Some Thoughts on the Avant-garde
Why care about avant-garde? I found John Ashbery and unearthed more than a poem but a type of meditation and mental space in words.
Selected Visual Poems of Michelle Moloney King
My work is informed by play, the relationships of form / shape / colours within the page, of identity and what it means to be unique. And a longing to find the ultimate truth or get "closure" in a world of no logic and absurdity.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Chrissy Williams
This week we have some LA surrealism from the poet Chrissy Williams. “Even cheerfulness is absurd, if you ask me. But I always want to look for some kind of route to laughter, because think of the alternative. “
Broken Sidewalks
The series is entitled Broken Sidewalks. I used written text (from a poem I wrote) and manipulated images as the basis for creating these digital artworks.
National Poetry Month Celebration from Red Hen Press
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
Happy National Poetry Month from Red Hen Press! Our next collaboration with Mercurius Magazine features poems from Kim Stafford, Khalisa Rae, Nikki Moustaki and Allison Joseph. Their collections were published by Red Hen this April.
Aliens: Poems on Films
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
SJ Fowler renders the alien films into a set of avantgarde poems. In this tantalising glimpse of work from his new new book Come and See the Songs of Strange Days (Broken Sleep Books), cinema overlaps with language, combining lyricism with abstract visual commentary.
Sorry Gets Hooved
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
“Sorry Gets Hooved” is from Hannah Regel’s latest poetry collection, Oliver Reed (Montez Press). The poem looks at the relationship between film, horses, and the depiction of women.
Practising a Sustainable Life: An Interview with Sara Rodrigues
After many years of urban living, the Portuguese artist Sara Rodrigues, and her partner, Rodrigo B. Camacho, moved from London to the rural area of Cabeceiras de Basto in Portugal, to start a new life. The pair are realising a dream from the ground up with their bare hands: a zero waste, self-sustainable home. The name of this project is Landra.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Vik Shirley
Welcome to the second instalment of Surreal-Absurd. This week we have the fab Vik Shirley. We hope you enjoy. These poems are selected from her chapbook Corpses (Sublunary Editions) and her collection, The Continued Closure of the Blue Door (HVTN).
Some Thoughts on Surrealism/Absurdism
Why contemporary surrealism-absurdism is an aesthetic for our times
I Like Skulls
I like skulls,
I think skulls are darling,
I think we all could learn a lot from skulls…
Summer of the Cicadas
As the road rises in elevation, the air grows cooler. I keep going until the river narrows with boulders. Sweat sticks to my skin as I slow and pull over on the side of the road. I stash the bike amongst some bushes and climb down the encampment to the water bed.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Marcus Slease
Here is a selection of surrealist/absurdist poems from my collection The Green Monk (Boiler House Press). This selection includes two poems in conversation with the surrealist paintings of Dali, two collage poems using found material, and two absurdist narrative poems.
Cystisus Scoparius
In my artwork, I have focused mostly on the ideations of a refined image. I sought to extend the drying time of photographs. To allow the ink to hold traces of the conditions within which the works were placed. I removed the medium of paper from the process, instead, printing directly onto aluminium.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Zachary Schomburg
Surreal-Absurd - Project Jupiter
Some of the most exciting poetry and hybrid work being written today is absurdist/surrealist and often minimalist. Every other Monday, I will feature an absurdist/surrealist writer to tickle your fancies. First up, we have Zachary Schomburg. A selection of absurdist/surrealist prose poems from his book Fjords Vol.2. Forthcoming from Black Ocean in May 2021.
A Very Brief History of Oneness
Poetry of Life - Future World(s)
When we speak of Oneness, we usually mean the separation of the self is an illusion and that ultimate reality transcends such dualism. It is a concept that recurs throughout human history.
Places that hum
A villa on the Mediterranean coast is built in 1929, designed by architect Eileen Gray as a refuge for herself and her lover. She encodes their intertwined initials into the name of the building — the house from its foundations up is inscribed with love. After the couple separate, she watches the building fall into disrepair: inside unwanted murals are painted while from outside bullets perforate its skin. Now as the building undergoes restoration, they channel Eileen’s phantasm - her ideas and her intuitions. Her desire to design a “dwelling as a living organism” invoked to bring life again to its bones.
Eileen Myles: Naming it all, Naming everything
Eileen Myles is an American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Here she reads from her book: I Must Be Living Twice.
Mercurius in Conversation with SJ Fowler
Thomas Helm and SJ Fowler discuss the contemporary avantgarde literary scene in Europe, SJ Fowler’s own works, the limits of lyric poetry and Romantic ego-worship in an age of ecological collapse and spiralling inequalities, the split between the traditional and the avantgarde, where the current generation is headed, among other things…
March is When the Blackbirds Build their Nests
Even in the winter it is possible to hear blackbirds singing (their song intensifies from January onward). They enjoy singing when the Sun is close to the horizon. Also on days with little rain. Their singing, however, follows a different pattern in cities. The lighting and traffic makes them sing even earlier in the morning, and sometimes all night long. We give them neither darkness nor silence.
The never-ending quest…
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