Issue 12 / September 2013 by Alliterati

ALLITERATI 12

SEPT 2013

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Every issue starts out a bit like a puzzle you don’t have the picture to. You look at the things that didn’t quite work last time, ideas you had in the meantime. You do some experimenting and fiddling. Gradually, the different pieces start to come together, and the issue takes on its own personality. This issue has been exciting for a few reasons. For the first time, we’re featuring some performance poetry courtesy of Newcastle poet Asa J. Maddison. It’s also the first issue in our new format, in preparation for making Alliterati available in print (a feature we’ll launch in December), and the last issue with our team based solely in the North East UK (James, Maria and myself are striking out for Munich, Munster and Canterbury/Paris respectively). In addition, Zoe Molloy has provided graphics for some of our literature pieces, and there’s music from Brighton-based band, Stark, as well as duo Me and Deboe. We have some brand new faces, and a few old friends. Next issue will mark Alliterati’s third birthday, and we have more ideas than we could ever carry out at once. Our aim, though, is to give you all something pretty neat to commemorate the occasion. If you want to be part of it, make sure to check our website and Facebook for details. Until then, we are very pleased to introduce you to Issue 12 of Alliterati.

SASCHK DRAKOS SENIOR EDITOR

CONTENTS FILM 10 ASA J. MADDISON ARE YOU LOCAL

SOMETHING NOT RIGHT

36 YUJIN JUNG 15 MINUTES DEFORMATION

FICTION 8 EMMA WHITEHALL SCRIBBLE 28 MATT RUSHTON HOLES 42 NICOLA OWEN THE TEMPLE OF THE FOUR WINDS 64 BRUCE HARRIS BEYOND THE AUTUMN 70 OLGA WOJTAS POODLE SOUP

MUSIC 22 STARK ANGER SAILOR SONG

50 ME AND DEBOE FOR YOU I GAVE

MOTHER SHIPTON

IMAGES ON PAGES 9, 18-19, 24-25, & 32-33 PROVIDED BY ZOE MOLLOY

POETRY STEVE KLEPETAR 18 IN THE FLESH

THE WORLD IS GONE

JES MALITORIS 24 DEAD BIRD HEART

PLEASANTLY SURPRISED, & DROWNING

ERICA BODWELL 38 UP LIBERTY STREET

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE, CERN

CAITLIN THOMSON 58 OUR SINCEREST CONDOLENCES JOSH COE 59 WHISTLING SALLY GRADLE 61 FIND IN THE PICTURES

ART FREYA CROMARTY 6 SAM EMM 12 GEORGE QUINEY 16 ZACHARY HAMILTON 20 LOUISE MACKENZIE 26 LIFE SUPPORT ELLIE MCCULLOCH 34 HELEN SMITH 41 FALSE PRINCIPLES: MONSTROUS RHIAN THOMS 52 BREATHE SPREAD

BIOS 74 CONTRIBUTORS 82 EDITORS

CHARLIE CHARLICK 54 ELLIE JACKSON 56 JUNGEUN CHOI 60 AMBERLEA MCNAUGHT 62 FECUNDITY OF THE SOUL NUCLEUS

CATRIN ORR 68 AIME WATLING 72 CLOCKWORK CROCODILE

FREYA

CROMARTY

EMMA WHITEHALL

SCRIBBLE In a café for an hour or so before work. I sit, coffee in hand, and try to write. The fresh, crisp first page of a new notebook stretches out forever in front of me, hopeful and faintly challenging. Give me your ideas, it promises, and together we’ll create something amazing. Sadly for the page, my mind is just as blank, desperately scrabbling for ideas that don’t come. After consuming most of my drink, flicking through the novel in my bag for a few pages - before putting it back, half guilty and half jealous - and staring into the distance in a way that I hope suggests an artistic mind at work, rather than a shop girl desperately flailing in a mental blank, I try a few tentative sentences. Something about vampires. After a few lines, my pen trips over a clumsy turn of phrase, some ill-chosen word, and the whole premise falls apart. In the cold light of reality, it all seems so trite, the prose are dull and cliché – and really, who writes about vampires these days?! I have never felt so much hatred for the written word. With ideas like that, no wonder I’m still working in some crappy – In a fit of temper, I slash at the words with my pen, obliterating them with angry, jagged lines of black. Some are pierced only once, others become nests of tiny scratches. Over and over, I scribble out my words, until they have all but disappeared. With may lust for revenge sated, my strokes become lazier, more curved. Adding insult to injury. As I idly watch my pen move over the page, something begins to emerge on the page. The curve of two letters are linked now, to become a jawline. Shadowy eyes are fixed on me from underneath tangles of lank hair. Eyes made from the knotted remains of dead words. The longer I look, the more I become sure that this isn’t my own eyes playing tricks on me. I’m being watched. Unnerved, I try and scribble out the face forming in front of me, return it to a jumble of meaningless lines. But the eyes only become larger, angrier. Thin lips form that grin horribly, revealing murky, uneven teeth. The strands of greasy looking hair seem to brush against my fingers. It stares at me, accusingly; hating me for taking its chance to be something more, something better. Despising me for

reducing it to a pointless waste of paper and potential. I flip the page, try to start again, but those horrible eyes still bore into me, as surely as their impression is scored into the paper. I try to force myself, close my eyes and think of some new idea, something to block it out, something good. But instead of the blankness of earlier, my thoughts are filled with thin, inky tentacles that reach into every corner, choke out every story, every idea, every image stored away for later that might, one day, be a great tale to tell. In this creature’s eyes, I donn’t deserve them. They curl and tangle around each other, filling the spaces with black lines. My mind is filled with nothing but mental static. My phone beeps. I raise my head from my hands and look at the screen. Time’s up. Time to don my apron and fake smile and head out into the real world. I slip my belongings into my bag, and leave the café, carrying in my notebook my one and only creation.

ASA

MADDISON

Asa J. Maddison’s poetry carries a raw, brutal clarity. He is equally at home with the humourous and the poignant with themes that span the political, romantic, and the everyday experience. Recently, he performed at NARC. Fest 2013 in Newcastle, and we were fortunate enough to get our hands on a few videos from the event. ‘Are You Local’ explores that unique discordance experienced when you suddenly find yourself an outsider in your own neighbourhood. The darkly ominous ‘Something Not Right’ will tumble you through fears, anxieties, and the nagging worries that plague us all. Both of these exhibit Asa’s ability to capture and portray experiences that are both universal and individualistic. Plug in your headphones. Turn the volume up. Hit play.

ARE YOU LOCAL SOMETHING NOT RIGHT

Photo courtesy Jonathan Parker, Spurious Nonsense Art Photography

SAM

EMM

SAM

EMM

GEORGE

QUINEY

STEVE KLEPETAR

THE

FLESH

Beneath a streetlamp, bathed in light, black hair tumbling in night wind, he fills shadows with the flesh of song. What sweet call to rivers and rain? All around him, the dark world gathers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; invisible trees and gleaming eyes of panthers and doves. Buildings tremble as if bricks were waves on a restless sea, windows shimmer in a dance of glass and ice, stars pinwheel through the rhythmic sky. From somewhere, a cry pierces the rustling of leaves, sirens shatter pavement, busses heave their bulk down sleepless streets, groaning to the curb and earth opens once more to swallow pilgrims, all their crusts and staffs, mouths torn open, chewing a tune that leads to the castles of dawn.

THE

WORLD

GONE

‘The world is gone, I must carry you.’ Paul Celan We awake to nothing, that swarm of black stars expanding with maddening speed: Who will lead the sacrifice – the goat bleating and tethered out in these blistering sands, horns wound with delicate bands of gold? Whose heart will pulse in what bloody hand? And will rising wind carry the scent of roasting flesh to a heaven of seeds and dirt and clouds?

