JERRY #1

2010

Our goal in the first issue of JERRY was to publish a “cacophony of voices” that represent contemporary poetry and prose.  While we knew what a huge task that would be, Issue 1 hopefully begins that project, the first chord of our song.  

The poetry and prose in JERRY capitalizes on the opportunity to incorporate unlikely language, unlikely inspiration, whether in Timothy Donnelly's mash-up of Osama bin Laden and Jed Clampitt in “Dream of Arabian Hillbillies” or Dan Bevacqua's story of an actor driven to a strange L.A. madness.  The poetry of Rusty Morrison, Jane Gregory and Nancy Kuhl all explore the possiblity of the lyric, arranging their beauty and into shapes and sounds.  The intimacy of family and friends is central to Stefan de la Garza and Lisa Monroy's prose, while there is intense intimacy in Tomaz Salamun's haunting lyric “Jasa”: “burn like a stem, child, kill yourself.”  But it's in Steve Langan's “Twenty-Two Bedtime Stories” that we find the mantra for JERRY: “Let's refuse to say no to beauty.”