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[Digital Poetics 4.26] Live Air (For Peter Gizzi) by Azad Ashim Sharma
A poem written in tribute: ‘I write into your poetry like a seeker watching for the changing nodes of tradition, I’ll be / buried on that horizon, its open sky.’
[Digital Poetics 4.25] Rote Learning by Abeera Khan
A meditation on psychological inheritance and the expanse of memory
Reflections on Archiving Smoke workshop by Alycia Pirmohamed and attendees
Alycia Pirmohamed reflects on a workshop held concerning archives with contributions from attendees produced in the session
Reflecting on 6 years of the87press with Azad Ashim Sharma and Kashif Sharma-Patel
Director of the press Azad Ashim Sharma and Head Editor Kashif Sharma-Patel reflect upon six years of the87press. They touch upon the development of the press within the context of the British poetry scene, the perils of professionalisation, structural problems for independent presses, the embattled problem of representation and much more.
[Digital Poetics 4.24] Extra-Poetic: On Hasib Hourani’s “rock flight” by Tom Branfoot
Tom Branfoot reviews “rock flight” by Hasib Hourani (Prototype, 2024) reflecting on the tension between language and action in the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
[Digital Poetics 4.23] Four Poems by Clifton Gachagua
Four poems by Clifton Gachagua formed by collages of (mis)rememberings, full of nostalgia, jubilation, music and heartbreak: "I know I have not learnt anything since my reincarnation, / might as well have been sleepwalking, relying on old memories."
[Digital Poetics 4.22] On Beauty: Timothy Thornton’s “Shapeshifting” by John Wilkinson
"Thornton’s poems are set in a specific landscape, of the shingle coast around Dungeness in Kent, characterised by flatness, the interpenetration of water and land, and shingle’s shifting of the coastline’s definition." John Wilkinson reviews Shapeshifting by Timothy Thornton.
[Digital Poetics 4.21] Five Poems by Leo Li
Leo Li presents us with five poems on dichotomies and the possibilities in-between: “Behind us, / the spongiform city where I’d always thought / I belonged mouldered in silent balm.”
[Digital Poetics 4.20] Three Poems by Remi Graves
These three poems by Remi Graves explores homonyms, (mis)gendered bodies, alienation and disappearance: “a boi walks into a wood— / ouch!”
[Digital Poetics 4.19] Fountains and Futility by Rouzbeh Shadpey
Rouzbeh Shadpey’s lyric essay attempts to triangulate thirst, hope, and illness on the page proffering a fragmented meditation on futility and its metaphor: the fountain.
[Digital Poetics 4.18] Antidepressants by Aliaskar Abarkas
An intimate reflection on mental health, identity, and the complexities of antidepressant use, expressed through a blend of prose and poetry.
[Digital Poetics 4.16] Assemblages by Labeja Kodua Okullu
Assemblages is a provision of space; a space for work, a building of memory, inspirations and ideas where one can create art, where one can escape and where one can host a myriad of philosophies
[Digital Poetics 4.15] Three Poems by Yě Yě
Sometimes the pain, or sadness, is balder than you think. Three new poems from Yĕ Yĕ.
[Digital Poetics 4.13] Three Poems by Lola Olufemi
Three poems that argue for literature as a form of political commitment and reflect on the ambivalences of writing from outside the disastrous zone.
[Digital Poetics 4.12] Excerpts from “Palestinian Literature of Resistance Under Occupation, 1948-1968” by Ghassan Kanafani (trans. Hadeel Jamal)
Hadeel Jamal translates two excerpts from Ghassan Kanafani’s “Palestinian Literature of Resistance Under Occupation, 1948-1968” (1968) which provides analysis on the Palestinian artist’s role in resistance and its global dimension. The excerpts shed light on the deep emotional and cognitive solidarity between Palestinians and other oppressed peoples – which is as relevant now as ever.
[Digital Poetics 4.10] In the Shade of the Sun at The Mosaic Rooms by Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou
Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou finds hope, humour, resistance and strength are found in abundance in the Mosaic Rooms' latest exhibition to spotlight four Palestinian artists, In the Shade of the Sun.
[Digital Poetics 4.9] Four Poems by Stuart McPherson
Set firmly within contemporary Britain, these four pieces look at the linkage between power, media, and financial institutions, and explore their impact upon displaced people, the impoverished, and the working class. The poems discuss how narratives are controlled, how power is wielded with a view to maintaining the status quo, often at the negation of human life and the health of wider society itself.
[Digital Poetics 4.8] Chopped Tomatoes and Family Scenario by Will Harris
Two new poems from Will Harris: words overtaking thought, dripping down the back of my jeans, impeding movement.
[Digital Poetics 4.7] A Fragment on Kurt Cobain’s Transgender Ideas from ‘In Utero’ by Francis Whorrall-Campbell
A speculative exploration of the digital trans archive, told through the eyes of a future trans influencer and a fictionalised version of Kurt Cobain.
[Digital Poetics 4.6] Two Poems by Alycia Pirmohamed
Two new poems from Alycia Pirmohamed about how particular bodies take up space in particular landscapes.