Louise Akers, Jeff Voss

TOWARD AN ETHIC/S OF MYCELIAL AWARENESS

Louise Akers is a poet living in Queens, NY. They earned their MFA from Brown University in May of 2018, and received the Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop Prize for Innovative Writing and the Confrontation Poetry Prize. Their chapbook, Alien year, was selected by Brandon Shimoda for the 2020 Oversound Chapbook Prize. Akers’s work can be found in the Berkeley Poetry Review, MIDTERM, Bat City Review, Fugue Journal, Confrontation Magazine, bæst journal, and elsewhere.

Jeff Voss is a poet and ultimate frisbee player based in Brooklyn, NY. He is currently a PhD candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Edward Lee

Across All We Do Not Understand (‘Ephemeral’)

A Meeting Of Possible Moments (‘Ephemeral’)

In between Days

Ever You And I (‘Between Sleep And Dreams’)

Lost Together (‘Our Fragile Glimpse’)

Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, non-fiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll. He is currently working on two photography collections: ‘Lying Down With The Dead’ and ‘There Is A Beauty In Broken Things’. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy.
His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com

Flo Ray

from Fury of the Female Yellowjackets

Fury of the Female Yellowjackets is a project in two parts: one is a long poem written in three acts; the other is a sculptural installation. Inspired in part by the female yellowjacket (wasp), whose venomous stinger is also her sex organ, and in part by the role incongruity plays within collective organising principles — such as those witnessed in the various configurations of the Gilets Jaunes (who, at the start of writing, were entering their 14th Act across France). Both iterations of the project reflect on the body as a site of collision, exploring what it means to hold multiple, often conflicting, possibilities simultaneously.

Flo Ray lives in London, UK, and works across text, film, performance, sound, drawing, sculpture and installation. Recent work includes her audio play, Motherlugger, which was broadcast in April ’21 at echoes.earth for CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG; and AR TICULATIONS — an excerpt of which was published in Prototype’s recent anthology, Intertitles.

Florence Uniacke

from Vocable

Florence Uniacke is a poet based in London. Their chapbook Suiving is currently out with Ma Bibliotheque and their next book, Vocable, is forthcoming with Crater press.

Jed Munson

From “Silts”

The poems are selected from a series of poems called “Silts” that examine surface and sequence as textual senses and architectures. While the titling of the series as “silts” may frame the text as sediment or material, really silt as material is definitionally galvanized by moving water. In this way, the silts are only possible by material and force external to them and in that way negatively refer to that externality. In other words, silts, like these poems, exist necessarily in cooperation with other, less graspable elements of their environment.

Jed Munson is a Korean American poet and critic. His chapbook, Newsflash Under Fire, Over the Shoulder, is forthcoming with Ugly Duckling Presse.

DANIEL OWEN

from Right on Time

Daniel Owen‘s recent publications are Celingak-Celinguk (Tan Kinira, 2021), Up in the Empty Ferries (Third Floor Apartment Press, 2021), and Points of Amperture (dos-à-dos chapbook with Jennifer Soong’s When I Ask My Friend, DoubleCross Press, 2021). His translations from Indonesian include Afrizal Malna’s Document Shredding Museum (Reading Sideways Press, 2019) and poems by Malna and Farhanah published in various journals and magazines. Recent writing and translations have appeared in Circumference, Asphalte, Columbia Journal, and The Poetry Project Newsletter. He edits and designs books and participates in many processes of the Ugly Duckling Presse editorial collective.

Dayna A. Gross

Quickly!

I was born a sensitive and calm child. No one taught me babies cry when they awaken, so I remained silent. My parents were delighted every time they peaked into my bedroom to find me awake, “This one never cries when she awakens,” they would say w/ pride.

I was not taught their language yet. They sounded as foreign to me as moo’ing cattle.

I was born a sensitive and calm child, but my mother was selfish and I absorbed her nature because she was ma-ma and I was girl while the rest of the world were dangerous uncaged zoo animals.

I was born a sensitive and calm child soothed by a selfish nurture and now love with a selfish nature.

I was born a sensitive and calm child, when people try to speak to me all I hear is: Baaaaaah.

