It would be very easy to go off on a tangent about absinthe. I had a curiosity about absinthe from reading great 19th century French poets like Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire. It wasn't until 1996 when I first visited Prague that I finally got to engage in the Green Fairy.

So absinthe continues to hold a mystical aura for me. So anytime, I hear the word, it calls my attention. So I was curious when I learned of an online literary journal called The Absinthe Literary Review. It certainly called to mind many literary heroes as well as memories from my own experiences in Praha.

It will be awhile before I return to Prague or the current government officials become enlightened and allow it to be sold in the U.S. so I will have to be content with a literary journal. The Absinthe Literary Review was started in 1998. It is a free and new editions are released twice a year. Prior to this year, there were three issues released per year. The home page features a mock bottle of absinthe with the journal name. A list of ingredients to the side guides one to the various reading choices.

The issues have six sections: The Wormwood Collective, Dropping Balm, Hyssop & Hermetics, The Grey Area, Essay D'Absinthe and Book Reviews. Each of the first four sections will feature short fiction and poetry. Usually there will be one short story and one poet featured. There will often be several poems by the selected poet. Sometimes there may be more than one poet with a single poem apiece.

I click on The Wormwood Collective and find a Summary Execution, a short story by Davis Schneiderman and Henri d'Mescan and Poems by Sebastian Levy. I didn't read the short story yet. There are three poems by Levy including one called Robbie Williams Wears a Heart on His @rse. This deals with the hero worship bestowed upon this British star with hints of latent homosexual fantasy. Levy seems to have a firm grasp on modern British culture which lends a modern tone to the work.

The poems tend to lean toward avant garde and surrealist tones. The Summer 2003 edition features in the different sections poems by Oswald LeWinter, Duane Locke and Robert P Beveridge. If the names are unfamiliar to you, they were also unfamiliar to me. Some of the poems were very good and others left me cold. But it is always of interest to me to find new literary figures to admire and worship. Most of my longtime heroes are dying off so I can search here for new literary geniuses to champion.

Of interest to me in this current issue is an essay on Percy Bysshe Shelley. This 19th Century Romantic has always been a figure I have been intrigued with. I started reading his poems when I was 15. At times, I am very inspired by his writing. At other times, I find him to be tedious and long-winded. The essay here written by Gary Sloan is titled Shelley: Angelic Atheist and deals with the philosophical implications of Shelley's atheism.

The Absinthe Literary Review also features an archive for those that wish to consult past issues. One note is that not all the writing from past issues will be available. When I decided to check out some of the past issues, I found that some of the poems and stories will spur a Page not available. Others are easy to bring up. I was able to check out an essay written on Nietzsche written by written by Jason DeBoer from the Autumn 2000 edition.

This is really a great discovery for me. It is filled with a lot of writers and poets that I am unfamiliar with. I am sure that some will become new favorites and others will be forgotten. But it is good to have a source for new inspiration. They also seem to take the work very seriously. This is really for people who tend to like literature over pop writing. The tone is geared a bit toward the more salacious aspects of literature though. They do not shy away from offending people. There is a reading list where they recommend many writers including Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Franz Kafka, Georges Bataille, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Knut Hamsun and Lao Tzu. To say there is a subversive intellectual leaning would be understatement.

This is something that I highly recommend to those with strong literary leanings. The ALR is free so it doesn't cost anything to check out. They have an e-mail list for anyone that wishes to be alerted to upcoming issues and other matters of interest. I was quick to add my e-mail to their list.





Recommended: Yes