Dear readers This issue finds the Alliterati team, with the host of old and new editors, settling into a rhythm of coffee mornings and discussion. With submissions from Tennesse, Melbourne, and of course the rich literary scene of Newcastle upon Tyne, it was hard not to be excited about this issue, and the future issues of 2015. This issue publishes multiple pieces by the same authors, a refreshing opportunity to portray the range and versatility of our contributors. Neil Fulwood, Charlotte Carrick and Karissa Knox Sorrell offer pieces which cover the spectrum of human experience, with an unsettling thread of loss tying these authors together. Sorrell’s ‘Goddess Trees’ was a particular favourite of our editors, with its ideas of reclaiming the female body and its product: life. The complex imagery of the morphing female form into a tree is an Ovidian image, yet the connotations of matriarchal protection subvert the submissive events of Ovid’s tales. The motif of the female body acts as another thread through this issue, from the front cover images by Linda Berhard, to the stark image from Alice Jones, with its portrayal of the external corporeal consequences of internal conflict. Many of our art submissions in Issue 16 have dabbled in digital methods of production. From Lan Lan's 'Alted Hydrozoa' to Hazel Soper's digital collages, Issue 16 reveals the ingenuity in which many artists are incorporating the digital medium in their practice. As a web-based magazine we are delighted by this trend, without any less love for artwork that has been meticulously created by hand. Software, internet and glowing computer screens are rapidly taking control over our lives. If artificial intelligence will one day lord over the human race, we may as well give it the means of artistic expression. We hope you enjoy our latest offering. Bethany Herbertson & James Ricketts
www.facebook.com/alliterati @AlliteratiMag editor @alliteratimagazine.com
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Frontcover Artwork for Issue 16: People in Places 4, Linda Bernhard 3
p.6
LEFT LUGGAGE, Aidan Clarke
p.7
PROBLEM P’S, Aidan Clarke
p.8
DEATH BEHIND THE EYES, Alice Jones (ART)
p.9
RETURNED, Amanda Quinn
P.10
‘HATIN’ ON THE WEATHER’, Charlotte Carrick
P.11-13 SERIES OF COLLAGES, Linda Bernhard (ART) P.14-19 CONTACTS, Charlotte Carrick p.20
UNTITLED, Zachary Scott (ART)
p.21
SURPLUS BABIES, Jane Burn
p.22-25 ALTED HYDROZOA, Lan Lan (ART) p.26
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MY BRAIN TRIED TO KILL ME, Shoshanna Beale
p.27
ALIBI, Neil Fulwood
p.28
CURRENCY, DEVALUED, Neil Fulwood
p.29
CUTTING, Neil Fulwood
p.30
PIT BUS, Neil Fulwood
p.31
EXPERIMENTALISM, Charlotte Carrick
p.32
GODDESS TREES, Karissa Knox Sorrell
p.33-35 SERIES OF PAINTINGS, Yan Tengjun (ART) p.36
BONE YARD, Karissa Knox Sorrell
p.37-38 THE WHITE CHICKEN OF CHRISTMAS, Vicki Morley p.39-41 SERIES OF COLLAGES, Hazel Soper (ART) p.42
SHE WOULD NOT COME TO BED, Vincent Foret
p.43
LOOK INTO MY MIND SID, Samm Emm (ART)
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LEFT LUGGAGE
I was delayed at Krakow airport, as the baggage took a while to come through. It’s a pain when people have to wait so long for their luggage. A few days later, at Auschwitz, I looked at a display of suitcases and felt the individual sadness’s behind the names of owners who never returned. It’s a pain when luggage has to wait so long for its people.
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AIDAN CLARKE
PROBLEM P’S
AIDAN CLARKE
In performance poetry I have 2 particularly pronounced problems First, I pop my P’s and pepper the public, potentially puncturing their pretty pale pink poppadrums. Pum per um pum pum pum pum beware the pitter patter of powerful P’s. Second, I hold my left arm like a peacock’s neck, with all five fingers forming the beak, which appears to be playing with a garden pea and preparing to pump it at particular people in the front pew. If you don’t applaud, you get the full pod. Pum per um pum pum pum pum beware the pitter patter of powerful petits pois.. Yes, laugh out loud please if you want to sleep in peace and not in peas. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go for a Pea. Pum per um pum pum pum pum beware the pitter patter of powerful …. (PS I love you.)