NEVER CHANGE

NEVER CHANGE
NEVER CHANGE NEVER CHANGE
NEVER CHANGE
NEVER CHANGE. NEVER CHANGE
NEVER CHANGE

NEVER CHANGE never change never change
Never change
Never cha-nge never change ne-ver change never-change never change.

Never change, neverchange nivir chanj
Never chainj
Never chains
Never change-, never chang.e
NEVER CHANGENEVER CHANGE
NEVER.CHANGE
NEVER CHANG:
NEVER; CHANGE
NEVER CHANG
CHANGE NEVER CHANGE NEVER
CHANGE
NEVR CHANGE
NEVER CH-NGE. N-V-R CHANGE. NVR CHNAGE. EVER CHANGE.

Future. Womb. Country side. Horse. Mental. Cheater. Eyes. Laughter. Contact. Attention. Soft. Return. Humor. Broken. Mundane. Eyes. Ease. Flight. Hotel. Beer. Hike. Summer. Argentina. Chile. Berlin. Writing. Breakfast. Fruit. Peanuts. Commitment. Loyalty. Honesty. Repetition. Love. Heart organ. Heart signals. Imagination. Unforgiving. Maté. Water temperature. Market. Stride. Side by side. Hitch hiking. Alone. Asleep. Left. Distance. Imagination. Wondering. Unknown. Unforgivable. Blasphemy. Friendship. Music. Timing. Outright. Unspeakable. Inaudible. Possibilities. Future. Locked. Loyalty. Promises. Return. Summer. Spring. Flat. Men. Ignored. Heard. Focused. Lightness. Mountain. Rock. Earth. Lake. Dry. Wet. View. Shelter. Bar. Timing. Country. Air. Romance. Unexplored. Again. Again. Possibilities.

Today the objects are frozen

t white tea kettle w t blue and orange-red flowers,
t glass jar, t papers, t books, t plants
Stand unbearably still
If I would slide them off t table one by one, they would descend slowly
Shatter to pieces w a jingle
Like t last guttural sound a lamb releases when more than half its thick red blood has squirted from t slit in its throat and t body jerks automatically but t lamb is lifeless between t eyes, these objects
Shattered to pieces, would too, stare
Back lifelessly w out t prospect of returning

Maybe not t plant
No, most certainly not t plant.

Dayna A. Gross has been published and shortlisted in the Büro BDP Writing Prize 2020 (November 2020), Angel City Review (July 2020), Another Chicago Magazine (June 2020), RHNK (2017), JFKI (2018), Seeing Her Ghost (2017) among other small press publications. She lives in Berlin, Germany where she hosts an experimental poetry radio show called CRYPTOMNESIA, which streams FM in Berlin and Brandenburg.

Maria Damon, Alan Sondheim

Braid

A Fumble of Blimp Sums

Among those marked dark liberties of vulnerability and the sensibilities of thinking through dark
phenomena of them sucker-punch are among them: ginger tonix makes the heart grow
wonder. One wonders for Ross Howard and Bob Dole, were skated holes would be around a
few items when the cataclysm and its non-apostrophe’d accumulations would finally cricket
ricochet depravity one fortunes surgeons sturgeon purges Sears four and blues smoke and
almost as much from surgical symptoms and eggs. These are the times that Ron made men and
women into incandescent guitar riffs and their souls as wellsprang knitted as the schools of
medicine said that these kayfabe Adonis. Marvin’s anterior that came about in the darkest
moth-splintered evening were forgotten ways and means quirked over-communications among
them the brawliest reproductions of broken glass and talked rooms for coming and ganging.
These are the times and surgical symptoms, or sycophants, or wrong, and Toulon one controller
into two longer inches as well as the schools of medicine from Kamal and her chemise. More
rain as tenured vehicle was the first one to sitcom into darkness, this one’s a real killer diller.
Ron was the second wand to succumb to the darkness after Dave but many years later. All
reproductions or brawls put a symbiosis of synods. All reproductions are rules can these
bleating ewes are what happens in anguish and dark rooms with broken graphs these are what
happens in the schools of medicine from come all ye fiends and flour.

