This issue is dedicated to Shuhada’ Sadaqat, Sinéad O’Connor. Some people make art, others are artists. You will know an artist because their life and work can barely be separated. Sinead O’Connor was an artist and her output was not just her music, powerful as it was. Her output was also her motherhood, her spirituality, her Irishness, her activism, her womanhood, her relentless empathy, her resistance and – of course – her willingness to speak on mental illness. She has left us with a catalogue of incredible music and she has also left us changed. She once said: “If I hope for anything as an artist, it’s that I inspire certain people to be who they really are.” That is my hope, too. That we art-makers and artists come to see that the very act of moving through this world can be our most powerful work. The selection of this month’s image, by Marie-Michèle Bouchard (https://www.instagram.com/minusculemarie/) , was inspired by a quote by Louise Bourgeois, another artist who lived deeply in her work: “Look at it this way – a totem pole is just a decorated tree. My work is a confessional.”
We give you the totem, and a safe space to confess. Dig deep.
In response to this month’s image we kick off with work by Stephanie Ellis who is one of our most prolific contributors. Stephanie is a UK-based writer (Wrexham) of dark fiction whose work includes the novels, The Five Turns of the Wheel and Reborn, and novellas Bottled and Paused. Her poetry collections include the co-authored Elgin-nominated Foundlings with Cindy O’Quinn, the horror novella in verse, Lilith Rising, co-authored with Shane Douglas Keene and her solo homage to heavy metal, Metallurgy. Her latest folk horror novel, The Woodcutter, is out today (August 1st), more information can be found here: Upcoming Releases – Brigids Gate Press (https://brigidsgatepress.com/upcoming-releases) .
On page 2, a piece that made us chuckle by Lui Sit (https://www.lui-land.co.uk) . Liu writes short adult fiction, memoir, non-fiction and children’s middle grade. Her short stories are published online and in print journals and anthologies. Her debut middle grade children’s book is due to be released in 2024. Follow Liu on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Lui_Loowee_Sit) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lui.land/) .
And finally, a debut piece on Visual Verse by Ruby Nolan, a Melbourne-based creative. Ruby is passionate about building a sustainable, inclusive and joyous world. She is a published author and journalist, a DJ, and has written, directed and produced plays. She studied Journalism at RMIT University and is a communications officer.
There lies your inspiration for August, dear writers. You know what to do. Submissions close at midnight, UK time, on 15th August.
The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Kristen with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes White
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)
Image by Erica Marsland Huynh Dear writers, readers and friends,
This month’s issue is dedicated to community. Community and connection have many benefits for us humans and this is particularly true for artists and writers. Somehow, amid the noise, we find ways to build communities that enable us to share our work safely and grow with our fellow artists. Whether it be a writing group with friends, a Friday night book launch or a summer retreat in a remote castle, artist-led events build vital networks and help us all to keep momentum.
When Preti, Pete and I started Visual Verse almost ten years ago, we could not have imagined the community we have today. It is diverse in every way, it is global and it is boundlessly generous. This is how I came to choose our three leads for June. All three writers are involved in running and/or attending writing groups, facilitating poetry workshops and giving their time to other community-based activities. I have seen them support each other with shout-outs on Twitter, encouraging both exploration and celebration of each other’s work. It is heartwarming and it reflects the essence of Visual Verse.
Being the month of the Gemini, we must also acknowledge the other side of the artist’s community-building efforts. Artists also seek solitude. Sometimes it’s physical solitude (a writing retreat, for example) and sometimes mental solitude (wearing headphones in a cafe). However we find it, we manage to be in the world and with ourselves at the same time. Your prompt this month, a portrait of a rather sanguine feline captured by photographer Erica Marsland Huynh, seems the perfect visual for this artistic dichotomy. Cats have a way of needing company and needing only themselves simultaneously. Somehow it works.
