Heh, heh. Well, not really. But in the spirit of Spike Milligan, one could say that the last six months, during which I’ve been working at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as an editor, have well and truly opened my eyes to what’s goin’ ahn in this crazy, mixed up world.
Tag: editing (page 2 of 4)
As some of you no doubt know by now, I’ve formally stepped down as Managing Editor of Cordite Poetry Review to make way for a new editor, Kent MacCarter. In this post, I look back on my years as editor, and pick my top eleven choicest moments from what has been a thrilling, exhausting and ultimately life-affirming rollercoaster ride of love and passion. Or something.
*wipes away tears*
1. Cordite 29.1: Haikunaut
I first met Haikunaut co-editors David G. Lanoue and Keiji Minato at a conference of the World Haiku Association in Ten’ri, Japan in 2004. We really hit it off and it was also a delight to meet up again in Sofia, Bulgaria the following year. Fast-forward to 2009 and the need for a Haiku-themed issue of Cordite became clear. What started out as a mini-feature blossomed into a collection of over one hundred haiku in English, Japanese and Bulgarian. Haikunaut was our first issue to feature poetry in non-Western scripts, and it remains one of my favourite Cordite issues of all time, not least because it has embedded the word ‘haikunaut’ in the English language – also (hopefully) for all time.
2. Cordite 31.1: Post-Epic
From the shortest of forms to the longest – Cordite is nothing if not consistent. Or binary. Or both. After guest-editor Ali Alizadeh slayed all comers with his selections in the Epic issue, we decided to switch things up, with a selection of Post-Epic poems written, a line at a time, by our readers. It didn’t take long for the resident Cordite commentariat to latch on to the idea and, within a short space of time, over one thousand lines of poetry had been written. Just wow.
3. Cordite 21.1: Robo
Okay so this one’s a little obscure; in 2005, Nick Whittock came up with the idea of a Robo-poetry competition as part of his job at the St. Kilda library. He and I acted as judges, and we published the winners as Cordite 21.1: Robo. As Michael Caine would say, “Not many people know that.” In any case, I think it’s a very cute little collection of poems.
4. Cordite 16: Search
This one is also going back a bit in time; I think it must have been 2002 or 2003 when I was a member of the Poetry Espresso online poetry mailing list. List moderator Cassie Lewis invited me to be poetry editor for a month, and I invited list members to send me poems ‘composed’ using search engines. The result was Cordite 16: Search. While I’d like to think this issue came out long before Flarf was even thought of, the truth is rather more prosaic. Still, I think it’s a really cool issue, with some amazing pieces, including Carlie Lazar‘s stone-cold classic, ‘A Prank Call to John Howard’.
5. Cordite 23 & 34: Children of Malley I & II
We knew we were onto something when in December 2005, just after the release of Children of Malley, we received an email from Jen Jewel Brown, one of the contributors to the issue, in which she said: “May I say that, fun aside, these poems respresent an enormous mind-fuck of the first degree? That is to say, they really really get me off. Poetic excitement continues, courtesy of all Malleys and their intellectual whirlpools, and the brilliance of Cordite for dreaming this up and editing it.” It’s probably the most fitting testament I can think of to the editorial genius of Liam Ferney, who originally suggested the idea and then went on to select some awe-inspiring poems. Of course, the fun didn’t end there, with a protracted series of revelations as to the identities of the poets in the issue, who had chosen noms de Malley such as Flannery O’Malley, Sylvia Malley, Ouyang Malley and my personal favourite, Ern Malley’s Cat. Five years later, Liam reprised his role as Chief Malley Expert with Children of Malley II. This time around, the speculation as to the true identities of the Children of Malley was even more fierce. Stay tuned for Children of Malley III in 2015!