The user vessels molds that rodman showrooms on or off in another way for roger Mushroom
Mcintosh once the time to go rears its hydra-headed sum of its hole. Once the time has gone to
seed tools and return the charities you can freshen the charlatan time, the time, the clownish
time tripping over its stupid shoes. And reproduction isn’t production of worry but rather a
cryptic social work. Rain is a reproduction of worry. Isn’t that true? The rain stops here.

A Bundle of Symptoms

If this symptomatic gathering is going to work from: it seems to me that this divine object of perseverance and perplexity would have to have some weren’t too transfer this darling nosegay of symptoms over to the text here and to three was going on right now into a bliss state of bluest bluets and what are we talking object Arnold S sensibilities for awesome this tiny sumptuosity is the homeless and assumes that this is capital and bob Dole of symptoms and salvations. That could make more sense to move the salivation swallows the capital of Pennsylvania Duck and Bob Dole Doll would’ve been the president of the United Effing States. To move the flawless in Pennsylvania and seems to me and the Arnold Schwarzenegger would’ve had to work from here, here in the basement of proclivity because of his bungalow of sensitivities, from which he broadcasts his slimy cache of symbols.

Only two chapter one the Bongo of sensitivities and also congas we were out of earth and a clever cleaver they’re looking for slime molds also, smoked sausage andouille bundle of syllables and use and were found something beatifically quaverly underneath the train that seemed extraordinarily sensitive and a bulbous a word also have two B-sides transferred or Bob Dole Or Us. Beloved question whether Bob Dole was overall good rule were all the jewel and then leaping sprinting longdistance calling in the old mode. He was certainly are something you can get my understanding here is not of perspicacious but no one can only try to grow and thrive on the depth of what is subject to an NT relatives, relative to a bonfire of syllabuses. A sensitivity might have some relationship to two Broadway diners in the typical old style between water witches whirlpool for a popular vortex in Japan intends to work extraordinarily well with the splenetic growth of formal.

A Smorgasbord of Rabid Thumbs

having forgotten what the rain was capable of doing what’s in in without the precipice of prepuce coming through what could only be considered the magisterial in relationship to thinking this through and why dear God and why and why this is acting and behaving correctly for the first time so that’s what I’m saying here is exactly what I mean? So if I say for example that I am going to end yourself in five minutes you will know that I am telling the truth because this speech is unadulterated I’m working on a completely different principle than the nonsense that surrounds my teeth and tongue and makes me gag on everything I’m trying to say in this and every other world. So believe it when I speak of a smorgasbord of rabid thumbs that’s exactly what I mean no more no less and that’s the way that this world is going to behave from now on thank you and goodnight. Paragraph paragraph ha ha ha forever!

Alan Sondheim is a new media artist, musician, writer, and performer
concerned with issues of virtuality, and the stake that the real world has
in the virtual. His writing is known for its “somatic grit” and skeletal
codes that partially appear within and determine the surface; the textual
body and body of text are deeply entangled. He has been producing his
“Internet Text,” a daily meditation on virtuality, for twenty-seven years.
His work can be found at http://www.alansondheim.org/ and YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/user/asondheim/videos .

Maria Damon has published widely on modern U.S. poetry and poetics. She is the author of two books of poetry scholarship; two chapbooks (meshwards and XXX) of cross-stitch visual poems; co-author (with mIEKAL aND, Adeena Karasick, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, and Alan Sondheim) of several books of poetry; and co-editor (with Ira Livingston) of an anthology of readings on poetry and cultural studies. With mIEKAL aND, she published the first book-length poem on the internet, Literature Nation (http://joglars.org/literature_nation/litnat/index.html).

