Category: Surrealist Poetry
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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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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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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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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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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.
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Sawako Nakayasu Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“At some point, as if there was some kind of tipping point, there seemed to be enough surreal aspects to the supposedly real world, which made it simply a more honest way to try to reckon with said world.” – Sawako Nakayasu
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Evan Nicholls Surreal-Absurd Sampler
We have many fab surreal-absurd samplers over at Mercurius magazine. Evan Nicholls Surreal-Absurd Sampler is stellar. Love those surreal-absurd little bundles. Tiny crossbows. Those little songs of the tooth. Ear as nibbled coin.
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Follow up to The Green Monk in Progress
On the day between the dead and the living, returning again to the beginner’s mind of creation. On the day between the dead and the living, the spirit of The Green Monk has returned to me. There are so many countries floating through me. The country of childhood is one of them. That feeling of…
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Aase Berg Surreal-Absurd Sampler
Some terrific dark surrealism from the Swedish poet Aase Berg over at Mercurius. In the 1990s Aase was a member of Surrealistgruppen in Stockholm. Lemurs and guinea pigs. Body horrors. Dark matter. The language dense and rich. Gothic post-human. Check out the poems over here
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Luke Palmer Surreal Absurd Sampler
“There’s a freedom and a weightlessness that comes with working alongside another version of yourself.” Surreal pop art with Brad Pitt, Matthew Broderick, Jeff Goldblum, Bruce Forsyth. And more. This week’s surreal-absurd sampler is Luke Palmer. Check em out over at Mercurius.
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Kim Hyesoon Surreal-Absurd Sampler
This week, over at Mercurius, terrific surreal-absurd sampler. South Korean poet Kim Hyesoon (translated by Don Mee Choi). The poems are from I’m Ok, I’m Pig!, her 2014 Bloodaxe collection.
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NEW WORLD WRITING
Super thrilled, after a long spell of no-gos, to have five prose poems at New World Writing. Sex dolls, rhinestones, squirrels, mojo, and a winter pouch.
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Luke Kennard
“I think the poems I really love are the ones where the thought is happening (or being reanimated) in front of you.”— Luke Kennard
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Jenna Clake
“My favourite Absurdist poetry is the kind that pulls you into a dreamlike situation, and makes you question what is real, what isn’t, and whether that even matters.”—Jenna Clake This week’s surreal-absurd sampler is a doozy over at Mercurius
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Patricia Farrell
“touching my dancing hands like a robot back walking that I don’t feel too sorry for but I know the cold that’s hitting me was hitting my face to the claws ”
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James Knight
This surreal absurd sampler is a nice combo. Some psycho-sexual Bird King poems from James Knight and art from Alex Stevens. Check em out over here at Mercurius.
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Glen Armstrong
“I’ve been writing requiems for people I admire lately, some of them fictional, some of them still alive. These folks may have ended up on gum wrappers or Mr. Cobain’s t-shirt or Mr. Zapruder’s movie. They usually share a unique talent that still can’t compensate for a unique and profound sadness. These are a few…
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Lorelei Bacht
“I grew up on French surrealisme (my mother would read us Paul Eluard’s poetry at bedtime) and I visit this open-ended poetic space whenever I am struggling to make sense of things and/or to write anything sensical. Sometimes, I manage to catch a few sublime fish. Other times, I can only perceive a faint glimmer. ”…
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Vik Shirley
Enjoying curating the surreal-absurd feature in Mercurius magazine. So much interesting work out there. Here is a selection of poems from Vik Shirley. From her chapbook Corpses and her collection, The Continued Closure of the Blue Door. The surreal is alive and well! Check em out over here
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Zachary Schomburg
I am editing a surreal-absurdist feature for Mercurius magazine. Every other Monday, I will feature an absurdist/surrealist writer to tickle your fancies. First up, we have Zachary Schomburg. A selection of prose poems from his book Fjords vol.2, forthcoming from Black Ocean in May 2021. Read the selection over here.
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Russell Edson 2021
A little reading of Russell Edson classics. From his book The Very Thing That Happens (1964). New Years Day. 2021. It is a good time for fire rituals!!!
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POST APOCALYPTIC POEMS
The experimental writer, artist, and musician Stephen Emmerson has been running a podcast entitled “Post Apocalyptic Poems.” Post Apocalyptic Poems is a new series which imagines that an unspecified event has taken place which forces families to take shelter in underground bunkers.You can only take 6 books of poetry with you. When you emerge from…
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Lifescape by Vicente Huidobro
Landscape and lifescape, how can we know which is which, in other words inside outside, but we like to make the difference, isn’t it important to make the difference? If your outside becomes your inside, or vice versa, well you’re a reversible coat. Do you remember the 80s? I was wearing a bomber style awesome…
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Play Yr Kardz Right Part Two
Collage was invented by the surrealists and Max Ernst took it to another level. Now, of course, collage is a common method, but it is still magical. There are so many ways to do it, in language and visual arts etc. Play Yr Kardz Right is almost 3 years old. It came after Rides, which…
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The Cough by Barbara Guest
A prose poem, by the great Barbara Guest, from 1999, before the turn of the millennium, which somehow seems significant. A nomadic surrealist dreams of real life.
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Creative Impermanence Studio
I am teaching an online class, in March 2020, for the The Poetry School in London. The nature of life is change and clinging to the illusion of permanence often leads to suffering, of one kind or another, but rather than anxiety, this life, full of change, can become a source of joy and wonder.…
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Lucifer by Ljiljana Đurđić
A surrealist poem from the Serbian poet Ljiljana Đurđić. Ljiljana Đurđić has published three collections of poetry, including Swedish Gymnastics. She is also a terrific translator of Sylvia Plath.
Never Mind the Beasts 