Did you all read John Madera’s generous review of the first issue of Artifice?
No? Read it.
Thanks John!
Although I disagree with John regarding Derek Phillips’ poem (I found it delightful), his review absolutely captures the deliberate editorial vision that sets Artifice apart from its peers and makes it one of the most exciting publications in which my work has appeared.
Probably a lot of you have already ordered Artifice’s first issue. But maybe some of you haven’t. Maybe some of you are poor.
I am offering readers of Big Other a special opportunity to win a copy of Artifice’s first issue.
First, a bit abt the genesis of my own text.
“My Mother’s Funeral” was inspired by a poem Molly Gaudry wrote and posted in her blog called, “Some Mornings, Even a Cup of Coffee is Violence,” a title derived from a Barry Hannah quote by way of Josh Maday’s blog. Molly’s poem was assembled using found sentences from friends’ literary blogs, and was a lovely and startling expression of collective melancholy.
It was one of my first experiences of “found text” (I’ve since discovered William Walsh, David Trinidad, and lots of other cool folks working with found material), and I decided I wanted to do something similar, but with prose and narrative. I culled a number of sentences from blogs I subscribed to in my Google Reader — sentences that excited me for their syntax, sound, content, etc. I assembled them into a narrative. I tweaked a couple for shit like tense agreement. The process was messy and I forgot where some of the sentences came from.
Artifice published this piece in their first issue. It is called “My Mother’s Funeral.” You can read it here.
So here’s the contest part — I want you to identify the sentences. Where did they come from? Which blogs? The person who can identify the sources for the greatest number of sentences will win a copy of Artifice Issue 1. And perhaps something else exciting from my personal collection of extra copies of books and magazines. You are allowed to use Google.
Email your contest entry to knockonformica@gmail.com by Monday, April 5th.
Get hoppin.