WRITERS’ BLOC JOURNAL 25 RHYTHMS
Welcome to RHYTHMS, the twenty-fifth issue of the Writers’ Bloc Journal!
Twenty-five issues may sound like a small milestone, but it’s taken the hard work and enthusiasm of many different people to be reached. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Journal this year - whether through sending in submissions, helping with printing, or simply picking up a copy and having a read. (Thanks especially to Charlotte Nicholls for this issue’s wonderful cover design!) RHYTHMS features eleven poems by Writers’ Bloc members, and is coming to you shortly after our AGM. I’m excited to say that this issue’s opening piece - ‘The Pink Orchestra’ - is by Writers’ Bloc’s next President, Emma Thompson. This year Emma has been in charge of Online Communications, and has done a great job promoting the Journal as well as submitting some wonderful pieces. I know we will be in safe hands with her leading the society! Meanwhile, the closing poem is by our outgoing President, Alex Hamzij. Alex has seen Writers’ Bloc grow tremendously this year and has been very generous with his time regarding the Journal - without his help the Guild would probably be overflowing with back-to-front, misprinted booklets. It will definitely be sad to see him go, but I’m sure he’ll stay in touch and we’ll be seeing a lot more of his writing in the future (not just in the Journal!). I’m also pleased that RHYTHMS features work by our new Literary Events Officer, Jonah Corren, whose infectious enthusiasm for poetry is evident in his writing as well as in person. 2
The brilliantly surreal ‘Chopping down trees is fine…’ is by Anne Gill, our outgoing Secretary, who will sadly be graduating this year. Anne’s organisational skills, creative minute-keeping and terrible puns have made a lasting impact on the society, and she is definitely a name to watch in the poetry scene. Shoutouts should also go to Anita Solak (who answered a desperate plea for submissions despite having returned to Australia after completing her year abroad in Birmingham), Chloe Bettles (who has achieved her goal of submitting to every Journal of the year), and to everyone else who has fought the end-of-year fatigue and contributed work to RHYTHMS. Finally, I am pleased to welcome in Sierra Malia Fransen as the next Publications Officer. I know she will do a fantastic job and I can’t wait to see the Journal thrive with her as Editor. Although this is the final Journal of the year, submissions are now open for the Colletti Collection; I would highly recommend all members enter. Have a look at the back cover for more information! For now, I hope you enjoy RHYTHMS.
Editor Hannah Ledlie
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Contents
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The Pink Orchestra / Emma Thompson
Encore for The Man in The Back Row / Chloe Bettles
Earphones / Jonah Corren
Rain / Emily Hana
Twitch / Tom Caffrey
My Fingers Don’t Feel Like Fingers / Liv Franics-Pape
At the salmon factory / Lara Wickenkamp
Chopping down trees is fine… / Anne Gill
CBT / James Thorp
Dwell / Anita Solak
Breaths / Alex Hamzij
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The Pink Orchestra Emma Thompson The Hammersmith and City line
is an unwritten symphony.
It curls itself around my veins
like a friendship bracelet,
sets the tempo
of my metronome heart.
A blue card slides against the play button.
Song begins
with cracking of barriers.
They do not chime in unison--
staccato beats cascading
across a row of turnstiles,
spliced by grumbling of commuters
as someone’s Oyster is voided for entry.
The rhythm takes its shape
in the hollow clack of footsteps
treading border lines
into not-white, not-grey floor tiles.
Keep Left.
The voice from above isn’t needed.
We know the lyrics by heart.
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Baritones and saxophones
wash in with a melody,
punctuated
by irregular chimes of pennies.
A child hits a high note
somewhere in the background.
No one is impressed.
More grumbles.
Crescendos creep along
the whistle-rattle-whoosh
of trains in motion.
Necks crane, eyes to attention
as rails screech beneath momentum.
Doors beep frantically in greeting
(mind the gap) and I step into the chorus of you.
Announcements cut through
haze of displays that plaster your skin.
Providing context:
a way to read the music.
You reverse the start to create your end,
faster this time--people have places to be.
The song stops where it begins,
at the turnstiles,
and my ears mourn the loss,
until the next refrain.
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Encore for The Man in The Back Row Chloe Bettles ‘This town’s well known by nobody.
The only thing that happened here
was when it got found out the plant
dumped a bunch of shit in the water
that turned the frogs gay or somethin’.
Casey Nicholls got dared to drink
a whole glass last spring but he turned
green instead of gay and they pumped
his stomach so good he got cured
of diabetes. They say his mum won
ten grand after that lawsuit, ruined
the local economy that’s what they say,
so next thing you know there ain’t
nothing here but a Tesco Express
and that crappy Loros on mains.
The end of the world as we know it,
all over a glass of bloody water.
Least that’s what they say…
people say a lot of stuff around here.’
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Earphones Jonah Corren something about today's background noise
feels somewhat incomplete
there is something missing from its texture
a music-shaped gap pouring out of the shop-fronts
gushing from the tailpipes
and glaring from the faces of passers by
a gap between my earlobe and my temple
sucking in the wind at a rate only satisfied by one thing
a thing that snatches the quiet from its hiding
surging this sleepy town into new meaning
surging the shops into film-sets,
the cars into planes and the people into moving in time with the music
surging the squares on the pavement
into lighting up like an eighties dance-floor
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Rain Emily Hana earth wrings out the last of its dark days. droplets against my window pane. a four am symphony.
the morning unwinds itself like a spool of copper thread. it tangles in my hair and pulls me into the garden.
wet grass on bare feet. droplets run into the cracks of my skin, my pores.
the soft haze of the first days of summer, as though this morning has been dipped in gold and hung out to dry.
days will get longer and brighter. moods will get lighter. you can smell it in the air; the fresh afterglow of rain.
you can hear it too; birds gifted with rainwater open their throats to chant
'i'm alive! i'm alive! i'm alive!’