Image: the cover shot for Children of Malley (2005) by Flannery O’Malley (aka Adrian Wiggins)
6. Haikunaut Island Renga & Zombie Haikunaut Renga
Around the time of our Haikunaut issue, something very strange and wonderful happened. Co-editor Keiji Minato posted a series of essays on haiku and other short forms including renga, and then suggested a special Haikunaut Renga with himself as moderator. Just as would happen in the Post-Epic issue, we invited readers to leave their comments on the post and Keiji would hand-choose each of the thirty-six verses required to make the renga. We were completely overwhelmed by the response: over 1200 comments were posted, and the resulting Haikunaut Island Renga remains a staggering testament to crowd-sourced poetry. While the follow-up Zombie Haikunaut Renga, with Ashley Capes at the helm, only attracted some 600 comments, that’s still six hundred comments. Come on!
7. Cordite 22: Editorial Intervention
It may appear by this stage that my top Cordite moments have more to do with my own role as editor than with anyone else’s efforts. While that’s certainly not true—and I’d strongly recommend you check out the full list of Cordite issues to see for yourself the depth and range of talents involved in the journal—when it comes down to it, the job of an editor is a fairly thankless one, and you’ve frankly got to take every opportunity to blow your own trumpet. This was the philosophy behind Cordite 22: Editorial Intervention, which featured a selection of poems by Australian and international poetry journal editors. Because they’re awesome.
8. Cordite 33.1: CC the Remixes
Our thirty-third issue was the first to be issued under a Creative Commons license, which was kind of fitting, as its title was Creative Commons too. We made the poems in the issue available for download and then invited contributors and readers to remix the words in whatever style they liked. Our guest poetry editor for the issue, Alison Croggon, read through all of the remixes before making her selections, the result of which was Cordite 33.1: CC the Remixes. I really enjoyed this issue, although I can’t really explain why now.
9. Cordite 30.0 & 30.1: Custom | Made
I have no trouble explaining why I liked this issue: I was thrilled to bits when joanne burns agreed to edit the issue, and in fact I can reveal that the day this issue was released, Cordite achieved its highest ever number of hits. Cordite 30.0: Custom constituted a stellar assembly of poems and poets, and Cordite 30.1: Made was the icing on the cake, with each of the contributors to the issue re-mixing each other’s works. You can tell I’m into the remix concept, right?
Cordite 32: Zombie 2.0
Including this fabulously weird issue of poems was a real no-braaaaainer, heh heh. Reprising Terry Jaensch‘s original Zombie issue, published way back in 2003, guest poetry editor Ivy Alvarez managed to creep out pretty much everyone who came near Cordite 32: Zombie 2.0. Did I mention braiaaiiinzz?
11. Cordite 35: Oz-Ko
Another no-brainer. Some might say that Cordite 35: Oz-Ko should be at the top of this list but I’m not that into numbers and, besides, life is one big circle anyway. That being said, if there’s one issue of which I am the most proud, it is Ok-Ko. Originally conceived as a straightforward selection of twenty poems in English and Korean, Oz-Ko ballooned into three separate issues featuring over one hundred poems (eighty of which were in both English and Hangul), a series of features and interviews, beautiful images, poets’ tours of Korea and Australia and (hopefully) a long-lasting sense of inspiration and exchange. Ever since first travelling to Seoul as an Asialink resident in 2005, I had harboured a dream of producing such an issue. My second Asialink residency in 2009, during which I met and interviewed Ko Un, only fanned the flames. The fact that we managed to pull off such a feat is down to the hard work of the editors, translators, poets and arts administrators involved in the project. The same can be said for my time as Cordite’s editor. I seriously don’t think I will ever be involved in such an extraordinary adventure again.
*gives up trying to wipe away tears, looks back with pride and amazement instead*
Naturally, with over two thousand posts published on the Cordite site since I became editor in 2001, there is an awful lot of untold content that is not covered by this quite arbitrary Top Eleven. You can check out the Simply the Best: Cordite’s Top Thirty Posts for 2011. If that’s not enough, why, just click on a random post. What have you got to lose?
Words are bullets. Poetry is code.
I’m very pleased to say that Work: A Cordite–Prairie Schooner Fusion is now online, and available for your cerebral delectation. But what is Prairie Schooner? And what do I mean by ‘co-feature’? And what the heck is ‘cerebral delectation’ anyway?
