Portrait of Charlène Attignon, by Jackie He
Contents Editor’s Note page 4 Short poems and Haiku by Mike Andrelczyk
page 6
Poems from ‘Lezioni di Lingua’ by Vilma de Gasperin
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translated by Thomas Dervan
Reflections on Reading page 10 by Zhu Xi translated by David Leon
A Tanaka page 12 by Colin Herd Hiding page 13 artwork by Susan Willcocks Am I in the twilight zone? artwork by Sarah Catterall
page 14
Haiku page 16 by Esmé Layton Photographs page 18 by Hervé Guibert translated by Adam Husain
Boys in Pearls page 20 by Rhiannon Auriol About the Authors page 22 Content Warnings page 25
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June 2020
On the night of the release of the last issue of RGB I went into Tesco to buy some wine & snacks & other things for the opening event at Braesnose College. I hadn’t been to the supermarket for a few days, and it was the first time I saw myself what I’d already seen in pictures online, that is, completely empty shelves, no pasta, tins, toilet paper, etc. Shortly afterward, Hilary term ended, and shortly after that, we entered into lockdown. We’ve all experienced the strange effects since then on the passage of time, dilated, compressed, basically hard to grasp. And those final pre-lockdown moments however trivial or innocuous have bloomed out and gained some weird, uncanny weight. Remembering those moments, or even while reading books, or watching films, I found myself vaguely fretting over images of people being intimate with each other, or occupying the same enclosed spaces. Now that we seem at least in the UK to be approaching (for good or ill) the end of lockdown, I would like to express my hope that our readers have not been too badly affected by the coronavirus cri-
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sis (and the government’s poor response to it), and to send my good thoughts and sincere condolences to any of those that might have been. For now, this issue will be online-only. We editors hope that if we return to Oxford in autumn we might print a run together with our next planned issue, about which you can find information at the back. Of course at the moment it feels sort of frivolous to be publishing such a magazine as this, however much we enjoy doing it. This because of the worldwide protest movement come about these past weeks following the death of George Floyd. Now is the time to engage ourselves, through solidarity, donation, petitioning, and protest, in the struggle against systemic racist oppression, police brutality, and neo-fascism. It is also a time where it feels right and just for those of us with both racial and other forms of privilege to engage in self reflection and criticism, and to do the fucking reading. It should not be difficult for any reader to find the resources to do these things online. With that said, we really hope you enjoy the issue, which is based around very-short-form poetry and prose, and would like to really thank all those who have submitted and contributed to it, despite everything. Much love. // thomas dervan adam husain orna rifkin
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Mike Andrelczyk
snow falling into ocean waves the black heart emoji
mirrored in the dead coyote’s glassy eye the 100 emoji
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a bee vibrates loosely over the marigold emojis
Lake Erie In the trunk of my car there’s a body of water at dusk I push my car into an eerie lake and watch water empty into water
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Vilma de Gasperin from ‘Lezioni di Lingua’ translated by Thomas Dervan
Imperativo Guarda che se mi lasci io faccio una magia: trasformo la tua assenza in una mia poesia.
Imperative Look—if you leave me I’ll cast a little spell: and transform your absence into one of my poems.
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Pronomi e Preposizioni Noi. Io senza lui tu di fronte a me io incontra a te tu verso me io accanto a te tu da me io fra te tu su di me io sopra di te tu in fonda a me io attraverso te tu dentro di me: NOI. Pronouns and Prepositions Us. Me without him you in front of me me before you you toward me me beside you you, come to me me between you you atop of me me on top of you you down under me and me throughout you and you inside of me — us.
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Reflections on Reading by Zhu Xi Translated by David Leon
半畝方塘一鑑開 天光雲影共徘徊 問渠哪得清如許 為有源頭活水來
A square pond, half an acre in size, lies before me like an unwrapped mirror. In it, the day’s bright clouds and their shadows drift and linger. You ask me: how can it remain so clear? Because it has a fountainhead from which fresh water flows ceaselessly.
