issue twenty : guest-edited by Edric Mesmer

NOW AVAILABLE: G U E S T #20
produced also as Yellow Field #12
edited by Edric Mesmer 

see here for Edric Mesmer’s introduction and biography

featuring new work by: 

Anne-Adele Wight
Celes Tisdale
Hue Nguyen
Dave Drayton
Irakli Qolbaia
James Wilkes
Wendy Morrow
Kathleen Reichelt
Samuel Brzeski 

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Author biographies:

Anne-Adele Wight’s most recent book, An Internet of Containment, was published by BlazeVOX at the end of 2018. Her previous books, all from BlazeVOX, include The Age of Greenhouses (2016), Opera House Arterial (2013), and Sidestep Catapult (2011). Her work has been published internationally in print and online and includes appearances in Luna Luna, Apiary, Bedfellows, Oz Burp, Have Your Chill, and Read On 2. She lives and writes in Philadelphia.

Celes Tisdale is a Distinguished Professor of English at the State University of New York, having received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. His book, When the Smoke Cleared: Attica Prison Poems and Journal, is forthcoming from Duke University Press.

Hue Nguyen is a horse (they/them). They are an interdisciplinary artist and activist currently situated on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Through an interdisciplinary practice, their work considers hyphenated identities and the commonalities that intertwine topics of racialization, queerness, and institutions of mental health. They are currently pursuing a BFA at the University of British Colombia. More info at: https://hueisahorse.com/

Dave Drayton was an amateur banjo player, founding member of the Atterton Academy, and the author of E, UIO, A: a feghoot (Container), A pet per ably-faced kid (Stale Objects dePress), P(oe)Ms (Rabbit), Haiturograms (Stale Objects dePress), and Poetic Pentagons (Spacecraft Press).

Irakli Qolbaia lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. He has published two books of poetry in Georgian; in English, his single publication is a pamphlet, Disarraignment I: Benandanti. He currently works as a school librarian outside Tbilisi and is writing a poetic anatomy on the cosmology/cosmogony of twindom.

James Wilkes writes poetry, short fiction, and texts for performance, and collaborates across disciplines and art-forms. One current project is writing through and with secular chansons by the Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez, using translatory strategies to create new works of poetry. A chapbook, Mille Regretz: Chansons After Josquin des Prez, is forthcoming with Pamenar Press in 2022.

Wendy Morrow grew up within a family of dancers, trained at the Australian Ballet School in the early ’70s then pursued a career as a professional dancer in Australia and overseas performing with the Monte Carlo Ballet, The Scottish Ballet, The Sydney Dance Company, and Danceworks in Melbourne. As a choreographer and improviser, she has been at the vanguard of integrating dance with other forms for most of her career. Her arts practice is centred in a deep understanding and interest in the body as material. Her language is felt through the body, bringing us to feeling across time. Most recently, Wendy is interested in the "small acts" of living, stillness, and attending to others. In 2019 Wendy’s fictionella FOSSIL was published as part of Lost Rocks (2017-2021), a slow publishing artwork by A Published Event [APE]. FOSSIL exposes a dance practice of embodied experiential ideas and relationships. Structured as a dance, it is written as a loose compendium of stories, triggers, and instructions. Wendy is a member of Tender, an experimental hybrid publishing collective of eight international women artists. http://www.apublishedevent.net/       

Kathleen Florence Reichelt (she/her) is a performance poet, writer, musician and director for the Thousand Islands Film & Stage Artist Residency in Canada. She has performed poetry at events with great weather for MEDIA, NYC, Words & Music, Montreal, Secret Handshake Gallery, Toronto, Ottawa’s Versefest and at NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge with Three Rooms press. Kathleen’s poems have been published in Suitcase of Chrysanthemums (great weather for MEDIA, NYC), Otoliths (Australia), Arteidolia (NYC), and are forthcoming in Cultural Weekly (Los Angeles). Her interviews, reviews, and articles have been published by Sensitive Skin Magazine, Bone Bouquet, and Arteidolia, NYC. Kathleen is currently writing and directing the series “Poet’s Ink,” in production.

Samuel Brzeski’s current work deals with the situation of language within the digital context, particularly in relation to articulations of affect. His predominantly text-based projects search for the place and presence of the emotive body within the post-digital swirl of language. This involves exploring the inherent malleability of language to create and/or question meaning, narrative and experience. Working primarily with acts of reading and vocal semantics, the works investigate how the emotional impacts of digital culture are manifested through textual and vocal mediums. Reconfigurations of existing texts from a variety of sources feature prominently, with texts selected for their poetic or political vibrations. Samuel is based in Bergen, Norway. More info at https://samuelbrzeski.com/.

G U E S T #20 : Edric Mesmer : Introduction

 

With Yellow Field, there was never any school of writing. Though a friend kept reminding me: there’s still a program!—what was it?

The magazine called itself a venue for “the established, the emergent, the undersung,” collating together works of lyric (including anti-lyric), the musical, and the visual. Most often, the contributors were writers I hadn’t met, or knew just barely; furthermore, as a reviewer generously noted, Yellow Field was “NEVER a survey of the usual suspects” [Michael Cross].

Maybe it’s my stance as a Buffalonian—some common trait of working along with a “low current” of readership. That seems to fit. An old friend of mine from Syracuse, enamored with the Buffalo arts scene, once said of it: when all the State money dried up, and all the grants went away, most of the arts in other cities across New York gave up and died; but in Buffalo, they just kept going!

I’m always interested in artists who just keep going, maybe even without any notice… those undersung. This draws me—how, without venue, or with little readerships, some are just driven to. Certainly no prizes come into play! And I loved finding an old mag in a used bookshop, opening upon some poem that entranced, then reaching out to say hello & “what are you working on now?”

Each issue brought together a gallery of people mostly unknown to one another, often from different counties, and no clannishness seems to’ve emerged or pervaded. And that seems good to me. Sure, the presences start to spool; a certain list of works gets reviewed; a contributor is repeated… As luck would have it, the collator might even keep in touch with someone they’ve never spoken with face-to-face, in far-off Vancouver, who’s now the dearest friend.

I’m also most grateful here to rob mclennan for the chance to reach out again to people whose work I admire, ask if they’ve been alright this last year, see what they’ve been working on.

Edric Mesmer
Buffalo, 2021

 

 

 

Edric Mesmer was collator of Yellow Field from Fall 2010 until right now. Recent poems and reviews have appeared in AMP, Blazing Stadium, No Materialism, and periodicities, and his book POEMS: now & then was published in 2020 by BlazeVOX. He now edits Among the Neighbors, a pamphlet series on little magazines published by the University at Buffalo’s Poetry Collection where he works as a cataloging librarian—To subscribe to the series, just send along an email!