LIFE LINES
2 LIFE LINES
lifeline, n. 1. Palmistry. A mark following the crease of the skin on the palm of the hand supposed to indicate the length of one’s life. 2. Something that is depended on or which provides a means of escape from a difficult situation; an essential line of communication.
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:
This compilation zine was borne out of a desire to encourage members of the community to continue writing and creating during this isolation period, to find solace in therapeutic exercises and to give them an outlet for whatever form their expression takes. The title, ‘LIFE LINES’, refers to this community aspect. Over the past few months we have found ourselves in the unique and disturbing circumstance where we may be separated from loved ones; where even our capacity for physical touch has been severely limited. Honing our creative voices and habits during this time is more vital than ever, and the pages of this zine comprise a collective act of reaching out to one another: whether we are reflecting on the current crisis, or imagining another world altogether. We received such a vast range of wonderful submissions from across the globe, and when compiling them, I was amazed at how easily the pieces began to thread themselves together, navigating common themes and images. A comforting thought: that no matter how isolated we might feel, there is a commonality to our experiences. There are those who outline their strategies for coping, and others who reflect on time lost and things missing. There is a desire to escape outward into the natural environment, or to cast an inward focus towards the self, resulting in notions of growth and rebirth - a sense that we have overcome something and emerged on the other side, changed in some essential way. EggBox are so pleased to be able to showcase the talent within these thirty-two submissions from twenty-one amazing contributors. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed putting it together. Hannah Graham, EggBox Publishing 2020
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CONTENTS ‘Monochrome’, Clara Ehlers, p. 6 ‘Dusk’, Clara Ehlers, p. 6 ‘Heaven/Hell’, Oliver Hancock, p. 7 ‘Voyeur’, Chiara Picchi, p. 8 ‘One Week in Lockdown’, Emily Rose Latimer, p. 9 ‘Fields Scattered with Strawberries’, Lily Stirling, p. 10 ‘Sprout’, Alise Miluna, p. 12 ‘Soothsaying’, Maya Hough, p. 14 ‘Grief’, Clara Ehlers, p. 15 ‘Dream Gazing’, Lily Stirling, p. 15 ‘Goodbye, Ziggurats’, Lily Stirling, p. 16 ‘A Letter I Will Never Send’, Lily Stirling, p. 18 ‘Marbled Palms, Untouched’, Jessie Rosenberg, p. 19 ‘The Summers We’ve Had Before’, Lily Stirling, p. 20 ‘Breathe’, Emily Rose Latimer, p. 21 ‘Sunday’, Antonela Pallini Zemin, p. 22 ‘Ink Hand’, Jessie Rosenberg, p. 23 ‘She often has these dialogues’, Marie-Pascale Hardy, p. 24 ‘Sonnet’, Rose Ramsden, p. 25 ‘To bake an almanac’, Oliver Cable, p. 26 ‘Work In Progress’, Meg Watts, p. 28 ‘Pasta’, Jo Castle, p. 32 ‘The Other Eye is Hard to Draw’, Helen Drumm, p. 33 ‘Deadheading’, Martha Griffiths, p. 34 ‘Housebound’, Josephine Dowswell, p. 35 ‘Cornfields’, Lily Stirling, p. 36 ‘A Way to speak in the time of silence’, Lucy Cundill, p. 38 ‘Je Vois La’, Josephine Dowswell, p. 44 ‘Tough to Be A Bug’, Oliver Shrouder, p. 45 ‘Girl, on Fire’, Zaynab Abigail, p. 46 ‘Ecdysis’, Hannah Graham, p.47 ‘Escher’s World’, Jessie Rosenberg, p. 48
CREDITS EggBox Publishing Editor Hannah Graham Copy Editors Martha Griffiths Emma Seager Dylan Davies Hannah Graham Cover, Promotional & Featured Art Jessie Rosenberg
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MONOCHROME By Clara Ehlers
Monotone, monochrome mornings melting Together, time turning tones to total Grey, gazing at grazing geese, gallivanting Around the house, picking up things at random, rough raindrops running, rolling Down, drat! dancing daisies draw dazy Eyes; y e l l o w! Brain what be this bright Light, this oh so welcome slap! of colour, I turn my other cheek so that I can carry This citrine handprint around with me. (I am a blank canvas.)
DUSK
By Clara Ehlers Is this the end? Perchance For now, let’s dance and mend What’s left to love and shove The rest under the couch. (I vouch to clean my mess Up later.)