Kicking off our written responses is the fabulous Cáit O’Neill McCullagh (https://twitter.com/kittyjmac) , an archaeologist, ethnologist, and educator in higher education and community settings. Cáit started writing poems at home in the Highlands just a few years ago and over fifty of these are published in print and online, including in Northwords Now, Poetry Scotland, The Storms, Howl: New Irish Writing, Ink Sweat & Tears and here at Visual Verse. In 2022, she was a co-winner of Dreich’s Classic Chapbook Competition for ‘The songs I sing are sisters’ co-authored with Sinead McClure. Her first full collection will be published by Drunk Muse Press in early 2024. She continues to outrun her diagnosis of cancer identified in February 2022. You can find out more about her via her Linktree (https://linktr.ee/caitjomac) .
Andrew Stickland (https://twitter.com/AndrewStickland) lives in Cambridge, UK, where he writes poetry and fiction and also helps to run the Angles Writing Group (https://twitter.com/AnglesWriters) (more on that below). His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, and he has three previously published poetry collections. His first novel, The Arcadian Incident, was published earlier this year and two follow-ups, Escape to Midas and War Between Worlds, are due out in September, and then early next year, all from Lightning Books.
And on page 3 we present Kate Coghlan (https://twitter.com/Kate_Cogs) , a freelance writer/editor with an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths. Her work has been published by Mslexia, Loft Books, the Dulwich Festival, Spillwords and the Personal Bests Journal. This is her third appearance in Visual Verse and she is also a member of the Angles Writing Group with Andrew Stickland.
The Angles Writing Group (https://twitter.com/AnglesWriters) , based in Cambridge, has a mission to get as many of their members as possible into print, as often as possible, and we are very grateful that they regularly encourage members to try our challenge. At last count we had a dozen or so Angles members published with us. A lovely example of the tentacles of writing communities reaching far and wide.
There you have it, dear writers. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
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)
Image by John Everett Millais/Birmingham Museums Trust
Dear writers, readers and friends,
In case you missed it, we dropped some pretty big news on Twitter (https://twitter.com/visual_verse/status/1650411123706068998?s=20) this week. In October 2023 we will publish our final issue of Visual Verse. This will conclude a full decade of publishing your glorious and eclectic words. We will grieve the beautiful space we have created with you, and the thrill of receiving your responses each month, but the time is right for us to move on to other things.
So, dear writers, there are six issues to go (including this one) and still plenty of time to challenge yourselves with our prompts. This month’s image – an oil painting by John Everett Millais, 1856, courtesy of Birmingham Museums Trust (https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/) – has strong fairytale vibes and I love it for all the tiny details. I challenge you to use all your senses to experience this image. Go beyond that immaculate double rainbow and seek out the subtler clues. What stories do they hold?
We are excited to present four fabulous leads this month to inspire you. On page 1, we feature Rani Selvarajah (https://twitter.com/Rani_writes) , a Berlin-based author from north-west London. Her debut novel, Savage Beasts (https://mybook.to/SavageBeasts) (HarperCollins) is out on 25 May 2023 and was longlisted for the Mo Siewcharran Prize. It is a reimagining of the Greek myth Medea, set during the rise of the East India Company in the 18th century. Pre-order (https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/savage-beasts-rani-selvarajah/7139588?ean=9780008556280) available from Bookshop.org.
Ekaterina Crawford (https://www.ekaterinacrawford.co.uk/) is a regular contributor to Visual Verse. She was born and grew up in Russia but relocated to the UK with her husband in 2006. She always loved writing but it’s only in the past few years that she’s pursued her passion and we are delighted to be home to some of her work. In recent years, Ekaterina has won poetry and short story competitions in Writers’ Forum Magazine, placed first in a Romance Category in Farnham Literary Festival Short Story Competition and had two poems and a short published by the Bournemouth Writing Prize Anthologies. Her war poem “Bucha” has reached the top 12% of Bridport Poetry Prize entries.
Sahana Ahmed (https://twitter.com/schahm) is a poet and novelist based in Gurugram, India. She is the author of Combat Skirts (Juggernaut, 2018) and the editor of Amity: peace poems (Hawakal, 2022). Her work has appeared, most recently, in The Hooghly Review, SheThePeople, and The Times of India, along with anthologies by Authorspress, Hybriddreich, and The Chakkar. You can find her online at sahanaahmed.com (https://www.sahanaahmed.com) .