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DEATH BEHIND THE EYES ALICE JONES
‘Dead Behind The Eyes’ is a photographic self portrait which represents the emotional upset experienced during my struggle with an eating disorder. The self portrait is part of a larger project, The Perfection Aspiration. Within this body of work I have used photography and the use of an online blog as a therapeutic process in which to document my recovery for an eating disorder and also to create an awareness of the impacts that women face when trying to fit the state of perfection imposed on them through the media and cultural ideals.
RETURNED
AMANDA QUINN
I can’t remember which one was our flat. The door we spent a weekend turning yellow must have long been re-painted. In those days this area was a step-up. Not now. I pass the back lane where I kicked your car. I was drunk. We’d not long split. The library’s still here. That pebble dashed sanctuary where I read myself back together. But not the café where you told me. Or the bar we went the night before, when my world was still whole. I was a stranger in this hard, bright land. Pease pudding. Bainbridge’s. Stotties. The Metro. Caught off guard by the cries of seagulls, the bitter North winds. But it’s my city now. I have walked near every street and spoken all its words to make it so. And you? You didn’t stay long. Moved back to the landlocked town we’d fled. Got married, had kids; the usual. This street, and all its stories, long since forgotten.
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‘HATIN’ ON THE WEATHER’ CHARLOTTE CARRICK
“Good afternoon. Today looks particularly clear across the southern hood’s realness, but the weather is gradually going to change and become crunk with 99 problems. Showers will be initially light across Northern England with a ‘bad bitch no muzzle’ wind in the North East. Elsewhere, areas will become colder from the 3,6,9, with icy patches and bustin’ temperatures. Increasingly twerk, particularly in the ‘you scared, you scared’ South East, along with sunny spells in the afternoon. As you can see, heading up towards Scotland, that shit is mostly cray. A band of game will clear in the early hours, forcing many in the northern region to get wezzy. Later on we will see clearer skies across my colt 45, allowing temperatures to dip, bringing a risk of icy skeet skeet. The public are advised to take extra mandem whilst travelling. Avoid junction 25 along with f-bombs in the southern region. Mainly don’t disrespect, with outbreaks of pizzle, dizzle and shizzle. Clearer weather spreading south into central areas with get low spells. Further credit to my flow across Northern Scotland, with some outbreaks of trifling dawg. Remaining player or mostly pimp for the rest of the evening.”
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LINDA BERNHARD
SOMMERSET HOUSE COURTY YARD
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PEOPLE IN PLACES 3
THE SHARD: LONDON
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CONTACTS
CHARLOTTE CARRICK
MICHAEL and ANGIE sit in bed. Angie takes a book from her bedside table, turns on the lamp and begins to read. Michael pats his pillow and lies on his side with his eyes closed. MICHAEL (shouting) Shit! Angie jumps. Michael sits up straight. ANGIE Jesus Michael, do you have to do that when I’m reading! MICHAEL Oh I’m sorry, next time I’ll wait till you’ve finished your chapter, shall I? ANGIE Oh you are miserable! Angie hits Michael with a small pillow. Michael starts to rub his eyes. MICHAEL This is your bloody fault anyway! (whiny voice) Michael get some contacts so you know what you’re doing in the bedroom. (normal voice) I didn’t realise how hard it would be to get the bloody things out. Michael attempts to take out his contacts. ANGIE What’s a woman to do? You thought my leg was a baseball bat! MICHAEL Yeah, it was far too smooth! ANGIE Michael! MICHAEL What?
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Angie lifts up the duvet in the middle of the bed and reveals a baseball bat.
ANGIE Why do you insist on keeping it there? MICHAEL In case we’re robbed in the middle of the night ANGIE No... yes, I understand that Michael, but why must it be in the bed with us? MICHAEL It keeps you on your side Angie glares at Michael. ANGIE You’re impossible! MICHAEL I need a mirror Michael goes out of the room. Angie begins to read her book again. She sinks back into the pillow and breathes out. MICHAEL (shouting) Shitting hell! Angie jumps again. Michael storms into the room, his hand holding on to an eyelash curler that is stuck to his eye. ANGIE Michael! What are you doing? Michael paces up and down. MICHAEL What do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to get my contacts out! ANGIE Why are you using an eyelash curler? MICHAEL (under his breath) For fuck sake!
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ANGIE Let me go and fetch you a mirror, I don’t want you going in there again and coming back with a tampon stuck in your eye. An eyelash curler, honestly Michael! MICHAEL I was trying to keep my eye lid open! Angie leaves the room. Michael props his pillow up and gets into bed. He sits up straight. His right eye begins to twitch. MICHAEL What are you doing woman?! Michael stumbles out of bed and walks into the bathroom. The stage is empty but we can hear their voices off stage. ANGIE Here let me try MICHAEL Keep it up! ANGIE What do you mean? MICHAEL Just grab it ANGIE Ok A pause. ANGIE What am I grabbing again? MICHAEL The tip! ANGIE The tip? MICHAEL Yes there, you got it? ANGIE Is it hurting?