Clara Ehlers is a 20 year-old, German first year English Literature student at UEA. She enjoys writing poetry, cooking and movie nights with friends (virtually at the moment) as well as chilling with her three cats. Some of her favourite poets are Margaret Atwood (that’s right, she writes poetry, too!), William Carlos Williams and
HEAVEN/HELL
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By Oliver Hancock
full tank of petrol/engine light on the M6 ironed clothes on the bed/iron burns on a shirt cold wine with dinner/wine filmed headache pulling weeds from flowerbeds/pulling thorns from feet freshly sharpened pencil/broken lead broken lead broken your hand on my back/empty hand space
Oliver Hancock is a second-year English Literature and Creative Writing Student, whose poetry focuses on themes around nature, memory, and queer affection. He has ambitions to become an English teacher whilst also continuing to develop his poetic style. Outside of writing, Oliver enjoys gardening, drinking wine, cooking for friends, and drinking more wine.
Langston Hughes. At uni, she’s part of the creative writing society committee, where she helps organise and participates in workshops and open-mics. Ideally, she’ll do a masters in Literary Translation after her bachelor, as she is passionate about literature and languages.
By Chiara Picchi
VOYEUR
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Skyscrapers glimmer white in the winter sun – bare bones poking out of a carcass, reaching for the heavens – cast their shadows on empty streets. Cranes creak in the wind, rusted beyond repair as they oscillate above construction sites abandoned in the wake of a new threat. The city is dying, neglected, starved. Leaning against the hood of his car, a camera hanging from his neck, Blake brings a cigarette to his lips, relishing in the smoke that coats his mouth, settles on the tip of his tongue. He flicks the ashes away – the wind picks them up, drags them towards the city where they flutter in the greyness, blending with the clouds. The city coughs and wheezes, gasping for air as the pandemic wraps its fingers around her neck and squeezes, softly at first then harder, fingertips digging into flesh, pressing down into airways. Blake watches the murder unfold through a camera lens. Hands tighten still, crush the city’s windpipe and he zooms in. Click. Click. Click, pictures like gunfire immortalize her last breath. At long last she hangs limp in the pandemic’s arms, lips blue, skin greying already, and Blake puts his camera down. He exhales a last puff of smoke, extinguishes the cigarette beneath his boot, and glances one last time towards the city’s still-warm cadaver. He gets in the car and slams the door behind him with a sigh. He peeks at the roadmap in the passenger seat. The engine rumbles to life.
Chiara Picchi is a Literature and History student at the University of East Anglia (she is just about to finish her third year). She is originally from Italy but was raised in Luxembourg, where she is currently spending her time in lockdown. She writes flash fiction and short stories and likes to explore darker topics, especially to do with the surreal and the supernatural. The relationship between visual imagery and writing, as well as the role sound plays in texts, are also key points of interest for her as a writer, and she enjoys addressing these themes in her work.
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ONE WEEK IN LOCKDOWN
By Emily Rose Latimer
Wake up. Shower. Eat. Then eat some more again. It’s the first week of lock-down, and I can feel myself going round the bend. Somehow the days are getting shorter and shorter, slowly merging into one, and my face is becoming a bit too familiar the madder I become. It’s as though the clocks on our walls have stopped - and we’re all paused in this strange moment. Holding our breaths and scrolling through the news, waiting for some good omen. So we drink red wine, do jigsaw puzzles, make pointless videos on Tik Tok, talk to our families perhaps more than we’d like, until we need that ‘one walk’ around the block. Now my feet are itching, makeup untouched, bra hasn’t left its drawer for days, with the only thing to dress up for, being that Face Time date at eight. It seems the more time we have, the more time I spend thinking about time itself, and whether this time will change anything for better, or instead just overwhelm, but the sun is shining; the world is turning and its elements are resetting themselves. People are still talking, life is still moving, living instead as our online selves. So when your body feels heavy, and your shoulders slump, when you’ve finally had enough, remember that there is writing to be done, art to be made, and always a way to laugh or love.
Emily Rose Latimer graduated from UEA last year in English Lit and Creative Writing. Her plans to go travelling got pushed aside because of Corona, so she now works at a hospital and manages an online writing platform. She enjoys writing anything from poems to articles, on subjects you wouldn’t usually talk about with your Dad. She’s at her happiest when at a festival, or in the sun with her pals and a cocktail in hand. She hopes to work in a job that involves writing in the future, and is passionate about hearing and sharing other people’s stories.
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By Lily Stirling
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By Alise Miluna
SPROUT 12 LIFE LINES
LIFE LINES 13 Alise Miluna is a Latvian 2ndyear student who came to the UK and UEA for its Environmental Sciences scene and bunnies. Her favourite wordsmith lately has been Donna J. Haraway, and publication – “Norwich Tree Trail”, a story map for treesighting in our city. Alise writes for an animal defence NGO, partakes in community gardening and food sustainability initiatives, and sporadically, doodles. As a big fan of creative collaboration, Alise is happy to hear from you on Facebook (Alise Miļūna) or Instagram (alise.uz.zemes).
