Excellent news! Today in the post - my contributor's copy of Korsakoff's Paper Chain, the newest micro-anthology out from Sidekick Books.What is Korsakoff's Paper Chain, you ask? Why not let the good Doctor tell you himself:
"Just as a patient suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome, which affects the memory, may confabulate - create a false account in order to explain their solution and completely believe in it - and just as an act of architectural restoration may involve a certain amount of creative guesswork, so too goes the story of this wretched scrap of literature. Repeatedly destroyed, savaged, battered and blown to bits, only to be rebuilt from a few scattered remains by a different writer every time, it has survived long enough to be worth my presenting to you in bound form, with every past iteration having been reclaimed using sorcery, and the full story of its life painstakingly put back together. I, Dr Fulminare, give you the one and only Korsakoff's Paper Chain."
The A6 anthology features poems from: David Floyd, Charlotte Geater, myself, Sarah Howe, Edward Mackay, Richard O'Brien, Adham Smart, James Wilkes, Chrissy Williams and Tony Williams.
All of these were commissioned for the anthology as they are all linked together, built from one another.
The poems are threaded together by Dr Fulminare, who explains how each piece of text was destroyed in increasingly surprising ways (which are reflected in the shape of the 'ruined' texts!), and pieced back together by the poets. Below, you'll see the 'ruined' text I was provided:
The poems are threaded together by Dr Fulminare, who explains how each piece of text was destroyed in increasingly surprising ways (which are reflected in the shape of the 'ruined' texts!), and pieced back together by the poets. Below, you'll see the 'ruined' text I was provided:
And here, the poem I created from it: Dogged for the Last Time: The Great War:
A zombie poem, no less! It was a real, REAL challenge, writing to such a tight form (and I thought sestinas were hard!). The other writers in the anthology seem to make light work of it though. Robots, Greeks, aliens, Bastille Day, and more feature in the book. It's great fun to read. Very imaginative and ingenious. And brilliant to see how such different pieces were drawn from one another.
I love this pitch from the editors: "If I may be so bold, it could make someone a unique and inspiring Christmas present. Along with all our other micro-anthologies, at £5 it makes an ideal 'Secret Santa' gift. If the limit is set at £5, your search has ended, whilst if the limit is set at £10 or more, simply combine the Sidekick Books micro-anthology with supermarket special offers or charity shop items to make it up to the total. Also, combine multiple Sidekick Books micro-anthologies to reduce average postage costs."
How can you say no to that? Besides, it's a great great anthology. Tis the season to help your local indie press!
Hello Aiko. Always admire how productive you are. All submitting poetry, getting it featured here and there, such hard work. I don't seem to 'know' where to submit. How do you find out about all these publications?
ReplyDeleteOne day I'll tune in and actually start submitting. I'm too full of self-doubt to submit most of the time. I should just go for it.
Keep up the good work.
McGuire.
Cheers for that! These days I don't feel like I'm especially 'tuned in' to what is on offer. I used to have a massive spreadsheet of magazines I liked reading, with what sort of themes they had coming up, and was writing to theme quite a bit at the end of 2009. I just happened to get lucky though being accepted by Fuselit, and that's led to me getting involved with some of their Sidekick Books projects.
ReplyDeleteIt's all luck, and being in right place at the right time. You can inform yourself and try to make connections with people whose work you like.
But there's no point doubting yourself. Rejection is part of (submitting) poetry, so you've got to believe in yourself as best you can. =)
You should definitely just go for it! There's nothing to lose. No one knows how many times you get rejected, only how many times you get accepted! =)
Good luck!
always,
a
So glad to hear your family are ok in Japan. Must be horrendous to lose the place you call home, but hopefully they can be happy in the new place. Kirsty x
ReplyDeleteCheers K. They've mostly resettled now in different cities, with our other family members. It's really sad - I kept asking why they don't rebuild where our house used to be but my mom says all my grandma's friends are gone; they don't really have anything/one left to return to there... So they're starting from scratch. It's pretty full on.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure they'll be happy though. Most important thing is that they're safe.
always,
a