ABOUT SKIDROW PENTHOUSE
Skidrow Penthouse is the most unjustifiably ignored journal of its kind. Perhaps because its name conjures images of homeless people in suggestive poses. Or because of a conspicuous absence of big names and/or contributor notes. Or maybe its stance against the in-vogue ironic writing that can only be described as straining-so-hard-to-be-hip-it-hurts.
Now in the tenth year of its attempted sabotage of would-be contributors’ guesses as to editorial biases, over ten thousand poems and stories that take place in a bar or on skid row have been rejected so far. Contrary to its name, Skidrow Penthouse is not hospitable to eat-shit-shower-and-shave writing, or any kind of literary undertaking that aspires only to disturb the flaccid ghost of Bukowski.
The journal has been funded entirely by the editors Rob and Stephanie, and perhaps for this reason, their little bible has more than succeeded in its goal of obscurity.
There is no intelligent rationale for the existence of the magazine save for the fact that it makes its editors and its contributors happy.
SKIDROW PENTHOUSE ANTI-MANIFESTO
A home for wayward voices whose language originated with the last, incomplete suggestions of human sensibility.
A sanctuary for the perfections of brokenness.
A book of unkempt beauty, a mirror where one can hibernate stripped of ego.
A heaven without its own truth, and therefore at least one truth.
An invitation to the fires forgotten by the many.
A shelter for the delicate, nearly lost music holding the days and their darkness together.
But most importantly, a shelter.
A bed of named and unnamed dynasties, their sadnesses, their celebrations.