ZACHARY

HAMILTON

ANGER

SAILOR SONG

JES MALITORIS

DEAD

BIRD

HEART I never noticed the way ash looks like feathers. I become aware of the shores where my body folds to meet itself, doubles over so that my hair seems to grow like roots into the ground keeping me from ever lifting my head again. Of all the things she told me, she missed this one: what to do with the ashes. Hers is a dead bird heartâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; grey-haired and grey-feathered. She is paler than she has any right to be, ashenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; But her eyes are open, and she can see the sky where a roof once was.

PLEASANTLY DROWNING

SURPRISED,

I can only breathe outâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; coming to you to take in gasps, you have drowned me, my love. You have taught me new places for hands and feet, showed me the kinds of lace my hair might become, when tangled correctly, how to dodge the thistle-spines, everything but how to take air back into my lungsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;they fill reluctantly, as if with water, as if I am taking in your blood through your heart, your beating throat. I hope I give you goosebumps. I hope I am the sunshine your white skin has forgotten.

AND

LOUISE MACKENZIE

LIFE

SUPPORT

Statement from the Artist My work is an exploration of the evolution of humanity: past, present and future. In Oltramarino, I reference this through the use of cyanobacteria, which generated the first oxygen in Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s atmosphere, enabling all subsequent life. Cyanobacteria are researched in the present for their highly valued intense blue pigment and for their potential as a sustainable source of food and fuel, making them suitable for manned space missions. Their paradoxically enduring yet ethereal quality conjures for me images of heavenly bodies and the awe and wonder that science attempts to, but can never completely, expose.

Life Support Altered scientific glass, stainless steel, plastic tubing, oxygen mask, cyanobacteria (Arthrospira plantensis). Cyanobacteria are some of the earliest forms of life on earth. Coming from the ocean 3.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria were the first species to photosynthesise: producing oxygen via chloroplasts that exist within these single-celled organisms. The chloroplasts evolved into chlorophyll within plants, allowing the development of plant life and ultimately all land-based species. Thus these micro-organisms are arguably the origins of life on earth. Life Support asks you to consider for a moment the importance of micro-algae to our fragile human existence. A symbiotic arrangement that we all too often take for granted.

MATT RUSHTON

HOLES The club strikes the ball with a cluck, then plods into the grass, bounces once, twice, and then rolls over and past the upturned plastic pot I laid there earlier. Cluck goes another ball. Floating like eggs, rising higher and falling back down, rolling past the plastic pot. It is cold. The grass is wet, as are the paving stones and the mud beneath the bushes lining the garden that are mostly bare this time of year. There’s something about a garden after it has been raining that makes it seem more alive. I expect to see frogs hopping out of puddles, a fox with its fur electric and silver pausing in a bush, a bird opening its beak and screeching into the sky. It reminds of the beginning of those Beatrix Potter animations I watched with my children all those years ago. That woman with the flowing dress. And my children, where are they now? I hit another ball across the lawn. Once, I shanked a shot out of bounds on the ninth. It flew over the fencing and into someone’s garden. I heard a smash. Then from round the corner out of a gap in the fence comes the figure of a man in white, with red stains all down the front of his shirt. I started to move toward him, slowly at first, then at a quicker pace. I dropped my club to the ground, called over to him, began to sprint. Closer, he didn’t look hurt, yet his face was as red as the stains on his shirt, and he was shouting at me. I get the gist of what he’s saying. Not blood, but paint. Redecorating his lounge. And even all his shouting and swearing didn’t concern me, for as far as I was concerned I’d just brought a man back from the dead for the price of a broken window. Cluck! Another ball flies through the air, bounces once and rolls towards the pot. This morning I masturbated in the shower. And at night I lie awake for hours, with my wife sleeping next to me, wanting to say ‘touch it, just touch it.’ But she doesn’t and I don’t say. Of course I don’t. You can’t just say it out loud. Now especially I can’t ask anything from her. And besides, I’ve never been good at telling women what I want them to touch. I walk the length of the garden and retrieve the golf balls. I spent long summers cutting and shaping this garden into the image we both had in our heads. Naturally, it never quite matches up, but I’m proud of what I’ve done to it. In one corner is the garden furniture. Made of iron, turning green and standing on the slabs of stone I laid myself. Behind me at the end of the lawn to the right hand side there is a tree house. It was here before we moved in. My son once climbed up the ladder and carved his name into the bark.

It’s probably still there. My daughter wouldn’t go inside, because of spiders. The tree is dead now and needs cutting down. Surrounding the entire garden are laurel bushes. Each year I spend a week stood on a platform shearing the top. Down one side, about half way along the lawn, there is a large hole in it. No matter what I tried, or what I planted, nothing would grow to fill it up. Through it you can see into the neighbours’ garden. They have laid wooden decking and installed lights. I wish I had gotten a job outside. Something where I could plant seeds and watch them grow. I like to watch our rhododendrons blossom and the lavender bush grow wildly, of course none of that is in bloom now. But still, even at this time of year I see slugs quietly in the soil and on the leaves. Their fat, slick bodies pulsing, their silver trails struck across my lawn. It is getting dark already. You can see the moon in the sky. It sits there impatiently waiting for the night. I strike one last ball and head back inside the house. I walk through to the kitchen, make a cup of tea and take it upstairs. ‘How’s the patient?’ I say entering the room. Sat up in the middle of our double bed is my wife, Helen. She looks at me and slowly smiles. The room is darkly lit and there is a thick, stuffy smell inside. I can taste it in my throat. She’s lost weight, her eyes look enormous and her brown hair sits limply across her face and shoulders. What has happened to the beautiful woman I called my wife? She found a lump; they found a tumour. They took it out and if it comes back she may need a mastectomy. We say mastectomy; we do not say removal of the breast. I place the mug on the bedside table, push her hair behind her ears and kiss her on the forehead. It is damp and tastes slightly of salt. She isn’t scared. She said, well I guess that means I’m quitting smoking. I said I would too. And I have around her. But I’ve been smoking for nearly forty years, why stop now? It’s not me with the tumour. Besides, it relaxes me. We used to make love and share a cigarette. The smoke swam about us and down our throats and into our lungs. The human body has nine possible entry points. They may as well have none at all. ‘I’m going to make some dinner,’ I tell her. ‘I’m fine,’ she says with a voice that comes out in layers, scratching through her vocal chords, one of which is my wife’s voice. ‘I think you should eat something.’ ‘I’m fine, I’m fine…’ She waves me away. I give in. I collect the dirty mugs and plates from the table and leave. From the door I look back at her. I can’t picture what it would look like and I worry I may not want to look at her undressed. Maybe

