Nine Arches Archives - Visual Verse

Image courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries

Dear writers, readers and friends,

This month we seen US Comedian Kathy Griffin fired from jobs and berated across the news and social media for an image of her with a beheaded Donald Trump. It was meant to be funny and perhaps if it were less bloody she could have got away with it. But it was particularly gruesome. Kathy’s saga is an example of how no two people ever perceive a single image in the same way. Kathy’s frame of perception, her life experiences, mean she sees it as funny. For others it is a symbol of hate, inciting a murder. For those who dislike blood and guts it’s just a bit gross. While our life experiences inform how we see, we writers can step away from our life experience and see through the eyes of characters and narraters to bring alternate views, perhaps even broadening our own minds in the process. So, who is seeing who in this month’s image? This intriguing Mermaid from the collection of the Bodleian Libraries (http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/) , Oxford University, is something you can
inspect from behind glass or, perhaps, turn the gaze back upon yourself, or us.

Our lead writer for June is a talent whose work we so admire, not just for his writing but also his instinct to bring art into every living moment, inviting participation and observation. Nigerian-born Inua Ellams (http://www.inuaellams.com/) is a cross art form practitioner, a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of the Midnight Run (http://www.themnr.com/) — an international, arts-filled, night-time, playful, urban, walking experience. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a designer at White Space Creative Agency. Across his work, Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in which he also tries to mix the old with the new: traditional African storytelling with contemporary poetry, pencil with pixel, texture with vector images. His poetry is published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches and several plays by Oberon.

Kathleen Heil (http://kathleenheil.net) graces us on page 2 with a beautifully controlled and moving piece. Kathleen is a writer, dancer, and translator. Her poems, stories, essays and translations most recently appear in The New Yorker, Five Points, FENCE, The Brooklyn Rail, Beloit Poetry Journal, Two Lines, SAND, and other journals. As a dancer, Heil has worked with various artists in the U.S. and Europe and performed her own choreography in New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Madrid, and elsewhere. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sturgis Foundation, among others, she lives in Berlin. For those in Berlin, Kathleen has two workshops coming up – one on Rhythm and Phrasing (https://www.facebook.com/events/166433013891430/) and one on Style and Translation (https://www.facebook.com/events/247453242401643/) .

On page 3 we feature new writing from Erin O’Loughlin, a writer, translator and accidental wanderer. Originally from Australia, she has lived all over the world including Japan, South Africa and Italy. When she’s not busy living all her reincarnations at once (at least, that’s what it feels like some days) she is the associate editor for The Wild Word (http://thewildword.com/) magazine.

We have spent many afternoons reading The (http://thewildword.com/) Wild Word (http://thewildword.com/) where we found Deirdre Mulrooney (https://deirdre-mulrooney.squarespace.com/) , an emerging Irish artist living and working in Berlin. Raised working class in a small nation dominated by Catholicism and men, she now lives as a teacher, a mother and an artist discovering the joy of playing with taboos and visions of female identity that would, until all too recently, have seen her locked away. Her current work is a fantastical and brazenly irreverent take on femininity, sexuality, religion and power. See it in all its glory in her forthcoming exhibition, Bloody Milk River at Gallerie Baeren (https://deirdre-mulrooney.squarespace.com/new-cover-page/) in Neukölln, Berlin, from June 23rd.

Well? Who’s seeing who this month? The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Enjoy,
Kristen and Preti

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Image by Julien Menier

Dear writers, readers and friends,

What a month it has been for this precious world. It is easy to feel helpless, but we have work to do. As writers and publishers it is our job to create the stories that will help to make sense of it all. It is our job to create the poetry that gives us meaning when meaning isn’t clear.

This month’s image came to us almost by accident and feels perfect for this confusing time. It seems to say: what is real, and what is not? Is it a fictional scene from a mystical film, or is it a very real moment between man and nature? The image is by Belgian photographer, Julien Menier (aka Lost Wanderer (http://julienmenier.photoshelter.com/index) ), who roams the world with little more than a bicycle, camera and tent, making photos that only a solitary wanderer can make. His work is full of empathy and that, dear friends, is just what we need right now.

Our headliner this month is Paris-based Adam Biles (https://twitter.com/adambiles) , author of Feeding Time (Galley Beggar Press) which was published in October this year. We’ve read this book and we can report that it’s a hilarious romp through… an old people’s home. A rare view into a space fiction doesn’t usually go. Here the inmates live in the past and the staff is trying to escape in any way they can. And with its Boys Own Adventure style, time slips and graphic (novel) insertions, there isn’t much else like this in bookshops now. Reviews have been outrageous and ecstatic, with the Guardian noting its ‘core of sadness’ and ‘glorious comic verve’, and praising Adam as a ‘megawatt talent.’ ‘Hurrah,’ as Dot, the lead character of Feeding Time might say.

We’re continuing the theme of empathy and social justice with work from Louisa Adjoa Parker (https://twitter.com/LouisaAdjoa) , a British writer of Ghanaian and English heritage who has lived in the rural West Country since she was thirteen. Louisa started writing to talk about the racism and domestic violence she experienced as a child and young woman. Her first poetry collection, Salt-sweat and Tears was published by Cinnamon Press in 2007. Cinnamon also published her poetry pamphlet Blinking in the Light in 2015. Louisa’s work has appeared in a range of publications, including The Forward Prize collection 2008, Envoi, Wasafiri and many more. She has also written articles for Gal-dem magazine. Louisa has been shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Live Canon Competition, highly commended by the Forward Prize, and longlisted by the Mslexia Novel Competition. She is currently working on a first short story collection, novel and second full-length poetry collection, with
mentors Jan Fortune and Jacob Ross.

Our next piece comes from Khairani Barokka (http://khairanibarokka.com/) a writer, poet, artist, and PhD researcher in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths University, London. Before this, she was a New York University Tisch Departmental Fellow and Indonesia’s first Writer-In-Residence at Vermont Studio Center. Okka is the writer/performer/producer of Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee, Indonesia’s only Edinburgh Fringe representative in 2014; co-editor of HEAT: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology (Buku Fixi, 2016); co-editor of Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches, 2017); writer-illustrator of Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis, 2016); and author of debut poetry collection Rope (Nine Arches, 2017). In 2014, UNFPA recognised her as an Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change for arts practice and research.

And our final gift of the season is by Amrou Al-Kadhi (http://www.amroualkadhi.com) , a writer, performer and a filmmaker. Amrou set up the musical comedy drag troupe Denim (http://www.denim-uk.com) whilst a student at Cambridge, which is now in its 6th year and touring around the country. This included a set with Florence and the Machine at Glastonbury the year that she headlined. Amrou is also a queer filmmaker, interested in using and subverting traditional film tropes to tell queer narratives in a way that is accessible. His first short Nightstand was executive produced by Stephen Fry and distributed by Peccadillo Pictures, and he currently has two features in development. Amrou is the co-writer and star of a comedy series about a second generation Egyptian drag queen in London, Nefertiti, currently in development with Big Talk Productions. Amrou is represented as a writer/performer/filmmaker by United Agents.

So dear writers, that is it for another temporal year. We wish you all seasons greetings, and looking forward to lots of early presents for you and us, an inbox full of your brilliant words. What more could we want?

The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Love,
Kristen and Preti

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