Author: Marcus Silcock
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Buffalo ( x8)
“Do you want to show your baby face to the world or wrap yourself in hair blankets? I think you look better wrapped in hair blankets, says Eimear.”
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talking about strawberries all the time
Here are a few new surreal-absurd prose poems. Written in summer 2023 while visiting Berlin and Wroclaw. Just published at talking about strawberries all the time.
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4 New Prose Poems from Wrocław and Berlin
From immigration to Las Vegas from Northern Ireland (and a new Starsky and Hutch car) to anarchist squat flags and Turkish meze in Berlin. The poems hopscotch between our two-fold consciousness. Outside/inside. Inside/outside. They are “reality in a nutshell and fear in a handful of dust.” They are “all dusty dream glitter.”
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Surreal-Absurd Sampler Aaron Kent
This bi-weekly feature surreal-absurd at Mercurius is chalk-full of freshness. The latest, the poetry of Aaron Kent, features the belly of a dinosaur, avatar’s eating themselves from the inside, making the milk rounds, oceans of flame and the universe as a diamond. It is activism. The serious colliding with the absurd. Check out the poems…
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Earth Research
Grzegorz Wróblewski’s “Earth Research” has just been published in SUBURBIA magazine in Poland. Photography of various materials and textures. Close ups of what is often overlooked. Sticks, bark, crumbling stones. Check out the photography over here
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The Life of a Tenement House
Half Day Moon Press has just released The Life of a Tenement House by Grzegorz Wroblewski (in terrific translation). It is a poetry of a doomed and hopeful humanity trying to make the best of it. A poetry of awe and compassion and surreal-absurd gritty reality.
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The Language of Cabbage
Cabbage has been with me a long time. It is comfort. Whether German or Polish or Irish. There are lots of cabbages. Also green. My favourite Garcia Lorca poems are green. Here is a poem about cabbage. And the colour green. Recently published in Laurel Review. Stay green!
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Hidden Peak Press
Hello friends. Do you feel overloaded? “Real Humans” is about movement breaks. So much stimulus. Content overload. Whatever you wanna call it. It features a wing chair. Here is a wee reading of the poem. Featured at Hidden Peak Press. You can check out the prose poem over here
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Jeff Hilson Surreal-Absurd
“Is there anything more beautifully absurd than Kenneth Koch’s tiny play about the island of Madagascar breaking away from the African continent, or Hannah Weiner’s code of signals Romeo and Juliet? I’m currently writing a series of very short plays about fungi, as well as making a record of all the dreams I’ve been having…
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Chris Gutkind Surreal-Absurd
This week’s surreal-absurd at Mercurius is Chris Gutkind. Wild rides through layers of the surreal. There’s even Rilke! Here is one of the poems from the universe. Read more of Chris Gutkind’s poems over here at Mercurius
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Eunoia Review
Three surreal-absurd poems by by Grzegorz Wróblewski, translation by Grzegorz Wróblewski and Marcus Silcock Slease. Over at Eunoia Review. Check them out here: Listen Singing Birds Witnesses
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Kristin Bock Surreal-Absurd
Terrific end of the year 2023 sampler over at Mercurius. Some surreal-absurd poems of Kristin Bock. Glass Bikini and Cloisters. Definetely want to hold and read those ones. Read the sampler and mini essay of Kristen Bock over here.
