How to hide things

‘How to hide things’ is the general rubric of the investigative poetry collection I am currently working on. In this over-information age, where everything is accessible at the click of a button, how do we keep secrets anymore? Headlines belying gossip, gossip patching the gape in the back of the person we stab, the stabbing pain of feeling sometimes too accessible, as if the militant dystopia has come to be and we can’t kiss him, tell her, or do it without the whole world knowing, immediately.

The good news: This is excellent for Bombay Gin!

No longer must the underground poetry journal reside in the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle sewers of obscurity. Join us in spreading the word about what will be an incredible fall issue; the ‘threshold’ between light and dark, fame and obscurity, the street-level and the sewer-dwelling.

At least one really good movie about sewers comes to mind…Now and Then, about four twelve-year-old girls growing up in 1970. During a cold night’s freak rainstorm, one of the girls falls down a storm drain in the street and almost drowns.

Here’s a gem from that particular film:

Teeny: Chrissy, truth or dare?

Chrissy: Truth.

Teeny: Have you ever been french kissed?

Chrissy: Are you kidding? I don’t want to get pregnant!

Funny, yes, but in 1970 there wasn’t the internet to disseminate useful information to young girls. People were liable to get confused in the absence of information, just as they are liable to get confused in the information overload.

Meaning, we should stick to the facts:

Bombay Gin. The literary journal of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Slated for release this winter. Featuring some kickass authors. Amen.

–Jess

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