Kurt Malkames - Assignment #9

After looking at dozens of journals – I ended up choosing one called Fogged Clarity (foggedclarity.com). It is an independent journal based out of Muskegon, Missouri and it publishes a magazine 12 times per year (another way of saying monthly). They like to describe their magazine as being as “unconstrained” as thought itself. They have an estimated base of 15,000 readers monthly. Past issues have included a wide range of topics including, but not limited to, poetry. I choose to review the current April edition. Starting out I was unable to recognize any of the poets from my extremely limited base of reference, however, this certainly didn’t mean they were equally as entertaining as some of the ones I am familiar with. Alongside the poems, the table of contents also included fiction, visuals, aural pieces, polemics, nonfiction, and even other reviews. The manifesto of the journal states that they aim to focus on the importance of creation. Ben Evans, the executive editor, states that “For me Fogged Clarity is the light caught on the canvas of a rain-slicked street…”. I took this to mean that what he aims to showcase is the sort of spontaneous creativity. The logo of the magazine seems to reflect this spontaneous nature. The smoke dissipating into air has a path that not even the best scientist could ever figure out – it is completely unpredictable and spontaneous. After looking at the magazine as a whole I begin to actually read some of the poetry. Most of the poems seemed to have a pessimistic outlook on things. Dark and shady was the underlying theme. Things like drugs and confusion were mentioned throughout the seven poems on display in this issue – sort of reminiscent of that hazy and spontaneous manifesto. Every poem did have some sort of structure to it although I was unable to explicitly identify any one. I think the works of Wallace Stevens (Of Mere Being comes to mind) seem to be most akin to what I read in this journal. The imagery was excellent and the ideas were far out – yet still graspable. My favorite poem was 1.21 Jigowatts by Daniel Romo. This was the only poem I have read that actually incorporated a specific current event into it – in this case the US Olympic hockey teams in the gold medal game. Because nearly everyone can relate to this moment in time – it is easy to pick on the emotions the author is trying to express. Daniel Romo has been published in Praxilla, Connotation Press, and The Acentos Review. My least favorite was X by Randall Mann, simply because I didn’t feel I got enough out of it. Yes, it was short, but I wished he had expanded on some of the imagery a bit more. What was there was great but I’d like to be able to read on. Maybe that is up to me. I am certainly willing to read pieces from this magazine again. I have even bookmarked the website in my browser for future reference. If poetry becomes my “thing” it would be an honor to publish in this magazine. Wallace Stevens was my favorite poet of the semester so far, and if this magazine is in that flavor then I would be delighted to be considered in that same style.