RETORT MAGAZINE ISSN 1445 – 7164
“For those who protest that most of these thousands of journals can be dismissed as marginal—that we need pay attention to only a handful of “prestigious” ones, like Poetry and The New Yorker—may I suggest that there could be a few Blakes or Dickinsons swimming with the guppies in that wide prosodic sea? If a truly titanic poet were to appear, wouldn’t one of the less visible but more adventuresome journals—Retort Magazine, say (“we favor the cutting edge over the blunt of the handle, the avant-garde over backward walking”)—be more likely to be his or her publisher than would status-conscious professional journals likePloughshares and American Poetry Review?” – David Alpaugh, February 21, 2010 The New Math of Poetry, The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education Washington D.C, U.S.A
and with retorted scorn his back he turned – Milton
Retort Magazine is dedicated to the publication and presentation of new innovative, experimental cutting edge art + text in all disciplines. Retort Magazine publishes both fiction and non fiction. Retort has published some of the worlds best known artists and writers but is also a platform for new and emerging writers and artists. We favor the cutting edge over the blunt of the handle, the avante-garde over backward walking, the delinquent imagination over the hammered economic mind. We publish whenever something interesting arrives in the inbox.
HISTORY
Founded in the laundry of an old queenslander behind a gas station in Brisbane in 2001 by Australian poet/writer Brentley Frazer RETORT was originally conceived as a spinoff to a live poetry/music/art/performance event called The Vision Area. The Vision Area was a monthly ‘culture jam’ started by Brentley and poet Adam Pettet and hosted by Ric’s Bar in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. The Vision Area ran from 1998 – 2000 and only ended when the co-ordinators felt they had drained the talent pool.
In the beginning Retort was published as bi-monthly online magazine. In 2003 after receiving a development grant Retort moved to an experimental ‘live’ format with new content being published whenever something cool arrived in the submissions inbox. After the experiment was deemed impossible by the exhausted editor (without the budget of at the very least a mid-sized newspaper in a large city), Retort resumed publishing on a semi-regular basis and has continued, throughout a whole decade, reaching millions of individual readers.
Retort is now based wherever the Editor is – which is usually somewhere on planet Earth.
Retort Magazine is archived on site and since 2003 also by The National Library of Australia as part of the Pandora Project which aims to permanently preserve electronic publications based on their national and cultural significance.
What others are saying about Retort Magazine
Retort linked from an article about the internet and literature in the Guardian UK
Cordite says ‘Retort is one of the truly great success stories of contemporary Australian publishing, and a triumph for democracy as it is understood on this island. ‘ [full review]Realtime + Onscreen says ‘yum‘ and that Retort pits a feral diversity and a growly avant-gardist manifesto against “the established cult of ignorance consensus idiocy.” in a review of Australian Literature Online
In 2003- Get Underground was …’enraptured by the variety and outstanding quality of written and visual art…the depth of thought and truly experimental creativity…’
in 2002 – Interactive Press said ‘Retort is already proving to be an outlet for a new literary generation‘.
