FERMENT No. 3
Literature and illustration zine
Summer 2011
ÂŁ3.50
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Hello. Well, after bragging in issue 2 about not suffering from “second album syndrome,” we appear to have had it this time round. That’s karma for you. Karma’s like a bolshy teenage girl. If it thinks you’ve done wrong by it, it will make you pay. Anyway, LOOK, IT’S HERE! WE DID IT! And will you just look at how pretty it is? Once again, I am humbled by the effort that people have put into helping us out for no remuneration. You all bloody well rock, you do. As with the last issue, we wanted a broad theme that would give a wide scope for interpretation, so we decided on ‘Food’ for this issue. Come on, who doesn’t like food? I love it! I recently won a poker game and you know what the first thing I bought with my winnings was? A big steak. I cooked it nice and rare and had it with sweet potato mash, mushrooms and peas. It was absolutely orgasmically good. Fuck, that has just made me really hungry. Right. I’m off for some food. ENJOY ISSUE THREE! Paul
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Brought to you by…
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Paul Askew
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Sarah Plant
James Weiner
@misteraxl
@plantsarah
@jamesweiner
paulaskew.tumblr.com
Sarah spent too much time in Birmingham and the
In a previous life James was a disorganised record
Paul labours as a wage slave serving incompetent
effects are only just wearing off. Nowadays she
cover designer and magazine editor. He then spent
members of the public. Inbetween he is an apprentice
spends her time designing nail technician manuals
some time inside the music industry machine where
literary academic and gets regular gigs inflicting his
and dreaming of a time when she will be art director
he learnt that listening to music is a lot more fun than
bizarre ramblings on unsuspecting audiences at venues
of the world. For Ferment, Sarah likes to look at lots of
marketing it. He left to reform his character and now
across Oxford and London. His number one heckler is
fonts and argue with James about white space whilst
works for himself. For Ferment, he has a pseudo-
his own mother. For Ferment, Paul is in charge of words
corralling our cabal of illustrators.
publisher role, making sure everyone else does the work
and keeping all our writers happy.
Urban Cookie Collective.
Meat Beat Manifesto.
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Mister Millerchip
and that he gets the credit. Jam & Spoon.
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Matt Lewis
Thanks Newspaper Club (www.newspaperclub.co.uk) for the mega
www.mistermillerchip.com
mattlewis.deviantart.com
Mister Millerchip is a black and white illustrator based in
Matt Lewis was born in Hereford and taught himself
issue’s cover. And of course thanks to all of our
Suffolk who visually communicates briefs by using curly
to draw as a child by reading comics. He moved to
fantastic contributors.
haired characters, social situations, and story telling.
Oxford in 1997 to study and lives there still with his
By noting down unusual and mundane aspects of life Mr M has books and boxes brimming with tales and visual recordings that he uses to inspire Illustrations for any brief.
Ferment
partner Hannah and their son Frank. He enjoys charity shops, long johns and detective fiction.
easy to use printing service and to Joel Millerchip for this
Reproduction rights All content is copyright their respective creators. Please contact them with any inquiries for republication or commissioning.
FOOD
Food
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Colin ii
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Henry Stead londonpoetrysystems.com henrystead.tumblr.com Henry Stead is a poet and translator currently living in East Oxford. He is the founder of ‘London Poetry Systems’ – a cross-media poetry platform – and this year will complete a Ph.D. in Classical and English Poetry.
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Daisy Whitehouse whitewolfillustrations.com whitewolfillusrations.blogspot.com whitewolfillustrations@googlemail.com Growing up in the green fields of Nottingham a little Daisy always loved to draw and play with the animals, her restless mind is forever thinking up new creatures and stories to entertain. Conscious of the world around her she draws inspiration from the extraordinary of the everyday. Her work will remind you of the little things in life you should not forget.
