In 1986, BOMB Magazine’s Bruce Wolmer interviewed the first American surrealist poet and artist, Charles Henri Ford. Ford—not content with keeping only to poetry or art-making, but also an editor, novelist, filmmaker, and photographer—chronicled his life for Wolmer, claiming nevertheless (like one of his primary influences, Jean Cocteau) that poetry was a kind of “everything,” an ecstatic lens that was for Ford the central conception of a surrealist mission. This is one kind

In March of 2011, at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on West 49th St in New York, “The Book of Mormon: The Musical” opened to packed theatres and rave critical reviews after eight years of development and workshops. Its creators, South Park showrunners Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with Avenue Q composer/co-lyricist Robert Lopez, called it “an atheist’s love letter to religion”—this to Katharine Whittemore of The Boston Globe, in a 2011 article about the Broadway’s relation to

On 8 April 2010, I was invited to photograph a 13-hour durational performance art piece called “Awaiting,” in downtown Salt Lake City. The piece was organized by Ernesto Pujol, a Visiting Artist at the University of Utah’s Department of Art & Art History, and its first Endowed Art Residency recipient. Ernesto invited me personally—after a meal we shared with my photography instructor (his friend), Rosi Hayes. For some reason still unclear to me, especially as an undergraduate

I met the photographer, Alex Stoddard, on Day #306 in his piece, “Metamorphosis, interrupted.” The piece (featured above) was arresting. Is this a youth being born or a youth dying mid-birth? Is the photograph the interruption, or are we seeing a subject in the midst of its demise? “Metamorphosis, interrupted” is a dark muscular thing occurring, all the more alarming because it happens surrounded by such tranquility—by such clear summer light. The boy screams, falls, forcibly

“However this miraculous place worked, it seemed real enough. The sun was hot, the soda was cold, the sky was blue, the grass was green. What more did he need to know?” – Clive Barker, The Thief of Always Like many of my fellow Millennials, I have a bit of an internet problem. I run two Tumblr blogs already, curlyhairedguys—what?—and a space dedicated to my photography business, each with modest followings in the thousands. I have a Facebook account, four emails addresses, a

I first heard the musician, Joanna Newsom, in the early spring of 2010, just before graduating from college with an English degree from the University of Utah. My friend, Sam, and I were reconnecting after a year-ish of quietly ignoring each other—something you could do in Salt Lake City (SLC), partly because nobody could afford a scene amid that little bit of blue awash in all that red, and partly because a sort-of unsaid kindness was operating principle for us both. Sam, an

On April 29, 2015, Portland-based band, Sophont, played their first show at PICA (the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) as part of the BACKWORDS Press Inaugural Launch Party. Sophont, which describes itself as a "Post-trip hop/electronic duo,” features music by Mike Sieviec and vocals by Dustin Michael Swinney. Sophont combines darkly-honest melancholic lyrics with a vibey mood in tone. BACKWORDS first encountered Sophont's Dustin Michael Swinney at Portland State Univ

Greetings from the BACKWORDS Team! Your curators, Jenny M Chu, Phillip Trey Coates, and Matthew D Kulisch are humbled and honored by the support we received Wednesday, April 29 at the BACKWORDS Press Release & Launch Party for our inaugural issue. Over 90 people from the Portland art and literary community, from out of state, from education and nonprofit organizations—and plenty of joining friends and family—came to support our first issue and learn about the future of the

Tonight, at the lucky hour of 7 p.m. we’ll officially launch BACKWORDS Press and release our inaugural issue featuring our three writers: Elaina Ellis, Ocean Vuong, and Kevin Sampsell. As we scramble with all the pre-event setup, we’re also imagining the future. It was dreaming that got us here, and it will be dreaming that will keep this press innovative, engaging, ever-evolving, and supportive of our non-lit and lit-communities alike. We wanted to share with you our thought

Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds —Paradise Lost, Book 2, lines 912-916 Much has been said, all deserved, about the lyric and character of poet, Ocean Vuong. In 2013, Monkeybicycle called his chapbook, No (2013), published by YesYes Books, “absolutely gorgeous,” a haunting collection of poetry th