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so very glassy
A Tanaka by Colin Herd
and sort of not really there and glassy did I maybe say that already everything is distorted
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Hiding (2020) Susan Willcocks
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Am I in the twilight zone? (2020) Sarah Catterall
HAIKU Esmé Layton
I want to go home I w i s h I w e re n’t f u c k e d up I e a t t o b e fa t //
th e n o r t h i s s o f ar y ou m u s t b e s o af rai d we a re yo u r f ri e n d s //
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by Hervé Guibert from his collection La Mort propagande (1977) translated by Adam Husain
Fat stomach on show. Protruding shoulders. Chest caved-in and curves (asymmetric). The lordosis of the ass-fucked man. My face is ravishing, clean-shaven, shrewd, wan. At uncool parties they say, ‘You’re as a pretty as a 16-year-old girl, and just ripe for grooming.’ ‘You like to be groomed a little first, don’t you?’ ‘Are you getting bored?’ I’m fond of hats, of little veils, and fetishizing anything that’s old, sentimental, romantic. Appearing
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suddenly in black leather pants of an evening I strip off, tear down my zipper in one ‘olé!’ to reveal fishnet tights, suspenders, tassels and a plastic rose in lieu of genitalia. My bootees with their sharp heels offer the pleasure of mixing zebras and fake leather, cowhide (imitation ocelot) with industrial ostriches. I will photograph my cock from every angle: soft and warm, hard and hot, headon, side-profile, immersed in diverse foldings: hand, wool, leather, oil, mouth, soap, spongy ponytail houseplant cutopen yonically, hankies, piss, shit and then your arse, that insane cone. //
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Boys in Pearls by Rhiannon Auriol patriarchy broke my heart before i learned how to masturbate – now my fingers smell constantly of iced coffee & pussy sick with functionality the vibration of capitalism particularly deafening at night when u haven’t yet ‘lived up to it’ – yr vague potential, that is. no, we can’t return from this remix, veterans of the Miltonic rave stuck in chronic glow-up phase i’m a simp for smoothie bowls for c0ttage c0re for boys in pearls join the ranks of yte grls
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smoking 0ui’d, taking one too many amitriptyline for a special treat. i tend to my main character complex carefully, boosted by a stubborn belief in pick-up lines, in Hollywood films, in the beauty filter, in Dominos & if ‘high functioning’ just means ‘productively in hell’ then it seems we’re always falling, the body a long surrender to disorder, forever in a strange mood & with the room at a bad temperature. i need something to appreciate, a new soundtrack to live in. obviously we’re all ‘in pain’. don’t listen.
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About the Contributors xoxo Levente Terjeki (cover design)
is a graphic designer and DJ from Budapest, Hungary. You can find some of his work on his instagram @flshmkr, or www.behance.net/ flshmkr.
Jackie He
is an artist from Montreal, Canada. Find them on instagram and fb at @j.he.art_
Mike Andrelczyk
is a writer from Pennsylvania, USA. His book, ‘Dissolving’ from which some of the poems in this issue were taken, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2019. You can find more of his haiku and other writing online at neutralspaces.co/mikeandrelczyk, He can also be found on twitter @MikeAndrelczyk.
Vilma de Gasperin
is a poet and Professor of Italian Language and Literature at Somerville College, Oxford. ‘Lezioni di Lingua’, the book from which the poems in this issue were taken, was published in 2003 by Lietocollelibri.
Thomas Dervan
is co-editor of RGB Colour Scheme and a student at St Hugh’s Colllege, reading Portuguese and Italian.
Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200)
was a Chinese calligrapher, historian, philosopher, politician, and writer of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
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David Leon
is a writer and translator currently working out of Oxford. His blog can be found online at davidleon.blog.
Colin Herd is a poet and lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. His new collection of poetry, called ‘You Name It’, was published by Dostoyevsky Wannabe in 2019.
Susan Willcocks
is an artist from Montreal, Canada. She is online at www.swillcocks.com and on instagram @susan_willcocks.
Sarah Catterall
is an artist and student at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. Find more of her art on insta @art_sarahcatterall.
Esmé Layton
is a student reading French and Arabic at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.
Hervé Guibert (1955-1991)
was a french writer and photographer, author of numerous novels and autobiographical studies. He died of AIDS in 1991.
Adam Husain
is a co-editor of RGB Colour Scheme and a student at Braesnose College, Oxford, reading French and Philosophy.
Orna Rifkin
is a co-editor of RGB Colour Scheme and a student at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, reading English Literature.
Rhiannon Auriol
is a poet currently based in Edinburgh & online @rhiannon.auriol (instagram) and @rhiannonauriol (twitter).
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YO! For next Michaelmas, RGB Colour Scheme is putting together a very special translation issue. We are calling for submissions of short translations of around 50-500 words. All languages and all types of text are accepted. Everyone, whether Oxford affiliated or not, is welcome to submit. Please include the original and an English translation (Note that if the original is still under copyright you may need to attain permission from them from the translation.) If you want, have a gander at our previous issues to see the kind of work we typically print. We encourage you to get creative with it! We welcome unorthodox types of ‘translation,’ such as translation of photographs, artworks, or intralingual translations, from English to English.
FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO OUR FACEBOOK PAGE
FACEBOOK.COM/RGBCOLOURSCHEME OR EMAIL US AT RGBCOLOURSCHEME@GMAIL.COM
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THIS IS THE END OF THE THIRD ISSUE OF RGB COLOUR SCHEME. WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED.
Content Warnings: The selection from Lezioni di Lingua, specifically ‘ Pronouns and Prepositions’ , contains sexual undertones. ‘ Photographs’ contains graphic mention of sex, and also paedophila. ‘ Boys in Pearls’ contains mention of sex, and prescription+non-prescription drugs.
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