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My meeting with Paul Bowles in Tangier, 1980

Mark Blickley

Tangier

In June of 1980 my manuscript submission had won me a place in the School of Visual Arts pilot program of study with writer/composer Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco. At the time of my acceptance … [Read more...]

Vast Regions from Nowhere: Paul Bowles, Unfathered Authors, Mother-Bonded Sons

Jasun Horsley

Bowles & I

“I think that having spent my life trying to hide everything from everyone, I’ve ended up by no longer being able to find many things myself. Seriously.” —Paul Bowles, 1975 The Core “Other people’s … [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...]

(Music Review) IR 29.1: New Generation Dub

Richard Marcus

IR 29 - New Generation Dub

One of the biggest crimes committed by the music industry has been their ability to co-opt, dilute and turn even the most radical of genres into something safe for mass consumption. Disco, punk and … [Read more...]

Movie Review – Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom

Richard Marcus

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

As a kid in the 1960s, I remember asking my mom why we didn't ever have Granny Smith apples in the house. She replied that she refused to buy anything from South Africa because of what the government … [Read more...]

Music of the Sahara: Tinariwen’s new album Emmaar

Richard Marcus

tinariwent emmaar album

In the early 1960s the creation of artificial borders in the trackless wastes of the Sahara desert might have been cause for celebration among the inhabitants of the newly created countries. However, … [Read more...]

Book Review – IR 30: Indigenous Visions In Dub

Richard Marcus

Book Review: IR 30 Indigenous Visions In Dub

I guess it's appropriate that blockades have gone up again on the Tyndengia Mohawk reservation in South Eastern Ontario Canada as I begin to write this review. Here in Canada the First Nations people … [Read more...]

(Movie Review) Come Back Africa: The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Volume ll

Richard Marcus

Come Back Africa: The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Volume ll

Documentary movies always seem to get short shrift. For too many people there the things people tell them to watch at school so they will learn something. Growing up on a diet of talking heads sitting … [Read more...]

(Music Review) Soutak by Aziza Brahim

Richard Marcus

Soutak by Aziza Brahim

At first glance the Sahara Desert of North West Africa seems like one of the most inhospitable places on the face of the earth. Movies, and other Western media, usually show us images of trackless … [Read more...]

Music Review – Tartit With Imharhan – Live from the Sahara

Richard Marcus

Tartit With Imharhan - Live from the Sahara

When the annual Festival Au Desert in Northern Mali was cancelled in 2013 due to the territory's occupation by terrorist organizations intent on imposing a very narrow definition of Islamic rule, … [Read more...]

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R.I.P. Michael McClure 1932-2020

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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