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Twitch Tom Carey There is a twitch in my eye.
persistent
erratic
aggressive.
I wonder if one day I will be all
twitches.
If my legs will be animated
spasmodically,
if my arms will jerk food
into my mouth,
if my hands will tremble
words across the page.
my heart already seems
to operate like this.
perhaps the rest of me need not
not.
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My Fingers Don’t Feel Like My Fingers Liv Francis-Pape Nostalgia is a fusty, heavy-handed, bulging at the britches bastard. He grasps at the little houses on your lungs, sparking up forest fires that span miles until you remember the taste of the playdough you weren’t meant to eat. Hands, on thighs, you weren’t expecting. Clay spread, clad, over a prepubescent body on the Jurassic Coast. He’ll lull you into the smog, enticing and sickly and delicate and rich and temporal. But nothing about him is temporal, he’s infection and jelly and no molecular integrity. He’s the rape alarm of dusk, when someone tells you that your philtrum is the most attractive thing about you, he’ll spark back up in the churning chimney of your frontal lobe. He’ll machete his way through that time that you were called a cunt. That time you promised you could go one day alone. That vibration of traffic in your sternum. That lichen clawing through your rose-tinted glasses. Maybe he’ll tell you that manipulation and shame are the oxygen you needed to respire. 11
Correction: Need. He’s a bastard, he’s all you have, he’s a bastard, he’s all you love, he’s a bastard. Hey now, change is a lie he tells you - you merely modify your inability to maintain homeostasis, to maintain solid, in stasis. Being frozen is simpler, no algebra to decipher - just icicles on your memories, scrubbing at your cerebrum until you’re bleached. He is the opposite of bleach. Or, rather, more abrasively sanitary.
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At the salmon factory Lara Wickenkamp Stare at the catwalk where fifty of their school meet
To wrestle and cuddle and die
All of their names are Nemo
The blue overalls listen to Despacito
While ironically
Yanking the red
Ripping the white
Sucking out the black
Forty times per minute
I got used to the wet iron smell too quickly
Try to prevent the cold snot from running
Thoughts slow like resin
Drip dripping gone
Like the blood on my boots
Ten hours
Before the machines stop
And I look at something other than the clock
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Chopping down trees is fine until you accidentally mistake your uncle for a tree Anne Gill Trees are okay. When they’re dead (or dying) in the back of my truck they earn me money
chop
chop
chopping down trees gives me muscles and pays for it so I get paid to be fit, so I get paid to look hot, so I get paid to have people fancy me (and why wouldn’t they) so I get paid to have sex. I like trees. Trees are okay.
Bob cuts trees
Bob is Bob’s actual name
Bob’s my uncle
Bob cut trees until he read a book (don’t read a book) and then he sat at home all day talking about the ooze layer. He punched me for chopping down trees. I punched him for being a lazy shit. One day Bob stood in the forest to stop me chopping down trees as a protest which would be fine but it wasn’t fine because I was tired/ hungover/ high and thought he was an odd shaped tree/ a bear/ I was tired/ hungover/ high/ I didn’t think.
Trees are okay and
I’m good at chopping them down and Bob was good until he was shit.
chop
chop
trees are okay and
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accidentally.
I am good at chopping them down and
I am also good at chopping Bob down
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CBT James Thorp 1: We’re six sessions in. So, how do you think you’re progressing?
2: [Inarticulate screaming and crying]
1: I think you may require either more or less frequent sessions, although I am unsure. What do you think, given your progression here?
2: [Inarticulate screaming and crying]
1: Well, everything seems ok here. I will schedule a check-up appointment in three month’s time. Please do remember that if your symptoms change or get any worse you are welcome to be referred back to the service at any time.
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Dwell Anita Solak Got that glint going, one he gets when he’s teasing. He’s provoking
most times. Knows how to draw out a reaction.
Been howled at, slapped, punched in the gut, kicked down and they kept
kicking. Pillows held over his head. Shirts bled through,
stains don’t always come out. He’s never been a fighter. Says he’s a lover.
Not sure he knows what the word means. Goes through motions.
Dating, fucking, cheating, fucking, never lingers long. Jolts back and forth
in town, finds a city gal, parades her on his arm,
in his car, or hers if it’s worth more. Right now he’s got Rosa and her red
Mercedes. Finds some other man’s girl and
talks smooth, buys her champagne he can’t afford (puts it on his friends tab),
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makes her laugh, acts the fool, takes her too,
till the next one walks by. Says it’s the way of the world. Nothing new.
He’s no worse than the next man I’ll meet and
at least he’s honest with me, so I know not to trust.
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Breaths Alex Hamzij It’s the breathing:
that’s the thing that
always gets to me.
Those bated breaths
speeding up in
rhythmic antici-
-pation. The lies
we tell, revealed
in exhalation.
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SEEKING SUBMISSIONS FOR THE COLLETTI COLLECTION In honour of Sean Colletti’s incredible dedication to the society since founding it in 2009, Writers’ Bloc will be publishing the second ever Colletti Collection - a pamphlet of poetry or prose from one chosen member.
This is a fantastic opportunity to see your work in print and have your work judged by professional writer. The winner will also be invited to perform a feature set at the Grizzly Pear poetry night in Selly Oak.
Guidelines: 10000-20000 words worth of prose (double-spaced)
OR
20-40 pages of poetry
Submissions must be sent to writersblocjournal@gmail.com with your NAME and COLLETTI COLLECTION written in the subject line by 11pm on the 30th April. You must be a paid member of Writers' Bloc to enter.