Ferment
Colin lay face down on the bed my silent ever-ravished bride half high half asleep I ran full naked down the street hooked by the hypnotic jang of summer the rastered tannoy of the icecream van “You win again Icecream Man Like a rat you had me dancing to your merry tune” CHILDREN COWERED IN DOORWAYS BOYS SOBBED BEHIND PARKED CARS OLD MEN JEERED AND LAUGHED You flipped the switch to loud speaker I dropped down to my elbows and head You said MINIMILK MINIMILK MADNESS OF MINIMILK MINIMILK THE HEAVY JUDGER
OF MEN
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Englishness w
Maureen Evans @maureen & @cookbook www.spezzato.org Maureen Evans loves poetry, wilderness, and kitchens. Raised in northern Canada, she has studied and written in far-ranging cities, appeared in international journals, and just completed her first collection, ‘Towards Together’. She’s interested in self-reliance, de-centralised publishing, and experimental forms. Her first book, ‘Eat Tweet’, is a real cookbook of 1000 tweets.
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Joe Wilson @joe_wilson joe-wilson.com debutart.com/artist/joe-wilson Joe Wilson is a UK Illustrator. His work is a combination of painstakingly detailed, hand-drawn illustrations and print, usually in pencil and fine-line pen focusing on intense detail and strong drawing. He also likes to print, exhibit and sell screen-prints when he can.
We sometimes ate breakfast for dinner. We broke tawny yolks against puddled beans, subsumed salty Marmite with gulps of hot tea that my mother had made in an effort to understand my father - English by birth and letter; but long as Canadian as any of us. In truth, he had no such hunger. He’d run away from home as a boy, before love of food could catch up with him, as his mother had run from England before him. Instead, he craved open space, consoled himself on sugar sandwiches and shots of rye - recipes he would later deny. To this day, I’m prone to Scotch and reading menus carefully. Then, when the waitress arrives, I order something other than what I thought I wanted.
Food
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Diary Extract I’m on the train wondering whether this incredibly expensive cup of tea will ever cool down. I’ve finished reading the safety instructions again and so now I’m just gazing out of the window at moving hills, the rolling fields and sheep following sheep and wondering why they won’t wave back. Now I’ve taken the lid off from my cup of tea rather than blowing at it through the small hole on the plastic lid and hence making a whistling sound because it appears to be annoying the lady sat opposite. She is glaring at me over the top of the screen of her clicky tip tappety lap-top and yelling “hello” repeatedly into her mobile phone. The old man sitting next to me reeks of wee and appears to be/smells like he is unwrapping the tin foil from some egg and cress sandwiches. The other person sat opposite me is trying to negotiate more leg room by subtly kicking my legs off. Only two stops to go.
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George Chopping @georgechopping www.georgechopping.com George is a poet, compere and gig organiser residing in Oxford, where he hosts a monthly night, “George’s Jamboree.” In December 2008, he won the “Utter!” Ajar Mic Competition Final, and in 2009 he won the title of New York based Opium Magazine’s “Literary Death Match Champion.” He performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008 & 2009 and has been on the same billing as John Hegley, Michael Horowitz, Tim Key and Simon Munnery, among many others.
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Harry Sanksey harrysankey.co.uk bakerboysmusic.co.uk Having studied illustration at UWE, I now live and work in Bristol. I am also a musician in a band called Baker Boys Quintet in which I have the pleasure of playing the guitar. I love making images, typography and music, living in Bristol and cycling off to places with a tent and camping!
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D. W. Harris oxford-monocle.tumblr.com A well respected obsession with Ducker and Son and a fondness for waxing his moustache, has meant that D. W. Harris has made rather a name for himself as a conspicuously presented ‘character’ of Oxford’s streets. He’s an aspiring novelist, and blogger of the Oxford Monocle.
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Patrick Morgan @pmorganart Over the last four years Patrick has been teaching at Istituto Marangoni, in the UK, and has helped students evolve into butterflies of the fashion, styling, and graphics industries.