she wouldn’t let me. It is a part of myself that disgusts me. What is this part? This is the same part that says in the night touch it touch it, why not just move her hand… I close the door. I hear the rustle of the bed sheets. My wife has taken to reading the Bible and hiding it beneath a pillow each time I enter the room. I suppose it’s normal to turn to religion. It is a precaution, like carrying an umbrella, or taking a coat with you on a warm day. A just in case. What’s the harm? I don’t go to church. I don’t know anybody that does. The only time I go now is for christenings, weddings and funerals. All great occasions. Like my daughter’s wedding. She asked her mother to give her away. I told her I wasn’t offended, I understood completely. Then practised walking slowly down the hall. One step, stop, one step, stop. A just in case. I didn’t invite my children to my wedding to Helen. They were young. I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t entirely. I don’t think I could marry again. Can you honestly mean something three times? Peter denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed, Ivan Ilyich screamed for three days. How am I supposed to meet another woman now? I don’t know what I’d do with myself. Death is easy on the dying. Once they’ve accepted it, it’s just a matter of waiting. To die used to be a slang expression for an orgasm, the little death. Big death trumps little death. But who’s dying? Back in the kitchen I prepare dinner for myself. I open a bottle of wine. I’d like to know more about wine, to be able to gently swirl it and say yes, this is such a vintage. For now I’ll settle for just enjoying it. I enjoy several glasses, and soon enough I have finished the bottle. Recently I have taken to eating in the kitchen, sitting on one of the stools positioned around the island in the middle of the room. This is where I am sat eating my dinner, opening a second bottle of wine. After that I go sit in the room between the kitchen and the back garden. It is my favourite room in the house. Long glass windows look out onto the garden, two doors open wide to let the night in. Enjoying another glass I have a sudden urge to call my children. I run to the phone, but realise that I don’t know their numbers. They’re stored in my mobile. I search everywhere for the chunk of plastic, in every kitchen drawer, in the lounge, the dining room, in every compartment of my golf bag. But I cannot find it. Back in my seat I want and don’t want to speak to them, and anyway why should I be the one to phone them? I pour the last of the bottle into my glass. Sitting there now, alone and drinking a glass of wine, smoking a cigarette and with nothing to distract me, it all becomes clearer, the discomfort focuses, rallies up against me. ‘Please please please don’t let this happen to me,’ I say, resting my hand on my forehead, which feels much too large and heavy as if made of lead. I close my eyes and imagine a crowded church. Stood in front of them I’m trembling. What do I

MATT RUSHTON say? Maybe I’d make a joke… I can start smoking again now. People would laugh. My eyes would be red, glazed over, with lights dancing in them. My lower lip would tremble. Maybe I’d read some poetry. What does she like? What could move a procession? When you are old and grey and full of sleep… Stop the clocks…and so on and so on. Poor, stricken man, people would think. A martyr to love. He was with her ‘til the end, never once leaving her side. Then I imagine Helen in my place, trembling in front of a crowd. What would she say? What if I were ill? I go to the doctor, he says yes you have this, this is what we’re going to do for it. And people come and see me, I get to act the dramatic, holding my wife’s hand, a bag of grapes on the side. My son making jokes about nurses and sponge baths. My daughter laughing along. Tears in everybody’s eyes. Friends again. The best way to earn forgiveness is through dying. The big death. The best way to lose friends is through the little death. I see myself writing letters, putting everything about myself inside of them, and on the front addressing them ‘not be opened until you’re forty’, ‘on the birth of your first child’, and sitting at a desk I seal them with a thick red lump of wax. Then I am suddenly in a hospital bed, tubes snaking into my nose, and out of my arm and even between my legs. Helen staring down at me, everything about her looking much younger. Out of the window the sky is turning, exploding along the horizon in purple flames, melting into the land. It is raining, starting out in one swift swoosh against the glass, like a spilt drink, then speeding up and slapping against the hospital windows. And standing in this there is a black horse, rolling its mouth, its tail flicking faintly. Then Helen is closer, holding my hand, her smooth lips parting and she removes her top and bra, where her breast should be there is a hole, it is black and thick brown liquid runs down her stomach, collecting in the folds. She pulls me towards her. I try to move away, but I am moving in water. I wake up. It is dark. The back door is still open. How long have I been asleep? I run upstairs. What if she has gone whilst I have been asleep? I run up, panting, getting out of breath. I am sure she is dead. Entering the room I stop in my tracks. She is there on the bed. Her eyes are closed, her head has fallen to one side. The room pinches itself. My stomach concaves and there is a lifetime within my audible intake of breath. Her chest rises up. She is breathing. I go back downstairs. The cat, her cat, is sat on the kitchen floor. By its feet there is a bird with its head missing. The cat looks up at me and licks its paws. They have retained their instinct to kill. Where has mine gone? I return to my seat. There is something white and towering in the garden next door. I go to the window. It takes up half of their garden and reaches over the top of the laurel. Loud music is coming from inside it; people are talking and laughing. They are having a party. The wine is telling me to move, to dance, to shout out loud, why not go ‘round, take a bottle of something? I walk through the back doors.

Everything blurs, the bushes are purple and blue in the distance and pulsing like the bodies of giant slugs. And they are probably out now, silently devouring. I move unsteadily across the lawn. On the grass there are lights glowing faintly. I walk towards them. Something in the bushes moves. Twigs break. I turn around quickly, stand on something painfully hard, loose my footing and fall over. It is a golf ball. Staring into the darkness I hear grunting, a slapping, like water splashing up the side of a bath. I crawl on my hands and knees to the edge of the garden and look through the laurel. Kneecap in the moonlight and a silver thigh, two bodies moving on the ground. I get up from the floor and run back to the house. My pitching wedge is leaning on the back wall. I grab it and move back onto the grass towards the balls scattered around. I swing the club, clenching my jaw and beating the earth, missing completely and then with great force, striking the balls through the bush and into the unknown. I want to die.

MATT RUSHTON

ELLIE

MCCULLOCH

MINUTES

Materials

Live installation with sensor pads, printers, shredders, sound equipment.

Statement from the Artist I explore the continuous process of the repetition of deformation, extinction and regeneration in social and special relationships in non-visible, auditory sense.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

WATCH VIDEO

YUJIN

JUNG

DEFORMATION

FIFTEEN

ERICA BODWELL

LIBERTY

STREET

Summer 1980 split and peeling, days spent swigging Pepsi Lite, nights burnished and lotioned. Dean Macarelli is teaching me to blow globes of spit off the end of my tongue and all the words to You Shook Me All Night Long. His tongue slides out and a bubble floats off past the porch railing. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beyond easy, Dean says, just do this. She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean. She was the best damn woman that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever seen. Simon sits on the stoop mastering his one-handed rolling technique. His long fingers hold the joint like a diploma he presents to his mouth. He leans back on his elbows and looks at me from under eyelashes so long they curl up and touch his eyelids, like clusters of spiders. She had those sightless eyes, telling me no lies. Knocking me out with those American thighs. Dean is talking, talking, talking, feeding me lyrics, hopping from foot to foot. Dean, the reason we all got front-hook bras, who taught the art of one-handed unsnapping, who taught us not to turn our backs.

Taking more than her share, she had me fighting for air, she told me to come but I was already there. The stanza ends and Dean says, do the rest yourself. I land a wet orb at the hem of Simonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basketball shorts. Dean says, nice. And the walls were shaking, earth was quaking, my mind was aching and we were making it. You shook me all night long, yeah you shook me all night long. I keep pulling up my tube top and Simon tells me to stop fidgeting and sit down, between his legs. Ashes fall into my hair. Dean says, sing it again.

ERICA BODWELL

ARTIST

RESIDENCE,

‘Art is great because it’s about disturbance,’ - Ariane Koek, the creator of Collide@CERN We’re praising his black square glasses, his new office, his gleaming desk, his corked bottle of wine, his probing, stethoscope-like microphone. We’re praising this music-maker who squats before the orange linear accelerator that fires proton beams into the Large Hadron Collider, we’re thanking Dr. Higg and the 3000 physicists fervently colliding in dark corridors, at control panels, at data-laden lunches. We’re on our knees bowing, foreheads touching the feet of the Europeans for the seventeen miles of underground tunnel, for this time machine that mimics the Big Bang, for collaboration, for particles smashing in peace, for the artist lying flat on his back under the space-blue tube. We’re praising Switzerland for Geneva, Geneva for CERN, CERN for the lab where the artist leans his stainless steel chair way back tapping on his leg the code they are cracking, the sound imagination makes on its way to finding God.

