Anonymous poetry, a new mysterious zine

Last week I was intrigued to be invited to join a Facebook group with the curious name of Eponymous Anonymous. Because the person who invited me to join was one of the several Helens of my acquaintance, at first I thought it might be some mega-group of Helens, but it was not.

What it is, is a project to publish 'a low budget, old school photocopied folded paper journal with no names attached. It might be one writer writing as dozens, or a dozen writers writing as one.'

Intriguing.

Generally we poets are trying as hard as we can to make a bit of a name for ourselves - get people interested in our work: 'If you liked that, then perhaps you'll like this.' We like to rack up a wee list of places our work has been published, we like people to know our names, we want our work to represent us. But along with our name comes restrictions, and sometimes opportunities. People might or might not publish our work because they have developed an idea about whether or not they like us or our work. We might feel restricted in what we we'll write about (or at least have published) because we're worried about what people might think, about what our mother might think, because it doesn't go with the kind of image we're trying to present as a poet.

The idea of anonymity makes me nervous, and excited. And a little bit free. I am going to try to write some work for this project that is a bit different from what Helen Rickerby, poet, might ordinarily do. I'm going to try to use the anonymity as an advantage, and a inspiration.

Interested?

You can visit the Facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=113800348667528 for all the info. (All the cool kids have Facebook groups. Did you know JAAM has a Facebook group?: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8420259164.)

All you have to do is write something that you are happy to have published anonymously and submit it to:

theeponymousanonymousproject AT gmail.com

Or even better get together with some poetical, piratical friends and create a few poems or a collection to submit together. Create a character, a cast of characters or simply be eponymous anonymous.

Submissions close 8th August.

BTW - if you're interested in the intriguing punctuation mark (top left), which Eponymous Anonymous is using as its image, it's called an interrobang (or a quesclamation mark). It is basically a !?, but as one character. It was invented in the 60s, and is not much used, as you might expect. I only know all this because, well I checked Wikipedia, but also because non-standard punctuation was a topic of conversation among my colleagues last year, because one of them really needed some kind of sarcasm mark. He was in luck, because there is the irony or sarcasm mark: ؟.

Enamel 2 out now

The second issue of this stylish annual literary mag, edited by Wellington poet Emma Barnes, is out now. The cool cover image is by nine-year-old Ngahere Koa von Bassewitz-Wafe. As far as I can tell, it's one of those artworks where you scratch through the black crayon to reveal the coloured crayon beneath.

I have a couple of poems in here: 'Camera' and 'Unsavoury'. Inside, I found quite a few writers (mostly poets) I'd come across before, and a few new discoveries. Some particular highlights for me are Harvey Molloy's 'Bus stop'; Mariana Isara's 'Crush' (it took me a little bit to warm to this long, spacious poem, but by the end I was smitten); Helen Heath's poems about scientists Marie Curie ('Radiant') and Beatrice Tinsley ('Spiral arms'); Tim Jones's dystopia poems and 'Willie Pondexter by Sarah Jane Barnett. You'll also find fine work by Jennifer Compton, Craig Cliff, Angeline King, Sally Houtman, Reihana MacDonald Robinson, Susanna Gendall, Heather Elder, Debbie McCauley, Jenni Dowsett, Iain Britton and Vaughan Rapatahana.

And how can you get your paws on this excellent publication? You can purchase it on Trade Me - http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=684524 - for $15, or for $20 you can get both Enamel 1 and 2. Or you can email the editor: enamel dot editor at gmail dot com. Or, I'm sure it you rocked up to your local bookshop and asked them to order it for you, and gave them the ISSN (1174-9199) they'd be able to do that.

Enamel has a blog here: http://enamelmag.blogspot.com/, and a recently created Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=137829206230906. They'll be calling for submissions for the next issue at some point (probably later in the year).

And now I'll leave you with the final section of Mariana Isara's love poem, 'Crush'

What I want is the obvious thing

you

to eat red berries with me

in a warm rose garden

smelling Katherine Mansfield


to lie with our pages touching

and origami

love's symmetry


I want to alliterate your dreams

Stuff to know about: Enamel submissions close soon

Submissions for the second issue of Enamel close at the end of September.

I'm sure that, like me, you'll submit only just before the deadline. Check out the submission guidelines here: http://enamelmag.blogspot.com/2009/03/submission-guidelines.html.

The first issue was lovely - definitely the best-looking first issue of a literary mag I ever saw. I'm looking forward to the second already.

More other places to send stuff

Blackmail Press 25

Bill Nelson and Sarah Jane Barnett are guest editors of Blackmail Press 25: The Rebel Issue, and they’re looking for work that resists tradition, breaks the rules, and broaches subversive topics, politics, authority or the experience of rebellion. They aim to ‘give New Zealand writers the opportunity to showcase interesting and original work about being different, unique or just plain disobedient.’

The deadline for submissions is Friday 15 May 2009. Contributors may submit up to three works as MS Word compatible attachments to rebelissue@gmail.com.

Landfall 218

Submissions are being sought for ‘Islands’, guest edited by David Eggleton.

New Zealand Aotearoa is located on the map as one point of the Polynesian triangle - part of an oceanic scatter of islands. It is a nation characterised by dual settlement - Polynesian, then European - which more recently has welcomed a global diversity of new migrants and settlers.

'Islands’ will suggest something of this variety, this heritage, as a celebration of binary oppositions and harmonic dualities, of the bicultural and the multicultural, of the pro and the con, of tensions and resolutions.

While submissions are being actively sought from contributors of Maori and Pacific Island heritage, 'Islands' also implies communities, villages, self-contained entities, and even margins moving into the mainstream, the world currents of culture. Consequently the issue flings the net wide and keeps the definition broad.

This issue will also publish the winner/s of the Landfall Essay Competition 2009.

The deadline for submissions (fiction, poetry, personal essays and other non-fiction) is 10 June 2009.

Submissions to: Landfall, Otago University Press, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Email correspondence (no submissions, please) to: landfall@otago.ac.nz

JAAM 25 at print

Yay, JAAM 25 is at print!

If you need some background, JAAM (Just Another Art Movement) is a literary magazine that was started by a bunch of people, including me and led by Mark Pirie, at Victoria University in 1995. Since then it’s grown and expanded and now is one of the major literary mags in NZ.

The work in the 25th issue of JAAM was selected by guest editor Siobhan Harvey, a writer, reviewer and creative writing teacher. Siobhan has made her home in Auckland after emigrating from England. Of her selection, she says in her editorial:

Using my émigré outsider’s sensibility and eye, I aimed for samples of the best work and writers from what might be broadly termed the various sections of contemporary domestic literature: those who, for instance, are stridently innovative; those who aim for accessibility; those who are alternative; those who are influenced by American modernism and postmodernism; those who seek to forge a distinctly New Zealand form of postmodernism; those who combine some or
all of these traits; those who reject them all or combine none; and so on.

As you might expect, the selection is quite varied, which is usually the case with JAAM. And, as is also usual, there is a good mix of well-known writers (such as Alistair Paterson, Jessica Le Bas, Jack Ross, Iain Sharp, Kapka Kassabova, Harry Ricketts, to name just a few) along with new and emerging writers.

There are also some images by Peter Schwartz, including art of the cover. It’s going to be a colour cover this time (they’re usually black and white) and will be, I think, particularly attractive.

It’s getting quite late in the year for publication, but I’ll try to give it more of a push in January. For more information about JAAM, or to subscribe, check out the JAAM homepage, the JAAM MySpace page, or email jaammagazine@yahoo.co.nz.