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HOBART
First time I have something published on Christmas Day. 3 surreal-absurd prose poems over at Hobart today. Thank you Jessica Almereyda for selecting and editing. A rarity to have an editor who pays such close attention to the work. Here is one of them. Nostalgia/not nostalgia. Tis the season. Two more surreal-absurd prose poems over…
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Bruiser
I have 3 new prose poems in Bruiser. Sheep shearing in Warrington. The Fall Guy with Hamburger Helper and Lee Majors in a trailer park in Vallejo. Goshiwon with tiny television spitting out gameshows in Seoul. Plato’s cave in Utah. Enjoy the journeys. Check out the surreal-absurd prose poems over here
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William Erikson Surreal-Absurd
Terrific surreal-absurd feature at Mercurius this week. It’s William Erikson. There are many doozies. Here is part of one called BBC: “A young man lifts his hands to the sun and the sun becomes / honey. He opens his mouth to the moon and the moon becomes / breath mints.” Read more of William Erikson’s…
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A Thin Slice of Anxiety
“When you look up anti-poetry you are likely to run into the work of Nicanor Parra. Parra said something like “real seriousness” resides in the “comic.” We can of course go further. It is also cosmic. Like Parra, Grzegorz Wróblewski’s poetry is often anti-poetic and minimalist. Many of the speakers resemble visitors from another planet.…
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Granny Winegums
I have been finding new ways forward with various kinds of prose poetry. My new manuscript in progress, Dream Dust, is a mix of fables, serial poetry, microfictions, flash non-fiction. Maybe I’ll throw in a few flash plays. Here is a fable/prose poem. It is about Granny Winegums. American flop houses, bog butter on wheat…
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Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi
“Living is a language of hunger I want to make love to a man No not a man exactly but I want to Make love to something extremely hairy . . .” This week’s surreal absurd sample of Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi will tingle yr pineal. Head on over here to read more: tingletingle
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The Magic Unicorn
The unicorn is magic. I dreamed of unicorns in Istanbul. It is very ancient. The personal fork was invented by the Byzantines. Then our teeth changed. We developed the overbite. We bite off more than we can chew. This is a prose poem about the golden horn of Turkey. Also Byzantines. But really unicorns. Here…
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Sin Yong-Mok Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“Ghosts appear in many plays. A long time ago the actor who played the Ghost had to get rid of his body. Only his voice was left. It must have been before someone wearing a white sheet took on the role of the Ghost.“ This week’s surreal-absurd sampler is Sin Yong-Mok. Translated from the Korean…
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A Very Thin Crack
A surreal-absurd prose poem from my manuscript Dream Dust. Written while visiting southern Utah. This is called “The Narrows.”
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THE GREEN MONK IN SLOVAK
A selection of my surreal-absurd prose poems from The Green Monk has just been published in Slovak in the magazine Vertigo. Such beautiful book art. Nice to hold in the hand. The poet Vik Shirley is also in there. Happy as Larry!
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Julian Stannard Surreal-Absurd Poems
Peculiarity has its own poetic; the everyday is full of the absurd. Ultimately, the act of ‘making strange’ is, I believe, a subversive one, challenging commonsensical conservative-reactionary values. Poets whose work I’m fond of include Giorgio Caproni, Paul Durcan and Selima Hill and I particularly like the work of Leonora Carrington. – Julian Stannard This…
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Natalie Shaw Surreal-Absurd Sampler
They are magical boxes, or very intricate paper pop-ups, or entire carved worlds waiting to be tipped out of a hollowed-out bean. Each one has its own logic and necessariness. – Natalie Shaw This week’s surreal-absurd at Mercurius magazine is Natalie Shaw. Check out her wild poems over here
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Ailbhe Darcy Surreal-Absurd Sampler
To write poetry at all might be to see what in the world is beautiful because it is absurd. -Ailbhe Darcy
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Lee Sumyeong Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“In his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, Andre Breton wrote that “Swift is Surrealist in malice, / Sade is Surrealist in sadism. / Chateaubriand is Surrealist in exoticism.” Lee Sumyeong might be described as being surrealist in the quotidian.”
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I Really Like Lovers of Poetry
Read a new poem by Grzegorz Wróblewski from his forthcoming collection of poetry in English: I Really Like Lovers of Poetry. Translated directly by Grzegorz and myself.
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Six Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski
I’ve known Grzegorz since maybe 2007. That’s a few years. I’ll never forget the trip to see him in Copenhagen. We have collaborated and read together with various projects. In London and Madrid. Some of the highlights of my writing life.
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Lesle Lewis Surreal-Absurd
I think of it as a spectrum and not a binary division of real from surreal or sense from nonsense. I think of it as inclusive, the surreal being part of the real, the real as part of the surreal, the sensical in nonsense and the nonsense in sense, a new sense.
Never Mind the Beasts 