And on page 4 we feature another Visual Verse regular, Jacinta Barton (https://twitter.com/jacbar_j) . Jacinta writes poetry, prose and short stories. She has been published online and in print, and she has an impressive archive of pieces with us here (https://visualverse.org/writers/jacinta-barton/) . She lives with her two sons in Co.Wexford, Ireland.
There you have it, dear writers. Show us your words.
The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Kristen
with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes
PS: We live for originality so please avoid the word “Rainbow” in your title.
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)
Image by Sarah-Jane Crowson
Dear writers, readers and friends,
Ramadan Mubarak to all those our writers observing this month. May you find calm, set new creative goals and emerge with a fresh creative energy.
For April, we are very excited to present a special month-long collaboration with artist, writer and visual poet, Sarah-Jane Crowson (https://sarah-janecrowson.com/about-sarah-jane-crowson/) . Sarah-Jane was shortlisted for our writing prize in 2021 and we have been keenly watching her work evolve ever since. She creates exquisite collages that combine layers of images with found words.
Not only is Sarah-Jane responsible for your wonderful visual prompt this month, but she is also taking over our Instagram account and will be posting a prompt-a-day throughout April. Each and every day you will be greeted by one of Sarah’s beautiful works via Instagram. Use these prompts to ignite your morning pages, generate new work or to simply spark ideas. You are welcome to share your work in the comments on Instagram or just enjoy the prompts for yourself.
To inspire your words, we are thrilled to feature Lorelei Bacht on page 1. Lorelei is a much-loved contributor to Visual Verse and her recent work has appeared and/or is forthcoming in Mercurius, Anti-Heroin Chic, Menacing Hedge, Beir Bua, Sinking City, Barrelhouse, SWWIM, The Inflectionist Review, After the Pause, and elsewhere. Find her on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lorelei.bacht.writer/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bachtlorelei) .
On page 2 we welcome Erica Viola, a newcomer to Visual Verse. Erica is a London-based writer of fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry and is originally from Omaha. She was shortlisted for Creative Futures award in 2020. You can find more of her work at linktr.ee/ericaviola.
So we invite you to write, as usual, a 50-500 word response to this image and we also invite you to head over the Instagram and enjoy a new prompt each day from Sarah-Jane. Be sure to submit your work to visualverse.org/submit by 15th April.
The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
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)
Image by Adriaen van Utrecht/Rijksmuseum Dear writers, readers and friends,
As you well know, our modus operandi at Visual Verse is to run a continual cycle of commissioning and publishing in order to reflect what’s happening in the world. Over the past decade your writing, imbued in our unique journal, has reflected many of the key moments in modern history: Trump’s rise, climate action, natural disasters, wars, global anti-racism activism, #metoo and now… the rise of AI.
So of course, we had to feature the most prolific up-and-coming writer of the moment – none other than ChatGPT (https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt) . The headlines would have us believe that this viral AI bot has writing skills so sophisticated we’ll all be obsolete tomorrow. We needed to see for ourselves.
I experimented with the bot over several days, using multiple images and dozens of commands. The results ranged from irrelevant (“Are you writing to the image I gave you? That description doesn’t sounds like it.”) to Hallmark greeting card (So let us not strive for perfection alone, But embrace the flaws that make us our own) and it seems to be very keen on rhyme (“write a poem between 50-500 words in response to X image” “Write it again but as a non-rhyming poem” “you’re still using rhyme, please rewrite again but with NO RHYMING” “why are you still rhyming, do you know what rhyming is?” and so on…). Finally, at 11pm on March 1st (Melbourne time) I got a poem that didn’t rhyme. As you can see from page 1, the final command “Please rewrite in the style of Samuel Beckett” produced a sub-par poem in the name of a legend for which I’m sure he is turning in his grave.
