Rattle #29 is now available, a week before the official June 1st release. It’s actually been available for a few weeks already — the production process is so streamlined now that when we hit our traditional deadline, everything seems to immediately fall into place. We use a mailing house for distribution now, so rather than have thousands of copies shipped to our office from Canada, and then a team of volunteers eating pizza and stuffing envelopes, our printer drives the copies across the street, and wraps them up, and sends them directly on their way. Which is a good thing — subcribers should get their copies before they see the issue at the book store, right?

The tribute is 64 pages from the wacky wild world of Visual Poetry. What’s visual poetry, you ask? Beats the hell out of me. Seriously — I don’t think there’s a limit to the ways you can combine poetry and visual art, so it’s really not categorizeable.

Interviews are with two of my favorite poets, in Bob Hicok and Marvin Bell. And the layout has been updated, to something a bit more classy. I’m proud of this one. But rather than ramble on about it, I thought I’d just paste in some anonymous early testimonials:

“You’ve given so many poets and artists a beautiful home in the world and I can only imagine the work that must have gone into building the issue - from the poem & painting selections to the font size and layout! … It’s just a WOW issue! I love it!”

“The new issue arrived in my mailbox today and I sat right down, despite the many chores calling to me, to a FEAST of visual poetry! What a luscious indulgence…..I’m so glad you did not shrink from the expense of the beautiful color prints, as I feel so many journals would. BRAVO to your entire editorial staff and all contributors for an absolutely smashing edition! I hope you sell out and then some…”

“Just a note to say how wonderful this latest issue is! I LOVE the visual poetry section, most especially the lovely Ruth Bavetta pages and the Orr collaborations and ‘Enter the Painting’ and ‘The Dream of Trees’ and, well, I could go on. I’ve emailed my artist/poet friends and told them to hustle out and get a copy.”

“I wasn’t going to re-subscribe to Rattle until I got the summer 2008 in the mail. Yippee. I loved the visual poetry feature and hope you will do more. The best find was a poem by Jane Zwart, ‘The Perishable’. I’ve read it three times now and still am awed by the artistry. I e mailed her immediately with praise and will write to her again to tell her that I contacted you. I don’t know her, have never heard of and have never met Ms. Zwart but I’m glad you published her poem.”

That’s just a few of them. We’ve actually gotten more early feedback on this issue than any other. And I thought the nurses were psyched last winter. So check it out if you can, or wait 6 months and see it online.