CERN

HELEN

SMITH

NICOLA OWEN

THE TEMPLE WINDS

THE

FOUR

There is a young man standing in front of me whose name I do not know. He has an accusing, brittle stare in skin the colour of honey and long fingers which he cannot keep still. Through the open French windows I can see the countryside rotting to a placid mulch under the sweat of the heat of the day. The young man yanks the beige and brown tartan blanket down over my spindly knees. ‘Rank, Bob,’ he says with a toothless snarl, ‘Ye should be ashamed o’ yersel.’ He opens mahogany draws. Rips them from their runners and hurls them on the floor. When he is in a ghastly mood he disappears for hours but I can hear him burrowing through my possessions and ripping up the parquet and cursing. The windchimes above my head glint like spiders’ webs. I flinch. There is a grain of memory lodged up there somewhere, wrapped up in silk, hoarded against the famine. ‘Tell us where it is, Bob. I’m sick o’ yer games. Ye’ve gone an’ hidden it again or put it somewhere else. Here, I’m gettin’ sick o’ ye. Things I dae fe ye and what do I get? This. Treated like a mug. Like a skivvy. Wiping yer arse, s’all I’m good for innit? Wiping arses.’ I feign stupidity. ‘Not as stupid as ye look are ye? Aye, I knaw.’ He has a conscience as pitted as his skin, a woodpile that beetles nest in. I gaze up at him adoringly. I have learned by some repetitive action or by some suppressed instinct that he will eventually flick the drool away from the corner of my lips. *** Ah ye kidding me. Yev got to be kidding us, right?

EH? Porridge’s in the microwave, I just telt ye. What was I on about? Oh. aye, anyway I’d been sent to Tom again for summik that wasn’t even me, right, and I was sat there picking the grey stuffing out of the chair arm while he looks through me file and that and I says to him I says, ‘What ye doing here? In this shithole. Yeh must have a degree and that.’ Tom just looks at us with them speccy, milky puddles he’s got for eyes and smiles at me. ‘What’s the most important thing?’ says Tom. ‘I need to get some toys for the bairn,’ is what I say, ‘He lives with me now.’ ‘Where’s Mum?’ ‘Kept leaving him on his own wi’ smackheeds shootin’ up all around him tellin’ social services they were his babysitters.’ Tom shakes his head and presses his lips together. A bit of a Speech should dae it. ‘Means everything to me, y’knaw. He’s me bairn. Me little lad. I’m getting mesel turned round fer him. It’s not worth it, Tom, not worth graftin’ no more. I’m oot uv it. I’m clean.’ Tom’s got PHDs leakin oot of his arsehole which means for a fine fact he knaws absolutely nowt. He reckons me volunteerin’ wi’ some vegetabled cunt means I’ll change me priorities ASAP. Poor Tom. I suppose some people’s just nat’rally born blind even when they can see. Ye cannit polish a turd. And a turd is what I am. What? What’s that ye said? What’s me name? I just telt ye me name. I telt ye four times since I got in here. I telt ye a dozen times a day feh the past six week. What’s wrong wi ye? What’s yer problem?

Daryl. DA-RILL. Yeah. Want us tae write it down? Naw? Try tae remember it this time, right. Fucksake. Ah’m gan for a piss. I. AM. JUST. GOING. FOR. A. PISS. Deaf as well as crocked. Tingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingchungchhungchungchungalungatinalinga. All day long. All ower the ceiling like some kinda new age hippie den. Tingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingchungchhungchungchungalungatinalinga. I’m shutting these windaz. I seen the money. In the safe. Stacks of it. Piles of it. Like in owd filums. He showed it me. One a’ his good mornings when he was remembering. Looked at me looking at it then shut the safe wi’ a smirk on his face but since then it’s like it’s always there in front of me. I cannit stop thinking about it. Cannit stop. Dream it, eat it, wank it, sleep it. It’s like being on the gear again. I don’t eva wanta be on the gear again. Musta been a mover an’ a shaker in the olden days, old Bobbo. Got bathrooms in here bigger than me flat. Thinks that there’s some kinda monster or summik walking the hills that’s after him. Stupid owd git. Got all this stuff an’ nae marbles tae enjoy it. He’s a good listener though, I’ll gie him that. Keeps yer

NICOLA OWEN secrets. ‘Daryl?’ WHAT? He said me name. He remembered it. I divvn’t wanta dae this. *** The wise woman is come again to drone chants over me and practice her farmyard magic. She is a pillowy sort of woman like a feather bed. Light yet dense. The type who is entirely capable of having a perfectly satisfactory conversation with the minimum demonstration of interest from me. She checks the time on her little metal clock, ratchets the tourniquet tight and pats my reluctant vein into a pulsing, blue slug. ‘... and she went with her ex-husband because she’s still friends with him although they don’t, you know, well, do that together any more so they’re not together in that sense but you know what I mean.’ I make a non-committal burping noise. ‘Windy-pops. I always wanted to go to Turkey. It’s dead cheap, they say. Proper Uggs for sixty quid from the market. Lar says to the market fella, ‘Them’s fake them.’ The fella says, ‘No, my friend, look I show you.’ And he took him into the shop and showed him the proper Ugg labels on the boots. Cheap as chips. Save a fortune there. Have you ever been?’ ‘Perhaps. I don’t recall.’ A recollection, a column holding up a roofless temple. A freezing classroom, shrill chalk. Sun sequinned waves on an endless sea. The name Neveah. A scratch on my inner arm, the hard steel penetration of the needle and with it a stab of

radiant irritation. I leak and drift, deadwood in the current. I wake and in front of me is a half finished jigsaw puzzle. ‘Go on,’ she says, ‘You can do it.’ I click the pieces together and as the last one is pushed into place she claps her small hands rapturously. My eardrums twitch. A picture of a steam train chugging along. A red pillbox hat. A boy waving to an unknown friend, his dog bounding beside him. The station clock striking ten past ten. I have done this a million times in my dreams. ‘Are you a witch?’ I whisper. The young man is upset. He is pawing his face and chewing his lip. He has drunk too much and now he is pointing his disagreeable finger at me with its jagged, ripped nail and foaming at the mouth and spitting stale flecks in my face. His hand tightens on the fat, blue bottle until the knobbly knuckles threaten to break and split the scarred brown skin. I ramble to soothe him. ‘Do you know the names of the four winds? They are Boreas, Notus, Zephyrus and Eurus. Boreas was an old man with a dreadful temper, he was the North wind who brought snow and ice to the land. Notus was the storm bringer, the south wind. Zephyrus ruled the gentle Western breezes and Eurus blew in the rain clouds. It is said that the Greeks turned the hindquarters of their mares to the north and Boreas fathered colts with them who could run across the land leaving no hoof print or sign of their passing. Can you imagine being a son of the wind?’ The boy sits with his forehead in his hands as the bottle rolls empty at his feet. At first I think the bottle is making the gentle clinking sound but then I realise that the bottle is made of plastic and the stirring of the chimes means it has already crept in.

