NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

UNWOUND has got to be one of the best small press magazines being published in America today. Although many Americans would refer to this publication as a 'zine', it is much too substantial for such diminution, both because of its professional presentation (in an interesting off-size rectangular format) and the range and quality of its contents. There is an editorial by Wilson which doubles as a rattling and humorous introduction, a writer profile (with photo) of T. Kilgore Splake in a question & answer format, a short prose piece, a featured poet as well as poetry from several recognisable small press names, a personal essay from Leonard J. Cirino, several reviews of small press publications, listings, contributor notes, and endnotes which discuss publications received and that spill over onto the outside back cover. Artwork by the ubiquitous Claudio Parentela and Blair Wilson is sprinkled throughout the issue along with loads of adverts for other small press publications.

The central pages of this issue are given over to featured poet, August Bleed, with a generous allotment of eight poems he describes as my tattoos - my skin of ink. His imagery is strong and sometimes quite dark:

	Ash-faced
	I sit smoldering beneath 
	The tattered blanket of my poverty.
	I will not stir
	Until someone places
	A necklace of dead sparrows
	At my feet.
		 (from SONG OF THE VAGRANT)

The quality of the rest of the poetry (29 poems from 27 poets) is uneven, but there are no weak decidedly poems. The reviews all do what they are supposed to do. That is, they are concise and they inform, and all of them are well-written. In particular, I enjoyed Wilson's questioning review of selections from the prolific MARY MARK PRESS:

Have we become so narcissistic as a society that we want poetry only 1 person can understand? And what is the purpose of a poetry no one understands? Shouldn't we as writers take into consideration the fact that we have readers - especially if we are to send out new work every month?

The highlight of this issue for me, however, is THE GREATEST ARTISTIC GIFT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY... by Cirino, in which he claims it is surrealism, but not that of the usually cited Frenchmen. Rather, Cirino says that with the exception of Jean Follian and Jacques Prevert, most of the truly great surrealist writers were either Spanish, Greek, Italian or eastern European.

To give you an idea of the courage of Wilson as an editor, and the poignancy of Cirino as an essayist, I will quote the entire first paragraph with title incorporated:

The greatest artistic gift of the twentieth century is not the Modernist verse of Pound and Eliot who were, probably in one case, surely in the other, Fascists; not the Communist inspired social realism of Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and the other great Mexican muralists, not the abstraction of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, Robert Motherwell and others who flourished after freedom brought the world "to order". Not even the corporate jingoists of pop art as much as they meant to defy and mock, not the elite destruction of language by the Post Moderns and the deconstructionists, or the Democratic realism of Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Ernest Hemingway, or the expatriates and their poetic disciples, the Beats, who left drunk and disordered like Bukowski. Not those who bastardized Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams with a chit chat approach to verse. And not any of the fifteen minutes of fame, self-flagellants, who promote their work as art.

An odd-sized magazine, being similiar to A5 but a tad taller and a good inch wider. The extra width usefully accomodates longer-lined poems and allows most of the prose to be done in a presentable double-column.

Instead of an editorial we get a ramble — a sort of epistle with rather more urban angst than upbeat progression.

The first piece that actually grabbed my attention was Taylor Graham's THANKSGIVING:

	At the horizon, November storms grumple
	like pigs on the trail to chestnuts. Plenty
	sucks its lips and holds out two huge hands,
	...
		... Oak leaves lie bundled
	thick as a low fog overhanging the swale,
	and acorns scattered for squirrels, wild dogs,
	whatever's hungry. ....

Much of the work here didn't gel with me. It seemed to be stuck in the gutter of an america i neither know nor want to know. And some seem content to lie and lambast rather than to crawl out and seek sustenence. On the other hand there are gems shining out of the mire. Work by Philip Ramp, B Z Niditch and some others.

An attractive feature is the artwork in the issue, especially the excellent work of Claudio Parentela and Blair Wilson whose style is unmistakeable.

I get the impression that the editor is struggling to attract better material and whilst he is certainly on the road, he is a little way off arriving as yet.

Most of this issue is taken up by two "featured writers" Mark Terrill and John Sweet, who introduce themselves and their work, and three "writer profiles" of Nathan Graziano, Simon Perchik and Catfish McDaris, each of whom is given roughly the same mixed bag of questions by way of introduction.

Nathan Graziano contributes a wry story of sexuality in THE LAST HETEROSEXUAL MAN IN TOWN:

The bar stools around Jamie were empty. The Bartender stood with his hands behind his back watching Jamie sip his Roy Rogers through a straw in the familiar Nordic ambience of the Clam Shack. Jamie looked up at him and scowled. A softball team sat around a table, telling raucous tales of homosexual exploits, slugging pitchers of beer and smoking cheap cigars.

I realize that despite the onslaught of phenomena & my inability to articulate communication is going to be the least of my problems tonight.

	almost evening and her hold is contagious
	spreads till you feel a darkness
	under you, filled with stars
	and your shadow made invisible

John Sweet says

the punks had it right, the surrealists, the dadaists — the past is only a coffin waiting to be nailed shut. create from what you have in front of you. make your own rules, then break them.

	i don't vote
	but i can get my hands
	on a gun

A fairly equal mixture of poetry and prose. BOTTOM'S UP by Nathan Graziano is a story about a guy, Scooter, screwing up the courage to drink a glass of his own puke in return for a hundred dollars and a sight of Susie's tits; he passes out before we are vouchsafed any moment of truth or revelation. ROOTS by Daniel Crocker concerns a 31-year-old married man's secret lifelong obsession with black men, and describes his first foray into a gay club and rather unsatisfying homosexual experience. It unashamedly pulls no punches, but manages to be both disturbing and intriguing in a way that is not at all sensational; it portrays an average white guy's darker side and urges with honesty, balance and a touch of universality. Despite the graphic descriptions and fearless language, the subject is handled with sympathy and objectivity. There is also an interview with old rocker/hippie/small press guru John Bennett, with some examples of his prose, age certainly not diluting his hold on pretentious babble. There is poetry from (amongst others) Simon Perchik, Stephen Kopel, Patrick Mckinnon, Alan Catlin and Regan Mcdonell, a lot of it obtuse and belligerent, like Lyn Lifshin being so laid-back shocking about vaginas. The more impressive poems are the ones that are a little restrained, as by Don Winter, J.J. Campbell and Giovanni Malito. There are two excellent poems by Don Winter; in NO VISITATION he deftly dumps twee countryside images and nostalgia in the bin:

	The train twists through Michigan:
	the yellow blur of farmhouses,
	ribbon glimpse of rivers.
	All night I keep arriving
	in someone else's childhood.

	i had my friend
	ask this black girl
	if she would go out
	with me
	she said
	i don't date
	outside my race
	jesus
	i thought
	i'm not human anymore

                   all that really matters
       is what my father once said —
       When you're driving, always look
       two cars ahead, and never ride the brakes.