The Adriatic Issue Four, 'Pride' by The Adriatic

The Adriatic Magazine Issue Four: ‘Pride’

CONTENTS A Note from the Editors…………………………………………………………………………..2 Featured Poets…………………………………………………………………………………….3 Brittney Reed- ‘Photo of Two Women, Circa 1950’……………………………………………………7 Nina Ward- ‘come out, sonnet’………………………………………………………………………..9 Jack Cooper- ‘A marriage of convenience’……………………………………………………………..10 Jo Matsaeff- ‘Sibling’……………………………………………………………………………....11 Courtney Conrad- ‘To the Person Crying at Pride’……………………………………………………12 James McDermott- ‘Kissing Christopher Eccleston’…………………………………………………...13 Moira Garland- ‘Somewhere’……………………………………………………………………….14 Paul Stephenson- ‘A Debt to Quentin’……………………………………………………………...15 Rick Hollon- ‘Lanval, One Foot in Fairyland, Looks Behind Him’……………………………………..16 Dale Booton- ‘Wounded I Stand’…………………………………………………………………...17 Elizabeth Gibson- ‘Footseeds’……………………………………………………………………...18 Damien Donnelly- ‘Learning to Climb Walls’……………………………………………………….19 David Milley- ‘Fairyland’………………………………………………………………………….20 Vanessa Bradley- ‘Rosemary: Your presence revives me’………………………………………………...21 Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………....23

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS Welcome to the fourth issue of The Adriatic! We can’t believe it’s been almost a year since we started this wonderful magazine, which has been a lovely form of escapism and stability in such an unpredictable year. As always, we want to thank everyone for submitting to us; it truly is an honour - and so heartwarming - to know that you trust us with your work. We wanted to create a pride issue from the very beginning. Most of the Adriatic team identify as LGBTQ+, and it remains incredibly important to us to showcase the talent, creativity, and lived experiences of our brilliant community. Pride month is a time in which we reflect on our past, present, and future, both as individuals, and as a community. We celebrate our identities, protest injustice, and work towards a better, freer, queerer future. In the spirit of this, we have chosen fourteen beautiful poems which reflect the joys, hardships, and mundanities of the LGBTQ+ experience. We invite everyone, regardless of gender identity or orientation, to share this with us. As always, we recommend listening to our Issue Four playlist while you read, sitting somewhere with a lovely view: perhaps with your partner, spouse, friend, or lover… -Ella, Hannah, Kelsee, Mel, Rhi, & Riley

FEATURED POETS Dale Booton Dale Booton is a twenty-six year old queer poet from Birmingham. His poetry has been published by Verve in their Diversity anthology, Untitled: Voices, Re-Side, and The Poetry Society. Most recently, his poetry has featured in Ligeia Winter 2020 Issue and on Queerlings. Twitter: @BootsPoetry

Vanessa Bradley Vanessa R. Bradley loves fantasy novels but manages to write a lot of poetry about organs, dirt, divorce, and discovering queerness. She lives in Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island) with her wife, where she is working on a fantasy novel and a collection of poetry about the meaning of flowers. She has been published with Tilted House,Blank Spaces Magazine, and On Loan from the Cosmos. Twitter: @vanessarbradley Instagram: @v.r.bradley

Courtney Conrad Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet. She is a current member of Malika's Poetry Kitchen. She is an Obsidian Foundation and Roundhouse Poetry Collective alumna. Her poems appear in Bad Betty Press’ anthology, Birmingham Literary Journal and The White Review with forthcoming poems in Anthropocene Poetry Journal and Anamot Press Anthology. She was shortlisted for The White Review Poet's Prize and longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize and The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition. Twitter: @courtneyconrad_ Instagram: @courtneyconradpoetry

Jack Cooper A member of Coventry Stanza, Jack has been published by Young Poets Network, Popshot, and Under the Radar. He is a member of the DYNAMO Poetry Mentoring Scheme, run by Nine Arches Press and Writing West Midlands, and the BBC Words First Development Scheme with Young Identity. He is undertaking a PhD in embryonic cell migration at the University of Warwick, and can often be found on Twitter. Twitter: @jackcooper666 Instagram: @jackcooper0696

Damien Donnelly Damien B. Donnelly is the author of Eat the Storms, his debut pamphlet and a Stickleback; Considering Canvases with Boys, both published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. His work has appeared in many publications including Black Bough Poetry, Anti Heroin Chic and The Bangor Literary Journal. He’s the host and producer of Eat the Storms, the poetry podcast and has lived in Paris, London and Amsterdam. He’s now back in his native homeland of Ireland. Twitter: @deauxiemepeau Instagram: @damiboy Podcast: Eat The Storms

