A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ANTI-MASK MOVEMENT

by Andrew Frisardi

Abbott Collection 27-KITSCH-WB-155 Sm Trump Bust Water Globe-3" H, Small, Multicolor

When pixel storms had snowed their mind
And crystal balls had gone opaque,
A kitschy star so brightly shined
Its fascination made them blind.

Reality itself was fake,
And every breath they took would bind
And spread a virulent mistake,
When getting duped had left its ache.

Andrew Frisardi’s new books, published or about to be published this year, are a poetry collection The Harvest and the Lamp (Franciscan University Press) and a prose book Love’s Scribe: Reading Dante in the Book of Creation (Angelico Press). Originally from Boston, he lives in central Italy.

THE 18-KARAT GOLD

by Howard Winn

An image created by the artist Maurizio Cattelan of his solid-gold toilet. It is to be installed in a bathroom in the Guggenheim Museum in May. Credit Maurizio Cattelan via The New York Times, April 19, 2016.

The 18-karat gold
potty at the art museum,
entitled America in irony,
throne for one in an exclusive
rest room reserved for a
sit down shit on that
cool gold seat while out-
side the line in the gallery
waits and twitches in need
not merely to piss or defecate
but to view this elaborate
priceless commode as a
comment on the pop
art that is kitsch beyond
value summing up what
life and art has become
in the postmodern world
where ostentation and
vulgarity have triumphed.

Howard Winn's work has been published in Dalhousie Review, The Long Story, Galway Review, Descant.  Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Main Street Rag, Evansville Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, 3288 Review, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Blueline. He has a novel coming out soon from Propertius Press. His B.A. is from Vassar College. his M.A. from the Stanford University Creative Writing Program. His doctoral work was done at NYU. He is Professor of English at SUNY-Duchess.