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SOOTHSAYING By Maya Hough
If the lines on my palm had predicted you, I would never have worried. They’re a bit cross-hatched, messy semi-circles attached to unwavering moments of “Is this everything? Is this what I am destined to be?” When we read palms on the playground it was always thirteen children or an unexpected death, but the unexpected was the feeling in my stomach when my future met yours, fingers clasped and grasped and easy like a Sunday morning, or a Wednesday or Friday or even a Monday where your sleepy breathing into my shoulder felt full and safe and warm. This uncertainty with the world
spinning at wonk makes me miss the haven of your duvet, the crispy sourdough crusts, forehead kisses and ghost stories in the dark “to get the full effect”, I miss the sun peeking through the curtain and lunch break dates at noodle joints. I miss the too hot bed, and the too cold room. I know nothing right now is predictable but I predict that I will still see you soon.
Maya Hough is finishing her fourth year in American and English Literature, and her favourite pastime is writing poems about feelings. She just spent a year as the secretary for the Creative Writing Soc, and enjoys sharing and reading writing with others. She shares her poetry on her Instagram (@mayahoughpoetry) if you want to take a look!
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GRIEF
By Clara Ehlers I mourn for magic moments, Half-illusions of water fights And BBQ’s by the lake, the Temptation of a good shove, A splash, a hearty tumble. I mourn for picnics and those Scenes I had saved for summer, Beer gardens and seaside sands, For pony-rides; And hearing That chortling laughter, reserved For overheated friends. I mourn for that half-planned Trip we would have taken, to Defy gravity against the salty Breeze, for a couch-hopping Holiday, for time at home that Feels less like prison and more Like reunion. (I’ll let those magic moments Fuel my melancholy, for now, alas: This is just part of the story.)
DREAM GAZING By Lily Stirling
twisting tangle of limbs, tingling toes. a mingling of stars and dreams; we catch our wishes on the next that shoots across our mind, but it’s up in the sky
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By Lily Stirling
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A LETTER I WILL NEVER SEND By Lily Stirling
I like the way you smile with your teeth. I wish you did it more so I knew you were happy, Cos you only ever do it when you’re happy And I wish that you still crawled in my bed past midnight And whispered silly things in my ears to make me muffle giggles so as not to wake the boy next door I miss you To make me I miss you a familiar that lulls dream.
smiling at me across a busy room feel like I’m the only one there. being my friend and my comfort, voice in a room down the hall me to sleep when my mind whirs too much to
Remember the day we first met and the way we laughed, It was weird wasn’t it? how quickly we clicked But now when I think about it, I worry that it was my imagination that we clicked And you really did use me for all those years As just a rent payer, a little piece of entertainment When you’re feeling bored and alone or sad and horny I want you to grab my waist again and still kiss the top of my head But I know you will no more cos that’s not what we are We’re nothing anymore, just strangers in a group chat Who only know the secrets we shared long ago And it makes me sad, because I’ll miss your smile When you laugh with your teeth at the jokes I crack Purely to see you smirk and roll your eyes
LIFE LINES 19 And I’ll miss the way I feel when you find me in a sweaty club A steadiness in flashing lights, Safe like family More like family than anyone I’ve ever met who’s not And I’ll miss us pulling faces in the mirror whilst brushing our teeth And singing when we cook lunch in the kitchen But I thank you for those times, for us messing about And for you giving me energy and happiness, and most of all safety Even if it was never real. Because to me it was real For all those years I knew you, it was real. Until the night you let me tell you that I loved you too
MARBLED PALMS, UNTOUCHED
By Jessie Rosenberg
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THE SUMMERS WE’VE HAD BEFORE
By Lily Stirling
I guess I just want to feel real again I want that feeling where you’re alive More than just breathing, heart beating, But mind buzzing and lips curling And I want to get that feeling like butterflies flitting all around, up and down Inside whilst I laugh at jokes looking over and he’s already looking back. I want summer evenings in the rain With earth smelling of tarmac And roses wet and fresh against my nose Fire spitting onto a bare leg, burnt marshmallows black. Silky heads like seals bobbing under water down then back, And star gazing in just a t shirt and hands brushing Under the blanket we share with others Live music beating through the ground into my brown legs My chest beating in time with the singer’s voice Sounding sad and happy and pleased at the crowd Who stands still and listens to their words that matter To the sound of zips of tents and sleeping bags And muffled 5am chats, kissing alcohol flavoured lips Dancing home with the dawn chorus and light sky Beer gardens and cider fizzy on my tongue A normal summer, floating on rivers, seeing friends Old and new, and noticing the days more than usual That’s what summer should be, and will be But we won’t have the butterflies of social interaction Like all the summers that we’ve had before.