Moira Garland Moira Garland is a prize-winning poet living in Leeds, UK. Her poetry magazine publications include The North, Algebra of Owls, Until the stars burn out, and in anthologies One for the Road (Smith/Doorstop), Watch the Birdie (Beautiful Dragons), Pale Fire: New Writing on the Moon (Frogmore Press), And the Stones Fell Open, and Bloody Amazing (Dragon Yaffle). Forthcoming in Sarasvati, Firewords, and The Brown Envelope Book. Twitter: @moiragauthor Instagram: @moiragauthor Website: www.wordswords-moirag.blogspot.co.uk

Elizabeth Gibson Elizabeth Gibson is a Manchester poet who writes about city life, queerness, body image, and mental health. She was a winner at the 2017 Northern Writers’ Awards, and her work has appeared in 404 Ink, Atrium, Cake, Confingo, Litro, Popshot and Strix. She has been commissioned by Manchester Literature Festival, and was recently chosen for the competitive First Dibs programme for queer theatre-makers. Twitter: @Grizonne Instagram: @Grizonne

Rick Hollon Rick Hollon is a nonbinary writer, editor, and parent from the American Midwest. Feir work has appeared in perhappened, Prismatica, Tealight Press, and other small-press magazines. Twitter: @SailorTheia

Jo Matsaeff Jo Matsaeff is a neurodivergent queer teacher based in France. They can be found at their local open mic or virtually hanging out with their international poet friends wishing for a day when a magical tunnel will bring them all together. Their recent work appears in Gnashing Teeth and in the June issues of Anti-Heroin Chic and Horse Egg. Instagram: @jo_pangolin

James McDermott James McDermott is a queer writer based in East Anglia. His plays published by Samuel French include Rubber Ring and Time and Tide. His poetry collection Manatomy is published by Burning Eye and his poems have been published in various magazines including The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Cardiff Review, Confluence and Dawntreader. James was shortlisted for Outspoken’s Performance Poetry Prize 2020 and Commended in The Winchester Poetry Prize 2020 judged by Andrew McMillan. Twitter: @jamesliammcd Instagram: @jamesmcdermott1993

David Milley David Milley has written and published verse since the mid-1970s, earning his living as a technical writer and web applications developer. His work has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Bay Windows, and Queerbook. Retired now, David lives in New Jersey with his husband of forty-five years, Warren Davy, who's made his living as a farmer, woodcutter, nurseryman, auctioneer, beekeeper, and cook. These days, Warren tends his garden and keeps honeybees. David walks and writes. Twitter: @davemilley Instagram: @david.milley Website: www.davidmilley.com

Brittney Reed Brittney Reed is an autistic lesbian poet, fiction writer, and librarian. She holds a BA in English/creative writing from the University of Tennessee at Martin and an MLIS from the University of Washington, Seattle. Her work has appeared in BeanSwitch, Crab Fat, and the Poetry in the Boro 2020 calendar. A Middle Tennessee native, Brittney currently lives in Murfreesboro with her partner. Twitter: @lapofviolets Instagram: @maladjustedchangeling 5

Paul Stephenson Paul Stephenson has published three poetry pamphlets: Those People (Smith/Doorstop, 2015), The Days that Followed Paris (HappenStance, 2016) and Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press, 2017). He took part in the Jerwood/Arvon mentoring scheme and the Aldeburgh Eight. He completed an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) with the Manchester Writing School. He co-edited the ‘Europe’ issue of Magma (70) and cocurates Poetry in Aldeburgh. He lives between Cambridge and Brussels. Twitter: @stephenson_pj Instagram: @paulstep456

Nina Ward Nina Ines Ward is a non-binary poet. They are currently based in Brighton and are interested in queer sonnets and healing poetics. Their debut pamphlet, ‘The Burns Unit’ was published by Salo Press this year and their work can be found online at Spam Zine. Twitter: @sonnet_youprick Instagram: @sonnet_youprick

Photo of Two Women, Circa 1950 Brittney Reed

look, they say: we were like you once still young and soft (though you feel old) (though you try to be hard) our hands fit together like yours do our mouths and our sex we watched one another dress we stumbled naked to the bathroom for a glass of water after sweating out our love we were scared, too maybe more, maybe less but some days sun shone and we wore shorts and we kissed in the grass our legs smooth on smooth our hearts beating fast some days it rained and we read books and we laughed in bed we told everyone or no one or only trusted few only those like us 7

we too thought we would die at the end of the night when her eyes held all the stars and parting was the death of galaxies we have always loved like this

come out, sonnet Nina Ward

hello, the dirt is devoted to us & confirms my suspicions of your imminence. i’m sorry for the bluebells in the sink & for simulating pain instead of living in it. i promise to clean your teeth in the morning like scrubbing the floors below an altar & i will memorize every plate after you touch it. i was made for this life of yours. in the periphery of a horse’s eye nothing is unknown like how do we know when it’s time to come back? is it the days driving over their limits or something else? i’m still a kid in many ways & they’ve told me the sea isn’t really blue but i won’t ever believe it.

