Index2

     The first on-line FlashPøint offered a
light sampling of art in this tradition, including Amiri Baraka and Andrea Zemel.
More of their work will appear in the next FlashPøint. Amiri Baraka — poet, playwright, and man of all arts — has also contributed this issue’s headline image.

     Joe Brennan’s meditation on L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry in the last
FlashPøint , “A=R=T M=E=A=N=S”, provoked vigorous responses from Henry Gould and Mark Wallace, to which Mr.
Brennan as vigorously replies. This is the kind of lively
exchange FlashPøint invites. Mark Wallace also gives us his own meditations on
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E and post-L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetries in
an exploratory self-cross-examination.

     One exemplar of an older poetry, a/k/a High Modernism,
receives fresh attention from Brad Haas in “David Jones:
The Poet’s Place and the Sleeping Lord.”

     Founding editors Brennan and Carlo Parcelli fire new
shots-across-the-bow in both poetry and prose. Brennan parries
Parcelli’s “Who Hired Bill Moyers to Destroy American
Poetry?” with his own query: “Why is Parcelli So
Angry?”. A new probe from Brennan’s “Work in
Progress” also appears beside a further descent into
Parcelli’s Inferno, “Work in Regress: Deconstruing the
Demiurge.” Both also make immodest contributions to a modest intro to L’affaire SOKAL.

      FlashPøint is especially devoted to poetry
in the Pound-Olson tradition, which is not narrow. Clayton Eshleman, David Hickman, and Mark Scroggins may or may not identify themselves with
that tradition, but FlashPøint is very pleased to
feature their work in its own celebration of Pound, Olson, and progeny.

     The tradition in fiction FlashPøint celebrates is not only the Rival Tradition
championed by Ronald Sukenick — and in which
Steve Katz (Swanny’s Ways, Wier & Pouce, The Exagggerations of Peter Prince) and Brian Clark here ambinimbly perform. It’s also
the modernist tradition in all its variety on the outré margins
of the mainstream. Jeff VanderMeer, who favors the dark
fantastic (see Dradin, In Love, Buzzcity Press), has located it
in the FlashPøint zone with “Henry
Dreams of Angkor Wat.” D.N. Stuefloten — whose Mexican
Trilogy (FC2) was honored with denunciation by Rep. Peter
Hoekstra (R-MI) — mixes media in “Apertures.” A portfolio of his “Aperture” photos also appears in this issue’s galerie.

     “Lee Harvey Oswald, Deep Classic American Hero” is, by
contrast, a study in mainstream American fiction — discovering Lee
Harvey Oswald as quintessentially a creature ficted of words (a
few photos and some kinescope footage), who comes straight out
of the heart of American imagination.

     We have also engaged in public service this time by providing a modest introduction to the Alan Sokal hoax and fallout which continue to boil many pots, including ours.

     Patrol with us again this illuminated frontier — and don’t forget to … tell us what you think!