HOOT Online Releases Issue 54

Hoot Online is the online twin to Hoot a postcard review of {mini} poetry and prose. Hoot Online releases Issue 54 with a little bit of micro fiction, a little bit of artwork, and a little bit of audio poetry.

Poetry by Carolyn Oliver and Art by Benjamin Oliver set the tone and beginning of the work. The poetry, short in nature of {mini} can be read in silence or with the accompanying audio. I’ve mentioned before, and I’ll mention it a hundred times more. It’s always a different adventure when you read a poem in silence versus reading along to a recording. It’s always, of course, an even daring and different adventure hearing the words live from the poet at a reading. But back to Oliver and the beginning of the poem, “When we woke all was froze:” it begins.

I guarantee that though a poem can be called {mini}, the impact of every word is astronomical, impactful, and even courageous. Everything other than what one would normally consider miniature. Yet, like a vignette Oliver’s poem is a slice of a Summerless year where all was froze; almost stuck in space, before the opening of the poem and all remained stuck in the end of the poem.

I want to make a comparison by going to the last piece in this issue by Becca Yenser. “I give my Schwinn to Sequoia, because she doesn’t have a bike yet. She is from Southern California, tall, / blonde, 21. She moves like a tree, …” Already, the difference of being stuck in space to sitting in the front row seat of life is polarizing. In particular, life through another individual. A tad more jovial one might say. But it’s a progression through the magazine from stuck in space to being the neighbor of a lively person. It’s my favorite literary magazine technique to read through, to enjoy. Please, enjoy it too.