NICOLA OWEN ‘Ye’ll forget. I need it. I. Need. It. For the little ‘un. For him.’ ‘You have to play dead. If you play dead it won’t pay you any mind.’ I close my eyes and when I open them again the young man is stood in front of me tearing viciously at his scrawny arms and leaving bloody trails. ‘Naw, ye divvn’t fucking understand. Ye divvn’t know who they are. Ye divvn’t knaw what they’ll dae, they’re not like me, not soft, not, not ...’ I feel its breath on my neck, stuttering as though it is laughing behind my back and all the time the young man’s eyes pluck at me. ‘Naw, Bob, it’s your last chance,’ he says. *** There are three young men stood in front of me whose faces I cannot see. Scarves and hoods and caps shroud their features. The chimes are twisting and thrashing and fitting. Every door in the house, every window is smashed open. My young man is crying again. There is a smell of burning. My photographs are curling to ashes in their makeshift pyre. The silver frames are gone. The slightly smoking safe has come to rest on its side, hinges still hot from the grinder. A piece of cardboard is hung round my neck like I am a beggar on the street and on it is scrawled ‘A CANNIT DAE THIS ANYMORE FORGIVE ME GOODBYE CRULE WORLD’. The appalling notion of this being my note to posterity pierces me. ‘Whas he laughin’ at?’ ‘Where’s the money, Bob?’ ‘I’ll fuckin’, ah will fuckin’...’ ‘Whas he daein’?’ My legs begin to tingle. The dead chill in my feet melts. My young man is

whispering: ‘forget, Bob, forget, please, please forget.’ One of them is swinging a hammer in his fist. My breath gushes from me in colossal spurts as I roar and urge myself upwards. One twisted foot then the other thuds into the carpet and the young men all leap backwards in fear. For all of three steps I am vengeance made flesh but then I tumble to earth like a boy with wax wings. My young man cries out as blows land on him. The lights blaze and fade, the wind screams. *** There is a boy standing in front of me whose name I do not know. Perhaps a storm blew him in. His skin is the colour of snowdrops and he stands over me with a trembling snarl on his face. He is eight years old, perhaps nine, and he has images seared on his soul which will never, ever cease to torment him. There are deltas of still, blue sky traced in the jagged shards of glass still stuck in the window frames. I clatter around on the floor like a bluebottle in the ecstasy of death. There appears to be some sort of sign on my chest covered in globs of grey foam and wobbly marker pen. I am mildly disappointed to discover that I am as heavy and useless as a lump of lead peeled from a church roof. ‘Where’s me Da?’ ‘Who’s your Da?’ ‘Daryl. Da-rill. Telt us he’d be back soon. Said I wouldn’ have to worry.’ He retrieves a scavenged dog end from his pocket and lights it. Takes shivering tokes from its speckled end and tries to curb the tears which trickle down the side of his straight nose. It occurs to me that he and I might strike upon a mutually beneficial alliance.

NICOLA OWEN Like a faithful hound I lie here patiently, waiting for him to collect his jumbled thoughts. Only after he has mashed his tab into shreds under his filthy sneaker do I timidly stretch out my hand. After a hundred or a thousand moments he suffers his to be taken.

I FOR YOU GAVE

MOTHER SHIPTON

RHIAN

THOMS

CHARLIE

CHARLICK

ELLIE

JACKSON

CAITLIN THOMSON

OUR

SINCEREST

We have left a thousand notes to say, that we cannot convey the sadness that we feel for a tide that drowned so many, a salt that never touched our lips, and waves that did not rock us, quick, to sleep. To say nothing now and stand on the shore, hand in hand, feels like a sin. But to claim anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart as our own, a lie we cannot breath, so instead we struggle forth with words that promise something vague or cookies piled high on trays.

CONDOLENCES

JOSH COE

WHISTLING Whistling high and low, The old man walks. His path down-trodden by aged boots Of days and years gone by. Hung off his mantle, the coat downs firm, Waxy, set around his shoulders. Striding on, he nears his land His compact kingdom. A hint of grassy path welcomes, and Leads by fallen canes and planks, ignored, Crops emerge shortly, uniformly; Rows of shoots in bowed, young green. Little lives all loyal to his song, Growing, breathing invisibly slow, Creeping over weathered, stumpy walls, Fondling crack and corner. The man steps in, stops and looks, Sees what morning brings. Some subtle growth, some gradual change, And idle waters rest, stale. And he whistles, The stillness cut by humble melody, Bringing colour to the plain, invigorating, And distant birds complement his song.

JUNGEUN CHOI For over 65 years, Jungeunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s country has been divided into North and South, causing her to wonder about life on the other side. This curiosity made her consider existence and destiny, as place influences these through culture, ideology, language and environment. These were one in Korea before but now are two creating a youth disconnected from and disinterested in their neighbors. Perception Gap (2013) is an installation of scarves onto which is projected images of the artist modeling them. The scarves are printed with serious or oppressive imagery from the North available online. However, from the dark images, beautiful patterns emerge. The moving images address issues of modern disconnection from narrowing world problems 60 and the prejudices inherent in art.

SALLY GRADLE

FIND

THE

PICTURES

-first line from La Cruz del Vigia, Ponce, Puerto Rico Find in your pictures what you desire and then call out their names with confidence. Like children who find small creatures, the images will flood your memory and wrap themselves around you. Find in the pictures what brings you back to yourself and the time you were not waiting for something to happen. When you are there, take hold of the edges and tug them gently into the foreground. Find in the pictures places that sang your name without hesitation or shame the first moment you arrived. You are not alone here, yet you are the only one who sees that the journey made it what you desire.

FECUNDITY

THE

SOUL

AMBERLEA

MCNAUGHT

NUCLEUS

BRUCE HARRIS

BEYOND

THE

AUTUMN

A restless, bewildering morning. Familiar enough now. He half expected to look in a mirror and see two men looking back at him, as manifest, almost tangible, as his divided self seemed at times. Once again awake in the early hours, and an anxiety all the more poignant for its lack of definition surrounded him like a siege. The gap in the hotel room curtains, left open against the pitch darkness which he had never been able to tolerate from childhood onwards, was throwing a pale blue stripe of light across his bed. Even this standard issue room was enough about intensity of shades, mysterious light and menacing dark, to be worth some kind of visual interpretation, with the morning tranquillity. Pictures and possibilities were everywhere around him, but even so, this period of sterile indifference - amounting to some months now - seemed destined to continue. He was becoming fatalistic, with an insidious helplessness spreading itself through his life like a virus. John Gibson was his life name, the name on his letter head, the name of everything routine. From his father, he had inherited not only the name, but the business head, the survivor, the calculator. The fact that he hadn’t attempted anything with paint, collage, video, or sculpture, with the versatility and imagination which would once have obsessed him for days on end, didn’t ultimately matter at all. He had sold and exhibited enough to establish a reputation; he could do the gravy train of personal visits, lectures, festivals, remaining both intellectually stimulated and financially solvent for the rest of his life. John Gibson had come to the traditional meeting up place on the southern coast to discuss work and progress with his agent, the equally pragmatic Martin Phipps. The fact that he had no new work to discuss would not disturb Phipps very much; there were enough irons in the fire and pieces in circulation to forestall any real sense of crisis, let alone panic. But in his other being, connected to the pseudonym John Merrill, taken from his mother’s maiden name, the panic was rising. He was used to the lowered brow looks, the suddenly amused eyes, when he tried to explain the Gibson/Merrill differences. All attempts to articulate how real it was for him only dug him further into a pit of over-simplification at best and rampant pretension at worst. Since his relationship with Helen Prentice had started eight years ago, easily the longest and most intense of his life, she had experienced the daily realities of his split identity in many very unacademic and untheoretical ways. He believed them responsible for the present alienation between them. ‘It is so incredibly confusing, and

