While at times The Poets Canvas presents poetry that uses language in creative, and innovative ways, the overall literary mediocrity of this quarterly online journal makes for a highly unfulfilling read. Until editor L.A. Schuler makes some significant changes in terms of poetry and fiction selection readers will turn away from this zine the way hungry people leave the bowl of iceberg lettuce salad untouched if there is real, hot food to be had.

Poets Canvas has been around since 2000 and includes, along with original artwork, a "Featured Artist Section," and a "Canvas on the Easel" section. The former section features seven to ten poems of a single artist chosen "by invitation only." Feature artists are paid twenty-five dollars for the section or, if they opt to submit only a single poem, twenty-five dollars for that poem.

The latter section features twelve to fourteen poems and two to three short stories each month. Commonly two or three poems from each poet appear, and as many as five from the winner of the "New Voice Award", which is chosen by the editor. Writers are paid ten dollars per poem and the winner of the New Voice Award wins forty dollars. Fiction writers receive .02 cents per word for pieces less than 2000 words, and .01 cents per word for longer pieces. Poets Canvas asks for exclusive rights for the issue of publication and non-exclusive rights archived work.

The first problem I had with this webzine involved simple navigation. While the sections of the current issue are easy enough to find and move through, with an exceedingly useful toolbar with the link to "home" and all of the other sections remaining on the left side of the screen at all times, archives were another matter. Encouragingly enough all past issue were beneath the "past issues" link and I found the one I wanted with no problem. Yet, when I went to look at the work, the main menu toolbar from the most recent issue followed me, making for an incredibly distracting reading experience.

My review of this publication was further complicated by the near complete lack of information regarding the editorial staff. Aside from a note on poetry from the guest editor, the site provides nothing about how who created Poets Canvas, who is currently editing it, and why. But contributing most significantly to the disconnected feeling one gets moving through this zine is the lack of consistently good poetry. While often poems are littered with one or two good lines, the works are sloppy, bloated, and self-important. Poets have discovered that very particular, common experiences can make good literature, but have not yet realized how to bring them beyond the particular. William Alton's poem is a good example of this. His poem begins,

There is certain sadness in walking alone
In a desert with clear nights and cold spinning stars
I run from days too long in other people's homes,


Yes, a simple walk alone at night can be the stuff of a poem, but not this tired, uninspired way, and not in itself. Cold stars? A desert? The poem also fails, in the first three lines, to avoid two of the most common poetry clichés. Few readers will bring themselves to continue slogging through this one, even if the next line, "from bucking bales and shifting rocks from empty fields," is somewhat interesting.

Other poems have awkward line breaks and carry out initially interesting images far longer than is merited. Consider Claudia M. Stanek's "Niagara." Writes Sloan:

Should you let it carry you
as driftwood gently to its banks?
Or should it simply shove you
into impossible awkward angles?


Why the emphasis on "you", and of course, why the worn out subject of powerful bodies of water and what happens when people jump in them. This poem and others like it are heavily fettered by melodrama and pretension, and need to move on faster.

The fiction on the webzine does not fare much better. Hareendran Kallinkeel's "The Fortunate Milkman" reads, "Sparkling rays of anger bounced off his shiny walking stick" and later, "tremors in her body release a bout of sobs that jolted her." While the plot and to some degree the character development of this spunky short story is fairly passable, prose like this makes it unreadable.

This is not to say that Poet's Canvas does not occasionally score some real poetry. Walt McDonald writes in "Spoils of War":

He hoards seashells and conchs, snails
dipped in amber from Galveston, souvenirs
of a rare day off from work in the Thirties.
Framed like diplomas, he saves postcards from Houston,
the year they pulled South Texas cotton

so they wouldn't starve. My brother was ten
and deserves the loot, dragging an eighty-pound sack
and eating crackers. How did my parents find privacy
in a one-room shack, tar-papered without a window
or a fan? No wonder our daddy called me Pest,


Here the writing is sharp, precise, and original. Adjectives are nimbly placed and the writing, though narrative in places, moves well. Yet poems like these are all too rare in Poet's Canvas, and become lost in an almost unwieldy selection of work that feels drab and reheated. The editor would do well to accept less and request rewrites more.

As regards submissions, poets are allowed to submit three to six poems and one short story per month. No length is specified for fiction. A short biography is requested. While Poets Canvas will not pay for previously published work, they will accept it.

Finally, to their credit, the presentation of Poet's Canvas is lucid and tight. The main pages of both sections are eloquent, symmetrical, and often enriched by wonderful artwork. The work itself is presented simply with black text on white background, allowing the reader to concentrate wholly on the text.

The artwork is perhaps the strongest aspect of this zine, and is consistently beautiful. David Zazmut's "Ridumb Cowboy," infuses the cover of the fall 2002 issue with color and vibrancy. My only qualm is that the artwork it is not given the space it clearly deserves. Often complex, visually intricate work is reduced to, for example, the small square in the main toolbar, or crammed into the front page of a section.

Thus while Poets Canvas sporadically publishes real writing, and consistently delivers inspired artwork, if claustrophobically presented, the great bulk of mediocre to outright poor literary work, make this zine a difficult, unrewarding read. A more discerning editorial eye would do much to strengthen and ground this rather tenuous publication.