About Sphinx

Sphinx was originally a pamphlet-sized magazine published by HappenStance Press. Its focus was poetry pamphlet publishing and it ran to twelve issues containing features, interviews and pamphlet reviews.

After that Sphinx was web-based. 

Until December 2013, there was a comprehensive reviews service for poetry pamphlets (not books). Each publication was appraised by three reviewers (who didn't talk to each other and usually didn't know each other). All three provided a review, later amalgamated into one document. They also gave a rating, based on specific criteria.

The three ratings were published in the form of a Sphinx logo (at the top of the three reviews) with the appropriate number of stripes. The Sphinx logo on this page, for example, has only five. Some pamphlets, however, were awarded three. Or eight. Or even  (top scorers) nine. Issue 24 was the last of these review sets.

For a while there were no reviews.

But in 2015 we started the OPOI reviews, which respond to one point of interest (OPOI) in a pamphlet of poetry, or perhaps short stories. These are reviews with a difference: their primary aim was to respond, not to 'rate'.

In 2023 the service is finally coming to an end.

Eventually, even with labours of love, the labourers lay down their tools.