Breakfast in Botanical Gardens Theo could feel it; all stillness here, within these walls, and on the other side steadfastness. The repeated ebb and flow of a city, pulsating with the vibrancy of early morning. Here a cyclist, there a bus, and then, a pedestrian, walking in one of two directions; foot following foot. The repetitive continuum of leather and rubber meeting the hard paving slabs, while differing wheels pirouette forth in successive motion; minute after minute; day after day. The unchanging constancy of traffic on Magdalen Bridge. Theo had become woven into this boundless constancy. Each morning prior to work, he would buy his breakfast from Patisserie Valerie, before turning on his heel back down High Street, unconsciously drifting forth, onwards into the next chapter of his day. With purpose he would walk, past the viewing gates of the Botanical Gardens, and through the ticket office. Familiar, fleeting smiles exchanged with the woman - Linda, according to her name badge, who sits behind the counter; as airs of politeness and mutterings of “good morning,” and “Oh! What a glorious day,” are whisked back into nothingness, the instant either one has departed from the presence of the other. Through the door he would walk, and in that moment, while taking a deep breath, a profusion of olfactory senses would be awakened, the following exhalation carrying with it a feeling of calm, as he knows that in this space all is good, a sensation enhanced by the buoyancy of the air in early June. In this space tranquility can indeed overpower the consuming thoughts, which run hither and thither, ceaselessly around his mind. Here was solace, here was space; some kind of timeless escapism from the mundane, repetitive nature of his daily life as a call centre temp. The bench beneath him was damp - perhaps it had rained last night; he was unsure; and as he sat there staring, eyes fixed, assimilated, on the cyclical waters of the fountain before him, he removed the croissant from the paper bag, with the image of the girl dancing the Can-can; was that it? Some salacious movement of the leg at any rate. Theo removed the lid from his coffee; many an argument he had fought, and come to no consonance with differing individuals over this act. “But, it has a hole in it for a reason,” Elizabeth Daniels would say, “you don’t take it off, it completely defeats the point. Besides it helps to keep it hot!” “The last thing I want to do is drink something frothy from something so plastic.” This would always be Theo’s reasoning. Neither would agree, both would continue drinking their coffee in the same way; and when Elizabeth had children and they were grown, drinking a coffee before her, she would think back to Theo, and to these pointless arguments about a plastic lid. Food
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Matt Wisner @MattPaulWisner mattwisner.blogspot.com mattwisner@hotmail.co.uk Currently studying BA Visual Communications at Birmingham City University, Matt specialised in Illustration and now Graphic Communication. He is also a part-time designer for Attitude Design, Nottingham. Likes music, painting and coffee.
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Stef Rose Poutney
Empty Obsession
stef.rose@hotmail.co.uk Stef grew up in the Cotswolds and is currently in her final year of a Human Psychology degree. She prefers writing intricate poetry with a hidden story behind a tangle of words. She takes her inspiration from travel, people watching and emotions evoked from music.
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The light catches a streak of your face in all that blue shadow. Lips stained with a purple red, bands like veins. I ask you to look sideways so the cut of your cheekbone can sway my emotion. Skin so translucent. White and rose yellow mixed to show your pallet of self changing. I smell the acid in the freshness of the morning, sleep clinging to me along with an ache of routine. Why are you still standing there, staring at the empty wrappers? I see it printed in your eyes. Barcode of red lines on your finger. Obsession lingers in the empty cupboards, tension around your collar bones. And I guess something has to play on but you don’t sleep Anymore and I can’t find the strength to break the glass between us; It’s too hard by the evening and the morning is just too new to stain. Words I speak fall under the bed as you look up from your magazine and Blink slowly. I grin to myself When you leave the table and still make an excuse, Despite the quiet recognition between our sallow eyes.
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To Food w
A.F. Harrold www.afharrold.com A.F. Harrold is an English poet. Visit and further information.
or try to. Unlike you. I drape a metaphorical towel over one arm to bring your orders to your chair –
Daria Hlazatova
a little fruit, pre-chopped, a little juice. The kitchen’s my domain, the fridge organised in date order.
www.afharrold.com for books, words
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You taught me well, to scan a menu and choose, not the biggest price tag, but the biggest plate – a trait I keep up,
www.dariasgallery.blogspot.com www.dariascollages.blogspot.com I’m Daria Hlazatova. I live in a hilly city near the Carpathians. I draw and
As days become weeks I note how halves become quarters, become morsels, become even less – until, almost, a breath of air, a cup of light, the smell of subliming ice.
make collages. As a child I dreamt to become an oceanologist, but I have only one marine diver and a dozen of artists in my family so my art genes won. I find inspiration in travelling, music, fairy-tales, animals and theatre.
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EVERYTHING UNDER A POUND w
Alastair Tervit somethingfortheweakened.co.uk Alastair Tervit is a mammalian biped with a face and eyes. His feeble jottings and doodles appear at www.somethingfortheweakened.co.uk with a constipated irregularity.
