Misunderstandings Magazine is a poetry zine, but it’s really the art and the layout of it that’s most compelling. First of all, the pages are lettered rather than numbered, and the motif of letters all mixed up and askew runs throughout the zine. It works. The art pieces– illustrations and photographs like Adam Jeffries Schwartz’s “In search of”, Annie Wong’s “Antipixel”, Jesse Ferguson’s “Flea”, and Vicki Sloot’s “An Avocado Life”–are all most engaging in terms of composition and design. And the best poems here are also the ones that use the visual arrangement of text to communicate meaning as much as the words themselves, such as clay mccann’s “freeway poems” and Mike Freeman’s “TXT MSGS 2 MRCL DCHMP.” Where most zines, especially poetry zines, are usually (intentionally) stark, the fact that this one is attractive to the eye as well as the mind is a cool and effective surprise. (Richard Rosenbaum)
poetry, $3, 1392 Queen Street East, Toronto, ON, M4L 1C9, www.misunderstandingsmagazine.com