THE OLDEST PROFESSION

MiPoesias' latest issue, The Oldest Profession, has, as you can guess, sex work as its theme. Guest edited by Jenni Russell, it also features poetry by Gregory Donovan, Janann Dawkins, Collin Kelley, Alan King, Ellen Kombiyil, Christopher Luna, Montgomery Maxton, Taye Neese, David Petruzelli, Franz Wright and yours truly, as well as short stories by J.D. Smith, Geer Austin, Cindy Kelly and Erika Mikkalo. My own poem (prose poem, rather) is about magazine fashion models -- sex workers of another sort.

As Jenni writes in her introduction, the term "sex work" conjoins two of the most loaded words in our culture. She also writes, "...for this issue I chose pieces that went deeper than opinion -- writing that questioned the meaning of the phrase 'sex work' itself. And in the end, that general category 'sex work' is exploded and challenged by the writers refusal to reduce a human life to theories and catchphrases, and instead capture the universal experience shared by all of us: love, growing up, honesty, rejection, curiosity, vulnerability, compassion, doubt, desire, loneliness and beauty."

The revue is available in print for purchase as well as free download PDF. I haven't read it all yet, but particularly strong selections come from Collin Kelley, Janann Dawkins, Ellen Kombiyil and Franz Wright, a poet I especially admire.

P.S. Jenni just posted that The Village Voice gave the new MiPO a shout out on its Naked City blog. How appropriate. Here's the link. This note thanks to Collin Kelley's blog.