finished reading Temblor #3 this morning. i've read 4 issues of the magazine thus far. #1,2,3 and 8. i've had the same experience of dread upon starting each issue and then the same feeling of relief upon finishing each issue. i love [old] magazines. i'm a collector of old magazines. i own all 10 issues of Leland Hickman's groundbreaking [??] journal Temblor. i bought them from Green Apple in 2002. it was a big haul, each issue cost 10 dollars, George Albon who was working the counter gave me a complimentary Green Apple tote bag because it was such a large haul (i still use the tote today for produce shopping). Kevin Killian told me that all those Temblor's probably belonged to Lew Ellingham (which is neat). over the years i've also scored an almost complete set of David Levi-Strauss and Benjamin Hollander's ACTS as well as a smattering of rare and lesser known mags like Steve Abbott's Soup, Cyanosis (out of Santa Rosa), James Schuyler's Broadway and Aram Saroyan's Lines et al. so yeah, i really really love old po-magazines. but Temblor, man, Temblor is kind of a drag.

Temblor is a medical journal. it looks like one and it reads like one. each issue is about 140-160 pages. all covers are a variation of 70's ranch house brown. each issue is filled with a gaggle of poets that appeared in earlier issues (Language based mostly). each issue contains anywhere from 4-6 "compleat" sections where the poets' work is featured at chapbook length. you'd think the "compleats" would rule, it's a pretty cool idea (and probably the first magazine to do it), but they don't, they are tedious (no matter how good the work)...i don't know if it's Hickman's editorial POV that wears on me, or that is seems like the same coterie of names appear throughout the entire run, or if it's the monotone-stucco design aesthetic that bums me out, or simply the daunting size of each issue that turns me off (poems bleeding into poems which in my experience often happens with oversize issues). actually, it's all of these things, but it's also the knowledge that groundbreaking, rigorous AND entertaining magazines like Soup and Jimmy & Lucy's House Of "K" and Life Of Crime were contemporaneous with Temblor. Temblor is decidedly not entertaining.

so i finished Temblor #3 this morning (that's when i read these magazines, in the morning before showering) and picked up Lines #5. the energy of the two magazines couldn't be further apart. (Granted Lines came out 20 years before Temblor but that shouldn't preclude it). Lines is a magazine - Temblor is a journal. i prefer magazines. but because i have this weird OCD thing where i have to read cover to cover every book i've ever purchased in order of the date of purchase i have 6 more issues of Temblor to get though. and in a way this is actually a good thing. i'm constantly being forced (by myself) to read books i'd otherwise pass on. like Jane Eyre (which dates in The Order to around 1997), which i'm reading right now, and 250 pages in i'm finally enjoying. on the other hand with poetry i'm on the year 2002 (books by friends are exempt), so last week i read Forest Gander's Torn Awake (a book i bought in '02), and it was the worst...but now i know that i don't care for Forest Gander. and that's a good thing. so if i had it my way i probably wouldn't read the remaining issues of Temblor, but i don't really have it my way, my weird tics are going to make me finish the full run. and i'm glad about that. after all, as much as i don't like the journal, it has it's place in West Coast poetry history, and i'm experiencing that historical moment albeit 25 years later. and i appreciate that. i'm just not entertained by it.

thinking i need to start BOTH BOTH magazine up again. that would be fun.