Unstressed

  • Poetry
  • Culture
  • Design

A weblog from the editors of Linebreak

The regulars

Ash Bowen's poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Blackbird, and Black Warrior Review, among other publications. He lives and works in Texarkana, AR.

Jennifer Jabaily's poetry has appeared in Mannequin Envy and Fickle Muses. She's a second-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Ashley Anna McHugh is a third-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Measure, DIAGRAM and Memorious as well as other publications.

Johnathon Williams's poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2009, the Pebble Lake Review, and Unsplendid. He lives in Fayetteville, AR, with his wife and daughters.

Schlock and awe

You may know the site Good Reads but if you don’t and you’re into books, I recommend it. “Into books” is a little different than “likes to read,” but that’ll do, too.

I know a lot of people already spend too much time on the internet — blogging, or “networking” on Facebook, or looking for guacamole recipes. Still Good Reads is an interesting place to read book reviews from aficionados and normal people and fellow poets and maybe even some readers you know in the flesh.

If you want to catalog your books of course that can take time, but you can also categorize or stick to poetry, and branch out when you feel like it. If you have a book you can plug it there. One of my favorite things is browsing people’s favorite books, and finding people I share a favorite with. (Go, Jesus’ Son! Go Green Squall!)

Readers can shelve their books according to genre and all the predictables are there like mystery and magical realism and WWII, but people create odder categories, too. I have one called “schlock,” and I’ve seen some great ones like “threw it at the wall,” “sex and baseball,” “overrated,” “sleaze,” “books that gave me a rash,” and the very enigmatic “cheryl.”

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