BREATHE
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By Emily Rose Latimer Do this. Do that. Write. Grow. Learn, as the panic consumes us. I clutch for my pen, as an old woman reaches for her clutch to walk. Writing is survival, like a warm cigarette to my lips. Breathe in. Breathe out. Write. Recently a lasso has clenched around my stomach, pulling it together tighter and tighter. It holds the panic idle in its pit, weighing my body into my bed. Get up. Be productive. But the thoughts fade away, as I scroll through my phone. The world is on fire. How can we pretend everything is okay? The panic in the air seeps into my body, taking it over as though it were a disease. So, I lock that negativity in a box - my box. Write the thoughts on a page to stop them leaking. Breathe in. Breathe out. Write. Scrolling and scrolling, it’s as though this wave is growing taller and taller, coming over our heads. I want to pause for all those that are lost. But the wave is too big, so much news to be read. I want to help. I want to help, and the thought is rioting inside of me, frantically searching, applying, posting, all the while I’m sat in my bedroom thinking there must be more I can do: so, I write. I can’t relax. Who can relax? But we must stay strong.
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SUNDAY
By Antonela Pallini-Zemin
A knot can also unblock just like my legs when I meditate in lotus position. Today I allowed, I called for a ray to enter my crown, and through my chest, just like a lighthouse, I illuminated the world. I saw blue in my lungs, my nails, my knees and arms’ hair, I saw blue in my room, in my house, every pillow, every chair, I saw blue in an ant’s antenna, blue in the benches of a park I had never been, blue in the mackerel on your plate, blue in its smell, blue was every leaf of every tree of our planet, I saw your blue hair floating in the air as your chest leaned forward over a blue desk while you corrected blue essays, I saw the blue I gave to a stranger waiting for an even more blue bus in a blue station, the blue I gave to a cat’s nose, to a cactus on a desk in a room of a blue artist, I saw the blue I gave to the footprints of a horse digging into a blue shore, I saw the blue spines of a hedgehog, the blue thorns of a blue rose tucked into a blue book, a book we would use to recognise each other in case the world turned some other colour, I saw the blue I gave to a bank account of someone who needed it the most, the blue I gave to a cotton candy on blue stick in a funfair full of blue smiles,
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I saw the blue of the tears in a hospital or several during a pandemic as blue as everything else. I gave all of us what blue represents, I gave all of us power, might and protection through a blue channel that entered my crown as I was sitting on my blue rug.
Born and raised in Argentina, Antonela Pallini-Zemin completed her 5-year BA in English Language and English Literature Teaching at Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Buenos Aires. She has taught both Creative and Academic Writing at university level. She began writing poetry in secondary school. She writes both in English and Spanish. Her poems have been published in different newspapers and literary magazines across Argentina, Spain, the US and the UK. She is currently attending the MA in Creative Writing Poetry at University of East Anglia.
INK HAND
By Jessie Rosenberg
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SHE OFTEN HAS THESE DIALOGUES By Marie-Pascale Hardy
She often has these dialogues with her selves full of having-said-that’s and contradictions Cornflake Confetti insanity-which-is-also-death Transcribing her visions into common english she rejoices : nowhere is she expected bedridden, entranced Rises only to advise troubled visitors from the world outside She has too much time on her hands too little weight on her shoulders Her fingers are branches in spring of which she painstakingly bites the buds Her nails like leaves falling off— only hint of a season bleeding-which-is-also-death Sometimes I like that she talks so much it means I can look at her more I can look at her familiar faces her leafless arms
LIFE LINES 25 At that time of the day when the window turns into a mirror Marie-Pascale Hardy is an artist whose practice extends across poetry, performance, vocal and visual art. Born in Quebec, Canada, she completed a degree in fine arts and design before moving to London UK where she lived for nearly a decade. Now based in Berlin. Her words have appeared in Poetry London, Hotel, SAND, FU Review, Burning House, Anthropocene, stadtsprachen. Mphardy.com
SONNET
By Rose Ramsden My homework was to write a sonnet but I couldn’t get the words to fit in the Right places. The rhymes stuck out at awkward Angles, and I still don’t understand iAmbs. They’re like syllables, but not really? The rhythm should sound like a beating heart, At least that’s what my teacher said, but I Feel like he was just making it all up. The mood should shift in the second stanza, But then again, I was supposed to write In iambic pentameter. Oh well, Maybe I can’t write sonnets like Shakespeare, But I’ve got 14 lines, so that will do, And it ends on a rhyming couplet too. Rose Ramsden is currently in her second year studying English Literature with Creative Writing. When she isn’t napping or having a crisis, she enjoys writing prose and poetry. You can read more of her work on Instagram @purplerosefiction or on Twitter @RoseRamsden.
