- 114: NO THEME 13with J Toledo & C Tse 113: INVISIBLE WALLSwith A Walker & D Disney 112: TREATwith T Dearborn 111: BABYwith S Deo & L Ferney 110: POP!with Z Frost & B Jessen 109: NO THEME 12with C Maling & N Rhook 108: DEDICATIONwith L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik 107: LIMINALwith B Li 106: OPENwith C Lowe & J Langdon 105: NO THEME 11with E Grills & E Stewart 104: KINwith E Shiosaki 103: AMBLEwith E Gomez and S Gory 102: GAMEwith R Green and J Maxwell 101: NO THEME 10with J Kinsella and J Leanne 100: BROWNFACE with W S Dunn 99: SINGAPOREwith J Ip and A Pang 97 & 98: PROPAGANDAwith M Breeze and S Groth 96: NO THEME IXwith M Gill and J Thayil 95: EARTHwith M Takolander 94: BAYTwith Z Hashem Beck 93: PEACHwith L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong 92: NO THEME VIIIwith C Gaskin 91: MONSTERwith N Curnow 90: AFRICAN DIASPORAwith S Umar 89: DOMESTICwith N Harkin 88: TRANSQUEERwith S Barnes and Q Eades 87: DIFFICULTwith O Schwartz & H Isemonger 86: NO THEME VIIwith L Gorton 85: PHILIPPINESwith Mookie L and S Lua 84: SUBURBIAwith L Brown and N O'Reilly 83: MATHEMATICSwith F Hile 82: LANDwith J Stuart and J Gibian 81: NEW CARIBBEANwith V Lucien 80: NO THEME VIwith J Beveridge 57.1: EKPHRASTICwith C Atherton and P Hetherington 57: CONFESSIONwith K Glastonbury 56: EXPLODE with D Disney 55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUSwith M Chakraborty and K MacCarter 55: FUTURE MACHINES with Bella Li 54: NO THEME V with F Wright and O Sakr 53.0: THE END with P Brown 52.0: TOIL with C Jenkins 51.1: UMAMI with L Davies and Lifted Brow 51.0: TRANSTASMAN with B Cassidy 50.0: NO THEME IV with J Tranter 49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH with M Hall and S Seita 49.0: OBSOLETE with T Ryan 48.1: CANADA with K MacCarter and S Rhodes 48.0: CONSTRAINT with C Wakeling 47.0: COLLABORATION with L Armand and H Lambert 46.1: MELBOURNE with M Farrell 46.0: NO THEME III with F Plunkett 45.0: SILENCE with J Owen 44.0: GONDWANALAND with D Motion 43.1: PUMPKIN with K MacCarter 43.0: MASQUE with A Vickery 42.0: NO THEME II with G Ryan 41.1: RATBAGGERY with D Hose 41.0: TRANSPACIFIC with J Rowe and M Nardone 40.1: INDONESIA with K MacCarter 40.0: INTERLOCUTOR with L Hart 39.1: GIBBERBIRD with S Gory 39.0: JACKPOT! with S Wagan Watson 38.0: SYDNEY with A Lorange 37.1: NEBRASKA with S Whalen 37.0: NO THEME! with A Wearne 36.0: ELECTRONICA with J Jones
CONTRIBUTORS
Jan Owen
Three Views of Edo
Fireworks at Ryogoku Ryogoku hanabi (8/1858) More than flowers or mayflies, fireworks touch the sadness at the heart of things mono no aware, the lit-up dying Now. The now of all those cracker nights: throwing penny bungers, dodging jumping jacks …
Posted in 79: EKPHRASTIC
Tagged Jan Owen
Translation of Jean-Baptiste Cabaud’s ‘The Shepherdesses Painted in Blue’
Jean-Baptiste Cabaud is a poet and writer who was born in 1970 in Savoy. He has lived in Lyons since 1993, working as a graphic designer for twelve years. From 2005 he has devoted his time to poetry, written, spoken, …
Posted in 75: FUTURE MACHINES
Tagged Jan Owen, Jean-Baptiste Cabaud
Anticipation
The nosy dib, grub, moil of a prickly neighbour has razed another anthill, routing the troops – a spill of broken rosaries that soon rethread and reconnoitre to rebuild, with instinct, the overseer, directing the jet-black trickle’s spurt-stop-start. It’s an …
Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Les Petites Vieilles’
Charles Baudelaire, born in Paris in 1821, was one of the greatest nineteenth-century French poets. He is a key figure in European literature, with a far-reaching influence – an example, in his life and in his poetry, of what it …
Posted in TRANSLATIONS
Tagged Charles Baudelaire, Jan Owen
Marilyne Bertoncini’s ‘The Night of Lilac’
Marilyne and I got to know each other when Marilyne very stylishly translated some poems of mine in 2009.When I read Marilyne’s poem ‘Nuit de Lilas’, I was intrigued and moved by the poem’s sensuousness and musicality, its shimmering painterly effect and sheer lift – an earthy immediacy heightened by the exotic. How could I carry across this airy and erotic blend of music, perfume and colour? It was clear that I would need to strive for the patterns of sound,format and image, and also that I might need some background and some botanical advice.
Posted in TRANSLATIONS
Tagged Jan Owen, Marilyne Bertoncini
SILENCE Editorial
Silence seems a paradoxical and perhaps daunting theme for writers, yet it strikes me as tantalizingly hospitable too. It was pleasing that 494 writers took up the challenge, submitting some 1100 poems; my warm thanks to you all. This high volume meant that a number of fine poems had to be regretfully declined. A common element in those I finally selected was assurance and presence, the sense of a person thinking through the poem – and of the poem thinking through the person. Precision, energy, surprise and an unlikely angle were other touchstones. Feeling, too, of course; silence, actual or metaphoric, can certainly be neutral, but more often it affects us either negatively or positively: as nothingness, dread, loss, denial and oppression, or else as affirmation, safety, intuitive understanding, intimacy, transcendence, and so on. For me, as for many of those submitting, the theme summons up death – the lost voices – but also a sense of mysterious imminence and immanence.
Submission to Cordite 45: SILENCE now open!
Cordite 45: SILENCE is guest edited by Jan Owen Silence as a theme could be interpreted, explored and challenged in innumerable ways. It might seem quietly paradoxical to even think of writing about absence of sound and language, but then …
Twilight to Dawn: Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire is, of course, a key figure in European literature, with a far-reaching influence – an example, in his life and in his poetry, of what it means to be modern. Les Fleurs du mal, his major work, was influenced by the French romantic poets of the early nineteenth century; it is formally close to the contemporary Parnassians, but is psychologically and sexually complex. ‘Dawn’ and ‘Twilight’ are from the ‘Tableaux Parisiens’ section of Les Fleurs du mal; this particular group of poems established Baudelaire as the poet of modernism, of the flux of urban life with its milling crowds and solitary individuals.
Posted in TRANSLATIONS
Tagged Charles Baudelaire, Jan Owen