The Challenging Nature of Fence Magazine

As Fence Magazine's attention to detail is remarkable, one can see even from the cover the juxtaposition of the new and old, attacking assumptions with new poetic tools, and the critique of current society through comparison to the old. The cover and the few similar pieces which unfortunately only span the magazine with regularity until page twelve, are spin offs of lithographs with the addition of certain surrealist and Dadaist influences. One such lithograph/collage pictures a hand with soap written on it in the sky.

In this way the poetry of Fence's second magazine in their twelfth volume stems from an irreverence and utilization of the past to question the current status quo, most notably through the reinterpretation of language. Catherine Wagner and Lara Glenum attack and play with the confines of language. In fact Wagner's irreverence and disregard for decorum almost turns into gibberish in her poem "Coming and I Did Not Run Away:"

Brand spankin hanky pankin

new periodical

in my uterus

yest I cried

thought I was going

NUTSO

Yet Wagner's work represents gibberish in the most constructive way possible, a gibberish which forces one to think about the everyday language they use. Her last stanza "I saw the 'usual turn of phrase' / coming and I did not run away / I lay around" embodies this irreverence for the "usual" and the need to seek stronger definitions for language.

Working in Wagner's vein of reinterpretation and investigation, Lara Glenum works to reclaim and debase demeaning language. For instance in her poem "Hypnic Jerk" she writes:

or so I told Mino

while taking pipe

My cunt grew all sing-songy

amid his pettifogging miracles

& coughed out a deer head

Here Glenum ropes in a classical reference to "Mino" and the unusual word "pettifogging, while bringing the harmful word "cunt" out into the open. This juxtaposition creates a jarring image for the reader, one where "usual turns of phrase" are turned upside down and then chopped with a hatchet.

Yet this call for reinterpretation of social norms is not limited to language. Christine Herzer and Jose Perez Beduya show us that a reinterpretation of identity is also necessary. For instance Beduya's line "An ethical relation among things / He was completely gone / The Absolute / Propped up by a broomstick" shows how the "he" and the "absolute," no longer find secure footing, precipitating further personal exploration. Herzer's work seems to follow in Beduya's message concerning the absence of an ethical relationship. Moreover Herzer represents her "narrator" as many separate, non linear and paradoxical themes. Her poem "Please Erase as Many Lines as You Need" displays this:

i come from a non-verbal background

...

i dont have to break my privacy to be honest

...

people like you need to fuck people like me

Such an illogical development shows the conflict inherent in self and the need to reinterpret identity on less divisive, exclusionary terms.

Fence's latest issue captivates the reader through meaningful insight into language and identity, utilizing the framework of the past to jar our present notions and assumptions.