There are four things I’ve learned from working with ChatGPT:
There is craft in the command. For better or worse, getting a poem out of AI is a collaborative process and it forced me to think differently. It is not easy to yield a good poem, and it is clear we are still the ultimate authors of this technology, at least for poetry.
AI can write a poem but it can’t replace the poet. It can’t turn up to a meeting with a publisher and secure a book deal. It can’t sit in a low-lit pub reading poems to a captive audience. It can’t bring the humanity suffused in art. It can’t exist off-line. We can.
There is more to us than we know. We know relatively little about the human brain, so perhaps the proliferation of AI will force us creatives to go deeper into our own intelligence. Our unconscious minds are full of wonder and surprise – as our ekphrastic challenge shows each month – and I feel somewhat hopeful that writers, artists and the entrepreneurial minds will find their way to discovering more of their potential, not less.
If ever there is a time to put your work into the world it is now. AI feeds off the words, ideas and content that we – the humans – have put out there. Our talents and knowledge as artists and writers needs to be present and vocal during this transition. Our voices as a diverse and inclusive community need to be louder than ever. ChatGPT is riddled with stereotypes (as a crude example, try asking it to produce a poem that appeals to men, then a poem that appeals to women, and you’ll see what I mean) and we need to be speaking up and publishing more to ensure our DNA goes into the new life forming around AI.
As a publication, we have not yet formed an opinion about AI. We are watching, reading and talking as the topic unfolds. Personally, I am cautiously curious and this lead piece is presented not as an endorsement but as a call to action. Let’s us write more, better and louder.
It’s over to you, dear humans. We offer you a rich and wondrous still life dating back to 1631 by Adriaen van Utrecht (courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and look forward to receiving your responses. It’s OK if they rhyme, by the way, just not every line please. That’s a command.
The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Kristen with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes White
Image by Olga Naida Dear writers, readers and friends,
For us artists, the month of February is often about seeking and exploring new pathways toward creativity, so we are inviting you to push yourself beyond your comfort zone with our latest prompt. Those on Twitter will have seen our posts inviting writers to transcend the first interpretation of our images and seek out deeper connections. The late Pau Casals i Defilló (Pablo Casals), a leading cellist from the early 20th century, said “the art of interpretation is not to play what is written”. This is easily transposed to ekphrastic writing. The art of ekphrasis is not to write what can be seen.
So when you are responding to our prompt we encourage you to stick strictly to the timeframe and think laterally. Or better yet, don’t think at all! Our challenge, especially the strict time frame, is about helping you reach a state of automatism to allow unexpected ideas to emerge. Many of you will already do automatic writing or morning pages and these, too, are designed to get your mind producing thoughts without thinking. If you need inspiration, Khan Academy have a great article on automatism (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/dada-and-surrealism/xdc974a79:surrealism/a/surrealist-techniques-automatism) and lots of companion resources on surrealism.
Our fantastic lead pieces are also a source of inspiration. Working in response to an image by Olga Naida (pure quirkiness) two talented writers have produced perfectly formed pieces that demonstrate the power in evoking an image rather than describing it.
On page one, we feature Nasia Sarwar-Skuse (https://twitter.com/NSarwarSkuse) , a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing at Swansea University. Nasia is co-editing Gathering (https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/404-ink-lands-collection-of-nature-writing-by-women-of-colour) , an essay anthology on nature, climate and landscape by women of colour (forthcoming 2024 with 404 Ink (https://twitter.com/404Ink) ).
And on page two we highlight the work of writer, editor and translator Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig (https://twitter.com/whatisaletter) , a regular contributor to Visual Verse. Marie Isabel’s debut poetry pamphlet Kinscapes (https://hybriddreich.co.uk/kinscapes-marie-isabel-matthews-schlinzig/) is out now with Dreich. Miraculously, she wrote her lead piece for us just days before her new child came into this world (congratulations!) and somehow it feels like these deeply moving words needed to be written, as if to sweep the path for the new babe.