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MICHAEL Just be rough with it ANGIE It’s stuck MICHAEL Maybe change position? ANGIE Ok let me straddle you MICHAEL Arch your back a bit ANGIE Hang on! MICHAEL Tie your hair up it’s getting in the way! ANGIE Ok MICHAEL Aghhh Fuck! ANGIE Sorry! MICHAEL No, that’s good, harder! ANGIE Harder? MICHAEL Don’t stop! ANGIE Ok! MICHAEL Yep aghhh! ANGIE I’m nearly there MICHAEL I can feel it, just blow on it
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ANGIE Faster? MICHAEL Yeah just like that. (pause) Keep doing it. (pause) Now pull my head back further. ANGIE Nearly there! MICHAEL I can’t hold on much longer! ANGIE Got it! MICHAEL Oh Yes! ANGIE Thank god! Michael and Angie walk back into the room all hot and flustered. Angie’s hair is a mess and Michael’s pyjama top hangs loosely around his right shoulder. They get into bed and Angie begins to read. MICHAEL (sarcastically) Same time tomorrow? ANGIE If you think I’m doing that again, you’ve got another thing coming. Next time do it yourself! Michael smiles and lies on his side. He tosses and turns. MICHAEL Are you gonna switch that bloody light off? ANGIE I give up! Fine! Angie closes her book and switches off the light.
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The stage is in complete darkness.
(CONTINUED)
MICHAEL Goodnight Angie ANGIE Goodnight Michael There is a moment’s silence. ANGIE Michael can you move that bloody baseball bat! MICHAEL That’s not the baseball bat ANGIE (giggling) Oh... Michael!
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UNTITLED
ZACHARY SCOTT HAMILTON 20
SURPLUS BABIES
JANE BURN
Cadets in the precinct, collecting; elbows bracketed, ironed arms in angled shirtsleeves, legs tram-lined into trousers; neat as pins. Hair cropped, exposing birdy necks not filling the ring of collars – tideline tans along pale napes that have not seen sun until this cutting. Ears jugged in the harshness of the clip; oysters beached by vanished seraph curls that waste on barbers floors, aching for a mother’s tuck. Badges paddled to shine with the haa-ing of hot breath – smart work for these soldier cubs. I wish I could unpick their hems, wind them back onto their baby bobbins – wrinkle them into a merry scruff; smudge their knees, send them home.
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ALTED HYDROZOA
1.4
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1.3
LAN LAN
1.2
1.1
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1.5
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2.1 (hybrids)
2.2 (hybrids)
2.3 (hybrids)
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MY BRAIN TRIED TO KILL ME
SOSHANNA BEALE
My brain tried to kill me— once, twice, maybe more— but this time it meant business, this time we were two people inhabiting one body; together we stood on the train tracks, stood in darkness, stared into darkness, darkness nowhere near as dark as the darkness inside of me, together we felt our scars vibrating with the wooden beam beneath our feet, and the railing rattling, ready to open the giant maws of this night, together we felt the wind rise and gather in a rush toward us, riding like a Valkyrie to claim her lost soul from the battlefield, we saw doom approaching, we welcomed it— but the lights, the lights— yellow eyes pierced my soul. And what can I say? I jumped. Landed, leaden, listless; lay, motionless, in gravel, rock grazing my back like a dagger, and a train like a bullet screeching ‘Coward! Coward! Coward!’ while I watched it shuttle past.
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ALIBI
NEIL FULWOOD
It’s the furtiveness he likes; The act itself is secondary. The crafting of a cover story, Standing guard against a slip Of the tongue, his day-to-day Worked out as rigorously As the clues to a cryptic puzzle. Fiction would shoehorn crisis Or coincidence into the narrative, But he’s dexterous, sidesteps All petty unmaskings. Not For him the tell-tale voicemail, The crucial detail misremembered When the lie is challenged, The stumbling block of human error; He’s too clever Not human enough.
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CURRENCY, DEVALUED
NEIL FULWOOD
... la moneda de plata solloza en el bolsillo. - LORCA: La luna asoma
Coins weep their bitter silver tears In the pocket. Coins, imprisoned, Tunnel through the inner workings Of slot machines, banking On the break-out of a jackpot. Three coins oxidise in a fountain. Banknotes desiccate in wallets, And billfolds crumble like dead moths Brushed from a lampshade. Banknotes asphyxiate in vaults, Watermarks fading like bruises, Paper money self-erasing. Cash in transit breaks into itself, Triggering the dye pack. Payrolls Spontaneously combust. Bonuses And lottery tickets strip down To their charred remains in the heat. IOUs hang back: it’s not their time.
