Issue 9


The White Page

As we settle here in this corner of the blogosphere we continue housekeeping. If you go through the pages, we have both updated and reconfigured them to integrate everything into the general visual and color scheme of the magazine.

The white page. Not minimalist for minimalist's sake but for overall practicality and the clean printed-page look. It's for reading. The poem floats on white space, the picture is still a window to a parallel universe. Pictures can be faded out, colors will shine. I've always had a bias against the poem printed in reverse, white on black. It looked amateurish to me, as I've said here before, it's what I loved when I was first fascinated by the printed poem whose text looked luminous. But let the poem create its own luminosity without much visual/physical help, except the pictures which, together with the poem, will create their own dynamics. There will be minimal borders, very flexible layout. The world is a continuous whole. Write me what you think, tell me if you don't like it and why. We can always make improvements, we're a work-in-progress, we're not just searching for, but cooking the perfect noodle. For now, this is how poets'picturebook will taste and look.

Our Contributors’ page has been updated to include author’s bio notes from issues posted in our former site. We have announced our existence all over cyberspace by registering with two blog tracking sites, Technocrati, and BlogCatalog. Their widgets have been added to the right column of all our pages, the better to access our magazine from anywhere, and for us to access the sites in their lists. We have three working hit counters—why? And why do they display different numbers? Well, they have different ways of counting, or we registered our site with them at different times. But you get the idea. Besides, don’t they look good? Widgets are like blings and gewgaws or scouting badges in the Internet, one of the things that tell us both blogger or website owner and reader or visitor that the site is actually being read or visited. Actually one of the counters, Histats, gives me and you information not only how many are visiting but from where in the globe, how many pages and how long they paused in there during their surfing. The others are simple counters with handsome displays. Little things really but they more or less legitimize our existence in the Net, apart of course, from your comments (click the Comment link at the bottom of the page to say anything), your email and letters and, not least of all, your contributions. Their frequency, and their quality, keep poets’picturebook jumping. (There’s more first class poetry coming, and from authors you’ve never heard from or haven’t in a long time, that’s a promise.)

And plus. Now it's easier to navigate through our magazine and you'll never be lost. Near the top and bottom of the right column of the Main Page, and of the left column of the rest of the pages are the links that let you amble around or skip to other pages. That's exactly what the heading of the link list says: GO TO OUR PAGES. But if you're still lost, there's another "clickable" link at the bottom of each page, and link itself says GO TO PAGE 2 and so forth. This gives you a sequential tour of the site or you can "leaf" through our pages. At the last page (page 4), the bottom link says GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE. Isn't that convenient? Sure, because your picturebook-keeper made it so. You have three clusters of directional signs: near the top and bottom of the right column the Main Page, and near the top and bottom of the left column of the rest of the pages. And at the bottom of each page, the link will help you leaf through the magazine in page sequence.

And thank you, too, for your mentions anywhere (among your friends, like-minded people who get a jouissance form art, poetry, literature), like Prof. Marj Evasco, who mentions us in her literature graduate class at La Salle, and Joel Toledo who announces the ezine issues in his Ramblingsoul blog; or even people who have a longer reach than us in the traditional, paper-and-printer’s-ink, media, like Vic Nierva who created a button for us in his own wonderful blog, Makuapo ni Handyong, and in his newspaper column in Bikol, and Kristian Cordero who does likewise in his column and his blog, Santiguar, and Butch Dalisay in his column Penman and Krip Yuson in his Kripotkin, both at Philippine Star. They’re part of the reason why we’re really flying!

Marne L. Kilates
Editor

We're three issues ahead. Try to catch up with us!

Keep sending those poems, photos, art, essays, etc.

By email only at: marnezine@gmail.com &
marne.kilates@gmail.com

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