I've written, more than once, at this site and elsewhere, about my friends Anne McMillen and Kurtice Kucheman, and how we, dropouts of various institutions and lifestyles, taught each other to write. I've talked about how we each brought our reading material and frames of reference, comparing notes, drafts, and philosophies, and thus started on our individual literary paths.
Kurt died on February 23rd, 2014. Almost three months later, I find I have less to write about that. I miss him, and I wish I spent more time with him. But Kurt's life and work was interesting. His death strikes me as less so. We tend to treat people's lives as stories, and their deaths as the end of the story; we tend to place too much emphasis on the stories' endings, and read ridiculous headlines such as “Mickey Rooney's Sad Final Days." But people don't have “a story" that ends at death, or even when everyone who knew them finally dies. Kurt is a person, whose influence on me and this site is, in my eyes, worth celebrating. His memory is worth a great deal to me. It is certainly worth this issue's dedication—an issue that is, coincidentally, a solid six months late.
I missed Kurt's funeral. I missed it to attend a literary conference, where I was able to briefly read and talk about his work. Literature is a funny business. Skipping Kurt's funeral to go on a business trip seems obscene. But literature is largely a volunteer business, and if I skipped the conference, I'd be leaving a number of volunteers, people I love and respect, in very uncomfortable positions.
And so this weird little (usually unprofitable) industry continues. Kurt studied hard, worked hard, wrote wonderfully, and died, leaving changes in the hearts of those who read him. I study hard, work hard, try (and often fail) to publish wonderful writers in grand style and (more problematically) a timely fashion. I hope that Kurt's work moves you before I die. Or afterward. It's all good.
A lot has happened in the time it took to put this issue together. Unlikely Books has released some incredible titles by Marc Vincenz and Larissa Shmailo. MadHat Press, where I am Managing Editor, has released some fantastic new titles. And Fulcrum: an anthology of poetry and aesthetics, which has honored me by making me their Managing Editor, is accepting submissions for its eighth issue—submissions are wide-open for the month of May. There have been reads in Seattle, Boston, New York, and Louisiana—all of which will eventually make their way to our YouTube channel.
In addition to being one of our tardiest issues, this is, by far, our biggest issue. An insane amount of work has gone into building it, and although I've spent many hours with Photoshop and my HTML editor, the majority of the work wasn't mine. Poetry Editor Michelle Greenblatt put together a massive selection of work, as well as a huge VISual POetry exhibit, with a full-sized gallery and feature of VISPOet Jim Leftwich—and then helped out with the fiction selections. Jeremy Hight interviewed artist after artist as he curated their work, and curated an on-going selection of slant-wise narrative exploration, Ethan has nowhere to go, recently released as a preview of this issue and always available here at Unlikely. Willis Gordon continued to do great work as our Political Editor, collecting a unique blend of perspectives and struggles, not least his own. And as I slipped and failed to perform various tasks, K.R. Copeland picked up the slack, in her new role as our Social Media Director. If this issue is late, I don't mind telling you that it's a beautiful one, and it is because of them.
So go read it. Kurt would've wanted you to.
I mean, he probably wouldn't have given a shit. But he would've read it, himself, which is frankly a better reason to check it out.