THE TERMINATOR Caveat: Of all the online sites I looked at, only two weren't attached to a not-so-hidden impulse to promote and/or sell paper-based publications. The first, a pure e-zine: Salt River Review. The second: Jacket. In fact, in the case of Jacket, I found testimony from Time magazine that only 2 people in the world have bound copies of the magazine, and one of them, John Ashbery, patron saint of poetry e-zines, has apparently never owned a computer. In fact I've seen printed testimony from JA on the best way to write a long poem: "Always answer the phone." Method: I searched for a website with non-threatening layout and graphics, requiring only a simple click or two, and featuring at least one poet whose work was completely unknown to me. (Of course it was a plus if I recognized a name or two on the masthead, or list of contributors.) Site: http://www.alsopreview.com/ Disclosure: I recognized two poets: Carolyn Kizer & Frank Stanford. Response: Succumbing to an obvious bias (I live in Oregon), I picked a poet from the West Coast. Was I influenced by the engaging photographs on her website? Sure. Kim Addonizio. She worships at the shrines of three patron saints of poetry: Tequila, Gin and Cold Beer. Or it may be that, just as many other American celebrities, she's perfectly abstemious in her actual day-to-day life, and only portrays an inebriated poet for the sake of her art. But art is not in question. Addonizio can set up situation after situation into which a reader willingly thrusts him- or herself. That's right, the point is sexual, but gender is not an issue. Man, woman or other, you won't even care if you search the web and find stories or poems in which Ms. Addonizio passionately refers to the possibly androgynous lovers who have shared her life & beds. She gives the impression that she contains multitudes, like Janis Joplin, Patti Smith or Sharon Stone. "Every man who's got 7 bucks knows I don't wear underwear," Sharon told a Hollywood reporter, and that attitude of full disclosure is exactly the same attitude K.A. aims for. (More than one website, including the venerable POETRY, has cropped the cleavage from fetching Addonizio cheescake.) But of course, in dealing with a poet, we have the added complication of dealing, for the most part, with someone who is off camera. As far as I know, there is no 24/7 webcam for Kim. (We ARE offered access, at her personal website, to a monthly literary-not-literal diary.) Well, we will have to be content with reading her poem called "Flood," from TELL ME, (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2000), which begins: "How images enter you... so the hairs along your arm /lift in that current of memory, and your tongue tastes / the sweet salt of a lover as he surges / against you..." The very best of her poems seduce any reader with words into a world that is, while perhaps not better, at the very least more alive with the fear and romance of love's cutting blade. ". . . turn your face to the wall," she advises another partner in a poem, "while I curl /around you again, and enter another morning / with aspirin and the useless ache / that comes from loving too well, / those who, under the guise of pleasure, / destroy everything they touch." - Greg Simon Home