We are in awe of our amazing writers this month and are energised by their beautiful pieces. And now, without further ado, we pass the baton…
The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Kristen with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes White
Image by an Unknown Artist, circa 1560 Dear writers, readers and friends,
Thank you for your patience while we take some time to update the website. We have started 2023 with a big spring clean, making our digital home ready for more of your wonderful words. It feels good. And it reminds me that a good clean should not be underestimated in the pursuit of creative flow. The outcome is not important (ie. a spotless house or tidy workspace); what is important is the activity itself. The repetitive, meditative action of cleaning releases the creative brain to do it’s thing, a bit like going for a long walk. And, like walking, cleaning is an act of self-care, preparing us to work with a valued mindset. I’m not making this up, people have researched it, so go and clean your bathroom while you ponder our quirky January prompt.
This latest image is taken from a manuscript dating back to around 1560-1570 and comes to us courtesy of Getty’s Open Content Program. I am a huge fan of antiquarian book illustrations and what I love about this one is that it is not complete. Without the page before, or indeed the whole book, we cannot know the full story and that, of course, is where you come in…
To lead the way, we are excited to debut Tan Kelly on page 1, an Australian “writer-in-progress” who left the corporate sector in 2022 to focus on her own writing. Tan is currently traveling the east coast of Australia and has adopted a Luddite Club (https://dnyuz.com/2022/12/15/luddite-teens-dont-want-your-likes/) lifestyle (ie. no socials!) while she works on her first short story collection.
On page 2 we feature Irish poet, academic, and journalist, Oisín Breen (https://twitter.com/Breen) , a Best of the Net Nominee whose work has been published extensively in over 20 countries, including in About Place, Door is a Jar, Northern Gravy, North Dakota Quarterly, Books Ireland, The Tahoma Literary Review, La Piccioletta Barca, Decomp, New Critique, and Reservoir Road. Oisín’s second collection, Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín (https://beirbuapress.com/2023/01/01/lilies-on-the-deathbed-of-etain-and-other-poems-by-oisin-breen/) has just been released by Beir Bua Press (https://beirbuapress.com/) .
On page 3, we have a playful homage to Shakespeare by Visual Verse regular, Zach Urquhart (https://twitter.com/zurquhart) . Zach is a K-12 educator who recently earned his PhD from Texas Tech University. He has been writing poetry as a personal release for decades, and as of late has been using it in research efforts. After writing an arts-based dissertation full of poetic self-inquiry, he dubbed himself a “poethnographer”, coining a new term that many a VV writer can probably relate to.
And on page 4, we have Joan Leotta, a writer who plays with words on page and stage. She performs stories of food, family, and strong women. Her work is widely published and her latest poetry chapbook, Feathers on Stone, is available at Main Street Rag (https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/) in the US.
So there we have it, kicking off 2023 with an eclectic mix of words and styles. May it continue and may you find your flow throughout the year to come.
The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Kristen with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes
Image by Kabiur Rahman Riyad
Dear writers, readers and friends,
Presenting our final issue for 2022 which also kicks off the tenth volume of Visual Verse. Phew! By my calculations, a printed box set containing every issue of Visual Verse would span nearly 2 metres on a bookshelf. That’s a lot of words, capturing a decade’s worth of life-altering history that we have shared together. Thank you to each and every one of you for helping Visual Verse to shape and reshape, month after month, and year after year.
This month we chose to give the lead spots over to four of our regular writers who have submitted consistently good work to us over the years. During commissioning, some of the writers shared a little ‘behind the scenes’ of their process and I was reminded of the special kind of magic that is ekphrasis. The surrealists instinctively understood that, by focusing the mind on a visual stimulus (e.g. an image prompt), an artist can enter a receptive state whereby they need not work to find words but simply allow the words to come. Some call this flow, the holy grail for us artists. The ekphrastic process, and finding flow, is not always easy. As Colin Dardis, one of our lead writers, remarked:
“Sometimes you see an image, and your immediate thought is: my goodness, how am I going to find my way into this?! But as usual, you sit with it, and explore, magnify, bend the head and look at parts in isolation, then the whole, and soon something develops.”
