6×6 – Spring 2007

Ah, yes. Ugly Duckling Presse presents the most fashionable, talented and prescient poetry zine-journal of its time. That is, it will continue to advance the presentation and readability of great poetry. This is 6×6 at its most solid and diverse. Each poet in here is unique, touching and ingenious. Consider the first sentence of the first poem, which also appears on the cover, by Evan Willner: “If all tagalong creation insists on being.” A great enigmatic phrase of lucid abstraction. 

Ah, yes. Ugly Duckling Presse presents the most fashionable, talented and prescient poetry zine-journal of its time. That is, it will continue to advance the presentation and readability of great poetry. This is 6×6 at its most solid and diverse. Each poet in here is unique, touching and ingenious. Consider the first sentence of the first poem, which also appears on the cover, by Evan Willner: “If all tagalong creation insists on being.” A great enigmatic phrase of lucid abstraction. The kind that flourishes in this age. Willner’s poem ends, “. . . then this crunching must really be the / gravel begging beneath our feet. And if not, not.” A great tagalong ending of insistence and equanimity. Consider also the first line and title of this Lynn Xu poem: “IT IS THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AND EVERY LANDSCAPE IS DIVINED, DARKLY,” which goes on to punctuate the title with the last lines “wrestling the one without language.” These Rilkean illuminations are distributed wonderfully throughout her work. I also enjoy the smaller and off-the-cuff poems of Matthew Gavin Frank and Matthew Rohrer. They perform linguistic leaps both rustic and modern and invite the reader in to laugh or wonder aloud.
[www.uglyducklingpresse.org/6by6.html]