A progressive analysis of politics and the arts.
This year’s Last Word Festival at The Roundhouse has been a mixture of online and in-person events. Although I had hoped to be able to attend more events, and accessing the festival hasn’t been easy, it was a pleasure to listen to poets Cecilia Knapp and Alexandra Huỳnh in conversation as I tucked into my dinner at home.
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‘I do not take photos/I give them/as I always give/in love’, the protagonist of Christine Sloan Stoddard’s poetry/photography collection Heaven is a Photograph declares, a characteristically bold admission of vulnerability. These lines, taken from the poem ‘Unrequited Pixels’, evoke an overarching theme of the collection: the emotional intensity of the protagonist’s relationship with photography. Charting the protagonist’s journey, from a childhood as the daughter of a photographer to becoming a photographer herself, Stoddard’s brief and beautiful collection explores the power of both photography and photographer – through a deft and deeply meta combination of verse and photography itself.
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One Sunday, in the quiet folds of The Albany in Deptford, a group of womxn came together to talk about our place in the arts, and specifically poetry. We came to listen, to write, and to share our voices.
by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Verusca Costenaro (1974 – ), ‘Il coraggio che fa primavera’
It’ll be from your comicseyes
that a new courage will rise
for the autumn, it’ll tangle in the wind
and the wind will paint it snowinter
so that the sun may thaw it
fresh in spring, it’ll be
a bearing of violets and mixture of calls,
cerulean choir bearing life in the background to desire,
the sprint of wings on the field, to feed on the grass that will grow,
summervoice adorned of an evergreen yellow,
a remedy to the fears brought by good
dreams of a small evening in august.
Featured image via caffellattefirenze
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by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Anna Belozorovitch (Moscow, 1983 – ), ‘Il porto’ from Il Debito
The harbour breathes as everything changes;
it carries in its womb the still change,
the evolution to turmoil-based unexpectedness,
the summer heat. And it makes no soundContinue Reading
Content warning: mentions violence against women, rape.
Britain has the greatest area of land dedicated to the indefinite detention of human beings in Europe. This is legal.
See:
A former inmate looks at the place in which her back was physically, literally, broken and says don’t give up. Women thread flowers through this border within a border within a border. The border is admitted only by the letters IRC. Green paint flecks cling to the toes of your boots. On a hill do not question whether the people with the kite-fluttering hands can see you.
Instead:
Is it rare to recall dreams. Where can I find this on gov.uk. If the guards are rapists what does that make the walls. How do you resist the lines you were born the right side of. How do you resist. Can love and hatred happen at the same time, and transform you equally. Are there two kinds of hatred. How about three. How about in the same place, at the same time. And built into the container itself – the beige, the smallness of the windows, the low shade of the roof, the two fields away from the road where no one is living. How are you. Do you need water. Can you read the sign from that window. Is this your first time. When will we deport Theresa. Is there a postcode for here. Have they repainted the fence. Is it really violent to kick it so that it thunders. Who is bringing the smoke flares next time, and in what colour. Do you need water. How do you resist. Is it violence when your window looks over an unreachable place, when that unreachable place is so blooming. Is it when everything is glass and unbreakable. What is the consensus on winding yourself at a border with a child’s party toy to say in a way I make noise therefore you are. Are there two kinds of hatred. How about four. How about one for each piece of sand on a beach in southeast Europe. Do you need water. Is this your first time. Is it violent. When this is all over, will people laugh at the theory of lying flowers on a has-been border, as if it were a wrist.
Featured Image credit: Jan McLachan
The Norwich Radical is non-profit and run by volunteers. All funds raised help cover the maintenance costs of our website, as well as contributing towards future projects and events. Please consider making a small contribution and fund a better media future.
by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Nadia Campana (1954-1985), untitled from Verso la Mente
more of the living during the journey
many horizons for hours and hours
submerged in distanceContinue Reading
by Cadi Cliff
CW: menstruation, abuse
I feel my body break open
and bleed for you
when we least expect it.
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by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Caterina Sinibaldi, after Alex Valente’s translation of Andrew McMillan’s ‘the men are weeping in the gym’, ‘le donne ridono in palestra’
the women are laughing in the gym
on smooth backs words run to the music,
thoughts and dreams on sweaty mats.
solitary machines with white towels sing the intimate exhaustion of a quietness
women.Continue Reading
by Lewis Buxton
Despite being called A Book of Fragments and Dreams, the poems in Rebecca McManus’ collection are far from fragmentary. They speak loudly to one another and are rooted decisively in the people, places, and objects of her life. Unthank Cameo has released this collection posthumously after Rebecca McManus was killed by a speeding driver whilst waiting at a bus stop. She was 21 and just weeks away from graduating from the University of East Anglia.Continue Reading
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