and/or: word, image, provocation

The second volume of and/or is now out and I'm fairly happy with the results.  This journal was born out of a conversation I had with my colleague, Damian Hey.  We were lazing around my office one summer about two years ago, looking at a recent issue of Vulcan Magazine.  I've always been a fan of this quirky journal and greatly admire the funky sensibilities of those who put it together.

"We should do our own journal of experimental writing and art," Damian said wistfully to me as he flipped through the pages of Vulcan. 

"Ok," I said. "Let's do it."

Less than three months later we had a website up, a rigorous editorial process for reviewing submissions, and a few months after that our first issue was available on-line and in public and university libraries. 

Now our second volume is out and I think that it is even more interesting than the first volume. My criterion for really good art is simple: does it provoke me, excite me, shock me, challenge my perspective on life, or at least give me a good chuckle? If art does any of these things, then it's "good art." Based upon this standard, V2 is damned masterpiece!

Last week I was at the Poet's House in Manhattan, which is rapidly becoming my favorite hangout spot in the City.  I was rummaging through the bookcase filled with all recent poetry journals, and there under "A" was and/or.  Being an obsessively competitive person, I couldn't stop myself comparing the recent edition of our journal to the others on the shelves.  I'm delighted to say that and/or ranked right up there in terms of content and design with some of the most prestigious poetry journals in the country.  Credit for that has to go to Damian Hey, the Editor-in-Chief, and our four amazing literary and art editors (Orchid Tierney, Aimee Herman, Don Hazlitt, and George Kayaian) who spent an enormous amount of time going through the stacks of submissions that we received from contributors.  Great work, folks!

Update on Volumes 2 and 3 of and/or:

V2 has just received a very nice review from Camille Martin on her blog Rogue Embryo.   Many thanks for the kind words, Camille!

We are now beginning the process of going through the plethora of submissions that we've received for V3, and, once our editorial staff has selected the strongest pieces to include, I'll begin the process of laying out the journal.  Since the submissions that we've received for this issue are extremely good, I am going to make it my mission to design a layout for this edition that is as visually dynamic as it can possibly be.