CAConrad

from The Jasmine Ascension

CAConrad has been working with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. They are the author of AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (Wave Books, 2021). Other titles include While Standing in Line for Death and Ecodeviance. The Book of Frank is now available in 9 different languages. They received a Creative Capital grant, a Pew Fellowship, a Lambda Literary Award, and a Believer Magazine Book Award. They teach at Columbia University in New York City and Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam. Please visit their website https://linktr.ee/CAConrad88

Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

from The End Zone

enmeshed and ruthlessly entangled
reduced to a thought inside a thought
the mind in its own place
from the middlings and meddlings
the era of explaining gets you what you want
if words don’t line up properly
you are you just the same as yesterday
flowers bloom next to the cabin where I’m not
but you are still there

miserly thicket
out of which you came
a stupid bouquet
for disintegrating ash
a soggy lifestyle produces a silvery sonnet
a gust of graphs and grabs
easy to be heavy when stuck in the city
network other
the last remaining decision is doldrum

continuous sunshine in memories
obscured by contamination in need of intervention
joining the era of broken sound and lost remedies
that grace the statues
the remorse and regret
my long ears don’t hear a word
nomadic words by you heave heavy
diagnosed as terror and conflict

just a game
to write furiously till your wrist breaks
uninterrupted text
a pin in its bed
slow ornament, decentered, detached,
defaulted
psychological money
conversing by accident
gums up our existence
between the next thought and
the planned ones
asymmetry of accidents
observed niches
cling to maps of lost continents

the punitive idea of Eden
a vain lack anticipated
before meaning arrives
thoughts fade, try again
the arrival of more sound and indifferent luck

my heart would pack a wallop
if the myth of denial was less real
one delicate moment
dies on the vine
a reinterpretation of repeating phrases
to speak the imposed infancy
in the dark soup of society

*

Born in the USA Jane Joritz-Nakagawa has lived inJapan since 1989. Her tenth poetry book, Plan B Audio (Isobar Press)was published in 2020.  She is the editor of an anthology of poetry by women living outside their birth countries and the author of numerous essays and works of fiction.  Email is welcome at janejoritznakagawa(at)gmail(dot)com.

Peter J. King

Peter J. King was born and brought up in Boston, Lincolnshire. He was active on the London poetry scene in the 1970s, returning to poetry in 2013. His work (including translations from modern Greek [with Andrea Christo- fidou] and German poetry, short prose, and paintings) has since been widely published in magazines and anthologies. His in-print collections are Adding Colours to the Chameleon (Wisdom’s Bottom Press) and All What Larkin (Albion Beatnik Press).

Web site: https://wisdomsbottompress.wordpress.com/

Nance Davies

Fugue: one hand tied

Fugue (one hand tied), part of the ongoing project Fugue, documents a project exploring human interaction and the poetics of the ‘everyday’ gesture. ‘People pairs’ using only one hand each and no words, spontaneously perform an unrehearsed task together. They confront the need to let go of control and improvise a solution with one another. The focus is the space between: embodied knowledge and improvised interaction; connection and rupture; empathy and control; interdependency and the illusion of separation. The narrative exists in the lyrical conversation between the two hands…as well as in the minds of the viewers watching and silently scripting the action.

Nance Davies is a Boston based, interdisciplinary artist and curator whose work explores the impact of mass-mediated culture and consumerism on inter-relationships and inter-dependence of all life forms. Recent work explores the poetics of the ‘everyday’ gesture and the transformative role of empathy.

Davies studied at Yale School of Art and received an MFA [Interdisciplinary] from Mills College in Oakland, CA in 1999. Awards include The Coleman Award (Boston University) and the Zorach Fellowship (Skowhegan).

She has exhibited in New York City; Boston; Vancouver, BC, Canada London; Melbourne, Australia; Dublin & Londonderry, Ireland; Dordrecht, The Netherlands; Istanbul Turkey; Athens, Greece; Limassol, Cyprus; Johannesburg, South Africa; Manila Philippines, Seoul, South Korea; Peekskill, NY; Ogden, Utah; Morgantown, WV; Baltimore, MD; Oakland, CA; Richmond, VA; Winston-Salem; NC; Portland, OR; and Rockport and Portland, ME. Davies was born in California. She teaches at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, MA, USA.