A marriage of convenience Jack Cooper

Father knows that love can be bought. A good marriage is a series of transactions. The devil cannot read our thoughts; we betray our desires through our actions. A good marriage is a series of transactions. Her lover comes at dawn, and mine at dusk. We betray our desires through our actions. I lay lavender on the sheets to mask his musk. Her lover comes at dawn, and mine at dusk. We share a name and nothing else. I lay lavender on the sheets to mask his musk. My wife is a bibelot on the bedroom shelf. We share a name and nothing else. A child can’t choose who they inherit. Mother was a bibelot on the bedroom shelf. Father rewards those who submit. A child can’t choose who they inherit. The devil cannot read our thoughts, but he rewards those who submit. Father knows my love can be bought.

Lines 3 and 4 are paraphrased from The Demonology of King James I, Donald Tyson: “The devil cannot read our thoughts, so he must learn our desires by observing our actions.”

Sibling Jo Matsaeff

I haven’t come out as non binary to my little brother and sister yet because our mother tongue doesn’t have a word for sibling and what is love if you can’t name it? So I let them call me sister even if it means they will have to say it twice for me to finally understand they’re talking to me I let them the way I let my students call me Miss I pretend in their mouth it’s just a petname. The other day one of them misspoke and called me Sir. I’ve been waiting for days now for her clumsiness to free me again.

To the Person Crying at Pride Courtney Conrad

after Kim Addonizio If you ever wandered the parade alone went home to change to come right back collected a hug from someone else’s mother licked popping candy off a stranger’s tongue witnessed your pastor become a sign-spinner untagged yourself from a picture on Facebook stood stiff as a scarecrow among swaying hands listened to coming out stories over a toilet bowl released a harmonica breath as fingers wandered shared fries with a homeless man outside McDonald’s stabilised a lesbian couple boogieing without their walkers threw yourself into a taxi to escape bodily harm scrubbed glitter off before stepping through the front door then you have delivered yourself from ignorance.

Kissing Christopher Eccleston James McDermott

twelve saturday night watching doctor who john barrowman takes billie piper’s face into his hands says you are worth fighting for he kisses her on the mouth and then he takes christopher eccleston’s face in to his hands says I wish I never met you doctor I was much better off as a coward then he kisses him on the mouth says see you in hell then vanishes I see two men kissing in a way that isn’t sexual but affectionate and even though john barrowman thinks that he is going to hell after that kiss no one calls him or christopher faggot no one calls me a faggot on monday in the school playground at morning breaktime when I argue with other boys who want to be john barrowman when I get to be him take the face of the boy playing christopher eccleston into my hands to kiss him on the mouth see you in hell

Somewhere Moira Garland

I caught myself like a ghost in the clockface Hands took hold of my time and stopped in the germ of a green ocean It was like seeing my twin but as foreigner and not at all myself. The trees grew upside-down roots like sails on endless water. The captain cannot read the compass, she said in any case the future was here so why worry about oars and such like. This is how two worlds meet each other in mutual recognition, clones without borders permeable but authentic as any fake.

A Debt to Quentin Paul Stephenson

He was a good person, not because he was particularly charitable, at least, he never spoke of sponsored marathons or sizeable donations. Talked openly of a will though, which he changed 10 days before he died. Actually, he reckoned he wasn’t a person. When asked about the past and why he was who he was, he said he could never have been a human being, impossible to even try. But he was human, even if he didn’t fit in. He had to watch his back, his head, his neck. Particularly on buses. His hair was red then mauve, which are good colours, though others didn’t think so. When I say good, I mean, that he was out there, putting the work in for years, decades, the dayto-day toil of walking down the street, darting across the road when he saw the wrong people coming. And he liked to talk. Didn’t mind when you called him, day or night, could be 4am. How else could he make new friends? He’d always pick up, share his wisdom, offer you his thoughts on how to leave your partner or reinvent yourself, move to a new state. Many asked him if he knew David. He began to repeat himself, the same lines, anecdotes, but these were really good lines, clever, full of wit, who wouldn’t want to reuse them? He fell out of favour, having just found favour, but they forgave him and, on entering the category of silly old gentleman, he’d sit on New York sidewalks and passers-by would say hello, everyone his friend.