Prairie Schooner is a Nebraska-based literary journal currently edited by Kwame Dawes. The Cordite-Prairie Schooner co-feature involves Kwame and myself each selecting 15 poems from the archives of our magazines on the theme of ‘work’. And if you don’t know what cerebral delectation is you probably shouldn’t be here.
But seriously, as Kwame explains in his introduction, the idea of this co-feature came up in the following way:
“I met David Prater at the Struga Nights Poetry Festival in Macedonia last year. We hit it off, enjoying the peculiar jokes about writers and the business of writing. But when he pointed me to the project he had been working on, the Cordite Web Magazine, I knew I wanted to have some pretext to collaborate with David and Cordite.”
When I read these lines for the first time I was immediately taken back to that pleasant week spent in Struga, on the shores of Lake Ohrid, during which I did indeed meet Kwame and we did indeed hit it off. I recall in particular the sense of excitement I felt when I realised that we were both cricket fans, and West Indies cricket in particular. I had just seen the epic documentary on the West Indian cricket team, Fire In Babylon, and our conversations on the subject were probably the most exciting thing that happened to anyone in Struga that week.
Of course, we were there for a poetry festival, which is a form of work, and as I recall for many participants the festival was very hard work indeed. Personally, I was happy to be there and to have scored what quickly turned out to be a sweet one week holiday, given that I was not called upon to read at all in Struga. Good for me, surely, but a situation that others – including Kwame, who I think had travelled from Nebraska just to be there – found a little frustrating.
Anyway, I won’t go into the ins and outs any further, as I’ve already managed to distract from what was the original focus of my last paragraph—work. If you’re feeling game, you might consider checking out my editorial for the co-feature, in which I get slightly sentimental for the days of my youth:
“I got my first paid job while I was still at school, working as a milk delivery boy in the suburb of Wollongong, an industrial city in Australia where I lived with my family in the 1980s …”
Then again, you’re probably more interested in the poems. Poets in the feature whose work previously appeared in Cordite include Tom Clark, Lorin Ford, Derek Motion, Brendan Ryan, Adrian Wiggins, Jennifer Compton, Ivy Alvarez, Barbara De Franceschi, Liam Ferney, Peter Coghill, M. F. McAuliffe, Benito Di Fonzo, Esther Johnson, Geoff Page, Emily Stewart and Margaret Owen Ruckert. Plus audio poems by Sean M. Whelan & the Interim Lovers, Maxine Beneba Clarke, komninos zervos and Benito Di Fonzo.
Poets from the Prairie Schooner corner include Hedi Kaddour (translated by Marilyn Hacker), R. F. McEwan, Ander Monson, Linda McCarriston, Toi Derricotte, Marvin Bell, Marcella Pixley, Ted Kooser, Moira Lineham, Sandy Solomon, Jenny Factor, John Engman, Gary Fincke, Dannye Romine Powell, John Canaday, James Cihlar, Nance Van Winckel, Floyd Skloot and Roy Scheele.
Special bonuses (bonii?) include illustrations by Michelle Ussher and Watie White; interviews with Derek Motion, Jennifer Compton and Nance Van Winckel; and, over the coming week, eight more interviews on the Cordite site.
I strongly encourage you to get clicking immediately.
Cerebral delectation awaits!
Just like a Californian burrito maker, I’ve been preventing myself from spilling the beans by keeping them strictly under wraps (rim-shot!) but now seems as good a moment as any to announce that I will be moving to Stockholm. In ten days.
For the past twelve months I’ve been living and working in Karlskrona, a lovely ex-Naval town in the southern province of Blekinge. It’s certainly been a big change from the three years I spent in the crowded cities of the Netherlands; in fact, the only place I can think of that I can really compare Karlskrona to is Wagga Wagga – although I suspect Wagga has a few more pubs than K-Town, and is probably a little warmer in the winter.