sometimes undermining,’ she had said. ‘It is like an eternal triangle with a single man.’ Merrill was unpredictable, passionate and capable of living on minimal standards of nutrition, clothing and even personal hygiene when a visual idea or association of ideas was in the process of taking physical shape. Merrill was abstracted, uncommunicative and withdrawn, even if, paradoxically, he made love with limitless energy and real, desperate need. But Merrill seemed to be dying, perhaps simply of age or exhaustion, perhaps of the growing pragmatism resulting from so little now being genuinely new. Gibson was terrified, as if frozen in the doorway watching his talented sibling being taken off to an institution. He threw back the bedclothes. Nudity seemed appropriate; he was naked now, he thought, naked in perpetuity, one meaningless body motionless on a bed after its real spirit and animation had left. Yet another detached, realistic rat racer serving out time as comfortably as possible before the embracing mercy of death. And, intermittently, the unkindest cut of all was a kind of thin-lipped schadenfreude at the demise of the ever-demanding Merrill, who so often drained energy and dignity from him in the desperate attempt to make a mundane existence at least more exciting, if not necessarily much more meaningful. After an unquantifiable length of time, long enough for the dawn light to increase markedly, Gibson the realist recognised the coldness and stupidity of lying naked in an inadequately heated hotel bedroom and put on a dressing gown. He threw back the right hand curtain of the bay window and looked at the long sweep of the hotel gardens down to the cliffs with the multi-toned panorama of sea and sky behind it, an opportunity which would once have directed Merrill to notebooks, sketch pads, cameras, anything to interpret the experience of it in this place and time. Now it was a coastal scene just after dawn. Martin Phipps and he would meet later for a convivial lunch, probably drinking too much and talking too loudly; there was still catching up to be done on mutual acquaintances and the progress of his work on both sides of the Atlantic. The easy conversation of successful men, of middle aged bon viveurs, and hardly a prospect grim enough to justify a mist of tears. He opened the window and the crisp September air, laced with ozone, dried his face and distracted him as he instinctively breathed heavily in and allowed it to fill his lungs. Such summer as there had been was fading fast, and Gibson approved of the thinning tourists, the greater prevalence of mercifully covered flesh, and the alert coolness of the breeze. Merrill could, and had, seen way beyond the simple clichés of association between semi-nudity, sea and noise; beaches in the summer had provided material enough in the past. Like money, the artist’s eye mattered most when it had disappeared. A car moved into his vision from the right and parked itself on the concrete spaces in front of the hotel lawn. John was turning away, reflections broken, when the door opened and someone got out

whose familiar shape and movement could only be Helen’s. For a long moment, instead of marching straight up to the hotel entrance, she stood looking down over the shore. Her right hand, holding her keys, had arrested itself in the air and she had half turned to her left. The familiarity of her shouted at him without the need of words or movement. Her head was turned slightly, quizzically to the side, allowing what she saw to speak whatever message it had to her while reserving the right to her own conclusions. Her long hair descended gracefully over her neck, even so early in the morning and with the sea breeze snatching at it. Her coat hugged her back rather than blurring the shape of it, and it tapered down to her graceful behind. He knew the shape of her intimately, and he wanted her now, urgently, though the sex would only ever be part of it and probably the least complicated part. Typically, she did not waste time gazing up when she had no way of knowing which room was his. He knew she would be with him in a few minutes; the usual obstacles and inconveniences of the hotel’s early morning routines would not delay her for long. He wondered why she was here when she was supposed to be at a conference on reading. Her research on the subject had made her an acknowledged expert on its teaching, an activity almost certainly of more use to her fellow beings than his own work could ever be. He was still looking out of the opened window when she knocked on the door. He felt suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that she was here. It seemed like a kind of rescue, though he didn’t understand from what. Perhaps the worst aspects of mental illness, if that could be said to describe his state of mind, was the unseen enemy. Unexplained, undefined, but as pernicious in its effects as any more conventional virus. Their embrace was so long and affectionate that it startled her. When at last he sat beside the small table in the bay window, she placed herself on the bed in front of him, gathering her breath. ‘I‘m so glad you’re here. But what happened to your conference?’ ‘I couldn’t face it, for once, John. Probably another sterile talking shop. Now, when we are as we are.’ She could not stay seated, and stood to look down over the hotel lawns. ‘I suppose it’s probably selfish and shallow of me, but I can’t mourn what you seem to have lost in the way that you do. He may be your artist, but he is an infuriating man to live with at times, and he often makes me feel he is indifferent to my very existence. You may find the loss of him unbearable –‘ She looked down at him. His eyes were on her, but already absenting themselves. He was seeing her standing poised beside her car; every detail, line, tone and colour of the whole composition had imprinted itself on his mind like a perfectly lit photograph. He was already feeling the urgency of it when it suddenly reshaped itself and a huge hybrid of affection and basic carnal need swept over him. He found himself kissing her again, though this time with an urgency and hunger which spoke to her immediately.

BRUCE HARRIS ‘On the other hand –’ she started to say, but words were unnecessary. She undid the gown’s cord at his waist and raised her arms to his shoulders to push the dressing gown down and off. He stood naked in front of her, the morning light paling his skin to alabaster. She had always loved his body, the austere economy of it, the slim, square shoulders and the long smooth legs. She turned him round and lay him on his back on the bed. ‘If this is you again, bloody Merrill,’ she said, beginning to take her clothes off, ‘do your stuff in my direction for once.’ Two hours later, she watched from the bed as he sat close to the bay window with a sketch pad on his knees. He had showered and dressed; she had insisted on a breakfast, however rudimentary, and now he was using a sketch pad to outline the scene of her arrival. She was trying to take the rest which she now knew she badly needed. Merrill with her, and yet not with her. Merrill the phantom-like physical presence, now visually and aurally as isolated as if he had surrounded himself with a force field. Their summer was over. Merrill’s intensity and warmth was dying away. His returns like this would become rarer and rarer. When Martin Phipps arrived and they all went off to lunch, Gibson would be back, and the reminiscences and bonhomie would be punctuated by contracts, figures, correspondence. Phipps might be allowed a look at the sketch, though his opinion of it would neither be sought nor considered if offered. Likewise her own. The autumn of Gibson would be steadier, mellower, as autumns tended to be, with occasional fleeting Indian summers of silliness and spasmodic evenings of passion. It was the period beyond the autumn which intimidated her so much, when Gibson was all she had left. She had worried and sometimes struggled hard to break from allowing him to become so important. More than once, she had determined to break free, leaving him with a good shrink, or some earth mother carer who could just take everything in her stride, as one did with a truculent, high ability toddler. But he had some mysterious magnet which kept her with him. With them. Beyond the autumn: the cold, the immobility, the strained conversations, enforced company behind closed doors. A sea breeze nosed its way around the room. She pulled her jumper more closely around her and shuddered.

CATRIN

ORR

OLGA WOJTAS

POODLE

SOUP

The sandwich board in Middle Meadow Walk read “Poodle Soup”. On the other side, it read: There was once a Swedish minister who turned into a poodle. Had Elinor Googled “poodle”, “Swedish” and “minister”, she would have discovered that it was a convoluted way of apologising for a price hike which had now been rescinded. Jan Olov Karlsson, minister for development cooperation, migration and asylum policy, was obliged to apologise after he spent Government funds on a shindig for his friends. He apologised so profusely at a press conference that he was described as “doing a full poodle” (göra en hel pudel), ie being as cute as a little puppy. The phrase is apparently now an accepted metaphor for selfabasement. But Elinor had never used a computer or smartphone. She lived a rich interior life in which the extraordinary was mundane and a minister could easily turn into a poodle. However, the image she had was not of a small puppy, but of a large black poodle standing upright on his hind legs, wearing a black cassock. She had taken “minister” to refer to a Lutheran clergyman rather than a politician. How strangely appropriate that he would wear a dog collar, pure white against his sable fur. Elinor knew of no genetic reason for such a change. As a creature of God, he would have been immune to witchcraft. So he must have willed himself into the new shape. Why he had turned into a poodle was a different question. He must have been concerned by his lack of presence, afraid that the faithful would fail to pay proper attention to his teaching. A poodle, one of the most intelligent of dogs, had gravitas with its slender muzzle, oval eyes and elongated ears. And its traditional role had been to retrieve, an ideal vocation. Elinor imagined the minister picking people up between his jaws and then gently, so as not to damage them, carrying them to the church where he set them down on the pews.

