INTRODUCTIONS: A READING LOOP

Below find a group of younger, highly talented writers, and one visual artist, whom you may be encountering for the first time, although several of them have already made their way to other lists and anthologies introducing their remarkable work. You will be glad to hear of them again, and no doubt will.

Jennifer Chang Jennifer Chang’s work has been included in several anthologies designed to introduce the work of up-and-coming writers; her striking poems calmly conquer readers with the tremendous energy that comes from restrained, precise diction coupled with revelatory and provocative phrasing.

Kathy Flann Kathy Flann is living something of an expatriate adventure: an American writer teaching at a British university. Perhaps that faraway circumstance contributes something to her being such a deft, expert writer on the subjects of loss, memory, and the dangers of nostalgia. In this story of pain, and partial redemption, brought about by the regrets of a man haunted by his failed first marriage, she navigates the depths of sadness in his situation by memorably portraying the shock of disease, both literal and metaphorical.

Benjamin S. Jones Benjamin S. Jones, describes his art as “hyperbolic amalgams that borrow from the worlds of design, architecture, engineering, urban planning and popular culture.” Jones moves from making large sculptures in the physical world to modelling structures in virtual space using VR QuickTime technology. Of these digtal works for the Web, Jones writes “I prefer to think of them as propositions, not quite tangible but undeniably unique entities.”

Alison Stine Alison Stine’s work is successfully mesmerizing in part because of her uncanny ability to take materials from the familiar and turn them in the light of imagination until they reveal unexpected facets of myth and mystery. She writes with the profound respect and care which is reverence—like the beings in her poems, she is tuned in.

Sarah Vap It is difficult to characterize Sarah Vap’s work without wishing to offer some simple advice—just go right ahead, tighten the cinch and cowboy-up, then jump on and ride, reader, ride. These are marvelously fresh, unique poems that break new ground and generously repay repeated readings, as all good poems, like all good songs, must.

Scott Yarbrough “Abuelita,” Scott Yarbrough’s hilarious and charming story, takes up the theme of “family” in a remarkable and surprising way—what one might ordinarily expect to be a story revealing the oppressiveness of an Old World grandma turns out rather eerily to present a tale that brings to life the possibility of an ancient order—the crone’s wisdom—that underlies the architecture of the present and might just keep the venerable globe spinning.

“Introductions” texts appear in different sections of Blackbird but are organized in this alternative menu, a featured reading loop allowing easy navigation of the material.

An “Introductions” menu link appears at the bottom of every “Introductions”-related page. You may also return to this menu at any time by visiting Features.