SITUATION #5 leads with the work of Bruce Andrews--which is not because his writing dictates the issue but because his last name begins with an "A" and the writing is therefore arranged alphabetically by the author's last name. SITUATION is a magazine that, "explores how writing creates, dismantles, or reconstructs the possibility of identity." Ray Federman, George Chambers, Jean Donnelly, Gary Sullivan, Carolyn Steinhoff Smith among others do. There is not one form of writing here but the writing is art. Oasis. Elegant with space. One is not overwhelmed with too much to read, and everything there is to read is readable. Been wondering in what bin it's been hidden? Here is the good writing.--Micheal Basinski
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The usual formidable selection of cutting-edge nearverse and textual poetry--among which a piece of absolutely flat prose by George Chambers and Raymond Federman about games in society that ends with a gold anecdote. Appearing in a poetry zine under the title "Race, Gender, Class, Aggression, and Golf," it becomes as oddly unsettling as any of the other pieces in the issue.--Bob Grumman
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Leads off (should that be "explodes?") with Bruce Andrews' "Jupiter 2"-- "Actions doubt louder than words"--no doubt; "Ob- ...ceaseless positing,/we cultivate that irrelevance shook shock--" but these days some are answering Andrews' "reference is unimportant ?" with a "You got it, pal!" in neo-Melvillean thunder. (Stay glued to your TRR for the latest news on these poetry wars.) Coming up on the severity of Jean Donnelly's non sequiturs after reading Andrews is like plunging in the snow after a sauna: "Sex is either pleasurable or offensive/ When tolerance tolerates the tall order/ I have a bizarre sense of the American Mid-West as being this vast expanse of claustrophobia." Michael Basinski's "Matches" dismembers the alchemical marriage in its aleatory retort; his treatment is a kind of homeopathic remedy for the usual disjointed but solemn fooling on this theme. "The whole thrust of the pattern of sounds ravish rhythmically patterned wounds." Raymond Federman and George Chambers contribute "Race, Gender, Class, Aggression, and Golf," a short, hilarious work of meta-anthropology involving an incident at the 13th hole of Westwood Country Club on Ladies' Day. And more.--Charlotte Pressler
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #5,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1996.