BlazeVOX [books] publishes innovative fiction and poetry.
"... A quirky, at times lonely, playful, and wondrous ride of the imagination."--Cintia Santana
This book is personal without performativity, political without pedantry, both subversive and subtle. Once you pick it up, you won’t put it down. —Eleanor Goodman
These poems seem to dwell in mystery, and wonder, and humor—with a kind of zeal for the vastness and complexities of our experiences as humans. —Michael O’Driscoll
Gatza’s poems urge us to see, feel exalted in the ordinary beauty of our surround, look out at a new world each moment. Yet mid-winter, our dream is of spring’s warmth, early flowers, myths, stories of heroes and sub-heroes. His collages invite us: Tape a banana to the wall, and call it ours. Write poems that serve up a rare joy of outward contemplation and thrill an inner life. —Deborah Meadows
“In Peter Mladinic’s poetry collection Files of Information on People Who Don’t Exist, the minutia of daily forgetting become memoirs set in free verse. With the precision of a reporter, Mladinic uncovers our deepest impulses, surrenders, and sins. —Barbara Leonhard
"Creation--all of it, and each atom of it--is, as Wade Stevenson avers, an "action of time," with an allure that is also a lure to Actual Presence. In Fiat Lux, poetry limns the body of this presence without irony and without ambiguity. Here there is light beyond the shadow's reach." —Donald Revell
Behold! A series of modern fables that address the quality of truth in what has become a contemporary Age of Lies. Writing with a cosmic sense of humorous indignation, Frym plunges into the dilemmas of today's realities and metaphysical quandaries. What is true meaning! Who lies! —Maureen Owen
In Diana Adams' Slip Knot language twirls in a fantastical motion of ordinary events gone looping into knobs of surreal perception. Mind bending internal experiences spin from a turtling gaze. Temporary stops from a masterful unraveller. —Maureen Owen
A librarian in Buffalo, Edric Mesmer is the author of two full-length collections, POEMS: now & then (BlazeVOX [books], 2020) and of monodies and homophony (Outriders Poetry Project, 2015). He edits the pamphlet series Among the Neighbors, dedicated to conversations about little magazines and small presses. His own recent writings on small press cultures include paged like coral reefs (eohippus labs, tract series, 2023) and “Asterisms Among the Magazines” in the Post45 Contemporaries cluster on little magazines (2023). He’s thankful to everyone who reads these poems.
The lyrical poems in Wonderwork explore the pressing questions of human meaning-making, reflecting on grief, spirituality and memory. The collection offers intimate and necessary moments of curiosity, hope and possibility in a world that is at once both heartbreaking and beautiful, difficult and joyful. Drawing subtle parallels between the landscapes of self and place, Wonderwork undertakes a personal search for healing that echoes a larger planetary need for wholeness.
I had a blast swerving through this preposterous Proustian epic of poly-simultaneity. Tony Trigilio uptwists his cheezy, tee-vee subject—goth daytime soap Dark Shadows—into epiphanies of love and loss, but also fashion and history. In its own weird, OCD way, The Punishment Book vampires time itself beyond the boundaries of the undead. —Jack Skelley
Daniel Y. Harris’ The Posthuman Series is an intoxicating brew of quasis: scientific, esoteric, bibliographic, geologic, lettristic. Who knows what poetry lurks in the heart of codes? It’s as if we are privy to the history of knowledge from its other side, before as much as after. These poems are an explosion in a pataquerics factory. —Charles Bernstein
Koronas makes me see words that aren’t there. Her gnōstos is mantic, and her Sophia—the liquid crystal wombed God—inseminates with ink, strumous as an ethotic alley (i.e., a post-bodied diachronic polysemic strangulation). gnōstos is our proleptic apocalypse; “the last Oedipus/licks his gonads.” —Tom Prime
"Eros, like Lear, must sometimes wander unhoused across a cruel landscape. How wonderful, then, to read the poetry of Cassandra Manzolillo, there to find desire sheltered in its brightest insouciance and in the full flourish of actual yearning. There is a tireless, guileless presence in these poems that I find both admirable and original." —Donald Revell
1992. The war rages in Bosnia and Croatia. In Slovenia, which has escaped the war’s horrors on its own soil, a high school graduate finds herself profoundly shattered. Unable to transition from the safe environment of the high school to the loosely structured student life, struggling to come to grips with an unsuccessful relationship and tormented by her helplessness in the face of the war, she embarks on a harrowing search for the meaning of her existence. But the streets of Ljubljana leave her empty-handed. Until something changes. A visitor comes by.