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TO BAKE AN ALMANAC By Oliver Cable
Pour the custard into a cleaned ice-cream maker, being careful not to spill any. Be sure to wash your hands, both before and after. The floor is lava and the countertop is a glacier. Take a mug from the sink and inspect the lipstick mark on it. Kiss her, then wipe a damp cloth over your face. Spray bleach into the bin. Do not scrub it out. Let it sit. It deserves to rest. You do not. You have rested much, and often, and long, and now you are lazy and slow. Flick your wet hands off onto the middle hob and let it spit at you. Spit back at it. Hold up a lighter and burn the fire. Throw ice on the floor. Test to see whether a pan really is a pan. Bang it on the glacier. Its clattering is the sound of ice ringing: step down inside the ice cave into cold’s belly and touch the clean blue. Take a knife and cut a mannequin out of the ice. Dance with the mannequin until its feet catch fire and its belly starts to melt. Mop its innards off the floor and drink them down with whisky. Start to turn around clockwise. Don’t stop until I say so. You’re only dizzy because your brain is lazy and slow. Spinning is seeing. Now stop. Stop believing in names for things, stop calling a pan a pan, or ice ice. Open books and tear out pages and call things the words on those pages. Call the floor
LIFE LINES 27 a phone booth. Place pennies on the tiles and ring your friends for long conversations. Let them know you’re phoning from a phone booth. If it’s long distance, place more pennies on the tiles. Floor them with your new vocabulary: apples are soot, the fridge is a calendar. Cross off the days as you reach in to pour yourself a fathom of socks. Pull them up around your case in case everything turns out to be false, because it just might. Write jump on a box with a feather, open it up and admire the sardines within. Stroke the curtains, double-glaze the wallflowers. Feed the biscuit some promiscuity. Eat the last of the penguins from the glory. Whatever you do, don’t think about panpipes. If you do, this carefullyconstructed ancestor may crash like fields of spark around you. Remember to forget the ink that put you in this moonscape in the first trumpet. By now your chrysalis in the cleaned seaside will be ready to serve. Garnish with a longboat of hydrolysis and eat immediately with a silver statement.
Oliver Cable is a writer and poet based in London. His first novel, Fresh Air and Empty Streets, was published in 2016. He is a regular contributor to Athleta Magazine and writes a fortnightly column for Riffs & Rhymes. He is currently working on a collection of short stories. His writing seeks out the knife-edge of reality, where dreams, metaphor and reality merge.
WORK IN PROGRESS By Meg Watts 28 LIFE LINES 1.
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During this quarantine period I have realised that my workzone is my comfort zone. I like spinning plates, being a candle burning at all ends. It’s oddly calming. Every stage of making this project has been a meditative process for me: Upcycling the dungarees pictured rejuvenated them, and brought me a little joy. Embroidering the secondhand t-shirt pictured personalized it for a friend, from the
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heart. Painting the Hokusai copy filled my wall space, and is filling my time. Taking these photos has documented a young person with ‘imperfect’ skin, (hopefully) creating more of a space for us in modelling and photography. Writing this poem, for this brief, gave me a perfect excuse to write with honesty. I made this because I enjoy making. I made this because I enjoy work, in progress.
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PASTA
By Jo Castle
“I’ve been painting a lot ever since I finished my coursework, but I think this piece evokes lockdown for me the most! It was a sad time when all the pasta vanished from the supermarket shelves for weeks on end, and now it’s gradually re-emerging like a small bewildered UEA
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THE OTHER EYE IS HARD TO DRAW By Helen Drumm
Helen Drumm is a Graduate of American Literature with Creative Writing at UEA. She eats raw lemons for the refreshing zing and chicken bones for the collagen. As a result, she will be young forever. She wrote a zine called ‘Hairy
Girls’ which you can buy from EggBox or her Instagram @Helennathaliefun.
bunny from its warren in springtime. I have been making up for its absence in my culinary repertoire tenfold. This is a favourite and, frankly, a classic - lots of olive oil, toasted garlic and chilli flakes, enough to perfume your
breath for days. Being unkissable tastes amazing.”
