POETICKS

Experioddica

25 Years Ago

SkyViews, Vol.3, No.4/5, January 1989.
Edited by Phoebe Bosche and James Maloney
92 pp; Box 2473, Seattle WA 98111. $5.

As has often been the case recently, I was having trouble coming up with something to write about in this edition of my column.  Then I got a bunch of magazines and chapbooks from my editors here at Small Press Review.  As I looked through them, trying to find ways of approaching each of them as a reviewer, my mind burbled up into A Higher Subject: not ways into various specific reviews, but (ahem) The Way into any review.  I would treat my readers to Grumman’s Philosophy of Literary Reviewery.  Make that “The Philosophy of Proper Literary Reviewing.”  (Is that worth another “ahem?”  Probably not, but–by Jove–I feel so in the mood for ahemming!)

I quickly realized that I could never write the sort of thing that duty would require of me and expect any of you readers to be able to comprehend it–expect anyone on earth to be able to comprehend it, including even the brilliant readers of this column, I should say.  Still, I thought the idea had traction.  Maybe I could merely write informally about my own career as a literary reviewer.  If I did it in my usual winning manner, it might prove entertaining, and perhaps even help some young chap or chappess yearning to break into the trade, so to speak.  In any case, it ought to get me through another installment of my column.

So I began going through my cartons of ancient small press publications and microzines to try to find the first of my reviews.  I believe it was something I wrote for Score but I’m not sure.  I had sent it to Crag Hill, one of the editors of Score at Karl Kempton’s recommendation.  (Karl was the first visual poet I’d gotten to know, having written him about his visual poetry magazine, Kaldron, which I found out about from (tah dah) one of the Dust Books’ compendiums of small press publishers.)

It doesn’t matter, for the first publication I came across happened to be an issue of SkyViews.  Nostalgia for times long gone got me quickly absorbed in it.  Soon nostalgia was replaced–or augmented–by admiration: the zine might have been published yesterday.  It had some great stuff!  Ergo, instead of gabbing about my own self in this column–or, I suppose I should say, only about my own self–I would review SkyViews.

Note, first of all, that the issue under review is 25-years-old.  It came before the computer revolution got going.  I was a mere lad of 48.  I had a letter-to-the-editor in the issue as well as an essay on the taxonomy of poetry (quite–ahem–a profound one, in fact).  I vaguely recall getting to know a few of the people with work in SkyViews like Trudy Mercer and Mike Miskowski through the mail, and had concluded on the basis of what seemed to be going on in Seattle, where they lived, that that city was the most culturally advanced city in America (except Port Charlotte, Florida).  That people like Marshall Hyrciuk and jwcurry were active in Toronto made me rank that city probably the most culturally advanced place in North America.

I suppose New York and Los Angeles were not at the bottom of my rankings, but certainly were, and still are, on a per capita basis.  New York, of course, isn’t even in the rankings if you count negative effect, since that’s the center of mainstream publishing, and awards-bestowal–unless Cambridge (Harvard) is.

When I searched the Internet for SkyViews, all I could find was something about Phoebe Bosche, its publisher, still active in 2012 as a member of the advisory board of the Cascade Poetry Festival at Seattle University.  From this I learned that SkyViews was a monthly literary publication in the mid 1980s-early 1990s. I think I must have gotten involved with it just before its decline.

Parallel Discourse and Tangential Dreams the issue was called on its cover.  Inside, it was explained that those running it were trying out various new titles but retaining SkyViews, as well, for the sake of continuity. The first three works within were all by Minoy, and seem–except for being monochromatic–doing as much as current “asemic poets” are doing with what I call “textual visimagery” for visual arrangements of letters.  I remember Minoy as an important artist in what became for me, the “Otherstream.”  But I stopped seeing his name well over a decade ago.

A Wikipedia article on Minóy said “Minóy was the pseudonym of the electronic art musician and sound artist Stanley Keith Bowsza (October 30, 1951 – March 19, 2010). He was a major figure in the DIY noise music and homemade independent cassette culture scene of the 1980s. He released over 100 compositions.”  So I no doubt stopped seeing his name because I wasn’t much involved in otherstream music (I couldn’t afford a good necessary equipment, and records, tapes and DVDs).

On page 5 of SkyViews nine pages of letters begin, most of them far superior to the tripe from readers to mainstream magazines. One I particularly liked was from Steven Paul Thomas describing the arrogance of famous poet, Ai.  Another was from the late J. Fred Blair, another important name from my past.  Later in the magazine is his very funny (and intelligent) dialogue called, “An Interview with KHOZVACH Through Channeler.”  His excellent poem, “Brother Jack, Brother John,” is in the issue, too–something strongly influenced, I think, by Whitman.

Yikes, I’ve hardly begun my review but already used up my allotment of words.  Gotta quit.  There will be a continuation–or more than one if no one writes in to complain.  Let me just add that among the contributors to the issue are Dan Raphael, Joseph Keppler, “White Boy” Paul Weinman, Kirby Olson, Bill Shivley, Geof Huth and Heather Barr.

Post-Publication Note: I completely forgot that in my last column I said I was going to continue discussing poetics.  No one complained to my editor.
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