I feel like there are always "best albums of the summer," or a "best track of the summer". I like to have a best album of the winter. Mainly because I stay indoors, huddled in my my room, listening to music more in the winter, but also because I love the gloom and mild depression winter makes me feel. Love Remains by How to Dress Well is my current album of the winter. It sounds like 90s R&B (think PM Dawn or Zhane), pumped through a haunted forest. Or music a DJ would play at a prom for zombies.
Jason Bredle's new book of poems, SMILES OF THE UNSTOPPABLE is great. I recently did an interview with Jason over at BOMBlog. I think the interview turned out pretty good. Jason's poems wear their heart on their sleeve and blend humor and pathos to catalytic effect. My favorites in this collection are "Dark Energy," and "Earth Night," but all the poems have something to offer. Plus SMILES OF THE UNSTOPPABLE was published by Magic Helicopter Press, a unique entity, worthy of your attention.
This quote by some dude named Coleridge is rad. If I've ever had any explicit aims for my poems, this would pretty much sum them up:
"The common end of all narrative, nay of all Poems, is to convert a series in to a Whole: to make those events, which in real or imagined History move on in circular motion- the snake with its Tail in its Mouth."
There are tons of great online journals, but not all of them are the full package. Some have great taste, but low end production value. Others seem indistinguishable from their counterparts in terms of the pool of writers they draw from and or their design. But every now and then a journal pops up, fully formed. It looks sharp, its editorial taste is perfecto, and it has nice extras like a well maintained blog. PAPERBAG is like that. I'm excited to see where this journal goes in the future, because after two issues I really like the cut of their jib.