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DEADHEADING
By Martha Griffiths Arduous job That must be done Good for the plant Good for the person. The flowers have long since passed The bees are sated and moved on To greener pastures So with secateurs in hand The cull begins Slip between flower and leaf Slice clean through to remove dead flesh Then throw it into the red bucket to your left Be methodical Be ruthless Until all that is left is a deep peaceful green No more browning yellow No more decay No more reminders Of before When things were oh so sweet And you thought colour would never die Move on. Throw the heads into the green bin To be collected by someone else on bin day next week Make a cup of tea You’ve survived Deadheading
Martha Griffiths is the outgoing president of Egg Box Publishing and has just graduated from UEA. Whilst these were not the circumstances she expected to end her student life in, she’s not let that stop her from celebrating and has also taken up glass work to pass the time in lockdown.
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HOUSEBOUND
By Josephine Dowswell Thoughts come and go Like bees and wasps To flowers and to rotting fruit. House, Your funnelled stairs To me are the guts Of a python Digesting, I wither in bed Asleep, awake, I dream of sex and clubs And sunshined tongues
Josephine Dowswell is an English Lit grad and, allegedly, a writer and drag artist. When she’s not thinking about writing, and doing drag as her glib and grotesque alterego Bambi Peplum, she enjoys horror films, separating her laundry by colour, and maintaining a steady state of dehydration. Alongside coming second place in the 2016 Great British Write Off, Josephine has written and performed in theatre, been the deputy editor of UEA’s arts magazine Venue, and worried extensively about the climate crisis.
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By Lily Stirling
Lily Stirling has just finished her final year studying English Literature with Creative Writing. She grew up in rural Suffolk and has a special place in her heart for the East Anglian countryside. In her short stories and prose, she often draws on nature and the wonders of the landscapes surrounding her. Since starting UEA, Lily’s writing style transformed
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into an often distinct narrative with a dark story line, however, during lockdown, she has reverted back to focussing mainly on poetry, commenting on the seasons, nature, and lack of social interaction. Lily is currently working on an anthology of her own short stories.
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A WAY TO SPEAK IN THE TIME OF SILENCE By Lucy Cundill
a way to grow in the time of stagnation
forget about the flowers, forget what it means to be beautiful, if ugly is the only way to last forever, i guess that’s all that’s left for me and you. forget about the flowers, forget about vases to put them in, forget glass shattering, forget every accident, forget every birthday you’ve ever had, forget ever being older, right now we have just left the room, and we are lying together in the hospital ward, staring at the stars and the moon — we are indistinguishable, we are inconsolable, like pluto, half planet, half chunk of space rock — we are still waiting for the world to give us names, and we are waiting further, to learn what they mean. maybe, we might never find out at all. so we are like adults broken down into children, hairless, toothless, wide-eyed, ugly enough to be beautiful — we break the rules, we’re free, because we don’t yet know what freedom means. you lie in the grass with me, until we become part of the field, until we become a part of the land, until you thread blades of grass down my spine and into my being — the sun shines through me until i’m translucent, until you can look into me like a mirror through which to see yourself. and you’re not quite beautiful yet, your smile is crooked, like it’s about to plummet from your lips — i reach out to catch it, but my hands are already a part of the grass — there’s nothing we can do, just watch it fall, just watch the flowers shiver as it runs
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them through. they twist their heads to look up at us, petals furrowed like they’re thinking of what to do — like they’re thinking of how to eat us alive and tear us into pieces — it’s probably easier than they might think — but i don’t let on easily, i don’t let on at all. instead, i look at you and tell you a story, one where i ask you to— forget about the flowers, forget what it means to be beautiful, because if ugly is the only way to last forever, i guess that’s all that’s left for me and you. lie here with me, until we become pieces, until the ground swallows us up, and god starts asking us the difficult questions — don’t worry about it, i’ll think of the answers for him. i’ll think of the answers for you. i’ll think of the answers, and make them real too, soon enough.
