Sophie Mayer

After three years of planning, reaching out, and cajoling, six months of editing, designing and nail-biting, and one Palme d'Or surprise for our cover artist, the new issue of Chroma (which I guest edited) is AVAILABLE NOW! Chroma's website is being redesigned at the moment, but if you'd like to order a copy (or several copies ;) of our gorgeous magazine, you can email me.

It's not exactly Carson McCullers' "A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud," one of my favourite short stories of all time, but it's news:

• I'm a Broadsheet Poet in the new issue of Agenda (45:2, CH Sissons special issue): four new poems, including METAL / steel warrior after this sculpture by Maren Dubnick

Thanks to Wayne Burrows of Staple for the invitation to read at Lumen (and thanks to Ruth O'Callaghan for hosting us: some of her translations of Mongolian poets appear in BRAND 6 -- another excellent reason to border a copy), and for this review of the event:

A couple of diptych poetry reviews:

*Andra Simons' The Joshua Tales and Kate Foley's The Silver Rembrandt for Chroma 

*Andrea Brady's Wildfire and Simon Perril's Nitrate for Hand+Star

And some recent film releases as well:

*Women without Men for Sight & Sound

*Kakera: A Piece of Our Life for Chroma

Two poems in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of BRAND: "your tiny sappho" and "David's First Drafts 2: Bathsheba." I'll be reading at the launch in July... Details to follow!

Warm days, long evenings: it's time to leave the house/library/office and enjoy some poetry! I'm reading at the Lumen Poetry Series at the Lumen Church, 88 Tavistock Place, London, on Tuesday June 8th, 7pm, along with Staple editor Wayne Burrows and fellow Staplers (?) Jacqueline Gabbitas and Fawzia Muradali Kane. The series, run by Ruth O'Callaghan, raises money for the Camden Cold Weather Shelter, so you can store summer heat for those in need in winter and hear some awesome poets.

Bourgeois / foreskin

The penis is capacious: it’s a handbag, an armpit,

the space between two objects. Two lips.

It has space inside for a lipstick, wallet, tampons,

a gun. Cocked. Dirty tissues, a dried-up pen, condoms

used and caught in a wrinkle of leather and silk.

It snaps shut on a mirror, opens at the twist

of her fingers. Above all, it contains – archives,

embraces, protects. Envelops. There is no outside

to its outside, its round balls hold all the world,

and in its ducts the Milky Way. Finger each swirl

from the lidded eye: the o of how (as in power),

the o of come (as in money). No way out

Spring flowers are raising their heads through the cold earth and so am I. After a season's silence, here are some small flowerings:

*There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond gets its first review in the new issue of Bitch (46, Spring 2010). Please subscribe to this awesome feminist pop culture magazine!

*Poetry news! Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets, edited by Carrie Etter (Shearsman 2010) launched in London last week to a standing room-only crowd. There's further events throughout the spring (see the link above). I'm incredibly proud to be a part of this awesome anthology, alongside some of my favourite writers such as Andrea Brady, founder of Barque Press -- look out for my review of her new book Wildfire some time soon in Hand + Star.

Contact information at the bottom of the piece...

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95 Cent Skool: Summer Seminar in Social Poetics

2010 gets underway with two events: Days of Roses Tues Jan 26 at 3 Blind Mice, where I'll be reading with Jon Stone and Rowyda Amin), and a Q&A with Kim Longinotto on Sun 31 Jan, after a screening of Gaea Girls at the Renoir, also released this month on DVD by Second Run. I have an essay in the accompanying booklet -- and also an essay for the BFI's DVD of Sally Potter's legendary The Gold Diggers. Catch up with my Q&A with Sally and Tilda Swinton on BFI Live.