Sunday, July 29, 2007

BRICK magazine


I picked up a copy of my favourite literary magazine - BRICK - the other day and discovered (like many such magazines I imagine) they were having financial woes. So for now, they have found some sponsors and supporters, and also seriously expanded their circulation in the US.

I don't know if you experience the same thing as I do, but go to the "art magazine" section of a major bookstore and newsstand, and there are may half a dozen good photography magazines if you are lucky, but probably two or three shelves of literary magazines. I never quite knew which to pick (and many of them looked terribly boring) when I was browsing them until I started reading BRICK. Now it's probably the only one I get regularly (okay, it's only out twice a year...).

It always has some good articles and pieces in it (especially, though not only, literary non-fiction). Michael Ondaatje is on the editorial board (among others) - in fact the current issue has a delightful conversation between Ondaatje and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche - whose book Half of a Yellow Sun is awaiting me at the library. As well as Arnold Schoenberg’s dictates on art, Jim Harrison has his fill, and more.

The other nice thing about it is that it frequently has some interesting photography tucked into it here and there (in this issue, among others, by Martin Helmut Reis - though I couldn't find the particular ones online).


Although my favourite in this edition is Peter Glassgold's translation of William Carlos Williams The Red Wheelbarrow into Old English:



Seo Reade Hweolbaerwe

swa miċel hangaþ
on

Readre hweol
bearwan

Glasiġre of reġen
Wætere

Be sidan þæm hwitan
ċycenum



(read the original here)


So maybe look out for it on your local US (and Canadian) newsstand if you are across this side of the Pond - or even buy a subscription.



(Two B&W photos - Martin Helmut Reis)


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