Published in: Winter Park, FL
Notes on this Issue:
Aspects of grotesqueness in art, writing, and film have always been very comforting to me. I think of Doré’s illustrations for Dante’s Commedia, Goya’s Black Paintings, Cronenberg’s films, Gira’s poems and lyrics and I’m compelled to feel such warm, sincere bodily sensations—like those that come with experiencing a maternal warmth. At times, I wonder why it’s so pleasing… and, furthermore, why so many artists are compelled to go out of their way to manipulate and mangle the organic, human form. Perhaps the reasons for my love and gratitude towards the grotesque are different, in origin and existence, than those of others, but I think it comes from the fundamental relationship between grotesqueness and intimacy. What’s more creative and physically intimate than reaching inside another human and rearranging the elements that constitute their own being? Sliding through their organs, muscles, skin, fat, and viscera is the ultimate exploration of the human body. I love it, but maybe I’m a serial killer in the making.
- W.B.
Authors in this Issue:
Walter Bickle
Dick Warlock
Luciano Coelho
Clara Ashby
Poems in this Issue:
W.B.
I Tripped, I Slipped, I Fell Apart
The Silent Boy
F.W.E.
Ode to the Lustful 20-Year-Olds I Hold So Dear
D.W.
Pale Blue Sky
Even Hell Has its Heroes
It’s Never Easy
Let Go
L.C.
Case Against Myself
C.A.
The Spider & The Rose
Thanks for reading.