Christened Final Utterance
Michael Sutton traces a line through 60s and 70s electronica in a stream-of-consciousness style essay, while exploring the surreal nature of the current cultural and political moment. Bands and artists such as Silver Apples, Morton Subotnick, Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel form a part of his meandering.
A Word on Poem Brut
Images - Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
Paul Hawkins, who co-runs Hesterglock Press, reflects on the meaning and origins of the Poem Brut, an artistic and literary movement that celebrates artistic creative writing - embracing text and colour, space and time, handwriting, composition, abstraction, illustration, sound, mess and motion - affirming the possibilities of the page, the voice and the pen in a computer age.
Red Hen Press: The Poetry Special
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
Monica Fernandez presents four Red Hen Press poets Joshua Rivkin, Marie Tozier, Jim Peterson, and Susan Ludvigson.
Five Visual Asemic Poems
At the beginning of lock down last year, I started working on a series of asemic-inspired, abstract, A4 pieces. See below five of my more successful and, to my mind 'beautiful', efforts.
What It Means to Be a Rebel in the 21st Century
An essay that explores the difficulties of rebellion in the 21st century from a wide range of perspectives. Of particular concern are the shortcomings of “us and them” narratives and the absence of a single cohesive alternative to neoliberalism in the fragmented terrain of postmodernity.
Ticks from Hareskov: A Selection of Grzegorz Wróblewski’s poetry
Written at different points in Grzegorz Wróblewski’s life, these poems connect with each other in unexpected ways.
Reflections on Editing
AGNI and Arrowsmith Press’s founder, Askold Melnyczuk, reflects on a life-time as an editor, revisiting the friendships and experiences that helped shaped his literary awareness.
The Man Who Smells of Lemons
“The Man Who Smells of Lemons” depicts a nonbinary figure who is never named, and who explores crumbling streets and buildings as an outsider; a ghost, almost; or a watcher who cannot connect. It comes from Jude Marr’s debut collection of poems We Know Each Other by Our Wounds (Animal Heart Press).
Aletta Ocean Alphabet Empire
Aletta Ocean’s Alphabet Empire (Hesterglock Press) is a collection of art poems, hand wrought in black, grey, silver and white, fashioned with Indian ink, paint and pen, worked with techniques that edge around writing, vying with abstraction, constantly harrying semantic meaning and legibility. My concerns are sex, poetry and pornography and the disconnect between the former and the latter.
Spiritual Pathology
Ever encountered a guru who used his so-called “wisdom” for darker, more selfish needs? Practicing Buddhist and Jungian scholar Rob Preece speaks candidly about the psychological pitfalls of spirituality, explaining why seekers of spiritual truth can sometimes get caught in webs of self-delusion.
A Long Illness
A long illness. Graphite on paper. 2021.
The Future of the Oracle
Georgieva’s practice ranges from film to performance to installation, often incorporating herself as a character, pop icon, and/or feminine trope. Her work utilizes lo-fi materials and production to merge traditional, mythological, and historical themes with contemporary popular culture.
A Cry of Desire, A Cry of Goodbye
Autumn light makes the crayfish eggs hatch.
The last nymphs recently fell from the trees. Many have made their way into the darkness. The first ones that came out already know what the sap tastes like.
They sing silence underground.
About a Lover from Tunisia
My dear Mercurial friends, today I present the work of Arturo Desimone, whom I first met through his translations of the poetry of Blanca Varela.
The Uncertain Geography of Lightning: Poems of Bartomeu Crespí
Everyday language has its limits. Poetic language multiplies the number of ways I can communicate with the world.
Never Mind the Beasts
Written with tremendous energy, Never Mind The Beasts (Dostoyevsky Wannabe) is Marcus Slease's debut novel. Beginning in Portadown, Northern Ireland during the Troubles, the book details the author's move with his family, as a small boy, first to Milton Keynes and then to Las Vegas before documenting his further solo travels trying to survive on the meagre pickings of a writer whilst teaching English as a second language in everywhere from South Korea, Poland to Turkey and, latterly, Spain (Madrid and Barcelona). Read an excerpt here.
Sea-Creatures
We lie within the deep flow
feeding constantly. We
seep slowly beneath ice-packs
green like peppermint tea.
How like a winter
A setting for Shakespeare’s sonnet ‘How like a winter’
Don't They Know It's the End of the World?
World-ending has long been a popular scenario for the future even before capitalism, with the apocalypse for example. However, the hopelessness that things will never change is what this is about—as we fall dependent on crisis capitalism, our awareness could make way for an apathetic witnessing of the end of the world.
Are we Living in Disneyland?
A shallow interpretation of our consumerism today maintains that we are all given an ‘illusion of choice’. Coca-Cola is Republican, and Pepsi is Democrat, with this key conceptualisation of politics as soft drinks pertaining that either choice is bad for you. However, it’s precisely that choice of substituting one product for another that, in turn, develops our identity from the culture of significance that holds us captive.
The never-ending quest…
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