Volume 10, Chapter 09 | July 2023

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A woman in a pink coat holds a red umbrella while she bends down to talk to someone through a car window. The image is from the 70s and looks like a older archival photograph.

Image by Jim Pickerell / Documerica
Dear writers, readers and friends,

Welcome to the July issue of Visual Verse in which we celebrate the art of conversing with strangers. I have returned from a visit to Ireland where – despite the ever-invasive presence of technology in our lives – a vibrant culture of simple human interactions remains intact. I couldn’t walk two steps without a stranger making chit-chat. One woman was so keen to engage that, after eavesdropping on a conversation between my son and I as we stood at traffic lights, she insisted on walking us to “the best museum”. Only, she didn’t know where it was. We spent twenty minutes marching in the wrong direction while receiving an unsolicited historical walking tour of Dublin. The things you get for free, eh? Who needs Google maps when you’ve got the kindness of strangers. I’ve left Ireland with a resolve to engage more with random people to see what ideas and inspirations it might bring. Will you join me?

It’s not hard to see where the impetus for this month’s image selection came from. Hidden in this street scene from the archives of Documerica (https://www.documerica.org/) is a conversation. What do you hear? An interaction between strangers? A chance meeting of old friends? Something sweet or something more sinister? The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

We are hugely grateful to our four talented leads this month for their unique ekphrastic interpretations. First up we present Lynn White (https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com/) , writing from her home in north Wales. Lynn’s poetry is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Find her at lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/) .

On page 2 we present Tamanna Abdul-karim (https://twitter.com/TamKarim) . Born in Bangladesh and raised in the UK, Tamanna is a woman after my own heart: she always dreamed of empowering young people to achieve their fullest potential. She is a passionate English teacher who has been in service within Birmingham for sixteen years. She enjoys the raw and authentic experience of writing and sharing poetry. You can follow her work on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TamKarim) or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/versesbyTam/) .

Róisín Leggett Bohan (https://twitter.com/LeggettBohan) joins us on page 3. Róisín was chosen for Poetry Ireland’s Introduction Series 2022. Her work can be found in Magma Poetry, New Irish Writing, Southword, Poetry Ireland’s ePub, Amsterdam Quarterly and elsewhere. Her poems have been commended/shortlisted for awards including the Allingham, Cúirt and MLC Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition. In 2022 she was the winner of Flash Fiction with Southword and the winner of CNF with Atlantic Currents II. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCC and is co-editor of HOWL New Irish Writing. You can find her at inkstainedwings.com (https://www.inkstainedwings.com) .

And on page 4, we welcome Sam Buchan-Watts (https://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/people/profile/sambuchan-watts.html) , author of the pamphlet Faber New Poets 15 and collection Path Through Wood (Prototype, 2021). Sam is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Newcastle University and he is currently working on a book about skateboarding, masculinity and queer culture.

Now, over to you, dear writers. You know what to do. Submissions close 15th July, midnight UK time.

Kristen
with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes

Find the VV crew on socials:
Visual Verse (https://twitter.com/pretitaneja/)
Kristen Harrison (https://www.instagram.com/kittyharrison/)
Preti Taneja (https://twitter.com/PretiTaneja)
Lucie Stevens (https://twitter.com/LucieStevens_)
Ashish Kumar (https://twitter.com/Ashish_stJude) Singh (https://twitter.com/Ashish_stJude)
Zaynab Bobi (https://twitter.com/ZainabBobi)
Wes White (https://twitter.com/archaeologyBoy)

Volume 09, Chapter 05 | March 2022

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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)

Volume 05, Chapter 06 | April 2018

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Image by Anthony Intraversato

Dear writers, readers and friends,

April is a month often associated with beginnings. Now that equinox has past, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are looking forward to a new season – one of light, warmth and colour. When we emerge from our caves after a long winter, will we see the world in new ways? This month’s visual prompt by Anthony Intraversato (https://www.instagram.com/anthonyintraversato/) brings to mind the insight that differing vantage points can create.

With so much going on in the world, we thought it only right to begin April with a choice selection of work arising from diverse pathways in the literary landscape, writers who between them traverse music, translation, travel, poetry, creative non-fiction and fiction
– a celebration of the multiplicity of writing identities represented in Visual Verse and a marker of how art brings us together in all our astonishing difference of form and voice.

Our lead writer Jeffrey Boakye (https://unseenflirtspoetry.wordpress.com/) is an author, teacher and father currently living in East London with his wife and two sons. His first book Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials, and the Meaning of Grime was published in 2017 by Influx Press. His upcoming book Black, Listed is due for publication in 2019. Jeffrey has a particular interest in education, race and popular culture. This is his first contribution to Visual Verse.

Our second lead, Abeer Y. Hoque (http://olivewitch.com/wordpress/) , is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer we met in India. She likes velvet, tequila and the corpse pose. Her books include a travel photography and poetry monograph (The Long Way Home, 2013), a linked collection of stories, poems and photographs (The Lovers and the Leavers, 2015) and a memoir (Olive Witch, 2017).

Delaina Haslam (http://dhaslamtranslation.com/index.html) is a translator of French and Spanish; she is also an editor and writer and is based in Sheffield. She has worked for publications including InMadrid magazine and le cool London, and about translation for Glasgow Review of Books, the Poetry Translation Centre, and Yorkshire Translators and Interpreters. She has been the invited translator at Poetry Translation Centre workshops, had a submission accepted for Newcastle University’s Poettrios Experiment and has performed collaborative translation at Sheffield’s Wordlife open mic night. She is writing a memoir about baby loss, for which she won the Off the Shelf Festival Novel Slam in 2016.

Finally, we’d like to introduce our new Editorial Assistant, Rose Warner Miles. Rose is from the US and has a Bachelor degree in English Literature & Psychology from Williams College. She grew up in New York, where she interned at Poets House and worked at the American Museum of Natural History. She is a poet, a wanderer, an intersectional feminist and an unapologetically devoted fan of cheesy TV teen soaps. We’re thrilled to add her enthusiasm and poetic nous to the team.

And so dear writers with April arriving, it’s no joke – the image is the starting point, the rest is up to you.

Kristen, Preti, Lucie and Rose

Find us on Twitter

@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/@visual_verse)
@unseenflirt (https://twitter.com/unseenflirt?lang=en)
@olivewitch (https://twitter.com/olivewitch?lang=en)
@ (https://twitter.com/DelainaHaslam) DelainaHaslam (https://twitter.com/DelainaHaslam)

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