Had the parishioners resented this, felt they were being press-ganged towards faith? Something had happened, to make them turn him into soup. Elinor thought of sheep’s heid broth, imagined the red-hot poker singeing the soft black curls on the minister’s severed head. Had the slow-witted congregation mistaken the pious Lutheran for Mephistopheles from Goethe’s Faust? Had his barking been thought too strict, too lax, too noisy? No, he had chosen his new form with care. He was strong, strong enough to withstand any attack from the credulous and misguided. The whole aim of his ministry was to educate and enlighten. What he had done was create a reformed version of transubstantiation. Elinor went into the cafe and queued up to place her order, then took her seat at the long refectory table. When the soup arrived, she picked up her spoon and prepared for an epiphany.

AIMEE WATLING

CONTRIBUTORS

ERICA BODWELL CHARLIE CHARLICK Born Basingstoke 1990. Lives and works in Cardiff. Cardiff School of Art and Design; BA HONS Fine Art Sculpture (201013). Basingstoke College of Technology; Foundation Diploma, Distinction (2009-10). Exhibitions: The Big Rooftop Tea Party, West Wharf Gallery (Cardiff, 2013); CSAD, Howard Gardens (Cardiff, 2013); The Parils of the Modern Alchemist presents Life, Death and Hereafter (Cardiff, 2012); Made in Roath, The Gate Arts Center (Cardiff, 2012); Art All Over Cardiff (2012); Perils of the Modern Alchemist (2012); Bcot Foundation Exhibition (Basingstoke, 2010). Awarded the BA (Hons) Fine Art Art History Prize 2013 and the Cardiff Metropolition Undergraduate Scholarship 2010. JUNGEUN CHOI Jungeun was born in Busan, South Korea. She studied graphic design in her hometown and later Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in London. She uses various media such as prints, photographs, films and life drawing in her compositions. She is interested in human rights and cultural issues. website: http://jungeunchoi.com/ JOSH COE Josh Coe is twenty-four and lives with his lovely wife in Peterborough, on the edge of a dangerous swamp called the fens. He has no fancy BA Eds, BSCs or BIGs. In fact, his literary upbringing consisted of obsessively reading Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton books, and writing surprisingly detailed alien stories in his junior school journals. Nevertheless, he still cultivates a healthy ability to write and rhyme, and is currently tucked up fleshing out the plot of his new fantasy adventure novel, which is set to be nothing short of spectacular. website: http://joshcoewrites.moonfruit.co.uk.

FREYA CROMARTY Toying with the idea of an invasion of space, the seemingly expanding, domineering forms reveal their tactile surface of silver drawing pins while attempting to engulf their surroundings. Mimicking the growth patterns of cells, moss and plants, the invasive nature of these futuristic organisms surround pillars, seep out of corners and hide in the places you barely even notice. SAM EMM Working primarily in Lino and etching, Sam utilises a carefully selected sequence of colours to give a sense of balance to the work. He tries to achieve an intense overall effect through tiling his patterns to form a larger more complex, tessellated version. He aims to challenge the viewer’s perception of pattern and colour through manipulation of line and form. The intuitive selection of contrasting and complimentary colours is used to enhance the feeling of intensity in a piece, and is informed and framed by Op Art and Abstraction. SALLY GRADLE Sally Gradle hopes to achieve the goal of writing at least one poem-maybe this one--that makes someone else say, “I’ve felt like that.” Writing, teaching art, and painting have been her passions, while inhabiting the borderlands of academia. ZACHARY HAMILTON Zachary Scott Hamilton is garnished in barnacles, slathered in sea-foam, and covered in psychotropic silicones. As of late, he lives beyond the greater domes of the western hemisphere. He resides in a basement along with fourteen wild rats, two ghosts, and seventeen pet rats in Halloween, Oregon. Hallelujah! website: http://infii.weebly.com

CONTRIBUTORS

BRUCE HARRIS A short story collection by Bruce Harris will be published in September 2013 by SPM Publications. The twenty five stories included have all won prizes, commendations or listings in competitions. His fiction and poetry has also been extensively published in magazines and e-zines. website: http://bruceharris.org ELLIE JACKSON Ellie has just graduated from Cardiff School of Art and Design with a First Class degree in Fine Art, or to be more specific, Printmaking. Within printmaking over the last three years, she has been particularly drawn to the process of Collagraph, and much of her work revolves around this undervalued method. website: http://elliejacksonprints.co.uk YUJIN JUNG Born in Seoul, Korea and work in London. 2009-13 Goldsmiths College, University of London/ BA Fine Art. Group shows: 2013 Goldsmiths BA Fine Art Degree Show; 2012 ‘The Church of Dean’, Studio B, London; 2012 ‘’THREAD’ Female Artist Showcase On International Woman’s Day, Amersham Arms, London; 2012 ‘Kate Moss’, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg; 2011 ‘JARRED ON MY NERVES’, Old Police Station Project Space, London. website: http://labofyujin.blogspot.com STEVE KLEPETAR Steve Klepetar teaches literature and creative writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His book Speaking to the Field Mice appeared in March from Sweatshoppe Publications, and his chapbook “Blue Season,” a collaboration with Joseph Lisowski, was just released by mgv2>publishing.

LOUISE MACKENZIE Louise Mackenzieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s practice encompasses a range of media: sculpture, print, sound, video and performance alongside other forms of engagement and intervention. Operating between gallery and other settings, her experimental, research-led approach is determined by the context: historical, scientific or archaeological. Louiseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work often crosses disciplinary boundaries in an attempt to understand why it is that we are compelled to make, discover and progress, rather than to simply exist. Recently, Louise has collaborated with Newcastle University Music Department and the Methodist Church on the theme of digital versus physical community and her current project is a collaboration with Newcastle University School of Marine Science and Technology. website: http://loumackenzie.com ASA J. MADDISON Asa is a recent graduate of Northumbria University. His main creative medium is poetry, although he does occasionally dabble in the dark arts of prose writing. Over the past 10 months, Asa has been wowing spoken word audiences across the North East with his disgustingly beautiful use of imagery. JES MALITORIS A native of the United States, raised in Boston and Washington, DC, Jessica Malitoris has come to call North Carolina home. At 23, she is a second-year in the PhD program in history at Duke University. She made her first attempts at writing poetry as she began high school in 2004, and has spent the years since refining her skills with the help of friends, mentors, and the online artistic community. Her interests outside poetry include 20th-century history, mythology, folklore, herbalism, fantasy, and science fiction. website: http://azizriandaoxrak.deviantart.com