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CUTTING
NEIL FULWOOD
He spoke as found and it was poetry forged in grease and sump oil, words cutting through conversations like burrs unfurling from a lathe and finding the soft flesh of a thumb.
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PIT BUS
NEIL FULWOOD
My father was a boy of eight or nine in a stern woman’s house, hands that preferred Meccano doing bored injustice to an upright piano. Hands itching for the real business of a truck engine. Scales, rudimentary tunes, Fßr Elise hammered out like a panel-beaten dent. My father yawning, the metronome chopping away at his attention span, eyes drifting from the keys to the mirror on the parlour wall. The pit bus passing meant it was done, the lesson he took nothing from, that hour of enforced respectability. My father, free to take the long way home while winding gear lurched out the held-breath sound of a cage descending. Darkness, dust. Men spitting out phlegm and profanity, the shift beginning.
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EXPERIMENTALISM
CHARLOTTE CARRICK
You ex peri mental ism? Exism peri mental, got it? Exmental peri-ism. It mental per iism ex? Got… er… men… I tal… peex rism no? Alism experiment!
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GODDESS TREES
KARISSA KNOX SORRELL
You cannot be a goddess, They told me, because We can’t have a woman Parading and pretending So I let all the men Plant their seed inside me And I birthed The most lovely flower That opened to every sunrise Then that flower became A fruit, which I picked And ate down to the core While they watched the juices Skiing down my chin When I came to the seed I ate it too, and it grew in me Until my human torso Was covered in bark My legs and toes morphed into roots And my arms stiffened Into strong, heavy branches People flocked to me For my shade, My fruit, and some said They could hear A song When they pressed Their ear Against me.
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CELEBRATION
YAN TENGJUN 33
FLUCTUATION
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BONE YARD
KARISSA KNOX SORRELL There is always a loss. Overturned tiles Smooth white sides beckoning Click-clack of them touching Each other, touching Which may not have existed for us, or if so, I couldn’t feel it I could only know, Know mentally, that you were with me My Thai friend showed me a picture of her mother’s ashes and bones.
‘If you find at your turn that none of the ends of your dominoes match, you must draw one domino from the boneyard.’ -MEXICAN TRAIN RULEBOOK
Her son dug in the ashes with a shovel, throwing his grandmother around Like sand in the box. I might have cringed, if I didn’t know it as truth already. Loss is something we dig through A weight that covers us Buries us in misery, mystery, history, An etymology that prefixes and suffixes What we call love Precipitates and suffocates, paraphrases and sacrifices, piecemeals and scraps My turn comes And goes, I choose Dots unmatching There are four polka-dotted trains, only one mine, and that Opened by a penny, which means anyone can play on it. I walk through the boneyard, fingering the stones, searching For the ashes I scattered.
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THE WHITE CHICKEN OF CHRISTMAS VICKI MORLEY
Hunger and winter are old friends. They take a track down to the cottage by the wood. A white chicken struts round her pen searching for food. Yesterday there was a cabbage stump but today nothing, just water, with a cold lid on it. The air is freezing, she stops moving, fluffs up her feathers. The cage door creaks, two hands come in and grab her scaly feet, so she’s hanging upside down. She turns up her volume to full throttle. Her plea is lost for another day or night, strolling, pecking, strutting and scratching. Nested firmly, she’s stripped of her finery, then carried to the kitchen. Ready with carrots, potatoes onions, the cook is easy now. All quiet after squawks, pecks, beating of wings against her face and arms.
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( THE WHITE CHICKEN OF CHRISTMAS CONTINUED )
The cook backhands her brow, wiping a droplet of sweat into the simmering pot, fragrant with sage and tarragon. Outside in the killing yard snowflakes feather down to blot out chicken blood from granite slabs. The snow arrives soft on winter’s coat. Hunger raises his hat and stalks back to the woods.
