Among The Neighbors

Small presses, imprints, and reading series hold an incredibly important role in the development of artistic communities, movements, and aesthetic values. I strongly recommend AMONG THE NEIGHBORS, a magazine series — effectively a monograph series — edited by Edric Mesmer under his auspices as Poetry Cataloguer at SUNY Buffalo. Mesmer is also a poet (check out his BlazeVox title Poems: now and then), and brings a passion for poetry to his editing, each volume highlights a historic or contemporary poetic community. Each issue is vital, providing bibliographical information, personal narratives, interviews and historic overviews of ephemeral publishing venues which have transformed the scene.

A special note should also be made of rob mclennan’s blog post on Among The Neighbors, perhaps the only piece of criticism in response to the series to date. (I’ve swiped the photograph for this post from rob’s blog…)

There have been 23 issues to date. The first 10 issues are available as free downloadable PDFs but physical copies of every issue are also available for free. Email Edric Mesmer at esmesmer@buffalo.edu for more information…

AMONG THE NEIGHBORS #1-23:

23 – Published at the Poetry Project: a bibliography of the little magazines and small press books published at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church In-The Bowery / Nick Sturm

22 – “Kindred Spirits Spark”: An Exploration of the Origins and Evolution of The Sisters of Color Writers Collective and its Literary Journal SEEDS / Esperanza Cintrón and Lori Anderson Moseman

21 – A Bibliography of Belladonna* Collaborative Chaplets 2000–2020 / Krystal Languell

20 – An Imaginary Cartography of Constellations & Cloud Forms / The Neighbors, collated by series editor Edric Mesmer

19.2 – About Telephone: An Interview with Maureen Owen / M.C. Kinniburgh

19.1 – About Telephone: An Introduction & Bibliography / M.C. Kinniburgh

18 – Silver in My Mines: Peter Hay’s Work for Two Rivers Press, 1994-2003 / Geoff Sawers

17 – “some nights I stay there, some nights I don’t”: Top Stories, Fiction Diction, and the Work of Donna Wyszomierski / Edric Mesmer

16 – Talking of Curtains / Paul Buck

15 – Umbra magazine (1963-1974): An Introduction and Bibliography / David Grundy

14 – On The Doris / Tamas Panitz & Billie Chernicoff, editors

13 – To Breathe Poetry Among the Neighbors: Two Essays on Anerca, a Journal of Experimental Writing (1985-1990) / Adeena Karasick & Kedrick James

12 – Reading Piglets: Westerly Magazine, metadata, and the play of digital access to literary publication / Catherine Noske

11 – Washington, DC Poetry: Mass Transit and Folio Books Reading Series / Tina Darragh, with an appendix by Edric Mesmer