Work-wise, my stint as a post-doctoral researcher as part of the ELMCIP project has challenged my idea of what literature can and should be in a digital context. Despite having been an editor of an online journal for the last eleven years, it wasn’t until I arrived here that I really considered the myriad ways in which electronic literature can engage with readers (players, viewers, users, co-creators).
As a consequence, I consider the most recent issue of Cordite, which features electronic works for the first time, to have been something of a watershed in terms of my own understanding of e-lit. In this context, it was great to be able to interview my colleagues Talan Memmott and Maria Engberg, both of whom have a great deal of knowledge and experience of digital literature and practice.
This year has also been a great one in terms of meeting other researchers and practitioners in the field of electronic literature. I’ve attended conferences in Jyväskylä, Karlskrona, Ljubljana and Amsterdam (where I also gave a paper), and acted as a co-editor of the forthcoming ELMCIP anthology of European electronic literature. I’m also really looking forward to being in Edinburgh for the final ELMCIP conference in November this year.
On a more personal level, it’s been really fun to experience all four distinct seasons here in southern Sweden, from last winter’s extreme snow and blizzards (strangely absent so far this time around), to spring’s slow awakening, summer’s long and glorious days and autumn’s drop-dead multi-spangled beauty. Karlskrona being a town surrounded by water, it’s also been great to see some of the islands in the archipelago, go for walks along deserted rocky beaches and get lost in seemingly endless forests.
Image: Saltö Strand, Karlskrona
Of course, there’s never enough time in life to do everything on one’s personal ‘to-do’ list but I’m glad to say that I have experienced midsummer in all its ‘songs about frogs and drinking snapps’ glory; witnessed the batty antics of graduating high school students riding around town wearing sailor’s caps in the back of trucks; played some awesome games of kubbspel and mini-golf; tried and rejected the taste of sill, glögg and skagentoast; and been a part of the national celebrations when Melodifestivalen winner Eric Saade came third in Eurovision.
Now, as the nation prepares for another crop of Melodifestivalen losers, it’s time for me to move on once more. The good news, however, is that I’ll be moving to Stockholm, the epicentre of Sweden’s bizarre solar system and the home of the Melodifestivalen final. W00t!
In Stockholm I’ll be taking up a position as a research editor with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an organisation which, for those who don’t keep up with these things, has apparently just been ranked second in the 2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index Rankings, just behind the UK’s Chatham House and ahead of Amnesty International, the International Crisis Group and any other (non-US) think-tank you’d care to mention.
I’m excited to be starting a new life in Stockholm, and looking forward to sampling the delights of the city’s bars, restaurants and cafes, as well as the multitude of museums, clubs and cultural activities on offer. Nevertheless, while it’s easy to see that Karlskrona lacks most of these things, I will miss being able to look out the window of my house and see the sea; and I’ll miss the laid-back summer days and the picture-perfect islands of Saltö, Dragsö and Langö.
Then again, if I ever win the lotto, I’m pretty sure that the first thing I’ll do with my squillions of kronor is buy a pretty little stuga somewhere on the archipelago, stock it with all manner of food and drink, and then while away my golden years playing kubb, whittling pieces of wood into ornamental pipes and distilling my own mead. Until then, I will take away many happy memories of Karlskrona, and hope to return again.
Hej då.
The thirty-fifth issue of Cordite features new poetry from Australia and Korea. Timed to coincide with the Australia-Korea Year of Friendship, which celebrates fifty years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Cordite 35: OZ-KO aimed to stimulate creative collaborations between Australian and Korean poets and readers, and features one hundred new poetic works, plus a variety of features and other articles.
Read moreContributors:
KO Un, KIM Kyung Ju, KIM Ki-Taek, KIM Myung-in, KIM Sa-in, KIM Sun-Woo, KIM So Youn, KIM Un, KIM Hyesoon, RA Hee-duk, PARK Ra Youn, PARK Hyung Jun, SONG Kyung Dong, SIN Yongmok, SHIN Hae Wook, SHIM Bo Sun, LEE Seong-bok, LEE Si-young, JIN Eun-young and HWANG Tong gyu.