CONTRIBUTORS

ELLIE MCCULLOCH Ellie McCulloch is a Newcastle University Fine Art BA (hons) graduate. The work aims to transform the space into a unique environment, allowing for personal reflection, time to reminisce, observe and think. Memories are delicate, precious, desirable feelings, which make us who we are. These qualities are inherent within her work: attempting to capture the beauty and spiritual essence of an individual, and how day-to-day events and decisions influence the bigger picture. website: http://emmaclare2.wordpress.com AMBERLEA MCNAUGHT Amberlea McNaught is a young emerging ceramic artist, born in the UK. She studied for her BA Hons Ceramics at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Amberlea has explored ideas of ethnography and culture, studying ancient eastern ceramics and practicing a variation of industrial and traditional techniques. This has led her to combining cultures into objects that translate the essence of her experience. She has honed her techniques on the wheel to find her own visual language that transcends cultural and historical barriers of identity and origin. website: http://terrapotter.co.uk ME AND DEBOE Classically trained Mercy Elise and self-taught Sarah Deboe move effortlessly between powerful chords and delicate, percussive riffs to bring a stripped back and distinctly original sound to both their own music and their cover versions. Sharply observed, frequently witty lyrics are their trademark and brought to life by Mercyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strong, raw contralto and Sarahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s softer, blueeyed soul. website: http://meanddeboe.com

ZOE MOLLOY Zoe studies Fine Art at Newcastle University. Her current work is a series of lino prints of landscapes she has visited. She wanted the works to portray the lines and marks present within the landscapes, often exaggerating and simplifying these to create more stylised images. CATRIN ORR Catrin is really interested in collecting examples of the ridiculousness of human behaviour and illustrating them in a satirical way. She just produced two books called 13 Lies and 13 Truths for her degree show. Catrin graduated in Illustration from Cardiff Metropolitain University in July 2013. website: http://catrinorr.com NICOLA OWEN Nicola is part of the Write Up North collective of playwrights based in the North East and a member of the ARCADE professional artists network. she is currently working on her first YA novel and is a regular contributor to both NARC magazine and KYEO.tv. She lives in Gateshead with a motley crew of rescued cats and greyhounds and sometimes tweets between writing down the odd thoughts that happen in her head. GEORGE QUINEY Using printmaking processes that do not lend themselves to exact reproduction, overlaid with the precise branding iron of laser cutting, George explores the grey area of what is and what is not a print. Lighting plays a crucial role in finding a different quality in his prints, creating a depth of colour and mark making that is not usually associated with printmaking. MATT RUSHTON Matt is a 21 year old English student from Manchester who enjoys writing short stories.

CONTRIBUTORS

HELEN SMITH Helen Smith, 22, is a visual artist from the north east of England and a recent Fine Art graduate from Goldsmiths University of London. Her practice explores ideas of taste and value, the context of objects and the readings these objects have when presented in certain ways. Recent works reference natural forms, modernist design and methods of museum display. Choosing ceramics as her medium, she creates objects of ‘actual’ material value to produce a collection of ‘stuff’ which sits oddly in a space between the ornament and sculpture. website: http://helen-smith.net STARK Jamie, Evan and Rusty bring all their individual influences together – fusing blues, rock, country and folk – to create Stark’s distinctive and exciting sound. They now look forward to touring throughout the coming year in support of their latest EP, ‘Where the Grey Slates Meet’, which features tracks that are darker and more mature than those on their self-titled debut release. website: http://starkband.com RHIAN THOMS Since 2007, Rhian has been working primarily in ceramic with mixed media finishes. Undertaking a BA in Ceramics at Cardiff School of Art and Design has advanced her understanding of the material and her practice. His work is concerned with the body, both inside and out, discussing the form and structure through scientific imagery and metaphor. website: http://rhianthoms.co.uk/

CAITLIN THOMSON Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson has a Master’s of Fine Art degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous places, including: The Literary Review of Canada, The Liner, Echolocation, Labletter, The Moth and the anthology Killer Verse. She currently teaches at Seattle Pacific University. AIMEE WATLING Aimee is a recent Illustration BA Hons graduate, specialising in bespoke paper-cut designs and installations combined with lighting. The Clockwork Crocodile is part of a series of moveable lasercut silhouette shadow puppets designed and handmade for a Steampunk adaption of Peter Pan, produced by the Harlequin Theatre, Northwich (2012). website: http://aimeewatling.co.uk/ EMMA WHITEHALL Emma Whitehall is a writer and spoken-word performer based in the North East of England. She mostly specialises in flash fiction, focusing around horror and dark fantasy themes. She has been featured in magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, and her short story, “Shed”, was recently published by the American independent publishing company, Hazardous Press. website: http://kallistotales.m1inet.co.uk/ OLGA WOJTAS Olga Wojtas is a writer living in Edinburgh, who attended the school which inspired Muriel Spark’s “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. Her stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines and anthologies, including Alliterati, New Writing Scotland, New Writing Dundee, The Ranfurly Review and The Mayo Review. She has a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing from the Open University.

SASCHK SENIOR

DRAKOS EDITOR

Writer. Photographer. People-watcher. Building-explorer. Terminal idealist. Itinerant magpie. Saschk crawled out of the kudzu-wrapped deep South (US) to find himself living in the unlikely environs of the north east UK. He maintains an impressive collection of names, former addresses, and stories heard on train platforms. Saschk is a true believer in the literary potential of genre fiction, zombies, and that there’s nothing sexier than blank pages wrapped in leather. He published a semi-autobiographical word-monster in 2011. He blogs when he feels inclined to speak prolifically. He tweets somewhat more frequently. His future plans include a southerly migration in his continuing quest for the Sun (and an MA). He’s also rather fond of shiny objects.

FAY CODONA LITERATURE

EDITOR

Fay is an English Literature student at Northumbria University, she has a penchant for musical theatre and enjoys old music of the jazz/swing persuasion as well as the odd movie marathon – accompanied, of course, by a hot cuppa!

FELICITY LITERATURE

POWELL EDITOR

Felicity is an English Literature student at Newcastle, and is also President of the Creative Writing society, with a hard-core addiction to Potter and Tolkien. In her poetry she likes to explore the metaphysics of writing and the power of ink on the page, and is eternally seeking for anyone whose weirdness is compatible with her own. Felicity also enjoys canoe polo, though ever since an unfortunate kayaking incident in first year, she is slowly overcoming an irrational phobia of waterfalls.

AIMEE VICKERS LITERATURE EDITOR Aimee Vickers is studying English language and literature at Newcastle University. She is a self confessed control freak and enjoys drinking coffee and planning unrealistically wonderful holidays. As well as these unhealthy obsessions she also dabbles in lyrical dancing, all things theatrical and the occasional jog when she isn’t busy writing colour coded lists.

MARIA ART

ABBOTT EDITOR

Maria R. C. Abbott is an enthusiastic Fine Art Fiend who is studying and guzzling the subject at Newcastle University. Maria’s art centres around an interest in the human experience, which often involves being incredibly nosy. Despite her anti-monarchy tendencies, her best achievement has been the observation of Prince Charles’ eyes over her painting ‘Miners’ which is on permanent display at the ‘Ty Ebbw’ museum in Wales. Jolly ho. You’ll mainly find Maria swing dancing, tea sipping and dabbling in poetry and paint. She regularly updates her artistic ventures via her website: maria-abbott-art. weebly.com.

JAMES RICKETTS ART EDITOR James Ricketts is upcoming artist, photographer and illustrator. He is currently studying Fine Art BA honours at Newcastle University. He spent a year in Oxford between 2010/2011, in order to complete an art foundation at Oxford Brookes University. His practice often reflects the melancholy and the strange and he is strongly influenced by artist such as George Grosz and Goya. His illustrations are published in the Newcastle Courier magazine on a weekly basis. Originally he is from West Sussex, near to the vicinity of Brighton. 83