I can’t believe I didn’t tell you about this. Shows how preoccupied I’ve been. Jeannie Hoag, who earned her MFA at UMass Amherst, and I collaborated this semester to make a digital archive of Foursquare for our “Introduction to Information Technology” class (which is a requirement in the MLS program) (Reminder: I am sometimes blogging about the MLS program over here). These pages compile front and back images of each issue for the first two years of issues (Vols. 1-2); since Volume 3 is both still in progress and still for sale, it is not yet available for free online, and indeed it may be a long time before it is, as poetry, though enjoyable, must take a backseat as a “hobby” for me as long as my financial situation remains what it is. The Foursquare pages currently reside on Jeannie’s server but will soon be migrated to looktouch.com; regardless of migration status you can always reach the archive through looktouch.com/press.
Jessica Smith
Very cool virtual archive, and useful too, in that the 4SQ cloth sleeves — I’m not complaining, just sayin’ — do not have the volume or issue number on them. It’s hard to keep the order of the issues straight, without taking each issue out of the sleeve. And then lame-brain me, as soon as I put it back in, I tend to forget which is what.
Now, with the archive up, the order of issues is much easier to determine. I hope you received a good grade on this project, because I’ll attest: this virtual library works as a reference guide. It solves the one “problem” I had keeping these things straight.
And P.S. — The poetry can be read too! Beautiful.
And P.S.S. — What a range of poets (yes, I know they are all female, but still, what a range!)! Great interesting poetry in every issue. And leaving aside the special editions, am I right there’s no repeating of the poets? I don’t think I grokked that before. So am I right, that’s about 100 different poets? Wow!
Congratulations on this!