The Seam and The Drop
The Seam and The Drop is a new story by sally O’Reilly: Lying on her back in the grassy, dandelion-clocked clearing, the cool albumen oozed on to her pale torso and the yolk thudded lightly on her sternum. She smeared the glossy, fishy viscosity over her belly and breasts, careful not to break the yolk at her centre like the sun.
Highlights from the 2021 Miami Book Fair
Some fine contemporary poets reading their work: Devon Walker-Figueroa, Amanda Moore, Teresa K. Miller, Trevor Ketner, W. J. Herbert, Forrest Gander, Kwame Dawes, Shara MacCallum, Carol Muske-Dukes, Jill Bialosky, Achy Obejas, and Sally Keith. Enjoy!
David Spittle Surreal-Absurd Sampler
Surrealism is a gateway, or permission, through which we can better understand our own ways of understanding and how often they are stifled or politely domesticated in learnt behaviours – ideologically exiled into the hidden, sublimated or repressed…
Laguna de Don Pedro and other poems
A selection of mystical poems by Rowena Hill, a Venezuela-based poet, translator and researcher.
The Stranded Sugar Dispenser
The Stranded Sugar Dispenser is a new story by Imogen Reid: her left arm rests on the smooth formica surface, and her cheek is pressed against the knitted sweater that extends the entire length of her arm. the woolen cuff is stretched tightly over her knuckles before she begins to force her index finger through a small hole situated just above the vertical ladder that has recently started to form there. once the feat is accomplished, she proceeds to grip the under edge of the cuff with her fingers so that her hand forms a small fist
Lila Matsumoto Surreal-Absurd Sampler
I love writing that may be called absurd or surreal, but which presents the world within their text as absolutely logical. This logic might be manifested through po-faced intonation, curlicued yet grammatically correct syntax, lush landscapes described in a pointillist fashion…
Extract from West
An exclusive extract from the beginning of Megan Bradbury’s novel-in-progress, West: Rae starts dating a Mormon. They roam the city. They never go up the towers. Rae doesn’t want to see anything from up high. The Mormon is an artist and activist. His causes are the same as her mother’s were. After protesting in Battery Park, he’ll be moving west. That’s where the greatest battles are. The Mormon has Clint Eastwood posters on his bedroom wall. Clint Eastwood wants to be seen to look after women in stories, but the women themselves aren’t free. He always looks after the Wild West towns.
i.e. crazy
“i.e. crazy” and “Of Others” were made using acrylics, an old copy of J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, the June 18 2021 issue of The Times Literary Supplement, and cartridge paper.
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.”
A conversation near a window
A conversation near a window is a new story by Ben Pester: We sat with his walnutting for a moment. He touched his face, gasping a little as he explored the new contours he had. His eyes, on rigid stalks, were layered with a kind of papery rind: his new eyelids. They made a hushing sound as he blinked.
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…”
A Romp in the Bookish Dark of Technocracy
A review and riposte to “The Selling and Self-Regulation of Contemporary Poetry” by JT Welsch.
ROBIN
Robin is the opening chapter of Sara Baume’s novel A Line Made By Walking: Works about Carpet, I test myself: Mona Hatoum, 1995. An expanse of silicone rubber entrails fitted impeccably around one another to form a flawless floor. Our intestines are several metres long; a fact which has always astonished me. So maybe Hatoum’s piece is about the astonishing capacity of the human body. Or maybe it’s about how extravagantly attached we are to the things we own, as if they were the insides of our bodies and not just the insides of our houses. Furnishings, ornaments, even the upholstery. Such that we end up devoting more effort to preserving the carpet than we do preserving our intestines.
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...”
Mosaic Poems
Two “mosaic” poems by the avant-garde artist and poem brut editor SJ Fowler
Autobiography of a Book
“Autobiography of a Book” is the story of a book willing itself into existence. Every word “Book” brings it closer to its dream of being what it claims to be, a real, honest-to-goodness book.
Translation
Gura learned to speak French because she heard a man once speaking it to his dog, and it sounded simpler than her native tongue.
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. “
The Affordable House
An architect's view on the housing crisis and what can be done to solve it.
Ode to Red Vienna
It was right when the quarantine was about to lift that the cases spiked again. A whole new strain they hadn’t seen before. The text came through this morning. Just when it seemed like the end, here we all were once more, back in the middle of it; or perhaps, still only at the very start.
The never-ending quest…
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