HANGING LOOSE: A Literary Magazine from Brooklyn

After brushing more than a little snow and ice off the newsstand, I settled down this morning for an enjoyable hour with a copy of Hanging Loose, a recent addition to our Literary & Writing shelf. This Brooklyn-based literary magazine has been around for years, publishing the work of emerging poets and writers as well as established authors whom the editors believe deserve a larger audience. I'll take you to the Hanging Loose Web site for a short but instructive history lesson, starting back when the publication was solely devoted to poetry. "The first issue of Hanging Loose magazine was published in 1966. The name was inspired by the format―mimeographed loose pages in a cover envelope―and that, in turn, was inspired by a very low budget. But the format was also meant to get across a point of view: that poetry is for now, not for the Ages. If you liked a poem, you could pin it to the wall. If you didn't like a poem, you could use it as a napkin." Hanging Loose has evolved mightily since those early days, and now is cleanly printed and bound in a curious but satisfying squarish format with a colorful glossy cover. It runs very short fiction as well as poetry, and each issue includes a portfolio by an artist or photographer. There's also a section devoted to works by talented high school writers. These people know what they're doing: the parent Hanging Loose Press has published 135 books in addition to 87 issues of the magazine. Writers published by Hanging Loose include Denise Levertov, John Gill, Sherman Alexie, Kimiko Hahn, Joanna Fuhrman and Indran Amirthanayagam. To quote a recent review of the magazine at the excellent Web site newpages.com, "The work here is refreshingly unpretentious, playful, and altogether untouched by the cerebral rarefaction of academia or clumsy experimentalism." In other words, it's fun to read. Hanging Loose is published twice a year. A subscription (three issues) is $22.00; we'll send you a sample copy for $2.59.