HOW ARE YOU THIS MORNING and other poems
I came across Mercurius through other poets. I am happy to discover the very fine work in the magazine and its open-minded editorial approach. The ideas of transformation and vitality are keen, something we poets hope to achieve. These four recent poems reflect my take on the world at this moment in time.
The Land of Mild Light
The legendary Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas has been admired and acclaimed by Latin American audiences for over half a century while remaining virtually unknown to US and Europe. In The Land of Mild Light, Mercurius editor Nidia Hernandez has assembled Cadenas’ most important poems in vivid translations by some fine English-language poets associated with the US-based Arrowsmith Press.
The Linguistic Eye Scans of Robert Sheppard
This week we delve into the linguistically innovative strand of the surreal-absurd with a poem from Robert Sheppard. It is full immersion.
The Mountain Where Nothing Happens
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
The Mountain Where Nothing Happens (Alien Buddha Press) is a conceptual documentary poem sequence with elements of minimalism, surrealism, absurdism, linguistic topography and elemental psychogeography. Join Thomas Helm, step-by-step, as he embarks on a journey to unravel the riddles of consciousness, first in the wilds of the mountain, and then later in the hyperreal city.
NO TOP DOGS
Four Poems by Tim Suermondt
Some Thoughts on the Avant-garde
Why care about avant-garde? I found John Ashbery and unearthed more than a poem but a type of meditation and mental space in words.
Surreal-Absurd Sampler Chrissy Williams
This week we have some LA surrealism from the poet Chrissy Williams. “Even cheerfulness is absurd, if you ask me. But I always want to look for some kind of route to laughter, because think of the alternative. “
National Poetry Month Celebration from Red Hen Press
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
Happy National Poetry Month from Red Hen Press! Our next collaboration with Mercurius Magazine features poems from Kim Stafford, Khalisa Rae, Nikki Moustaki and Allison Joseph. Their collections were published by Red Hen this April.
Aliens: Poems on Films
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
SJ Fowler renders the alien films into a set of avantgarde poems. In this tantalising glimpse of work from his new new book Come and See the Songs of Strange Days (Broken Sleep Books), cinema overlaps with language, combining lyricism with abstract visual commentary.
Sorry Gets Hooved
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
“Sorry Gets Hooved” is from Hannah Regel’s latest poetry collection, Oliver Reed (Montez Press). The poem looks at the relationship between film, horses, and the depiction of women.
A Very Brief History of Oneness
Poetry of Life - Future World(s)
When we speak of Oneness, we usually mean the separation of the self is an illusion and that ultimate reality transcends such dualism. It is a concept that recurs throughout human history.
Eileen Myles: Naming it all, Naming everything
Eileen Myles is an American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Here she reads from her book: I Must Be Living Twice.
Mercurius in Conversation with SJ Fowler
Thomas Helm and SJ Fowler discuss the contemporary avantgarde literary scene in Europe, SJ Fowler’s own works, the limits of lyric poetry and Romantic ego-worship in an age of ecological collapse and spiralling inequalities, the split between the traditional and the avantgarde, where the current generation is headed, among other things…
March is When the Blackbirds Build their Nests
Even in the winter it is possible to hear blackbirds singing (their song intensifies from January onward). They enjoy singing when the Sun is close to the horizon. Also on days with little rain. Their singing, however, follows a different pattern in cities. The lighting and traffic makes them sing even earlier in the morning, and sometimes all night long. We give them neither darkness nor silence.
A Word on Poem Brut
Images - Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
Paul Hawkins, who co-runs Hesterglock Press, reflects on the meaning and origins of the Poem Brut, an artistic and literary movement that celebrates artistic creative writing - embracing text and colour, space and time, handwriting, composition, abstraction, illustration, sound, mess and motion - affirming the possibilities of the page, the voice and the pen in a computer age.
Red Hen Press: The Poetry Special
Poetry of Life - Project Jupiter
Monica Fernandez presents four Red Hen Press poets Joshua Rivkin, Marie Tozier, Jim Peterson, and Susan Ludvigson.
Ticks from Hareskov: A Selection of Grzegorz Wróblewski’s poetry
Written at different points in Grzegorz Wróblewski’s life, these poems connect with each other in unexpected ways.
The Man Who Smells of Lemons
“The Man Who Smells of Lemons” depicts a nonbinary figure who is never named, and who explores crumbling streets and buildings as an outsider; a ghost, almost; or a watcher who cannot connect. It comes from Jude Marr’s debut collection of poems We Know Each Other by Our Wounds (Animal Heart Press).
A Cry of Desire, A Cry of Goodbye
Autumn light makes the crayfish eggs hatch.
The last nymphs recently fell from the trees. Many have made their way into the darkness. The first ones that came out already know what the sap tastes like.
They sing silence underground.
About a Lover from Tunisia
My dear Mercurial friends, today I present the work of Arturo Desimone, whom I first met through his translations of the poetry of Blanca Varela.
The never-ending quest…
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