“You must have suffered from poetry again.” Li Po
If today's chalk talk/ homework assignment is to find one secret website on your favorite poet and share it with your friends, then I must thank Laura, who helped me by sending me this link to Red Poppy, a Pablo Neruda on-line project. A Pablo blog!
So Laura, thank you and let me share this photo I found earlier today, "Neruda looking out to sea."
"Feminism is for everybody," wrote bell hooks, and I couldn't agree more. So with that in mind, I list here a collection of grrl 'zines that need your support. Originally I was looking for information on a San Francisco 'zine called electricfemme. But it has either folded or changed addresses and my search did not take me as far as I hoped.1
I did find many other interesting publications, however. The only requirement I had when trolling through cyberspace was that they must include poetry, or poetry-like writing (there is a lot of "fiction" that might be poetry and a lot of "poetry" that might be fiction, for that matter).
* GeekGirl from Australia has an interesting Art section that includes various writing. It was reviewed on Grrl Zine Network as: "web site with lots of fun and interesting stuff (like gallery: wallpapers - sound - bugs - archives - monthly cycles: news - hot flushes - arts - entertainment - snitch city)!"
* Hermana, Resist's flyer reads: "Living in the Rio grande valley, the holidays & new year's, renewal and winter, being hungry, numbers, the working poor, obligations, Durham-a sea of nice white crisp whiteness, elite hipsters, cubicles,revolution-when it meant something to me and a primer on racism- - and so much more. half size. 40 pages. wt: 2 oz."
* Bamboo Girl has just come out with issue #11. They describe their manifesto as: "challenging issues of racism/ sexism/ homophobia from the point of view of smart, loud, non-traditional girls of color, especially from that of the feminist Pinay (Filipina)-mutt perspective. There's more to life than straight white male patriarchy. Pro-Asian/ Asian mutt, pro-female, pro-f*ck oppression."
* “I believe in the power of dreams,” Lynne L. writes at Java Turtle. Issue #4 is out, "the coffee-oriented comic anthology." I highly recommend both Java Turtle and Lynne's Blackgirl Stories.
* Cherrybomb says they are: "an indie arts and culture magazine by, for and about real women. It's a space for us to share stories, exchange ideas, and inspire each other in print. Our goal is to create something we'll all want to read and share with our friends–something less academic than Ms, but still intelligent, and feminist; something less trashy and fashion oriented than Cosmo, but still sassy and funny!" Grrl Zine Network adds: "The issue on “Cutting Out the Middle Man” highlights women making art, music, film and poetry outside the commercial mainstream- ladies doing it their way, on their own time and their own dime.”
* Mimi Thi Nguyen, who might be in Ann Arbor, MI as I write this, says: "I've been writing for alternative and mainstream non-academic publications for over ten years. Here are some of those publications, including my Punk Planet columns." I recommend her journals as well.
* Finally in things you should spend your hard earned money on, Planting Seeds has a CD, spoken word: poet tongues on fire. It looks exciting.
Hurrah for Alternative Presses!
- If anyone knows how I can get hold of the editor, Qianya, please drop me a line. Cheers! [back]