Bent Ear Review – 2013
Issue 1
April 2013
Biannual 
Kirsten McIlvenna
Muse-Pie Press’s new magazine (they also publish Shot Glass Poetry and the fib review) puts out video and sound files of spoken word poetry. While this often includes slam poetry, it isn’t exclusively so: “Bent Ear Review is about giving a voice to poets, enabling them to express their work with their own emotions and passion in the form of the spoken word.”
Muse-Pie Press’s new magazine (they also publish Shot Glass Poetry and the fib review) puts out video and sound files of spoken word poetry. While this often includes slam poetry, it isn’t exclusively so: “Bent Ear Review is about giving a voice to poets, enabling them to express their work with their own emotions and passion in the form of the spoken word.”
In “Never Too Old to Slam,” M. D. Friedman says, “I’m not too old to slam because I’m not too old to love.” The piece is about how you can never be too old, or too anything but to just be yourself. It’s about acceptance and love, of both others and yourself.
I would love to see Vex live, as he knows how to entertain the crowd. He begins his poem, “Don’t Step” with “I may wear a frilly pink skirt, but I will take you in a fight.” It too is about acceptance, because “The world doesn’t owe you another lesson on how to hate.”
Amanda Arrieta Rodriguez is new to spoken word, but comes to the scene with a background in performance arts. She claims she has been a “secret poet” most of her life, and here she shares her words. Her poem delicately starts and ends with: “I built you a world of words, stocked high like my hopes and one key . . .”
There are also video and audio files of Henrietta Bollinger, Lois Elaine Heckman, Duncan Hope, and Randi Janelle. Another section on the site publishes some of the performances at The Kerouac Effect. In this annual event in New Zealand and Australia, poets and musicians are paired together to celebrate “all things Beat.” These video clips are definitely worth taking a look at. Bent Ear Review offers up more than the traditional online magazine, adding sound and often visual components to the literary experience.
[www.musepiepress.com/bentear]