This month’s image, by Kabiur Rahman Riyad (https://www.instagram.com/fakeriyad/) , an amateur photographer from Bangladesh, is deliberately abstract and layered. It requires a second look, maybe a third, and perhaps this deep concentration on the visual will distract you long enough to write something you never expected.
To delight and inspire you we have A J Wilson (https://poetisatinta.wordpress.com ) (Angela) on page 1. Angela was born and lives in rural North Wales, UK. She returned to poetry during lockdown after a gap of 30 years. As well as Visual Verse, she has been published in a number of magazines, such as Ink Drinkers Poetry, Write On Magazine and Spillwords, and recently her writing has been featured in two anthologies. She is currently compiling her work for a poetry collection.
On page 2, a response in three parts by Shujaat Mirza (https://twitter.com/shujaat_mirza) , a poet, writer, curator and artist based out of Mumbai and Ahmedabad, India. Shujaat has a passion for multidisciplinary explorations and his primary interest is art at the intersection of visual aesthetics and verbal semantics, a natural fit for Visual Verse. His work has been published online as well as in literary and art magazines and blogs. Find him on Medium (https://medium.com/@shujaatmirza) or follow @shujaat_mirza on Twitter (https://twitter.com/shujaat_mirza) or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/shujaat_mirza/) .
Page 3 features one of our most prolific and consistent writers, Colin Dardis (http://www.colindardispoet.co.uk) . Colin is a neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist from Northern Ireland. His work, largely influenced by his experiences with depression and Asperger’s, has been published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA. His latest book is Apocrypha: Collected Early Poems (Cyberwit, 2022). His latest album is Funerealism (Inner Demons Records, 2022). You can find his music on your fave streaming service (https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/dardis/dead-leaves-new-seeds) or follow him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/purelypoetry) .
And on page 4 we present the words of Pearl Lorentzen (https://www.pearllorentzen.com) , a journalist and poet who occasionally writes fiction. Pearl is the 2021 recipient of the Canadian Mental Health Association Communications Award (for Alberta). We are proud to have published her work many times in Visual Verse and she has also been published in the Glass Buffalo and The Liar. Her fiction has been published in AE scifi.
Now over to you, dear writers. Let us work together to unfurl another chapter of this beautiful publication. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Sending much love – may you find your flow and ride with it into a new year.
Kristen
with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes
Find us on socials:
Our Writers
Colin Dardis (https://twitter.com/purelypoetry)
Shujaat Mirza (https://twitter.com/shujaat_mirza)
Our Team
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)
Zaynab Bobi (https://twitter.com/ZainabBobi)
Wes White (https://twitter.com/archaeologyBoy)
Image by Kitty Harrison
Today we celebrate nine years of innovative, diverse, brave and wonderful writing.
Happy birthday to all writers, readers and friends of Visual Verse.
Visual Verse is nine years old today! Kristen and I, with designer Pete Lewis, launched the site on 1st November 2013 and since then (through country moves, career changes, successes, knock-backs, crises, euphoria, births, deaths, and trips to London, Newcastle, and Berlin) we have rolled with a team of guest editors and star volunteers to bring you our monthly anthology of art and words. We have not missed a single issue in nine years and have published over 10,000 pieces – an incredible achievement. Visual Verse is not for profit, run by volunteers and our contributors do it for love of the process; to inspire you, delight you and to keep the love going of wild adventures in writing. Over nine years, the worldwide Visual Verse community has grown from around 50 submissions a month to 200, with a newsletter subscription list that runs into thousands from every continent in the world.
Thank you, readers, writers, volunteers and all our supporters: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Not many of you might know this, but co-founder Kristen “Kitty” Harrison (https://twitter.com/CurvedHouse/) is herself an artist, as well as being a writer, publisher and producer at The Curved House (https://thecurvedhouse.com) , an independent publisher working at the intersection of books, art and education. I am thrilled to debut her work on Visual Verse this month, with a piece called ‘Letter Home’. Kristen recently relocated back from Berlin to be nearer to her family in Australia and that’s what has inspired this month’s birthday image. It’s the first time she’s sharing her art with us, and we love to see it.
