plus side, he notes that

The Sukov Little Magazine Collection at Madison boasts around 7000 titles alone.

Plenty for the reader to get his or her teeth into in this issue: art, articles, a section of autobiography from Allen Purdey. Nils Clausson pastiches the Auden of MISS GEE most effectively in THE BALLAD OF WYSTAN:

	And here you walk beside me
		In the desert of my thought,
	With your lost ambiguous brilliance
		And the wit time set at naught.

	Puppet shows
	make the natives
	smile —
	but they're unaware
	of the plot
	devised in secret
	thousands of miles
	away

The issue closes with a short survey of the life and work of the late Gregory Corso, considered along with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs to be one of the original "big four" of the Beat Movement.

Bathtub Gin #8 comes along with The Bent #4, a separate review section. I'm in two minds about this idea, as a review section can be as much a part of a magazine's "personality" as the poetry in contains, but on the other hand it can take on a life of its own — just like New Hope International Review!

When I saw the title of this I immediately thought of an illegal procedure traditionally involving bathtubs and gin, but I had the wrong illegal procedure. This magazine models itself on the production of homemade hooch: it is

a bootlegger of ideas, untaxed and unregulated.

	what is the point of poetry
	when bombs are being dropped on
	starving children?

Bathtub Gin is a biannual literary/art magazine that publishes poetry, short fiction, drama, essays, artwork, and more.

What is it that makes a journal, chapbook or literary magazine such as Bathtub Gin readable from cover to cover, and what is it that makes a journal or collection memorable? What is it that engenders loyalty and support? Whether that energy is vision or passion or theme it certainly makes Bathtub Gin a coherent work of art with its own personality and life force.

Some presses have this quality. Some writers have this quality, such as Hugh Fox, David Lawrence, Heather Brondy, Kim Tremblett, and others in this magazine. Here is what is known as "the writer's voice" and it is what makes it possible to cross that subtle line between a good read and work which will enter the common culture. The issue is raw, confronting and diverse in its approach; the images, cartoons and different format presentations give a very immediate and interactive feel.

Bathtub Gin is a journal of experimental poetry and art that has so much energy it allows a two-way flow between author and reader. The fiction section is fresh with work that deserves to be there. Rohini Muthuswami's WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY is sharp and true, Kim Tremblett's THE CAP is dark and unforgettable, S. J. Campbell's THE GAME, features a game of hide and seek between two boys that has a haunting edge to it. Writing fiction about something as basic and terrible as man's inhumanity to man requires robust, nuanced thinking; without it the reader is offered trauma, but no new insights. These stories strike the correct balance between morality and emotion.

Hugh Fox's poem FROM THE APPLES OF IMMORTALITY is a most interesting poem in its use of dual language, rhythm use of imagery:

	Herds of cloud-sheep grazing above the Indiana-
	Ohio landscape, the flight steward looks so 
	(poto/potere) Romanian, we form, we graze/rain,
	great-great-grand-clouds still grazing
	(air knows when,
	where).

	jerking off, but we
	figure out moves,
	even in 1951 when
	nobody teaches us
	how as a slim pretty
	woman offers —

It is worth noting that this magazine is not simply a stopping-off point for the ubiquitous poem or story. This signals an important recognition of the journal's place in the eyes of the reading public. In this respect, the magazine has not only made a name for itself through the writers and artists it has been associated with, but it has developed a reputation as an important venue for challenging writers and artists. Small press publications can be time capsules that have the ability to transport you through time and space, and even more importantly, they are a timely reminder that an artist or writer can transform the way we see the world through the most simple and enduring means.