Lanval, One Foot in Fairyland, Looks Behind Him Rick Hollon

So this is how it could have gone: knees indented in grass scent of sunstruck silica where his hair tumbled streamside meadow tangled us in lilystems we lay together, after you know, a kiss seals you to fairyland surer than food sustains you But love is a complicated magic. not all transpires as I would, and it would fail to be love if anything were otherwise his fingers stride water I know the look of him: back, backward, behind. you know, he told his court I was Queen as if your strictures ruled me Ah, well. Another will come. My meadow waits with me.

Wounded I Stand Dale Booton

After ‫زﺧﻤﺴﺘﺎن‬ as a testament of time if they will allow my testament a page in that grand book they call history as if history is anything but wounded I am one voice in a sea of one million billion trillion voices shouting out the thrashing of our tongues spitting shards from our throats that are wounded the lawman-thugman comes with his truncheon raised spits teargas from his mouth screams the law of freedom that cuts the flesh to jail time locks away the wounded I have clawed my way from bar to bar found only headstones where stalls should be found only ashes where dancers discovered they were wounded our pleads of help us we are dying bouncing off the wells that we had come to wish at tossing pennies to the lonely water that could not cure the wounded among the horns and rev of traffic I hear the salt crusted shouts of your disgust flung from your car window at speed trying to rip the colours from our flag as if our Pride could be wounded from beginning to end they have kept us wounded our names our words our memories our love are all wounded

Footseeds Elizabeth Gibson

A slim, dark sapling, I was one of the longest kids born in the country my year, my mother would tell me, proud. If I didn’t make that central-back-row spot in the class photo, I knew I would be letting myself and everyone else down. As an adult, I didn’t know if I was tall: I spent less time among people, against whom I could measure my boughs. Or maybe, in my chubbiness, I felt my height cancelled out. I did want to be tall, and I didn’t grasp why until I came out, into a clearing where I was tenderly draped with lights, a soft owl settling into me and hooting: yes, this is right. I realised I liked myself: girl love, low voice, broad frame, the seeds planted in my feet that have let me take up space. Upward or sideward I grow, tender in every green needle, brushing against other lonely beings, making myself a cradle.

Learning to Climb Walls Damien Donnelly

There can be earthquakes in little towns far from tectonic plates, on little streets where we sat, once with the summer burning through our cool-lessness, trembling beneath attractions we didn’t have the words to understand, a local boy and a sandy haired student of exchange and I wanted to exchange; to uncover all that was growing curious. We sat once on a wall, in the kiss of youth’s sunlight, in the stifling days of undulating innocence and the growing tension of every question and that temptation and I wanted nothing more than to touch that temptation unfolding between us Two boys beginning to join the colours that made blue, beneath the weight of all the nothingness that never trembled longer than a month in the summer when our legs occasionally touched, like tectonic plates. There can be earthquakes in little towns.

Fairyland David Milley

We live in that house – hedges clutch at sky, vines leap forth to snag unwary passersby. Beyond the gates, trees bow down over a sunken, muddy lane. Weeds bloom wild on either side. Parents hold their children close and hurry quickly past. A stump of Chinese elm beside the back porch tells our story: roots in foundation, the old tree had to go. Too close to cut clean, its ruined pillar stands, gray, grained beside the steps. Atop, one mushroom rises, generations of spores lost upon the wind. But love lends a glamour to my gaze. Around the fairy cap, a field of moss carpets its tiny plateau. In the yard beyond, pink jewelweed, lablab in lavender and green, crimson cannas rise, Swallowtails, honeybees, hummingbirds, all hover to feast. Lifting my gaze across the yard, I see, freed from their disguise, all the jewels of fairyland spread before my magicked eyes.

Rosemary: Your presence revives me. Vanessa Bradley

“Rosemary was...considered the emblem of fidelity between lovers...” When you meet her you are raw scraped down to muscle to blood to bone. You wait until you have grown back together. You feed yourself roast chicken and potatoes, sprigs of herbs tucked into empty spaces. Your skin grows back slow as a garden— when you look at it every day you barely notice a difference, but then there is nourishment there is food and you find you can eat again. The first time she cooks for you she makes you a cocktail with rosemary— 21

you don’t believe in signs but when you look back you can name them, neat and freshly planted: tiny green shoots all in a row. The way truth slides from your throat when you look at her. The way your chest feels loose at night. The way she feeds you The way you both eat with fervor with reverence with pleasure from the same plate.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The team would like to thank a few fabulous individuals, without whom this magazine would not have been possible: Kelsee Porter, our amazing illustrator, who created all of the phenomenal artwork in this issue. Our fellow poetry and lit mags, who have encouraged and supported us from the start.