Harold Abramowitz

A Whole Host of Events

23.
     The day was going to be beautiful.
     I put my hands out, looked at the sky.
     It was funny.
     A whole host of events.
     And even after all of that time.
     You wanted to lift your eyes up and stare the day in the face. You walked out the door feeling well, looking well. It was going to be a beautiful day.
     It is very weird to be alone, I thought.
     A kind of stranger walked into the room. A whole world in tears. And there had been a discussion of exactly that on the radio earlier in the day. And there were no distractions and there was no running about the room looking at things. A little after the morning. No, the daybreak. You have run out of the very thing that I came here looking for? You were surprised. You were under the impression that things were fine. Then you stole something and tried to find out how much it was worth. You went back to the store and asked the clerk a question. You thought there were very good reasons for feeling angry, at that point.
     The afternoon ended up being very warm. I had a lot of things to think about, at that point. It was going to be a very beautiful day.
     In the morning there was a horse drawn carriage and a warm furnace. Folding out paper and taking a little walk. You are talking a lot, and then you have to go, I thought.
     Why do you ask? You were asking a question. The ground where the snow was resting. It was high in the hills. There was no more asking. You are asking. I am running. I am running in and out of the house and looking around for something good to eat. I am asking directions on the street because I have no friends, and I don’t have any spare change to give to anyone either. I wanted to do things. I wanted to have some good luck. But when it is time to get out of here, you will know, I said.
     You were gallivanting around the house. You took your time. You washed your hands. You loved the way you looked, at that point. You sat in the living room and waited a minute. There was a tub with cast iron feet in the room, and you were about to ask what to do with the tub, how to fill it with water, and why it was there, but you stopped yourself short.
     There was a rabbit on the trail. All the children had seen the rabbit. And eating that much food at one sitting is just asking for trouble, I said. The radio was playing very loudly in the next room. I’d had it. I was playing the piano and wondering why I had ended up living such a dreary life. Why I was so lonely. I longed for something extra to put in my pocket, so to speak. I held my hands out. I wanted to buy something new. It was going to be a beautiful day. And it’s always so cold in here, I thought.
     But the thought of products. Of being beholden to someone else. The moment one has to have that one special thing.
     And I am the product of being born in a weightless room. And who am I to tell you what you should do with your hands, what you should do with your friends?
     It piles up. There are scores of colors. There is nothing left to do at work. But I have to sneak out of this room. I have to sneak out and hit the streets and look for many special things. Colors and other things too.
     Have you ever seen a better position? The clouds in the sky. And everything is so perfect, I thought. I have not wanted to be anywhere else for a very long time. But the time goes by extremely fast anyway. I guess that’s what it means to be satisfied. A whole world of satisfaction. Of people being put together. And if I were the best in the world, I thought. If I were the person I wanted to be, and this hurts me very badly to think about. I had all kinds of fantasies, at first. I had very many things going on. It was really bothersome to think about.
     It was going to be a beautiful day.
     Sunday was your favorite day of the week. You held something in your hands, and no one was particularly good at what they did anymore. No one could ever be counted on to do a good job.
But no one was starving then either. It was audacious and interesting. On top of the wall. The way I stare. The things I can see in your eyes. And it is real love, too, or so I thought at that moment.
     There is something special about you, I said. The nighttime. This is my least favorite time. I have to go. It was going to be a very beautiful day. I will go home and work very hard and do a lot, I thought.
     You sat at your desk and stared out the window. There was something moving in the bush in the garden.
     I put my hands out. I told lies all the time. There was a nest in a tree in the garden. I looked at the tree very carefully, I said.
But you are always looking down on people, you said. The field was full of blooming plants. The field was beautiful to look at in the wind. It was going to be a beautiful day.
     It had taken you a long time to feel the way you were feeling. And it was absolutely essential to feel that way once in a while, too, you thought.
     Even I’d said the same thing, and that had been on a Saturday.

