Jacket Magazine Review

The literary magazine I reviewed was The Jacket Magazine. After searching the ODY library high and low, looking for interesting, aesthetically pleasing, and/or popular hardcopy journals and failing, I hit the web. The Jacket Magazine is a full functioning website based magazine that publishes famous poems, reviews, upcoming undiscovered poets, “spotlights” poets and their work, as well as news on books, prizes and magazines. The homepage of the website (http://jacketmagazine.com/00/home.shtml) has links to all the Jacket’s issues-- clicking on an issue number brings you to the Jacket’s table of contents for each specific issue, and allows you to scroll through and open each separate poem, review, artwork, or upcoming book titles. The entire literary magazine has in a sense been “cut up” and organized on a webpage in a “web link” listing order and arrangement. The earliest issue released on the website was published in October of 1997, and the most current issue is issue 35 of “Early 2008”. The website holds 36 issues’ complete with accessible information. It is a pity though, that the magazine’s homepage isn’t that attractive. It does tend to look much like a “blog page”, with lists of section titles and the subcategories and literature presented in each section. At the top of the homepage the editor (John Tranter) and associate editor (Pam Brown) have placed links for with their contact info, as well as link to their separate “author pages”, which gives basic info about each editor.
According to the website John Tranter founded the magazine in 1997 to “showcase lively contemporary poetry and prose.” The website continues to state, “most of the material is original to this magazine, but some is excerpted from or co-produced with hard-to-get books and magazines, partly to help them find new readers.” I really believe the magazine holds true to these descriptions. The captivating poetry and prose here is definitely based on current and popular matters. One poet recently on the homepage is Omar Pérez, a Cuban poet who writes about growing up in Cuba, and being a student in a communist country. The website portrays both the Spanish and English translated versions of each poem, adding an appealing nature of having the “real” written words, versus the translated ones, in which some meaning/imagery could be lost. Some critiques of Omar Pérez’s poems were published in other books, in which the Jacket Magazine just republishes on their site (with permission of course!). I believe this magazine’s use of material from other published books or magazines is a wonderful idea. It helps to spread literary knowledge among vast groups of audiences and shows the strength and positive affects that come from sharing resources within the world of literature and critique.
What is unique about the magazine is that you cannot subscribe to it, readers are just asked to check the website every few weeks to find if new issues have been published. Readers also have the ability to read future issues, as they are being constructed and posted piece by piece.
All in all I thought this magazine is a useful tool for poetry and literature fans that are looking for “fresh” or “underground” pieces of written work. The magazine does a wonderful job finding works of art and highlighting the wonder of each piece. I believe I would come back to this magazine if I were looking for upcoming talent in the “poetry world” or looking for a strong and truthful review on an underrated poet/poem. The website is well organized, intellectual, and well stocked with brilliant information. It was a great find!