American Outrage provides an innovative approach to the seemingly intractable problem of gun violence in the United States. Fresh and moving, yet cerebral and somber. At a time when powerful voices are most needed, H. L. Hix has answered the call. — Louis Klarevas
William Huhn’s Bachelor Holiday is a bittersweet, multi-dimensional recollection—of past loves, historical mysteries, moments of weather, of philosophical obsession—whose subject range and command of language dazzles. —Rachel Abramowitz
In Tender Travis Cebula transforms raw, emotional experiences into preserved moments of artful reflection. —Janaka Stucky
Like W. E. B. Du Bois finding solace in his library, Norton moves back and across “the color line,” sits with Shakespeare, Fanny Howe, James Joyce, Toni Morrison, etc., and they wince not, welcoming her into their esteemed company. —Tyrone Williams
Stephen Bett’s new book SongBu®st sounds like a ship-wrecked wit (“We are coast people”) riffing at the end of the world. Here you’ll find snippets of old American pop songs morphed into takes on gun carnage and quotes from tech bros, each separated from the other by an “infrathin delay.” —Rae Armantrout
Polaroids of Turbulence is a chronicle of culture trouble, a verse report of the unfathomable depths of our times: “barbarism’s eternal return.” Sussman’s sharp observations and linguistic play mark a “jagged trajectory” through “the outerbanks of / introspection.” —Nancy Kuhl
Epilogue is a brilliant collection of Craig Watson’s late-stage poetry. As such, it signals neither harmony nor resolution, but intransigence, difficulty, and unresolved conflict. This dazzling, posthumous work admits the reader into a shimmering, luminous present. —Kit Robinson
Mostly, Cycholl proceeds in dismay for the beggaring of his world. prairie)d is the song of a grieving poet. It tells of the water which dribbles muddily through a once-garden and into lives malformed by manias of profit. —Dennis Cooley
BlazeVOX an.online.journal.of.voice
Presenting fine works of poetry, fiction, text art, visual poetry and arresting works of creative non-fiction written by authors from around world
Check out the new issue of BlazeVOX
Thanksgiving Menu Poem
a concept poem structured around the thanksgiving meal
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a concept poem structured around the thanksgiving meal 〰️
Welcome to the Thanksgiving Menu-Poem. This project is a conceptual meal served as poetry for the thousands of friends I would love to have at our home on Thanksgiving Day.
This series began in 2002 with a Menu-Poem to honor Charles Bernstein, and since then this series engages Thanksgiving as the basis to celebrate poetry, poets, and the poetry community. Being a trained professional chef, I have blended my love of food and poetry into a book-length work as a feast of words and art to bring everyone a tiny bit closer together.
Phoneme Blog
BlazeVOX’s Phoneme Blog provides timely and insightful coverage of the latest BX news and events. Stay informed with our articles, interviews, and reviews.
Charles Rammelkamp talks about his book, THE TRAPEZE OF YOUR FLESH on Meat for Teacast
Linda Norton, Cloud of Witnesses named one of The Progressive Magazine’s Favorite Books of 2024
David Trinidad's Sleeping with Bashō featured in California Review of Books 31 Outstanding Poetry Books from 2024!
Welcome to the annual Thanksgiving Menu-Poem for 2024! This year, we invite you to partake in a unique celebration that blends the art of poetry with the warmth of a shared meal—an homage to our cherished literary community. Since its inception in 2002, this project has served not just as a literary project, but as a gathering of friends, as if we were together at table joined in a common meal, each contributing to a rich tapestry of poetic expression to celebrate the holiday.
Jeffery Conway’s Showgirls - The Movie in Sestinas has garnered another mention in a recent New York Times article!
Wolf Twin Review! Sheila Murphy . . . the Gertrude Stein Award-winning author, artist, musician, and American text and visual poet. AUGUST FEATURED POET
Stephen Bett’s SongBu®st is reviewed in Billy Mills blog, ELLIPTICAL MOVEMENTS.
BlazeVOX [books] author Roger Craik has taken Second Place in the 2024 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry! The final judge for this year’s prize was Paisley Rekdal.
Reviewed by Shannon Vare Christine
Daniel Y. Harris is interviewed by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino
Though they have not always received due credit for their contribution among the oral (and, of course, musical) artistic innovations that have dominated the history of poetics in Detroit, George and Chris Tysh have been crucial to the development of a materialist countertradition of poetics, literary and otherwise.
Exploring
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Our books push at the frontiers of what is possible with our innovative poetry, fiction and select non-fiction and literary criticism. Our fundamental mission is to disseminate poetry, through print and digital media, both within academic spheres and to society at large.
Discover more about BlazeVOX [books], how to submit work, our Staff, and how to contact us in our FAQ page.
Mary Newell’s ecopoetry is a sensate journey of the deep web that extends from her Hudson Highlands garden, her observation posts, her camera’s lens into the more-than-human world. —Petra Kuppers