24.
     There was the fix. Or the fix was in. At least that’s what you said, or how it was put. There was a tree and a dog and a fire hydrant. And then the summer came. You were sitting up straight, under no illusions at all.
     But you never call me, I said. The summer had been uncharacteristically warm. I was at home. I was talking on the phone.
And people are funny.
     I lived in a house.
     There was a purse on the floor, and a bag, and a saddle.
     You are after the first thing you see all the time. I find it terrifying, I said.
     Somebody so personable, you were trying to see your way through. It was a strange moment and there were a lot of reasons to be afraid.
     I am going to your house after school. What I was waiting for, I never found.
     It was the summer. You lived in a house. You put your foot in the door. There was a real question of the way things were going to be.
I sit in this chair every single day, I said.
     I can’t believe the things that are happening to me. It happened in a boat at first, and then on the shore. In luxury buses. There were good things that were going to happen, getting ready to happen. I was so happy. I couldn’t believe how happy I was.
     The thorn. I was wearing the thorn and then wondering why I was there. Why was I there? What was I doing in that spot? A figure. The way things are done around here. And there is trouble. I think there is trouble when I’m around.
     A morning. You were sitting in the morning sun. You put your hat on. A table. And vegetables. And coffee too. Sitting in the morning and wondering what to do with the rest of the day. It took a long time to decide. The function of the day. The way the day was going to go. And you felt jumpy and irritated. You were moving all around. Not a word from your friends, though. No relief. And everything cost so much money. And the horror of looking at a life without reality. Without the tides. The terror of the tides. The loud mouth. The making of a million dollars. And then there was one and then there was another one. And then you were told, instructed, in a way, to tell lies.
     I am afraid of the things I see, I said, at one point. I am afraid of the things I am beginning to see. The things that are beginning to come around. And the proof is in the pudding. And this is the answer to the various questions. You see, I was seeking answers in those days. I was seeking answers and asking for the truth and telling lies. I never told any lies, but lies seem glamorous to me today. And why do I think anyone would be paying attention? I asked.
     Why, it would make anyone feel guilty. The expense. The razors and the pins. All the sharp things that were lying around the house. The things that moved silently at night. No bump, you know. Then you smiled. You were wearing a blazer and a cap. A sweater and shoes. You were like a famous dancer, and the way you lifted yourself up and moved around was very special.
     There are special things in this house. There are special things that are surrounding us at all times, I said.
     I should come here more often, I thought to myself. I should put my house in order. I should take my shoes off when I get in the door. I am standing in the doorway, and I am asking myself some really stupid questions. I have a voice in my head, and I wonder how I am going to get any work done that day.
     I am wearing a suit and I have a certain expectation about the way things should be. I put my hands in my pocket and settle in for the night. I was walking out in the rain and telling myself that things were going to be good, that things were really starting to improve.
     There was an argument in the house. Outside the house. There was an argument in front of the house, on the sidewalk.
     Of all things, coming home in the middle of the night and finding out that there was good news. Good things really were happening. I was excited. A whole world was opening up for me, at that point.
     I could have told you that that was going to be the way it was. I could have told you. I should have told you that I was going to be coming home late. But I really wanted to apologize first, before I said anything else.
     And it’s like a dream, you know.
     The way things are. A bed of flowers. A hope chest. A really pretty flower garden. And, at times, it was clear that everything was going to be okay. If you put your mind to it. If you were going to amount to anything, or rather, if your day was going to amount to anything.
And then it happened. No, it happened. It was really happening. Like music. You thought so. You thought so and then it happened. It all happened fast. It all happened in a flurry. A rush of events. Unbelievable events. You thought of the way things were. You thought about the way things were all the time. It was no lie. There was no lying involved. Forcing your hand. Asking for help.
     It was another day. I was supposed to have gone to work. I was asking for help. The best thing I could have said under the circumstances. And in my eyes. There were good things happening in my eyes, or so I believed, at that point. A little complaint. A little bit of a bad omen, I thought, and then there was too much time. But it wasn’t clear if an apology was in order or not. I wasn’t sure about whether or not I’d already apologized.
     And they look at you. With eyes. Or that’s what you were thinking, at that point.

Nominally about story and perception, at its heart, Harold Abramowitz’s writing is epistemological. It asks that attention be given to the mode of telling. He is the author of books and chapbooks, including Blind Spot and Dear Dearly Departed. Harold co-edits the short-form literary press eohippus labs and teaches in the Department of General Studies at Charles R. Drew University in Los Angeles.