Idealists At Large

Will LoTurco, Tom Connor, and Michael Kochol, editors of .45 Magazine

At my local independent bookstore, the UConn Co-op, a group of UConn students gave a reading last Thursday to celebrate the publication of a new literary magazine.  Welcome to the world, .45 Magazine.  Tom Connor, one of the spearheading trio who conceived of and edited the project, began with a heartfelt letter about the power of art and how, in a time when many think the print magazine is dying, written art remains real and vibrant.  It’s true that when you hold the magazine in your hands, it feels good.  The stark black and red woodcut print on the cover of the original first printing has slightly raised, powdery ink you can feel as you puzzle out the image.  The contents are equally inviting, a combination of prose, poetry and artwork that is genuine and startling.

Half a dozen poets and writers read their work, including Claire Kenny, whose poem “Bathrooms are Interesting Places” ends with a couple of pithy lines:

If bathrooms could write poems
We would be pissing in the street.

Ph.D. candidate D. Michael Jones read his piece “A Dirty Deck of Cards,” which plays with the form of a prose poem as the narrator plays with cards and memories: “I threw the card into the Danube that empties into a Black Sea – it is bad luck to meet the dead in foreign cities – heroin addicts – perverts – cops – the living are trouble enough.”

Michael Kochol’s piece about abandoning a stint of self-discipline to remain true to his apathetic self was absurdly comic, and in contrast, Will LoTurco delivered his evocative “Taxidermy Horse” with calm sincerity:

Please allow four to seven days for delivery,
A white mare with a silver mane

She eats bullets, drinks ripe chardonnay
And gallops in her sleep

In daytime, she runs valiantly with
Red speckled cavalry

Through waterloo, through canopies, suburbs
And up the stairs to the moon, where

She pounds grooves for the beasts
Who have outlived man.

Frankly, I was inspired.  Most of all, I was blown away by the unapologetic, casual idealism of the three editors, Tom Connor, Will LoTurco and Michael Kochol.  Sometimes we’re especially ready to hear a certain message, and I was ready to hear them tell me to write not what I think other people want to read, but what I alone can write honestly, from my heart.

.45 Magazine is on sale at the UConn Co-op, and the editors are accepting submissions for the second issue.  Submission info is here.  The editors intend to keep the publication going after graduation, when they move to New York City.