OPENNEDZINE OPENNED.COM 4 ISSUE © Openned January 2011 [email protected] web addresses, e-mail addresses and bold text are clickable hyper- links photo Joe Luna Image © Emily Critchley OPENNED NEWS THE WORKSHOP GREENWICH FESTIVAL H.E. PROTESTS Steven Fowler will be conducting PROJECT A record of information and a series of interviews with past Videos from summer 2010’s thoughts about the student pro- and present participants of Lon- Greenwich Festival, organised by tests that took place at the end of don’s Writers Forum workshop Emily Critchley and Carol 2010 around the UK is available over the next few months. The Watts, will be available to view to view on Openned here. resulting recordings will be very soon on Openned (it has hosted on Openned. Check out taken longer than anticipated to his article in this issue of the process the thousands of feet of Zine for more inform. film we took). Thank you to Emily and Carol for putting on this fantastic event. EDITORIAL Openned is based in welcome to the first issue London, UK, and is By Alex Davies & Steve Willey run by Stephen Willey and Alex Davies. The Openned Zine is setting out with one intention: to provide poets, Openned seeks to publishers and organisers with a space to publicly present explana- create flexible spaces for poetry and poetic tions, thoughts, ideas!and opinions that may not necessarily be repre- practitioners by invit- ing less established OPENNED.COM sentative of a final response. and more established writers to read to- The fourth issue of the Openned Zine is dedicated to gether, curating publi- cations, documenting exploring outside of the bubble. Openned is predomi- readings, publishing nantly London-based, and as with any capital city it is work, and promoting other writers. often easy and comforting to stay within its confines, the EDITORIAL M25 as the end of civilisation. So it’s good to venture out- The Openned Maga- zine is an online side the walls for exposure to other concentrated pockets publication (with a of activity. print-it-yourself black- and-white counterpart In this issue we have descriptions and explorations of available for down- Edinburgh and New York poetry, The Text Festival in load) intended to document activities Bury, two Manchester-based ventures in zimZalla and among experimental Department, and halfcircle out in Oxford. As for The and innovative poetry communities, with a Dusie Kollektiv - where that starts and ends is impossible specific focus on the to determine. UK. All material in the magazine is written by As well as this we have some provoking responses to the poets, publishers four chosen lines of poetry from Edmund Hardy, and the and organisers active within the community. second part of Lara Buckerton’s essay on The eBook The articles presented in the Zine are not Nova, where the footnote rules all. edited in any way. Inevitably, being our particular bubble, London is here too, represented by POLYply, Maintenant and a new photo Jonny Liron project from Openned in conjunction with Steven Fowler. And we have extracts from the inimitable digital scrib- Image © Tommy Peeps blings of @sinclairinruins, a man who knows London like the palm of the back of his hand.* Plus, we include the usual regulars and some beautiful photography. All of this and no time or room to include the fantastic activities still going on in Brighton, Cambridge and myriad other places. Perhaps next issue. Steve & Alex Openned Editors If there is anything in the fourth issue that you would like to respond to, or if you would like to contribute a new piece to the fifth issue of the magazine, please e-mail [email protected] and we will respond as soon as possible. *The author of @sinclairinruins has chosen to remain anonymous but we would like to extend our thanks to him/her. 2 You can be taken back to the Contents page from any other page by clicking this symbol ▲ CONTENTS THE DUSIE KOLLEKTIV TEXT FESTIVAL 2011 OPENNED.COM POLYPLY SPYING ON THE POETRY SCENE IN EDINBURGH CONTENTS HALFCIRCLE A POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK ZIMZALLA MAINTENANT NOT TOO LATE DEPARTMENT THE EBOOK NOVA PT. 2 THE WORKSHOP PHOTOS POLYPLY 3: EMILY DICKINSON CRATER AUTUMN PRESS EVENT THE SITUATION ROOM REGULARS BIRD PUKE BOOKFACE LOGBAY @SINCLAIRINRUINS 3 ▲ THE DUSIE KOLLEKTIV a review By Mackenzie Carignan and Marthe Reed DUSIE.ORG The Dusie Kollektiv, founded in 2005 by Susana “The 48 chapbooks of the Dusie 3 Kol- Gardner of Zurich, Switzerland, an extension of lektiv and the 34 chapbooks of Dusie 4 her online poetry journal Dusie and the imprint are maps of imagining and making Dusie Books, focuses on the work of innovative community, a value emphasised in writers both established and emerging. The Dusie KOLLEKTIV Gardner’s naming of the