Introduction to Canopic Jar 25

The year 2011 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first Canopic Jar rolling out of a photocopier. There have been many different venues and forums for the Jar over the years, including a couple of live shows, a printed anthology, and the internet. Rethabile Masilo, whose poetry was a centerpiece for the early print issues, joined up as an editor and designer around 2006 and the audience immediately expanded to numbers unimaginable in 1986.

Together we had big plans for a silver anniversary commemoration, both in print and online, but everything came to a screeching halt when Janice—my friend, lover, partner, and mate—suddenly took ill and left us in March.

In the world that followed, for me, Canopic ceased to exist. Rethabile managed to put out an online issue, using the number 26 in order to leave the celebratory number 25 available for the still pending anniversary edition, but on my end the operation completely shut down.

Yet, here we are with Canopic Jar starting its twenty-sixth year at the onset of 2012. The design is sparse and from my own limited hand rather than Rethabile's more talented fingertips. Why? I will resist the urge to offer further analysis and just say this: I want Canopic Jar 25 to feel like it was mimeographed in the cramped mail room of a two hundred year old building where James Joyce used to smoke his pipe. Or where I used to smoke a pipe and intend to read James Joyce. A skeletal return to the basics.

In this same vein each of the contributors was specifically solicited for this special online issue, just as Phil Merrill and I collected offerings from literary-minded friends in 1985 (though there the similarity ends. That first issue had some entertaining moments sprinkled throughout, but the writing and artwork of issue #25 is truly and consistently superb—my graphic arts skills not withstanding.)

So Canopic Jar will continue in some form or fashion, but what next? Well, I don't know, and therefore we will not be accepting unsolicited submissions at this time (we'll still gladly accept other communication at editor@canopicjar.com.)  

Regardless of the past or future, thank you for spending time with Canopic Jar. May it be a worthy investment, or at least a comfortable respite.

Warmest regards,

Phil Rice

January 2012

☼ ♫ ♪ ¥

For Janice