a way to stay in the time of absence
it starts with feeling like we are lost in lockets around the necks of old lovers: — “you look at me until i’m just another photograph.” — “could you find another way to keep me in a frame somehow?” — “could you find another way to keep me around?” i suppose it always seems easier at first light, so i understand why you always call it night time, so i understand why you always speak about love like it’s difficult — it doesn’t matter anymore, don’t sleep well, don’t sleep right, don’t sleep at all, just watch my eyes until they close and something else long lost inside of me opens up for you instead: — “look at that girl, what does she say, what does she have to say for herself?” — “do you like the way it sounds or do you just want it to end?” — “i don’t mind, i’m easy either way.” just paint my body shut for me before you really get
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started: — “i think that was what god said when he meant perfect.” — “we were all young enough to believe in purpose and vision — before the train ran off its tracks, before there even was a train to begin with.” — “somewhere, somehow, we’re lying in that open field together for the rest of time.” elsewhere, we are dolls in the back of an antiques store: and everything is just faces and places, life decapitated and dissected into postcards and unintelligible conversation — god breathes down your neck and says “this is what living is — get used to it” — your eyes flicker to me and your mouth makes the sound “ungrateful” — i want to ask you what there is left to be grateful for, but god has already taken away the words. you see, someone will take us away eventually too — “so paint meaning across my knuckles in the shape of a four letter word.” — “but it doesn’t get any easier.” — “you see, i don’t want to be immortalised, i just want to live — it doesn’t matter what becomes of me, i’d just like to mould us together, even if the shape we leave in the sand will never be beautiful, at least it will have been.” when god stands on the beaches and asks us to look at what we’ve done: he invites us to look at ourselves with clarity, but washing the salt from my eyes doesn’t appeal to me, it kind of feels like a necessity for learning how to live when you’re drowning, and that is life as i’ve known it recently — still, god points at our bodies and they turn into ink stained pieces of porcelain, cracked down the middle, irreparable, ugly — he opens his mouth and says,
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“that’s a newborn tragedy, you’re not ready, you’re not worthy — just look at what you’ve done, that is not just what you’ll become” and so lying in the sand together we learn every lesson the hard way and wonder why we started looking for comfort in fire in the first place — “i got too close, i got too close to you, i guess these are what burns are, after everything.” god shakes his head and lets the tide rise up the shoreline” — “i guess this is where we lay down and wait to die,” but death doesn’t come that easily, not as she’d like to have you believe — “it doesn’t just stop like that, like a clockwork mechanism of the heart, your soul doesn’t just seep out of you like vapour and dissolve into the spray — the water just keeps rising, and you can never close your eyes, and you wish only for hands, not just to hold, but to reassemble the pieces of bodies of porcelain, broken pottery, before the water washes them away — and we are left,” waiting to become just another few grains of sand at the bottom of the ocean, but death doesn’t look like that, she looks far too much like absence in the light, like a derelict waiting room at night, and if i look, at just the right angle, around the corner, i can see you there, waiting by the vending machine, with your head between your knees — praying: so death, i think, as i find my feet, and look for glimpses of you in the postcards and pottery, is just another room to waste away in — “it’s what we’ve been doing since the day we were born” — and you look at me, directly, in the mirror in the
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bathroom, reaching out a hand to touch me, but i get to you first, and make you touch mine before you can get close. “sit down, find a place to wash your clothes, and wait for the kettle to boil — i’ll see you on the other side of this, wherever that might be.”
a way to die in the time of killing paint the freckles onto a face in summer time they don’t look quite the same in the light, they don’t look quite the same. “you look afraid” — it’s how people look now, get used to it. it’s how people breathe now, get used to it. “no, look down at your hands and thank them, at least you got out while you still can — some of us are still stuck here, not knowing if we might ever get out again.” fear has a different meaning now the people speak a language i don’t want to learn but inadvertently understand because we are all a part of one another no matter how far the space pulls us away. “and what if i die from this?” well i think that’d be alright, because at least it’d speed life up a bit and i’m getting real tired of living and i’m getting real tired of this. “well, unfortunately, tiredness is all we have left to give.” i don’t want this pain, but it’s all i have left so i’ll hold onto it real tightly come evening when the world gets dark and silent and i turn cold alone in a bed, counting on one hand the things we have left until god comes and chops my fingers off, and props them up on the night stand, fashion a new hand on which to count down
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the months until they’ll grow back. “probably.” but if god’s going to put up a fight i think we should at least let him try it doesn’t sound fun, but it sounds better to me than agreeing to just laying down to die. i’ll meet him eye to eye, tell him how i like the idea of him, but it doesn’t sit with me well in reality. martyrdom looks fashionable this season a way to die in the time of killing that might sit better with the government and the immortal old men that sit on death’s doorstep and bind their own hands just to avoid knocking. and they’ll say things like duty and sacrifice but really this is just how to kill a nation or at least die trying. “okay, so this is not the good life — but i’ll give you all we’ve got left so i’ll give you life, and okay, so this is not the good life — but i’ll give you all we’ve got left so i’ll give you, okay, so this is not the good life — but i’ll give you all we’ve got left so i’ll give, okay, so this is not the good life — but i’ll give you all we’ve got left so i, so i.”
Lucy Cundill is a poet and prose fiction writer from Chesterfield, now living in Norwich, where she studies English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her work is emotional and sometimes abstract, exploring ideas of love, relationships, mortality, and theology, and their effects on the human consciousness. She has been published in Concrete and the UEA Undergraduate Creative Writing Anthology.