I stepped back from regularly curating the site about a year ago, as it’s been a big year for me. Over the last two years I’ve been busy writing my second book, Aftermath and it was published in early 2022; just last month I was astonished to find it had won the UK’s Gordon Burn Prize (https://newwritingnorth.com/gordon-burn-prize/ ) . I am thrilled to return to curate our birthday issue and very proud to welcome back the profoundly important words of Sandeep Parmar (https://twitter.com/SandeepKParmar/) to lead. Sandeep first wrote for Visual Verse as lead in Vol.1 Issue 2 (December 2013): that early poem now appears in her latest collection F (https://www.shearsman.com/store/Sandeep-Parmar-Faust-p470007726) aust (https://www.shearsman.com/store/Sandeep-Parmar-Faust-p470007726) , published by Shearsman this month.
Sandeep is Professor of English Literature at Liverpool University. Her research is primarily in modernist women’s writing and contemporary poetry and race. Her groundbreaking article ‘Still Not a British Subject: Race and UK Poetry (https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/not-a-british-subject-race-and-poetry-in-the-uk/) ’ was published in The Los Angeles Review of Books, and other essays and reviews have appeared in the Guardian, The New Statesman, the Financial Times and the Times Literary Supplement. In 2017, she co-founded the Ledbury Poetry Critics (https://twitter.com/LedburyCritics/) scheme for poetry reviewers of colour. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Sandeep’s books include Reading Mina Loy’s Autobiographies: Myth of the Modern Woman, scholarly editions for Carcanet Press of the Collected Poems of Hope Mirrlees and The Collected Poems of Nancy Cunard, and Threads with Bhanu Kapil and Nisha Ramayya, as well as three books
of her own poetry: The Marble Orchard, Eidolon, winner of the Ledbury Forte Prize for Best Second Collection, and Faust (Shearsman, 2022).
We are also really excited this month to collaborate with the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize (https://www.wasafiri.org/new-writing-prize/) , which I co-judged this year. The Prize, run by Wasafiri (https://www.wasafiri.org/) magazine, supports writers who have not yet published a book-length work, with no limits on age, gender, nationality, or background, and rewards work in three categories: Poetry, Fiction and Life Writing. The three winners join us this month…
Hasti Crowther (https://twitter.com/youarehasti/) is a poet and writer living in South East London. A member of the Southbank New Poets Collective and the Ledbury Poetry Critics, they are the recipient of the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Poetry, and have recently published poems in bathmagg, zindabad, and The Willowherb Review. They have also co-written short sci-fi film Digging (https://www.channel4.com/programmes/film4-foresight-shorts/on-demand/70987-001) , produced by Film4. Hasti has created shows for Montez Press Radio and also hosts monthly open mic and poetry night Fresh Lip.
Sylee Gore (https://twitter.com/BerlinReified) is an Indian American writer based between Berlin and Oxford. She received the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize in Fiction (UK), the 2022 Bird in Your Hands Prize (US), and a 2021 VG Wort Neustart Kultur fellowship (DE). In 2022/23, she co-heads a literary partnership between Kelly Writers House, Philadelphia, and Rothermere American Institute, Oxford.
Nadine Monem (she/her) works in hybrid forms of non-fiction, memoir and theory. Her work has been supported by the Tin House Summer Workshop and the Catapult Books memoir workshop for writers of colour. She is the winner of the 2022 Wasafiri New Writing Prize for life writing, and runner-up for the 2022 Sewanee Review (https://thesewaneereview.com/) Nonfiction Contest. Nadine teaches writing and critical theory at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
Hasti, Sylee and Nadine’s prize-winning pieces will be published in Wasafiri 113, published Spring 2023, and accompanied by an illustration by Aude Nasr (https://cargocollective.com/audenasr) .
