zine review:
Misunderstandings Magazine
Volume 11 of Misunderstandings Magazine has a lovely aesthetic. It falls somewhere between the earnestness and intimacy of a book published by a high school and the indie spirit of a true zine. It’s well laid-out, well-presented and Robert Malinowski’s illustrations make me think of Alex Colville, if he did surrealist art. That’s a definite plus in my book. Unfortunately, the poetry itself is not as polished. The majority of the poets featured in this volume seem to subscribe to the school of thought that indie art should be pretentiously opaque. They shower the page with disjointed thoughts and call it poetry. There are some stronger poems, notably Saeed Jones’s “The End of Days Diner” and Adrienne Gruber’s “Taxonomy,” but a handful of skillful verse is not enough to balance out the false preciousness of the rest. This one is for free verse and indie poetry fans only. (J. Blackmore)
Litzine, Jim Johnstone (Ed), misunderstandingsmagazine.com