Image by Susan Fenimore Cooper
Dear writers, readers and friends,
I had planned a special issue for March to celebrate International Women’s Day (8th March). Then, Russia invaded Ukraine*. All plans went out the window but, guess what?! The women rose up. Four brilliant women came to my rescue and helped me to assemble a glorious, unique issue featuring our very first musical response to a Visual Verse prompt. I am so proud and grateful to our talented quartet of leads this month.
Our March visual prompt is from Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894) who was a writer, artist, naturalist and humanitarian. Cooper was the first woman to be recognised for nature writing. I love this image as it is clearly the work of an expert while being labelled with the declaration “By a Lady”. I like to think this was a small act of feminism on Cooper’s part – ensuring no man took credit for her work – but that may be an optimistic reading of herstory.
Back in the present day, I’m overjoyed to debut a brand new song penned by acclaimed Irish musician Nina Hynes (https://www.ninahynesmusic.com/) especially for this issue. Nina Hynes is an artist down to her bones and her creative output is mindblowing (follow her on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/artist/6K6HRAFT5XBbrfATR1vnQh?si=91VPDLe3RtixRiWCTcWOkQ) and Bandcamp (https://ninahynes.bandcamp.com/) ). I gave Nina the challenge of writing a song within the usual constraints (50-500 words within one hour) and she returned the lyrics to me within four minutes of receiving the prompt. The next day a fully formed tune arrived in my inbox:
https://ninahynes.bandcamp.com/track/hummingbird
This is our very first musical response to a VV prompt – pure magic. You can listen and download the track from Nina’s Bandcamp. She is donating 100% of proceeds to the campaign to support African and Caribbean students leaving Ukraine, who have been facing discrimination and racism as they try to cross to safety.
Next up we feature Ioanna Mavrou (https://www.ioannamavrou.com/) , a writer from Nicosia, Cyprus. Her short stories have appeared in Electric Literature, The Rumpus, HAD, Wasafiri, The Letters Page, and elsewhere. She runs a tiny publishing house called Book Ex Machina and is the editor of Matchbook Stories: a literary magazine in matchbook form. You can read her previous Visual Verse pieces here (https://visualverse.org/writers/ioanna-mavrou/) and follow her on Twitter (http://twitter.com/@ioannaonline) .
In what seems like a bitter UK winter, Lizzie Ballagher has certainly longed for spring and perhaps that is reflected in her piece on page 3. The final stanza lifts us up like the first spring buds. Having lived in W New York for a decade, Lizzie unashamedly plundered old memories for images of those much harsher winters near the Genesee River. You can follow her work over on her blog (https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/) .
And on page 4 we are long overdue in featuring the work of Ceinwen Haydon (https://twitter.com/CeinwenHaydon) . Ceinwen holds an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University. She lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (also home to our co-founder Preti Taneja) and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies and has written many brilliant pieces for Visual Verse (https://visualverse.org/writers/ceinwen-e-c-haydon/) too. She is developing her practice as a participatory arts facilitator and believes everyone’s voice counts.
We at Visual Verse would like to wish all the women of the world a Happy International Women’s day. On March 8th we will raise a toast to the creativity and inner power of all women, including and especially women of colour, non-binary and trans women. Thank you all for your contributions to Visual Verse over the years.
*The situation in Ukraine remains volatile and we will continue tracking ways to support those most affected – especially minority groups and marginalised communities who face many extra challenges. You can support by signing up for Stuart McPherson’s online Poetry for Ukraine fundraiser (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-for-ukraine-an-international-poetry-reading-fundraiser-tickets-279387795417) which is raising funds for the Red Cross Ukraine and the UN refugee council. There is also the GoFundMe that Nina is supporting, to help African and Caribbean students in Ukraine (https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-afrocaribbean-students-leaving-ukraine?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet) (20% of Ukraine’s international students are from African countries) and OutRight Action International (https://outrightinternational.org/ukraine?form=Ukraine&fbclid=IwAR151D6CdyNweItycZ7QHGj2ix62VLo8K0liysu5fYtQ1z3M2u6Spm65cN0) is raising funds to support Ukraine’s
LGBTQ+ community.
So, my friends, as always I hope you enjoy these offerings and feel inspired to write your own. Things are heavy but creativity brings the light.
The image is the starting point, the text us up to you.
Kristen (She/Her)
and the VV Team
Follow us on Twitter
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse)
@NinaHynes (https://twitter.com/ninahynes?lang=en)
@ioannaonline (https://twitter.com/ioannaonline)
@CeinwenHaydon (https://twitter.com/CeinwenHaydon)