Kollektiv. Kollektiv Projekt marries several attentions of its Built from the German pronouns Du founder: the hand-made book, the development of a poetry community, and the gift-economy. For an and Sie (You + They/he/she/it), Dusie DUSIE expat living in Zurich, the Kollektiv became a becomes a collective We/Us. Articu- model of creating a poetry community out of the lating an ethos of the hand-made and internet, bottomless passion for the idea, and a the gift-economy, this project affords deep commitment to the necessity of correspon- the material transmutation of absence dence, collaboration, and cooperation in the mak- into presence, word into book, isola- ing of poetry. tion into community, as in the latin Each member of the collective produces two root: with/together + gift.” versions of a chapbook: a limited edition of hand- crafted chapbooks sent out to every other member books which are folios, photo albums, or collec- of the collective, with free digital pdf chapbooks tions bound with nuts and bolts or rivets, the Du- available via the Dusie website: dusie.org. Addi- sie chapbooks are visual and verbal delights. tional copies of the handmade chaps are also sent For the two most recent incarnations of the out to reviewers and journals, as well as being ar- Kollektiv, Dusies 3 and 4, Gardner added new chived in the Special Collections department of constraints to the project and its dimensions. For the SUNY Buffalo Library and the University of Dusie 3, in an effort to heighten the collaborative Arizona Poetry Center. On occasion, chaps aspect of the project, she randomly assigned the are sold at author readings or book fairs, as was forty-eight members of the Kollektiv a book- the case at the AWP book fair in Denver in 2010. maker, as well as a chapbook to make into a book. One aspect of this project that has had such ap- Designed as a Ouroborus, each poet designed and peal to both participants and outside onlookers is created a book for another, and the final member the range of material manifestations of these of the chain made the chapbook of the first. For “books”, which truly challenge the limitations of Dusie 4, Gardner introduced the constraint of imagination. To call them books, in fact, seems to “upcycling”, requiring participating poets to in- oversimplify the forms and frames that these liter- corporate some aspect of an already existing ary products take. Made by disparate methods, “element” into their project, through an impulse from the hand-written and hand-sewn to chap- to return the chapbook-making process to an art- Dusie Dusie is an online poetry journal featuring the work of emerging as well as established poets (or translations of) from around the world. Based in Swit- zerland, Dusie will continue to feature what can only be loosely defined as modern poetics and poetic experiments on a somewhat quarterly basis. 4 ▲ chapbook/found object style Gardner finds both Dusie 3, the Ouroborus Kollektiv “raw and appealing”. For some this took the form of recycled language, either their own or others. Dana Teen Lomax’s DISCLOSURE looks to be a Some participants upcycled materials, everything traditional though interesting chapbook upon first from old magazines, left over papers, and old cal- glance. Crafted by UK resident, Zoë Skoulding, endars, to prescription bottles, leather menus, and the custom’s declaration on the front of the enve- umbrella spokes. Some poets combined these lope it arrived in declares the contents as “a gift”. techniques, revitalizing what had once been dis- The book itself is wrapped in twine and sealed missed as lost or useless. Gardner also introduced with wax, and upon further inspection, DISCLO- a distributed responsibility for the fourth Kollektiv, SURE is far from traditional. My particular copy soliciting the support of two assistant editors, Paul (each copy has been ordered at random) begins Klinger and Marthe Reed, to take on the work of with true photocopy of a letter dated Sept. 22, establishing deadlines, providing support, collect- 1993 to Teen Lomax from the Peace Corps, ing pdfs and building the webpages. nominating her to become part of the “Coopera- As with the earlier incarnations, each chap- tives” assignment area. The revealing documents book required the laying on of hands - whether continue to unfold in this chap, including bank sewing the chapbook’s binding, collaging images, statements, Social Security “Work and Earnings” folding papers, or sewing covers out of cloth, how- statements, a loan statement reflecting only mini- ever the poet imagined it. It is this added atten- mum payments to a line of credit, a student loan tion to the literal making of each book that high- statement, a paystub, a prayer card, and to top it lights the Kollektiv’s attention to community.