3:AM Magazine

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex and the German cover of Tao Lin’s eeeee eee eee. * The Soho Archives exhibition runs until November at the Photographer’s Gallery in London * Christopher Hitchens on Brideshead Revisited: “it is entirely possible to feel nostalgia for homelands, and for periods, which one has never experienced oneself. This applies to [...]

In the dead of night I wake up sometimes
to a right thumb who’s watching its sisters;
they’re trumpeting an invisible four-keyed brass horn and
pinkying the pitches

sleepwalkers can’t hear.
Piano fingers
winkling a ballet of synchronized swimmers
making tiny waves in the lightless water—nothing feels
like bedrooms whose blinds hate their own impairment.

By the great Donari Braxton.

Donari Braxton is an American poet, playwright, essayist, and fiction writer. The majority of his work has been released by Slow Toe Publications [Cleveland] though Braxton lived and published from Paris for several years, where he mainly wrote for theatre troupes. He translated and published Paul Celan’s Die Niemandrose in 2006, and his collection of [...]

The vibe is different from most other literary events. For a start, there is a lot of jostling for position by the crowd who all seem to be eager to find a spot close to the stage. For another, there is almost as much activity in the bathrooms as there is in the main room. By the time I arrive at 7.30 the place is pretty much full, and a few people have already left in disgust because of the crowd and the fact that the event is running behind schedule. Tao Lin is sat alone, studiously avoiding the glances of Bed and Eeee eee eeeee clutching hipsters. Yoko Ono has also made an appearance, and despite attempts to keep a low profile at the back of the bar, people are whispering and sneaking glances.

Read about Kramer Durette’s night out with the Offbeat Generation in NYC.

New York’s KGB Bar is putting on an Offbeat night tomorrow entitled The In Sound From Way Out:
3 of NYC’s leading underground authors come together for one night only to read selections from their work. Feted by the likes of Dennis Cooper, Miranda July and Dan Fante, Donari Braxton (pictured), Tao Lin and Tony O’Neill [...]

I can’t remember for the life of me the last time I’ve seen a banker, or a nurse, or a cop, or even a musician, pull out a collection of poetry on the subway and read through just for the sheer pleasure of doing so, on the way home from a long day’s work, for example, let alone anywhere else. In fact, I personally have very little experience seeing novelists, fiction-writers or journalists reading poetry.

Donari Braxton wants to free poetry from critical mumbo-jumbo.

When I first started being published I felt like I was producing these stories in a literary vacuum. I stayed in a lot with the curtains drawn. This was back before the Internet of course when you had to communicate via public telephones, or else write words down on pieces of paper. Steven Hall hadn’t been invented. Paul Ewen was wearing short trousers in New Zealand. Tony O’Neill was in borstal. Heidi James was a brothel keeper’s daughter. Everybody was alone and fairly frightened. Dark days indeed. Well, the context is very different now.

Chris Killen interviews “bookshop poison” HP Tinker.

Issue 45 of Scarecrow magazine is an Offbeat Generation special including prose and poetry from (in order of appearance) Tony O’Neill, Noah Cicero, Adelle Stripe, Donari Braxton, Heidi James, Stewart Home, Peter Wild, Matthew Coleman, Paul Ewen, HP Tinker, Joseph Ridgwell, Rik Haslam, Steve Vermillion, Michael Keenaghan, Scarecrow editor Lee Rourke, Robert Woodard, Judson Hamilton, [...]

JOSEPH D’LACEY, author (November 2009)
“…the brilliant 3:AM Magazine…”
CHARLIE WILLIAMS, author (November 2009)
“Brilliant to be in 3:AM after all these years of reading it as a punter.”
MATT THORNE, novelist and critic, THE WIRE (August 2009)
“The only online literary magazine I read regularly. I encountered the site when they interviewed me, but since then it’s become an [...]

Our call for nominations to determine the 50 Least Influential People in Publishing has attracted a fair bit of attention. Inevitably, many people have nominated themselves. Please keep your nominations coming. We’re looking for the names of very talented writers, publishers, literary critics, journalists and bloggers who are currently neglected by mainstream publishing. HP Tinker [...]