Chain (1994-2005), edited by Jena Osman and Juliana Spahr, is one among The Trinity of paper journals at whose metaphorical feet Tarpaulin Sky knelt at the golden dawn of its conversion to Trans-Genre Experimentalism and Whatnot, performing unspeakable rituals intended to birth the New-Lit Child of three entities: The Brains of Chain, The Aesthetic of 3rd Bed, and The Luciferian Will of Fence.

Sure, it was a tall order. And maybe our child is a wee slower than we’d hoped. But Tarpaulin Sky’s own unique brand of awesome owes everything to the quest.

By the mid 2000s, however, even the Trinity were forced to confront the limitations of earthly incarnations — ink and paper and glue, and lots of it — and to confront as well, as all Gods must, a new generation: in this case a demographic of consumers who create “free” digital crap as a matter of course and who actually don’t understand that they are consumers rather than creators, and that nothing is actually free.

Anywho, within the span of a few years all three journals faced difficult decisions, and each took different routes. 3rd Bed ceased publication after eleven issues — proof that nothing beautiful can live very long (although a handful of issues remain, mercifully, available through Calamari Press, who bought the lot when 3rd Bed took its last nap in 2008). Around the same time, Fence moved into an office at SUNY Albany, and its enterprises are now in their second decade of greatness and will likely see us all into the grave.

Chain called it quits after publishing its twelfth issue, in 2005. The final issue was the “Facts” issue. Among the facts noted by editors Osman and Spahr, in their introduction, was this: “Amount Jena and Juliana have been paid to do Chain: zero.”

Because Chain ended its journal seven years ago, which is approximately 2,556.75 Twitter Years — indeed pre-Twitter, which is essentially pre-history — it’s with no small amount of horror that we consider that a few of TSky’s younger readers may never have read Chain at all, even if many other readers & writers have followed or have discovered Osman’s & Spahr’s continued projects via the larger entity of Chain Arts. Eg., the Chain Links series: largely guest-edited anthologies that “might change people’s minds, might agitate for (thought) reform, might shift perspectives” as well as “provide space for work that slips through genre cracks and falls outside of disciplinary boundaries).” Recent anthologies from Chain Links include Somatic Engagement: the politics and publics of embodiment (Petra Kuppers, ed.) and A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism (edited by Spahr & Young themselves), to name just two of eight anthologies currently in print.

Also published in 2011 is a “recreation” of SABORAMI, from Chilean poet, artist and filmmaker Cecilia Vicuña. While SABORAMI fairly defines “trans-genre,” we’d like to highlight it because we’re publishing this post near September 11, a date that many in the US believe is uniquely theirs. Osman & Spahr explain:

First published in 1973, two months after the military coup in Chile, Cecilia Vicuña’s SABORAMI is a document of the times and the way in which history can change art. It is filled with the urgent hope that art, too, can change history.

Put together when Vicuña was just twenty-five years old, the poems, paintings, and objects of SABORAMI enact a complex and multidimensional conversation. The meanings of the works (which were created over a seven year period) shifted radically after the events of September 11, 1973. Their meanings continue to shift and resonate in light of political events today.

 

If this sort of gravitas, this mix of the historical and political, this mix of forms, of genres — including scrapbooking! — excites you and reaffirms your faith in small presses, as it does for us, and if you’re one of the people who didn’t know Chain existed, or are, like us, just missing a couple issues, then you can celebrate the news that one of the best paper journals ever to grace this planet is now preserved forevermore at one of the best online literary journals, Jacket2 *

Yes, under the umbrella of its ongoing, deadly-necessary Reissues project, Jacket2 has digitally archived all twelve issues of Chain. No small undertaking, each issue was scanned by Ben Filreis and edited by Danny Snelson, with the support of the same great folk who bring us Jacket2, UPenn’s Kelly Writers House.

So what are you hanging around here for? Start reading & downloading some PDFs: Chain, 1994-2005, edited by Jena Osman and Juliana Spahr.

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* The other “best” being — har har — the first Jacket, published between 1997 and 2010 by John Tranter, now preserved at Jacket2 in “a database of more than a thousand pieces of criticism on contemporary poetry in addition to more than a thousand original works by poets from around the world.”