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JE VOIS LA
By Josephine Dowswell ‘I see the ... hidden in the forest - she is me’ I never liked the collage in the second image - a nude painting of woman surrounded by the portraits of exclusively male Surrealists - with its implications of man as artist, woman
as art-object. It’s a running theme that is noticeable in a lot of Surrealist content, most tellingly for instance in André Breton’s Nadja, despite how much I love the genre. Works like this push incredible women out of the canon, leaving ‘woman’ as only a beautiful muse, object, canvas: not a creator herself. I’d like to be both.
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TOUGH TO BE A BUG By Oliver Shrouder
(‘Hey, are you sure you don’t want to come?’ ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’) I’ve been face-down in the sheets again, for God-knows how long, looking around the white (‘Hey, are you okay?’ ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’) for God-knows, looking for the right face the right reason that 1. Puts me here 2. Gets me up (‘Hey, are you sure you don’t want to come?’ ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’) These sheets are a chrysalis until I wake up and I’m still the same I’m still face down in these sheets the colour of skulls the colour of sheets the colour of skulls the colour of sheets the colour of sheets (‘Hey, are you sure you don’t want to come?’ ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’) your skull face down they stop asking.
Oliver Shrouder is a first-year English Literature with Creative Writing student from UEA. Hailing from Grantham, twice voted the most boring town in England, Oliver was inspired to write anything he could to escape from it. Now a poet, he explores wildlife in the hope that the Norwich air can blow Grantham’s smog from his hair.
46 LIFE LINES Zaynab Abigail is a 20 year old poet and musician from south east London who usually studies English Literature and Film Studies at UEA in Norwich. Rediscovering the catharsis of writing poetry during the pain of a breakup, she found the joy in speaking meticulously arranged words about her feelings aloud to a room of strangers at poetry open mics to be extremely freeing and exciting. Zaynab writes and shares her poetry, often about love, coming of age, and womanhood on her blog (zaynababigail.co.uk) and also posts handwritten scans of her poetry on her Instagram page (@gail.mp3).
ECDYSIS
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By Hannah Graham Dawn is now at eleven o’clock, Peeling back sleep like some unwanted skin the world is willing me to shed. Lately, I have been dreaming of snakes: I will go through seven versions of myself today. Downstairs, my brother’s voice cracks On speaker phone, otherworldly in a country Fourteen hours from here. It has been months since I have seen a sunrise, Turned a radio dial. For now, thrills rest in the threat of weather, Forecasts I do not bother to check.
From my chrysalis I try to guess Whether the day will be sunny, guess How many hours I have slept In my childhood bed. The colour of the quilt is a mauve I cannot pin down – The colour of the sky between night and morning, or The colour of a nightgown I have never worn. But might I, once this is all over, And I have become someone else? A woman from a book, or a painting, or a film, A woman who wears nightgowns and writes poetry (Like this, I’d assume).
Hannah Graham is a writer of literary realist fiction, who has just finished her final year studying American Literature with Creative Writing at UEA. Her work is predominantly character-based and quietly dramatic, exploring the subtle complexities of the way we relate to ourselves, each other, and the spaces we inhabit. Though not a regular writer of poetry, she has decided to attempt something new during this lockdown period.
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ESCHER’S WORLD By Jessie Rosenberg
If things were different, we would live in Escher’s world. Up would be down, sideways wouldn’t exist, and we would just roam stairs. But I guess that’s kind of what we do now anyway. If things were different, whales would fly. They would blow floral clouds into the sky from their blowhole which seems like an accurate interpretation. Petals falling all around us. If things were different, paintings would move like a hypnotic dance. Galleries would be full of people in a trance staring at merging colours and colliding shapes. If things were different, we could retain every minuscule detail, gnawed right down to the bone. We would be depleted yet still full. If things were different, we could exist without relying on food or water. Maybe we would photosynthesise like plants and gain strength through the falling raindrops on our skin. If things were different, clouds would pulse through our
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veins. Anger: a fiery sunset; sadness: a dark blue night. Happiness would be strips of floating clouds that look like the ocean. If things were different, we’d be smaller. Much smaller than we are now. We would live under leaves, in trees, and be prey to bigger things. Some people definitely need to feel smaller. That’s a fact. If things were different, nature would be the most important thing. And everyone would be second place. And, maybe, maybe then, everyone would feel smaller. And everyone would feel together. Yes, as if in Escher’s world, things would be different, and they may now be different, but up is down for all of us, and sideways doesn’t exist, but I see stairs and I wonder where they lead.
Jessie Rosenberg is an artist and writer who has just finished her fourth and final year studying American Literature with Creative Writing. Since quarantine she has rekindled her passion for art and works with abstract designs to draw attention to ideas and features that may not always be clear to people on the surface. This is what she really enjoys about creating - highlighting new ways of looking and thinking. Instagram - @rose_and_berg