Feminism, Culture, and Poetry with Luna Luna Editor, Lisa Marie Basile
Sarah Marcus: You are the editor-in-chief at Luna Luna Magazine, which is self described as “a diary of ideas and a place for dialogue.” From your website, it seems as though that this publication encourages a wide range of views and opinions. Although you “do not tolerate sexism, misandry, homophobia, ageism, racism, sizeism, religism, classism or transphobia in comments or in our published work,” you do allow articles from authors and comments from people who openly disagree and may have controversial stances on a variety of issues. How was Luna Luna Magazine founded, and how do you view its role and importance within the greater feminist and literary community?
Lisa Marie Basile: When I started Luna Luna I wanted to create a conversation. We are almost entirely run by women, and that is something I'm very proud of and want to continue. We of course allow voices from everyone, but I have never published anything I consider problematic or hateful.
I allow a very specific level of autonomy with regard to our contributors and staff writers; our disclaimer very clearly says that while we may not all agree with one another, we allow conversation and opinion. I want people to be able to discuss race, society, gender, sexuality and lifestyle in an open way. I will say, though, that I've never, ever published anyone who I felt was harmful to the public dialogue. We do publish comments to our articles that may be in opposition to our ideas (unless they're blatantly rude or disgusting) and even then, sometimes (rarely), comment moderation slips through the cracks.
We do this because it gives our readers a chance to discuss the issue and it gives our writers the opportunity to provide a teaching moment. If I feel that there is ever a exploitative comment or if a commenter gets out of hand I'll certainly discuss with the author and editors. I firmly believe in the discussion of differing opinions for the health of all - to an extent. We want to provide a platform for idea, and even confession of flawed idea, but I would not allow hate speech. We haven't even come close, and if we had, our editorial staff would have had a very detailed discussion about it.
As far as feminism is concerned, our feminism is innate. We provide feminism in action. We are written by (mostly) women. We feature, spotlight and promote women. We actively seek diverse opinions on feminist issues, and we actively take a stance against everyday sexism. No opinion or delivery will be perfect for everyone, but we certainly try to at least get people talking about issues that affect them. We've had a lot of interaction with (either through content share or cross-promotion) other feminist organizations and magazines, and we're really proud of that.
I'm not comfortable with labels but I will say our writers are gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, asexual, religious, atheist, parents, soon-to-be parents and those who don't want children. We have writers of almost every race, socioeconomic background, and size and we're determined to welcome people from every path of life.
In the end, we want to offer opinion of lifestyle, culture and the arts - and we welcome writing in those areas through a variety of lenses.
SM: You are also a co-editor & co-curator at DIORAMA: Poetry/Shape/Sound, the NYC editor of The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, and the editor at Patasola Press. Can you please tell us a little bit about each of these projects and about the experience of being an editor for so many different, interesting projects?
LMB: I am inundated, but luckily these projects don't all come to life at once. Patasola Press is a small press. I publish a handful of chapbooks or books per year and have found it very difficult to do any more than a few. My goal here is to publish beautiful words, because I love the authors I work with.
I curate content from writers in the NY area for The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, which is on break right now. I also teach a class for their workshops. DIORAMA is a poetry and performance event that incorporates the idea of musicality in poetry and live music into one intimate, vulnerable event where the reader and the audience isn't separated by podium and harsh light. We're very interested evocation and reading style and sound - how sound affects the listener's experience. We host this event (myself and co-curate Alyssa Morhart-Goldstein, who runs SOUND Lit Mag, the associated journal of contemporary musico-poetics) every few months. We're like a live action lit-journal; we select poets and their poems for the event. We also pair them with musicians who set their poems to music. It's amazing.
I love to support writers and do beautiful things. I'm probably stretched too thin (no, I am), but I work best when busy. I am just lucky to be around the best people.
SM: I am so excited that your first full-length book, APOCRYPHAL, is due out this summer from Noctuary Press. Can you give us a synopsis of this work and tell us what inspired you to write these poems?
LMB: Thank you!!! I am so excited, too. It's a weird, almost anti-climactic feeling; sort of like a death and a birth at once. I am already well-past the experience of those poems and I moved through a lot when writing it. Now it feels like a world I vaguely remember in a dream, but it's still a world I know as home.
APOCRYPHAL is sort of set in three parts: a genesis, a world of secrets (apocrypha) and a paradise. For me, these "parts" are fluid; they're from dreams and realities and half-remembered memories and secrets. Sometimes I don't know which are which, but I use form and lineation to explore this. The book examines the woman's relationship to sex and desire and being desired, but I think I try to subvert what we've been taught to "be" and "perform" and "look like." I wanted to create a world that was as superficial and dramatic and broken as I felt and was taught when I was younger, insecure, and frightened. A lot of it deals with my father, who left when I was young and has always been a figure of relative mythology to me: how we talk about fathers, how we let them influence us, how we let them "define" men - these are all topics I encounter. It's written from not only my perspective but a sort of omnipotent camera. It pulls from my life as an Italian-American in a religious family, and from life on the beach and in cars and from the younger me who connected sex with validation. It's my way of consoling my younger, more sunless self.
SM: What are you working on next?
LMB: I'm working on a book of fiction-it details the extreme side of friendship: obsession, co-dependence, ownership, lust and manipulation. I'm frightened of how natural it feels. But I'm excited for it to exist.
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Lisa Marie Basile in a NYC-based poet. She is also the author of the chapbooks Andalucia (The Poetry Society of NY) and triste (Dancing Girl Press) and the forthcoming full-length APOCRYPHAL. She is the founding editor of Luna Luna, a diary of art, sex and culture, curator for the musicopoetics performance salon, Diorama and the NY editor and a writing instructor for The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. A graduate of The New School’s MFA program, she has been named a top contemporary NYC poet to read by several publications. She tweets at @lisamariebasile and works as a writer.