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HAZEL SOPER
A FLAWLESS EVEN BASE
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DOESN’T GET STUCK IN THE CREASES
SHE WOULD NOT COME TO BED
VINCENT FORET
It was just after four. The clock had chimed several minutes ago, but it took several more for his brain to properly register it. The bone deep exhaustion he was feeling made even the act of putting on his slippers a momentous task. He had been sitting, unmoving, for hours. At first his body didn’t remember how it was supposed to work. He flexed his stiff fingers, took the threadbare blanket from his lap, and stood up slowly. The light from the open window shone on the floor. He could see dust dancing in the beam. He was tempted to sit down, to study it, to catalog it, but he knew that to do so would be to concede the battle. To lose the battle meant to lose the war. He walked instead to the window. The floor creaked. She did not hear. Or if she did hear, she did not care. She was sitting on a stool. The way she was perched there was reminiscent of a small child in a chair that was far too tall. Her legs did not touch the floor. She was thin, almost emaciated. Pale. In the light of the window he could see the fine hair on her exposed shoulders. Her eyes were hollow and glassy. She was shaking a little. Just her hands. It was usually just her hands. He cautiously placed one hand on her shoulder, then immediately drew it back in surprise. He always forgot how cold she was. Funny, that she could surprise him after all this time. He was never quite sure how he felt about her. Usually he felt nothing at all, but there were times when his love was so vast he felt it would break open the cage of his heart. There were times when he wanted to hold a pillow over her head until she stopped moving. This time he wasn’t sure, but he felt a small fluttering of some emotion, something shy and fleeting. Then his heart was still and he felt nothing for her again. He looked at the clock. Barely a minute had passed. He draped the blanket over her shoulders, which were now heaving with some kind of inward sob. Her face, however, remained a blank canvas. She gave nothing away. She would never make eye contact. Look at me, he wanted to say. Look at me. But in truth, he didn’t want her to. He was afraid. She would not come to bed. He felt the urge to cry, all of a sudden. There was no reason for it. No reason except this girl on the stool. No reason except four AM, the dust flying in that perfect square of light, the moon sitting untouchable in the night sky. He wanted her to notice him. He wanted her to thank him. He wanted to stab her over and over and over again until she was lifeless, otherworldly. Only he didn’t.
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He went to bed.
LOOK INTO MY MIND SID
SAM SAM EMM EMM
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BIOGRAPHIES
Aidan Clarke’s writing is the result of many years spent awake at night and asleep in semiimportant meetings. He lives in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England and does most of his writing in cafes. Karissa Knox Sorrell is a writer and poet from Nashville, Tennessee. When not writing, she works with ESL teachers and students. Read more of her writing at her blog or follow her on Twitter @KKSorrell. Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham in 1972. He is the author of film studies book The Films of Sam Peckinpah. His poetry has been featured in the Morning Star, Butcher’s Dog, The Black Light Engine Room, Prole and Ink Sweat & Tears. Vincent Foret is a Louisiana native and tea snob. He enjoys reading, eating ice cream, doodling in MS Paint, feeding stray cats, and crying more than your average adult. He is good at having existential crises and picking things up with his feet, despite the fact that he cannot walk in a straight line. Vicki Morley a strange hybrid, having worked in intelligence at GCHQ and been head of two comprehensives, she took early retirement. Some of her short stories she read at Falmouth’s Telltales, a local writers’ group. This was a useful antidote to removing slugs from vegetable beds. Then she moved to the town of Penzance which is relatively slug free and she writes poems. In 2014 she read a selection at Penzance’s, Golowan Festival and The Literary Festival. Her ambition is to keep the local independent bookshop open and is currently buying from their poetry selection.
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Jane Burn is a North East based writer and artist. She is an enthusiastic participant in the spoken word scene there and regularly performs guest spots. Her poems have been published in magazines such as Material, The Edge, Butcher’s Dog, Ink Sweat & Tears, Nutshells and Nuggets, The Stare’s Nest, Lunar Poetry and The Black Light Engine Room. She was also longlisted for the Canterbury Poet of the Year Award. Aidan Clarke has been writing for more than 3 decades during most of which he has lived worked and walked around in Newcastle Upon Tyne. His USP is a menu of around 140 poems each of which he can perform off by heart on request. Charlotte Carrick was born and raised in Leeds, studying Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She takes inspiration from the way in which we as human beings communicate with each other, particularly examples of colloquial/scripted discourse, as well as the mundane and monotonous conversations we share. She often sets these against poetic, visual language to see what it creates. Shoshanna Beale is a poet, fiction writer, blogger and freelance editor based in Melbourne, Australia. You can read more of her writing at www.shannabeale.wordpress.com/blog/
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ART
ANNA SKULCZUK
LITERAT
JAMES RICKETTS *FORMAT EDITOR
OWAIN FLANDERS
CONTR
SAMANTHA NEW
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TURE
S
JENNY DANES
ADAM THOMPSON
BETHANY HERBERTSON *CHIEF EDITOR
RIBUTORS
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THIS IS THE END