The fourth issue of Infinity’s Kitchen is about silence: overlooked wishes and people, forgotten music, fading ink. Writing is the best way to discuss silence. Along the way, as usual, we’re trying some different recipes for the way words are written on the page, because it can’t be done out loud.

The written word and the spoken word are two different things. Anyone who has ever been to a poetry reading can tell you that. Let me guess, most of the performers get up and read to you, right? It sounds like they’re reading, too. You can hear it on the television and the radio as well: they’re reading to you. They’re speaking, but it is still the written word, really. It doesn’t sound as natural as real conversation. There’s a difference, then, between talking and reading out loud.

In writing, there is a similar difference. Writing is silent. Sometimes, the writing is merely a succession of one word after another, a lot like being read to. Sometimes, there’s nothing about some writing that makes it uniquely written.

If you read that out loud, it wouldn’t be very different, except that you can control the way it sounds while you read it. You might make it sound another way.

The spoken word, at its best, has some flair to it: a good poetry reading, good hip-hop, a good joke, a good M.C., an impassioned sermon. Is it possible to write that flair down? Is there a type of verbal personality that can only be expressed by writing it down, by making it visible?

Here is list of contributors to the fourth issue.

• Painting by Jim Fuess
• Poetry by John Greiner
• A Visual Poem by James Toupin
• Poetry by Elif Wisecup
• Short Fiction by Vicky Woodward
• Poetry by Ed Zahniser
• Science Fiction by Alexander Weinstein
• A Visual Poem by Nico Vassilakis
• Flarf Poetry by Terry Kattleman
• Short Fiction by Matt Ronquillo
• Prose by Benjamin E Nardolilli
• Comics by Dina Kelberman<
• and more…