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About Gregory Stephenson

Gregory Stephenson grew up in Colorado and Arizona but has lived in Denmark for many years. He is the author of six books, including most recently: Pilgrims to Elsewhere (Eyecorner, 2013).

The Soul in Paraphrase, the Heart in Pilgrimage: Amounting to Nothing by Paul Quenon, reviewed by Gregory Stephenson

Gregory Stephenson

Amounting to Nothing: Poems by Paul Quenon

Amounting to Nothing by Paul Quenon, OSCO / Paraclete Press / 978-1-64060-201-4 / 93 pages / 2019 The coincidence of a vocation as monk and a vocation as poet — though far from commonplace — is one … [Read more...]

Notes on Three Lost Poems by Gregory Corso

Gregory Stephenson

Photo by Robert Wilson. Used by permission.

In a life of wide and restless travels, Gregory Corso produced six collections of poetry, together with a handful of plays and a novel, but left trailing in the wake of his urgent journeys an unknown … [Read more...]

Mutinous Jester: The Collage Novels of Akbar Del Piombo

Gregory Stephenson

Is That You Simon? Akbar Del Piombo

Akbar del Piombo — illustrious subterranean luminary, mysterious, pseudonymous author of six darkly comic, wildly satirical collage novels. Akbar del Piombo — preposterous, portentous name, once … [Read more...]

On the Dangerous Edge of Things: Weed: Adventures of a Dope Smuggler by Jerry Kamstra, reviewed by Gregory Stephenson

Gregory Stephenson

Jerry Kamstra Weed, reviewed

Weed: Adventures of a Dope Smuggler by Jerry Kamstra / Peer Amid Press / 2019 / 978-1-7335481-0-6 / 312 pages This is, to be sure, a tale of adventure – a non-fiction, first-person account of … [Read more...]

”Curious and Not Un-poetical Imaginings”: A Forgotten Specimen of Victorian Cannabis Writing

Gregory Stephenson

Confessions of a Hachish Eater

“Imagination is the dream of the Unconscious.” —Benjamin DeCasseres During the 19th century, even as explorers journeyed to the last dark recesses and remote wastes of the world, and as … [Read more...]

Before and After Desolation: Two Sojourns by Jack Kerouac at the Hotel Stevens

Gregory Stephenson

Before and After Desolation: Two Sojourns by Jack Kerouac at Seattle's Hotel Stevens

During the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac stayed on two occasions at the Hotel Stevens in downtown Seattle. His first stay at the venerable old “skid row” hotel was in the latter part of June of that … [Read more...]

Poetic Licence: The Crime and Hard Time of Gregory Corso, or A Portrait of the Poet as a Young Felon

Gregory Stephenson

Gregory Corso mug shot -- prison

“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state. And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries. And look upon myself and curse my fate …” --- William … [Read more...]

Passing Through: Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky in Copenhagen, January 1983

Gregory Stephenson

ginsberg-orlovsky-stephenson

As part of their reading tour through a dozen European countries, poets Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, and their musical accompanist Steven Taylor, arrive by train in Copenhagen in the chill dark … [Read more...]

A Few Far-Flung Fragments of Forgotten Kerouaciana

Gregory Stephenson

Far-Flung Fragments of Forgotten Kerouaciana

There are still a few odd jottings and stray scribbles from the pen of Jack Kerouac – elusive bits and bobs published during the author’s lifetime – that remain unrecorded in bibliographies and/or … [Read more...]

Calling on Paul Bowles: Tangier, Morocco, August 1979

Gregory Stephenson

Paul Bowles. Photo by Birgit Stephenson

Calling on Paul Bowles Tangier, Morocco, August 1979 ”There it is,” someone says, and in the darkness, in the distance, you can see Tangier sprawled across several hills, a white city … [Read more...]

Earwitness Testimony: Sound and Sense, Word and Void in Jack Kerouac’s Old Angel Midnight

Gregory Stephenson

Old Angel Midnight

“the ineluctable modality of the audible” – James Joyce Ulysses So much of Jack Kerouac’s writing seems impelled by an impatience with all verbal restraints and by an urgent purpose that strains … [Read more...]

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

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