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Housing Haunted Housing (Extracts)

to kneel at the Wehrmacht haunt
and vacate all pretence
to uniformity simplicity eternity

to flagrantly defy the
flaktum alpine cottage volkshalle

but brazenly appropriate
the starkness quaintness weight

Enjoy 3 excerpts from Oscar Mardell‘s Housing Haunted Housing, a series of poems inspired by Brutalist architecture.

A Twenty-First Century War and Peace

war’s proximity to fiction
the way it all felt like a script
like déjà vu to those at Stalingrad

the sense that they were
not just soldiers in the fight
but players in some old Tolstoyan epic
a myth to justify a state
that couldn’t be sustained

in this we find
another mirror image

Oscar Mardell reviews Vasily Grossman‘s Stalingrad.

The Dregs (Excerpt)

“What does this girl look like?”
“Brown hair, radiant soul, eyes that penetrate the night.”
“She doesn’t sound familiar.”
“If you saw her, you’d know her. Everyone knows her. You definitely know her.”
“Listen, do you need me to call someone?”
“No.”
“You look like you could use a friendly face and a decent meal. I reckon I got neither. I rent this place from a customer who checks in regularly, so you can’t stay here, but I know some people who run squats in Guangzhou. I can give them a call…?”
“I came here for her. The co-ordinates, they led me right to your door.”
“Did someone send you?”
“Someone did, yes.”
“Who?”
“You can only see him when you dream. If you listen to the ‘sound’ you can hear him making love to Florence.”

Read an extract from Chris Kelso‘s The Dregs Trilogy.

The Dregs

Unger House Radicals begins with the relationship between an avant-garde film maker and his serial killer muse — one that will ultimately birth the Ultra-Realist movement. Deeply rooted in both narcissism and nihilism — as of course many cults are — its creators see Ultra-Realism as an updated (and distinctly non-faked) version of Grand Guignol theatre. Events get increasingly surreal when Kelso throws strands of multiple personality disorder and/or possession into the mix, and from this point forward conventional chronology is frequently abandoned. Without revealing too much, the cast of characters expands from here on in, as does Kelso’s exploration of various philosophies and the role that dreams and nightmares play in everybody’s lives, along with individual and societal complicity in an endless parade of atrocities.

Matt Neil Hill reviews Chris Kelso‘s The Dregs Trilogy.

A week in the life of Svitlana: what a Ukrainian woman can tell you about a Russian soul

But here is the spoiler: Kamalakaran’s book is not a reflection on the seven-year old Russia-Ukrainian conflict that has left many people dead, thousands homeless, and many more left to question their own identities because there is a bit of Ukrainian blood in every second Russian and vice versa. Instead, the novel attempts to highlight the inner struggles and obsessions of Russians, women in particular. As it turns out, those obsessions are not just—or rather not at all —Mr Putin and the corrupt, inefficient bureaucracy, but trivial things like relationships, money matters and dreams of a better future.

Ksenia Kondratieva reviews A Week in the Life of Svitlana by Ajay Kamalakaran.

Poem Brut #102 – Imprints

One day, I took out a piece of paper because I wanted to draw a line. To use the line (and see theline) as a kind of record. I gave myself up to curve – to curving freely (within the parameters ofa piece of paper). The beginning was/is always the same – from a point, I begin by making aspiral; I spiral out into circles, and then, the shape of infinity. When I am done, I take the timeand colour everything in. My hand goes from the act of making a line (a record of its movement)to repeating itself – stroke, after stroke, after stroke. I didn’t think much about weight, not until Isaw the first imprint. An unexpected output, the imprint is a record of the action of my hand; ofmy hand’s actions coming through, leaving marks on the piece of paper underneath the one I had been working on. A new connection – hand to marker to paper; to paper under paper. I have done this several times now – no longer unexpected, the intended output is the imprint. I like seeing the imprint as a record of weight; how each one records the weight of a movement.Each one is also a record of time. Over time, my markers are running dry.

In the 102nd of the Poem Brut series, new poetry by Dimitra Xidous.

Excerpts from a flight of objects that seemed real

There are so many ways to touch a body, but none so beautiful as the quiet liberty that is outside of promise and expectation, compelled only by that which compels. This exactly is withheld. It is in this way that my body returns to itself in shock, with the adrenaline of deprivation, to share in my own silence. So many years shaken off. I keep this bee-sting secret, tucked under a sleeve to provoke my uprising.

By Lital Khaikin.

The Unrequited Gaze of François Péron

Péron ceased to attend any of the lectures for his doctorate and was soon seeking to gain influence in the Society for the Observation of Man and petitioning to join the team of researchers aboard the Naturaliste under the command of Captain Baudin—a man of the sea whose greatest talent was his ability to accept seafaring commissions indiscriminately, be they for exploration, escorting cargo, or slave driving.

A short story by Jake Spears.

Poem Brut #101 – Mayakovsky Fan

So, I’d been looking fondly at the propellers on the lined up dry-docked yachts in Aarhus harbour before I found what I was after. Had long since heard of how Mallarmé would inscribe beautiful handwritten verses onto fine paper fans for his female admirers, and wondered what Mayakovsky would do. Probably not a dumped ceiling fan, but then we make do with what we have and the rest, as they say, is history.

I figured it’d be good to rest the fan on a pile of loose cobblestones, as if it were standing reserve for some retro-futurist insurrection, and the strewn roses a swish in the face of good taste. That each blade took on the shape of a tombstone was an unexpected bonus.

In the 101st of the Poem Brut series, new poetry by Matt Travers.

Not Far From the Junction (Excerpt)

On Tuesday May 21st 2019, I travelled from Redbridge in East London up the M11, then the A1(M) past Newark, across to the M1 just below Sheffield, before heading South and eventually abandoning hope of a lift at Donnington Park services, having been moved off junction 24 by the police. At the time of writing, this is also the last of my hitching expeditions. I can’t explain why, just that it’s an ending of sorts. In presenting this text I’ve changed the names of all contributors, and everyone they mentioned, and disguised place names. Although everyone gave me permission to use their words, these were decisions taken in a moment, while a stranger sat in their vehicle, and I don’t want to get anyone into trouble. Transcripts are edited, truncated and, to some extent, manipulated. The text below represents a partial selection of the people I met and the subjects we covered.

Read our extracts from Will Ashon‘s Not Far From the Junction.

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