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 04 | February 2022

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Image by Yasin Aribuga
Dear writers, readers and friends,

We’re only a month in but already I have the feeling that 2022 will be a year of change for many of us. In fact, the question is not whether change will happen, but how it will happen. Will it be a transition, displacement, digression, transgression, move, evolution or a seismic shift? Will it happen by design or by surprise? This is what is on my mind and why I was drawn to this month’s image by artist Yasin Aribuga. It is aptly steeped in the ultimate symbol of metamorphosis.

We open our February issue with a summer adventure by Hannah Allies (https://twitter.com/hannahahahah?s=20) , a writer based in Brighton whose work has left an impression on us. Hannah has had poetry and flash fiction published by Reflex Fiction, Writers’ HQ and Visual Verse (https://visualverse.org/writers/hannah-allies/) . She is particularly interested in our relationship with the natural world and most of her work includes themes of environmentalism. She is currently writing her first novel.

On page 2, John Grey explores the transformative power of nature. John is an Australian poet and US resident, who has recently been published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. His latest books Leaves On Pages, Memory Outside The Head and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. John’s work will appear in upcoming issues of Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review.

Page 3 holds a multifaceted self-portrait of a butterfly by K Hartless, a poet and fiction writer who enjoys penning fantasy, science-fiction, and horror as well as the occasional memoir. She’s been recently published in Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Last Girls Club, Paragraph Planet, Pure Haiku, and Spillwords. Her blog, Yardsale of Thoughts (https://khartless.com/) , blends fiction, poetry, music, and art to create new experiences for readers.

Sending you off to your writing desks is a whimsical poem by Stephen Kingsnorth (https://visualverse.org/writers/stephen-kingsnorth/) , a regular contributor to Visual Verse. Stephen, who retired to Wales with Parkinson’s Disease from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had pieces published by online poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies. He tells us that he eagerly anticipates the monthly Visual Verse challenges and likes asking questions of himself, and anyone else looking over his shoulder. He has been, like so many, nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net this past year. You can read his blog at poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com (https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/) .

So, now it’s over to you. Submissions close midnight (UK time) on February 15th. You can find our full submission guidelines here (https://visualverse.org/submission-guidelines/) and remember: the image is the starting point, the rest is up to you.
Enjoy!

Kristen
and the VV Team

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Volume 05, Chapter 07 | May 2018

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Image by Mary Cassatt

Welcome dear writers to the 1st of May,

Our image this month might be classic, but our writers are raw brilliance. That’s how we like it here at VV.

Painted by American artist Mary Cassatt in 1893, The Child’s Bath depicts an ordinary moment in domestic life. But its quietness is misleading. Through her work, Cassatt gave voice and presence to women, offering a female perspective that had long been dismissed as inferior. Described as the embodiment of the ‘New Woman’, Cassatt played a crucial role in advocating for equality, particularly in relation to education.

We’re always on the look out for the best, most radical and boundary breaking work. So we’re very proud to publish work by Inara Verzemnieks, the author of the astonishing and moving Among the Living and the Dead, published this month by Pushkin Press (https://www.pushkinpress.com/discover-the-breathtaking-among-the-living-and-the-dead) . Inara teaches creative non-fiction at the University of Iowa, and writes regularly for the New York Times and the Atlantic, among other publications. She has won a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Her piece got us in the guts, then twisted them.

Next we bring you essayist and poet Will Harris (https://willjharris.com/) . He is the author of a chapbook, All this is implied, and a groundbreaking essay, Mixed-Race Superman which will be published this month by the very new and exciting Peninsula Press.

Following this, we have a piece by Scherezade Siobhan. An award-winning writer and psychologist, she’s a community catalyst who founded and runs The Talking Compass (http://www.thetalkingcompass.com) —  a therapeutic space dedicated to providing counseling services and decolonizing mental health care. She is the author of Bone Tongue (Thought Catalog Books, 2015), Father, Husband (Salopress, 2016) and The Bluest Kali (Lithic Press, 2018). She says she can be found squeeing about militant bunnies @zaharaesque on twitter/FB/IG as well as www.zaharaesque.com (http://www.zaharaesque.com/) . She invites you to send her chocolate and puppies  via  nihilistwaffles@gmail.com (mailto:nihilistwaffles@gmail.com) .

To crown it all, a new piece by Rakhshan Rizwan. Rakhshan was born in Lahore, Pakistan and moved to Germany where she studied Literature and New Media. She is currently a PhD candidate at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her poems have appeared in Blue Lyra Review, The Missing Slate, Postcolonial Text and elsewhere. She is the winner of the Judith Khan Memorial Poetry Prize (2015). Her debut poetry collection, Paisley, has been shortlisted in the “Best Poetry Pamphlet” category at the 2018 Sabateur Awards.

So – happy reading, writing and submitting. May is the month to settle in to the new season and we can’t wait to read your words. The image is the starting point, the rest is up to you!

Love,
Kristen, Preti, Lucie and Rose

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Volume 03, Chapter 05 | March 2016

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Image by Zata Banks
Guest Editor: Eley Williams

Dear writers, readers and friends,_x005F
After an exceptional month in February, with over 160 submissions published, we have pushed the Visual Verse format to new limits and present to you our first piece of concrete poetry (https://visualverse.org/submissions/anosmia/) , by Zata Banks. What a thing of beauty it is, sitting alongside this strange, furry image by Alejandro Carol.

Banks’ piece seems to mirror the contradiction within this image – that it is both starkly obvious and full of mystery all at once. What exactly is this creature? Why are we so close to it? Is it real or fake? Is it wild or tame? Help us to understand what we are seeing, dear writers. _x005F
And, as we have pushed our own limits, we challenge you to push yours too. We challenge you to write something outside of your comfort zone or choose a style you haven’t tried before. Our lead writers this month have set the bar high with innovative writing and we are thrilled to feature them.

Zata Banks (https://twitter.com/zoltarmaga) ‘ writing has been published in numerous anthologies, magazines and featured on BBC Radio 4, while her creative work has been used for courses at institutions including The Royal College of Art, the Poetry School, and the National Film and Television School. In addition, she is the founder of PoetryFilm (http://poetryfilm.org/) , a practice-based project that aims to celebrate experimental text/image/sound-screening, and explores semiotics and meaning-making within the art form.

Kate Potts (http://www.katepotts.net/) ‘ debut pamphlet Whichever Music (tall-lighthouse, 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. She received an Arts Council award towards her first collection Pure Hustle (Bloodaxe, 2011). Kate currently teaches for Oxford University and Royal Holloway, and is completing a PhD on the poetic radio play.

Annabel Banks (http://www.annabelbanks.com/) ’ work is published in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies including The Manchester Review, Litro, 3:AM and International Times, is forthcoming in Under the Radar, and is included in Eyewear’s Best New British and Irish Poets 2016. Recently she received three nominations for the 2016 Pushcart Prize (two for fiction and one for poetry), plus nominations for the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Short Fictions 2016, Blazvox’s 2016 Bettering American Poetry and the 2016 Derringer Awards. She is also on Twitter, @annabelwrites.

Nick Murray is a live literature producer, writer, musician and founder of Annexe Press, based in London. As a writer, Nick’s work has appeared in publications such as Lives Beyond Us (Sidekick Books), The Bohemyth and Belleville Park Pages. He is on Twitter, @terratrouve.

This is perhaps the most challenging image to date, in our opinion, so let’s see what you make of it.

Awaiting your words at www.visualverse.org/submit.

Preti, Kristen and Eley

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