As we head into our 10th year of publishing we hope you enjoy this month, and look back over our archive (https://visualverse.org/images/) to read the work of the last decade’s most exciting new and established voices practicing across continents and themes.
The image is the starting point, the text is up to you…
Preti Taneja
with Kristen, Lucie and Isabel
Special thanks and welcome to Zaynab Bobi (Nigeria), Ashish Kumar Singh (India) and Wes White (UK) who join the Visual Verse team this month as volunteer editorial assistants.
Follow us on Twitter
Visual Verse Preti Taneja Kristen Harri (https://twitter.com/pretitaneja/) son/The Curved House (https://twitter.com/curvedhouse/)
Sandeep Parmar (https://twitter.com/SandeepKParmar/)
Hasti Crowther (https://twitter.com/youarehasti/)
Sylee Gore (https://twitter.com/BerlinReified)
Nadine Monem (https://twitter.com/nadinemonem/)
Another issue of Visual Verse is upon us. It has been a cruel and trying month for many around the globe. Our hearts go out especially to the people of Afghanistan who have endured unimaginable anguish. I often think about how those in such circumstances process their trauma and a recent conversation with a group of artist friends reminded me that a person’s own creativity – however it manifests – can be such a powerful part of that process. The act of writing, drawing or making brings us back to ourselves and in that moment we are safe. It is my hope that Visual Verse provides this space for everyone, everywhere.
Now, I have a feeling that some of you will be cursing me for this image selection. As beautiful as it is, it makes for a challenging writing prompt. That’s why I love it. And that’s why I chose it. This prompt, by artist Victoria (Vika) Wendish (https://www.instagram.com/vikawendish/) is designed to cause friction and make you work. How you all respond to this image cannot be predicted and thus we are on tenterhooks as we await your words.
Our featured writers this month have exceeded our expectations in terms of showing us the possibilities with this image. First up, we learn the art of balancing with Farhana Shaikh (https://twitter.com/farhanashaikh) , a writer and publisher born in Leicester. Farhana is the editor of The Asian Writer (https://theasianwriter.co.uk/) and she manages small independent press, Dahlia Books (http://www.dahliapublishing.co.uk/) , who we hope to collaborate with in the future. Be sure to follow her on Twitter (https://twitter.com/farhanashaikh) where she talks about all things books and publishing.
On page two, we’re excited to highlight the work of Michelle Davey (https://twitter.com/cockneybloggirl) , a poet, radio presenter and primary school teacher from East London. Michelle is a mother of three children and an advocate for autism awareness. She co-hosts the podcast Let’s Talk Autism (https://www.letstalkautism.co.uk/) as well as blogging about life as The Cockney in the Countryside (https://cockneyinthecountryside.com/) . Michelle has graced us with many wonderful pieces over the years and we love her original take on this month’s image.
And on page three we present a beautiful, fading poem by Wes Viola (https://linktr.ee/wesviola) , another regular contributor to Visual Verse whose writing has impressed us. Wes Viola is the pen name of Wes White, who was the Bard of Glastonbury (http://ynyswitrin.org.uk/) in 2015/16. His recent projects include the Way to Zed (https://www.camberwellarts.org.uk/caf20-fringe/the-way-to-zed-by-wes-white) , a poem cycle and tarot deck inspired by the letters of the alphabet, and Wedding Ritual (http://theweddingritual.blogspot.com/) , a series of artist profiles in which reflection on creative growth, tributes to other creatives and downright filth are all encouraged. If you are a writer or artist featured in Visual Verse and would like to be profiled on Wedding Ritual, you can contact Wes at theweddingritual@gmail.com (mailto:theweddingritual@gmail.com) to express your interest.
So, it’s over to you. As always, we are looking for fresh, innovative, experimental writing between 50-500 words, in response to this image. Challenge yourself. Push your boundaries. Go beyond the literal. Write within an hour to conjure thoughts and ideas you didn’t know were in you. Submission close midnight (UK time) on 15th September.
The image is the starting point, the rest is up to you.
Kristen
with Lucie, Isabel and the VV Team
