James Roome Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“I see the surreality and absurdity of my writing as both a disruption and a form of entertainment. The world can sometimes seem overwhelmingly serious; absurdity undermines this.”
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Jenna Clake
“When I first started reading surreal and Absurd poetry, I was amazed by that the poems – and the poets – could do. I think this is what I’m always trying to do in my poems – see what I can do, and what the poem can do, what I can get away with. I want to always explode what poetry ‘should’ do…”
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Luke Kennard
“The surreal/absurd has always played a huge part in my work, I guess as a tool or a strategy or a thought experiment. Something I like about it is that it’s so easy to go wrong...”
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Jeff Alessandrelli
“I attempted to investigate what doesn’t fit and why that unfitting is often more important than that that fits. The songs on the record that I like best are the ones that momentarily skip before righting themselves. But you remember the skip later. “
Surreal-Absurd Sampler David Greenslade
During lockdown I explored the idea of immobility -- especially the sessile animal known as the sponge. I began to think of myself as a sessile being . . .
I Download a Baby
These poems are primarily about isolation and the anxiety associated with feeling different, strange, and alone. Another major thread is that of the absurdity of life, and the futility of trying to project any meaning onto it. At times these anxieties manifest themselves as humour, at other times, as surreal dreams or nightmares.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Mark Russell
The poems here are from a new project titled It’s Going To Be a Long Night, Melissa. They mine the ways in which we deceive and are deceived; how our pursuit of meaning and intimacy so persistently misfires; how unremitting is the absurdity, and yet how heartily we laugh into it.
Parade (and other poems)
These poems are from a manuscript composed entirely of prose poems.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Judson Hamilton
"These poems are from a manuscript I’m working on called The Vogue for Flatness, so we’re still learning about one another. Poems for me are a way to filter the world, to make sense of it, to live in it. Perhaps it’s having been raised in suburbia or a childhood steeped in comics and cable TV, but there seems to me no other honest way to do this than through the surreal, absurd, and grotesque." - Judson Hamilton
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Charles J. March III
Charles J March III gives us a new exegesis of the holy scriptures.
Surreal-Absurd-Sampler Brian Clifton
“There was a game I used to play as a child. My friends and I would turn off the lights of a room and stare at each other's faces. Because we could only see vague outlines, our imaginations would fill in the details, would distort the faces we knew until they were strange and stranger. I think these experiences are related to seeing the surreal blossom in the contemplated mundane.”
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Glen Armstrong
“I’ve been writing requiems for people I admire lately, some of them fictional, some of them still alive. These folks may have ended up on gum wrappers or Mr. Cobain’s t-shirt or Mr. Zapruder’s movie. They usually share a unique talent that still can’t compensate for a unique and profound sadness. These are a few of those requiems.”
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Matthew Haigh
“The two sets of poems here are the results of experiments with the cut-up technique. Both sets centre around cult television shows with a warm, gay-icon slant (The Golden Girls and Murder, She Wrote respectively). “
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Lorelei Bacht
“I grew up on French surrealism (my mother would read us Paul Eluard's poetry at bedtime) and I visit this open-ended poetic space whenever I am struggling to make sense of things and/or to write anything sensical.“
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Adam J. Maynard
“Surrealism and Dada are among the artistic forms that have long fed in to my writing. Gallons of Gertrude Stein, smatterings of Edith Sitwell and Stevie Smith. Mouthfuls of Michaux, currents of Kafka and Carrington, Donald Barthelme dropping around for tea.”
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Tom Jenks
This week we have the wonderful surrealist/absurdist humour of Tom Jenks. Everyday wonders with fabulist elements. Llamas and whales and kings and waffles!
Raymond Chandler Tries His Hand at Socratic Dialectic
A sampling of poems and prose-poems/flash fiction by Gary Percesepe.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Jennifer L. Knox
“To zag instead of zig. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's weird and creepy and feels like a ghost is typing through me.” Some good journeys this week with the poetry of Jennifer L. Knox.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler James Knight
This week we have a nice combo. Some psycho-sexual Bird King poems from James Knight and art from Alex Stevens.
The never-ending quest…
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