One of the best things about this zine is its crafty cover made of paper sprinkled with irregularly shaped sparkles, three rectangles pasted one over the other on different angles and then an irregular-shaped piece of fine red mesh sewn overtop. It is also conveniently pocket sized, as the editor points out in the preface-and she suggests we carry it with us for our next moment of repose. This is a good suggestion: the zine includes a variety of different sources of stimulation: photography, a drawing, and some computer generated visual art as well as poetry and very short prose. Tumbler is composed of the work of eight different contributors. The poetry of Shiralee Hudson titillates, especially thanks to her talent for alliteration. The visual art of Blair Prentice also stimulates, involving images within images. Unfortunately, I found the photography of Jennie Cherniack too familiar to awaken my senses: a nude female torso and legs. Also, one poem on heartbreak by Carmen Toth particularly got under my skin with the annoyingly adolescent lines, “–I have no heart anymore, forevermore. / Anymore-evermore-forevermore. / Anymore-nevermore-forevermore.” Still, most of the contributors seemed to have potential and I hope they keep on creating. The editor welcomes submissions of art, poetry, and micro -fiction and -nonfiction for their next issue set for Spring 2006. With the first issue under its belt, Tumbler can only get better. (Nancy Duncan)
issue 1, Autumn 2005, zine, 23, pages, Pettingill Press, 343 Gladstone Avenue, Toronto, ON, M6H 3H5, [email protected]