Unrelenting tough city poetry and graphics, framed by a wild editorial rant on vivisection, make this a jolting cover-to-cover trip. High points and sudden precipices include Judy Meiksin's meditation on penile amputation--"these men would have dragged the rivers/ all day & night,/ searched the fisher's nets/ in case they swept it up/ by mistake,/ cut open belly after belly/ of fish in case one swallowed it..."--and Lyn Lifshin's horrifying exposé of Thai smugglers who move their heroin across border in the bodies of murdered infants. Besides being a powerful poem, this piece reportedly was instrumental in bringing about an Amnesty International investigation into the practice. Then, in "Dogs," Paul X admonishes those of his peers who would disrespect women: "I wonder if Harriet or Rosa would have bothered/ if they could look thru the veils of time/ and see you calling the womanhood/ 'Bitches', 'Skeezers', and 'Hoes'// I wonder if your mother would have bothered/ if she knew what kind of animal you would grow up to be?" IN YOUR FACE's title says it all, and the editor clearly knows how to pick the writers to make that happen. Number 8, which should be out by now, is a women's issue. Anyone who's read this one can't help but eagerly anticipate it.--Steve Fried
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #5,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1996.