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Sean Wars www.wwrrssddrrwwss.co.uk Sean Wars is an absolutely terrible artist, musician and friend, but is very happy to provide a critical eye on everyone elses endeavours regardless.
Tastiest thing I ever et? Musta been, what, five year back now. I was livin’ wit’ this real fine bitch. Much older ‘n me, but treated me real good. Always givin’ me steak, chicken, always cooked up real tasty. Man, she could cook. Real rich stuff. Some days it messed up my stomach somethin’ chronic, but I din’t mind an’ nor did she. Always happy to clean up after me, no matter what sorta shit I done. Real homemaker. Plus, we got on real well, know whum sayin’? I be all over her and she be all like “Dog, you good, you good boy,” or some shit. We got on real well. Always goin’ on these long walks ‘round the park, her showin’ me off ta ev’rybody. Life was pretty sweet, I c’n tell ya. Things got sour though. Food started comin’ straight outta cans. The walks got shorter an’ shorter. Then I started smellin’ somethin’ on her. Couldn’ figure out what it was at first, ‘til we was in bed one night. I was layin’ next ta her when I figured out what this smell was. It was a man. Most times my musk was all I got when I sniffed her, but that night I got a real nose full. Course, I freaked out! I was leapin’ round that bedroom, tryna tell her how pissed I was, but she wan’t havin’ none of it. Laughin’ at me, actin’ like she din’t unnerstand what she done. She walks out the room, tells me to come wit’ her. I was so steamed that I was outta there like a bullet. Ploughed straight inta her at the top o’ the stairs. Tha’s when she fell. I ran down ta the bottom, see if she was okay, but she wan’t movin’. Tried ev’rything I could, but she wan’t goin’ nowhere. In the end I just lied there, nuzzlin’ up to her, whimperin’. Next mornin’ I tried getting’ outta there, but it wan’t happ’nin’. Ev’rythin’ was locked up. Went round the place, musta bin a hundred times, tryna find a way out, but jus’ couldn’. Few days passed. I bin howlin’ all day an’ all night, hopin’ someone’d come help me, but no one did. Musta been the fifth day when it got too much fer me. I ain’t no chef an’ far as I could see there weren’t no food in the kitchen. I was so damned hungry. I din’t have no choice. Musta bin five, six nights after that when the men come. Busted in the door, shoutin’ ‘n’ yellin’. I was pretty weak then, but I got myself up and went ta see ‘em. Ta thank ‘em. Ta get me some sunshine. Some o’ them were damned near pukin’ at the smell, but they seemed happy ta see me. Weren’t so happy when they seed what I bin eatin’. They all start tryin’ ta corner me, tryin’ ta wrap me up in chains, y’know? Tha’s when I smelt it again. Same smell she had on her that night she fell. Wha’ could I do? Always acted on instinct before, it wan’t gonna be any different then. I jumped at him wit’ all the strength left in me and sunk my teeth into the nearest bit o’ flesh I could find. Tha’s what got me here. Lethal injection ‘n’ a shallow Battersea grave. Tha’s no way ta go fer a best in show. Some nights I wonder if I shoulda bit the man, if he was the one she’d bin cheatin’ on me with. I still dunno, but boy, his balls sure were the sweetest meats I ever did taste.
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Potatoes. I was part of a large family. w
Paul Askew
We didn’t have a lot of money or much of anything else in fact, but we did have lot of potatoes,
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Dan Tanton
so we learned to make do. Mum and Dad made vodka
@dantanton
and potato wine.
dantanton.com
For us they made potato juice
Dan Tanton is a freelance illustrator born in Lancashire. He uses unique vectors to produce up to date characters designs and illustrations.
and if we were very good, we had potato mousse. They came up with many inventive ways for us to take our potatoes.
Dan is ready for commissions
We didn’t have many toys.
and freelance work.
In place of dolls the girls would carve faces in their potatoes and give them makeovers. They would use them to perform plays as we didn’t have a telly. Us boys, we were simpler. We pushed ours along the ground pretending they were cars. In times of extreme frustration, we would draw nipples on our spuds and masturbate. Dinnertimes were always odd affairs. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to eat your toys or your pornography, but it’s a pretty strange feeling.
Food
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