O-blek


o•blék: a journal of language arts was a small literary magazine founded by Peter Gizzi who co-edited it with Connell McGrath. The magazine published a number of poems often not in the mainstream but recognized for their excellence. The magazine ran from 1987 to 1993.
Published by The Garlic Press in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the magazine offered readers no mission statement, editor's notes or biographic notes on contributors. At the beginning of each issue it instead presented different dictionary entries for the word “oblique”.
o•blék focused on publishing poets away from the mainstream and associated with various types and schools of poetry. Poets often associated with Language poetry frequently appeared, including Clark Coolidge, Lyn Hejinian, and Michael Palmer. Other frequent contributors were Fanny Howe, Robert Creeley, Rosmarie Waldrop, Edmond Jabès, and John Wieners, Ben Marcus, Cole Swensen, Roberto Tejada, Mark McMorris, and Elizabeth Willis. Other contributors are associated with the New York School tradition: Ted Berrigan, Kenward Elmslie, Bernadette Mayer, Charles North, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, David Shapiro, Marjorie Welish, and John Yau.

History

The first issue of the magazine was dated April 1987. The publication was put out at a cost of about $4,100 with borrowed money and sold out its run of 1,000 copies after about 18 months. At the end of its first year, the magazine had about 75 subscribers, a number which rose to 275 after six years.
Gizzi has written that "in the mid to late 80’s I was waiting tables and reading books and editing my journal, o-blek". With the sacrifices, Gizzi has said, came success. The journal received numerous grants, is in the permanent collections of major libraries, and continues to be cited in poetry criticism.
In 1990 o•blék was the focus of the 7th International Literary Conference at the Fondation Royaumont in France. Poets and critics attended from all over France to discuss the journal and independent literary production.
With the publication of the twelfth issue in 1993, the magazine had put out more than 2,500 pages of contemporary poetry from three generations of poets.
In 1993, Gizzi left the publication, turning it over to others, although no further issues were published. By early 1995 the magazine was being folded up.

Spelling and punctuation of the magazine's name

The name of the magazine is supposed to appear as it does in some dictionaries showing the pronunciation of "oblique" — with a lower-case "o", a bullet, and an accent over the "e". It has been represented at the Best American Poetry Web site as "o.blek" but most other citations use a hyphen. Most other citations of the magazine punctuate it with a hyphen after the "o" and with no accent: "o-blek" Citations are nearly universal in not capitalizing the first letter in the name.

Editorial philosophy

Speaking as part of a panel discussion at a 1993 poetry conference, editor Connell McGrath described some of the editors' principles in running the magazine. McGrath said:
At another point, McGrath said:

Issues

The first 11 issues were published on almost square pages; the twelfth was much larger, in two volumes.

o•blék/1

Contributors: along with Peter and his brother Michael Gizzi, these included: Anne-Marie Albiach, Bruce Andrews, Clark Coolidge, Michael Gizzi, Emmanuel Hocquard, Edmond Jabès, Paul Metcalf, Michael Palmer, Ray Ragosta, Robert Tejada, Keith Waldrop, Rosmarie Waldrop, Marjorie Welsh John Yau, and Geoffrey Young,
The first edition, printed in April 1987, was 142 pages long, with a press run of 1,000 copies.

Other issues

Brought out in 1993, as a two-volume set, the twelfth issue had a total of 600 pages and was titled, Writing from the New Coast, with one volume further titled Presentation and another Technique. It focused on new and emerging writers. Technique, was edited by Gizzi and poet Juliana Spahr, and much of its contents ultimately came from a conference held at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Contributors include Lee Ann Brown and Jessica Grim.
From Gizzi's foreword: