New online journal issues

This has been a rather good weekend for new issues of online journals of American Studies and general academic interest.

The excellent poetry journal out of UBC, Vancouver - Studio - has its second issue out, or at least ready for a sneak preview here. The editor, Rishma Dunlop, is an excellent poet in her own right and the journal does a good job both presenting established and emergent poets, and in providing essays on poetry, particularly pertaining to the pedagogical aspects of using poetry in the classroom (check the Poetry & Education section). The first issue of Studio had especially interesting stuff by multicultural poet Meena Alexander who is a terrific voice both poetically and intellectually. The current issue has excellent stuff from Robert Gibbons (here pursuing an O'Hara-like poetry of the quotidian) and Evie Shockley (poignant prose fragments), among others, both of whom I highly recommend checking out. You can also read a short review, written by myself, of an online chapbook by Gibbons.

By fortuitous coincidence, this weekend also sees the publication of the new issue of Janus Head, an interdisciplinary journal which covers literature, art, philosophy and psychology. Janus Head is entering its 10th volume and all essays are available online as PDF-files as well as in a print volume form. This issue has particularly interesting essays on iconic representations of suffering in Buddhism and Catholicism (a neat a propos to our recent discussions of American icons on this blog) by Alan Pope, and on race and gender issues in the work of poet Sylvia Plath by Ellen Miller. In the fiction and poetry section we again find Robert Gibbons, this time decidedly more political and historical in his deadly accurate aim. One should also not miss the 14 Paul Celan poems featured in translation in this issue.