3rd Bed
I like 3rd Bed, www.3rdbed.com for a lot of reasons. For one, its name is ingenious, derived from The Republic, where Plato famously describes a bed in three aspects: the first and therefore most real bed is the idea of "bed"; the second is that object made by the carpenter; and the third bed, the one imitated by the painter. You know immediately where this little zine is headed. The poems (I can comment only on these) are indeed the artifices that Plato had in mind. When you read them, you are reading "made language," verbal icons and artifacts. (You are not, or not necessarily, reading little narrative histories, morality lyrics, philosophical treatises, confessions, self-improvement devices).
An example:
Barn Song
--by Corey Mead
Liquid trees? and Edgar doesn?t know
even a part of Anna
To rise and go to the field and cut off his head.
Like, the more they talk
never having
in fields this constant: nature is lost.
Edgar almost...the mind.
And, risen, never
returned to the barn.
(from the current issue)
Certainly, language takes precedence over narrative here! From the opening question, posed in media raes, to its fabulous (in two senses) ending, this little song is deliciously unfamiliar. As for the references, would that be Degas, Poe, another? Given the surreality, I lean toward Poe. But I appropriate the poem just fine, thank you, without the correct historical or literary allusion.
This is one publication that works hard to remain true to its own submission guidelines. I value--and the editors do too--the third-from-last bullet: language takes precedence over what happens.
Submission Guidelines for 3rd Bed
"3rd bed is devoted to providing a venue for fresh voices who are making excursions into new territories, expanding beyond the front lawn and kitchen table of American realism. Our emphasis is on work informed by a surreal or absurdist aesthetic In our previous issues, we've featured pieces by Stacey Levine, Robert Coover, Diane Williams, Brian Evenson, Michael Burkard, Michael Martone, Tomaz Salamun, Rachel Zucker, Andrew Levy and Christine Hume, to name a few. We are looking for fiction, for poetry, and for work that blurs the distinction between these genres; we are looking for translations by authors living and dead, known and unknown; we are looking for a range of pieces that evoke anything from disquiet to whimsy, from the jarring to the soothing, work that may be variously urgent, playful, kaleidoscopic, or elliptical.
3rd bed does not publish domestic, gritty, or confessional realism, or any mode of writing which might be classified as such. We receive much excellent realist work, and have to turn it down as it is not appropriate for us. This is no comment on the quality of the work, but simply an expression of our concentration as a journal.
? Stories which take place in bars or which appear to be written to demonstrate a young writer's familiarity with copulation will not be read beyond the first mention of copulation or the bar.
? We are unlikely to publish poems which demonstrate Eternal Truths about God, Love, Death, Television, the Problem with Men, and/or the Problem with Women.
? While we are looking for "experimental" work, "experimental" does not just mean "shocking."
? We are looking for unfamiliar psychic landscapes.
? We seek writing that takes humor seriously.
? Language takes precedence over what happens.
? The editors consider formal innovation alone to be gratuitous.
? We like prose poems and work that blurs the distinction between genres."
Well, I think there's a slight narrative in the poem: Edgar loses his mind, leaves the barn, perhaps to the field to cut off his head. and never returns. An odd narative, a lovely poem, a narrative I think that's created by the language. What I mean is that Mead likely didn't know where the poem was going to end, thus the question: "Liquid trees?" I think he just lets the language lead him to the end of the wonderful poem.