Yellow Flower
Are you a girl
or a boy?
my nephew would ask me,
puzzled.
I’d smile and try not to answer
for as long as I could.
But he was so persistent, so
needy for reassurance.
My nephew is secure in his boyhood;
no questions, no blurriness
in his mind. He, him,
boy things, boy clothes
and books.
But me? An enigma, Continue reading “Poem, Writing & Art by Alix Hyde”
Sam Kaner is a visual artist and writer based in Nottingham, UK. Her work is rooted in the personal experience of social and political navigation as a depressed trans woman of colour.
Her work is documented on her website, www.samkaner.com, and on her Instagram account, @skamglamart.
Burning House Press are excited to welcome SHE SPEAKS UK as our October guest editors!!! As of today She Speaks will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of October.
Submissions for She Speaks are open from today – 1st October and will remain open until 24th.
She Speaks Theme/s for the month are as follows
She Speaks have introduced their theme/s for your guidance:
Gender & Revolution
“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”
Audre Lorde
“No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution… Revolution is but thought carried into action.”
Emma Goldman (Writer and Anarchist)
What does gender look like to you? If gender is a construct, how would you deconstruct it? If you could re-write or reframe gender norms, would you? What would your world look like? What changes, if any, would you like to see?
What does revolution look like? Why is it important and what changes are needed?
We want you to use words or images to investigate gender, revolution, or both. You could draw on personal experiences, historical / her-storical narratives, imagined environments or cultural commentary. We welcome voices that represent different worldviews, beliefs and geographical locations.
We want art that breaks rules; that challenges patriarchy; that expresses personal struggle; that exposes the impact of cultural norms. Don’t be afraid to break out of your comfort zone and push the boundaries.
We can’t wait to see your submissions.
Love,
She Speaks
x
Continue reading “October 2018 Guest Editor/s are SHE SPEAKS UK!!! Theme/s: GENDER & REVOLUTION”
What a month! Burning House Press would like to thank September’s Guest Editor RACHAEL DE MORAVIA for selecting, curating and presenting an INCREDIBLE array of writing and art on the theme/s BELONGING//RETURNING//RETREATING – and for all of the endeavour and hard work that has gone into managing the high volume of contributions received over the month – and the wonderful way Rachael has engaged with, and encouraged, submitters to BHP – THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, RACHAEL!!!
Massive thank you also goes to everyone who contributed to Rachael’s theme/s and all who continue to send BHP your writing and art – we are so happy and grateful that you entrust us with your work, thank you!!! xX
Here it is, the BELONGING//RETURNING//RETREATING EDITION – every selection in one place for you to read/peruse – enjoy!!! xX
Your consciousness is homeless and itinerant for quite some time in a significant physical journey. And you must build it its home, or its redoubt. That redoubt is specific to the journey. And like a tortoise’s shell the redoubt accompanies you on the journey even as it grows. Its construction is excruciatingly frustrating and failure-ridden. Accept this. Construction of the redoubt is the journey.
Arrival takes place much later cognitively.
Accept this.
Continue reading “Redoubt by John Trefry”
this is fragmenting.
He hears the father’s voice first, a cracked whip across his senses, an involuntary flinch. He lifts the arm, the song begins again. It doesn’t stop the girl from appearing, flopping to the floor, crying. Pastel dust sticks. He remembers scurrying away from the aisle, he didn’t belong there. He’s not one of them, how could he intervene? Eyelids. Alone, alone. Five letters etched. Beat away these colours. Continue reading “under there, somewhere by Andy Harrod”
How many times have I driven the same stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway? It’s hard to say, but enough times to have incorporated its curves into mine. I look at the palm of my left hand and I wander while I follow the life line, tracing it lightly with my right index finger. Up and down, down and up. There I go, edging the Pacific Ocean, winding and unwinding along the PCH under impossibly blue skies.
Continue reading “Pacific Coast Highway by Yanina Spizzirri”
The Orange Line, Platform
Continue reading “The Orange Line: Collages by Wullae Wright”
I would like to acknowledge the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay respect to their Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to other Aboriginal people here today.
I acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded and send a plea to you to continue to work within your communities to decolonise our political and educational systems, the media, the arts and our society at large. I urge you to move together towards establishing recognition, treaty, self-determination and rightful representation in the governance of this land. Continue reading “Charlotte Olayinka’s launch speech for Tony Messenger’s “Poems to be found in the desert””
There are familiar streets where I walk often. I know them as well as my home, yet every day I notice small differences – changes in the light or weather, a shift of angle, something dropped or spilled – and most days I take a few photos.
There are unfamiliar streets where I travel watchfully. I have a poor sense of direction and am easily lost. I look for small things – the colours of a poster, the shapes of a tree, a pattern of cracks in a wall – to mark my way. I take quick pictures to locate myself, as if leaving a trail of thread or a sprinkling of crumbs along the path.
Sometimes, from the corner of my eye, I see a shape or pattern and have a sense of how it might look reflected back on itself, as in a pool or mirror. When I get home I copy and flip the image and join the two together. The results are never quite what I expected – more strange and complex, they often have the look of characters from untold stories, misremembered folk tales, a lost tarot. Continue reading “Street Goddesses by Mary Frances”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome RACHAEL DE MORAVIA as our eighth guest editor! As of today Rachael will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of September.
Submissions for Rachael are open from today – 1st September and will remain open until 23rd September.
Rachael’s Theme/s for the month are as follows
Burning House Press would like to thank August’s Guest Editor John Trefry for selecting a fantastic theme in // NON-NONFICTION // – and for all of the endeavour and hard work that has gone into selecting/curating/presenting the contributions received over the month – THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, JOHN!!!
Massive thank you also goes to everyone who contributed to John’s theme and who continues to send BHP your writing and art – we are so happy and grateful that you entrust us with your work, thank you!!! xX
Here it is, the NON-NONFICTION edition – every selection in one place for you to read/peruse – enjoy!!! xX
…bled speeches from dead ocular of throughout final carve of turn of in breathless to absorb it of in no longer of in what nor of throughout a pageant taint steel drawn as if to pass through slash mark unto forage nothing there as all what fallen is scattered seed of exhale burn in pit of nothing ever have in or which collapsed before lest broken nothing to claim ocular roving no longer it what stun in rat of feel of broken tabulets of skins flung to dog’s devour where null vacant eye cannot from denizen of passage present nothing as before once travailed through reek what matter solace of detritus dreamed of laconic shadows breaking Continue reading “3 Sketches from “cold zero reflect” by Michael Mc Aloran”
‘Cybergothic,’ write the Ccru, in an essay titled ‘Unscreened Matrix’, ‘finds the deep past in the near future’. There is a Crypt, a shadow space that exists beneath the gleam of our cyber reality:
Sprawling beneath public cyberspace lies the labyrinthine underworld of the Datacombs—ghost-stacks of sedimented virtuality, spiralling down abysmally into paleodigital soft-chatter from the punchcard regime, through junk programming, forgotten cryptocultures, fossil-codes and dead systems, regressively decaying into the pseudomechanical clicking relics of technotomb clockwork. Continue reading “Cybergoth Archaeology: The Seductive Datacombs of OPN’s “Age Of” by Maria Sledmere”
ITEMS RETRIEVED FROM THE WRECK OF THE IGS MALVA, WITH POTENTIALLY DISTINGUISHING DETAILS AND SPECULATED PURPOSES PROVIDED IN ITALICS
6 human bodies: identified overleaf – likely deceased through drowning, all male, flight crew Continue reading “Items Retrieved from the Wreck by Emma-Louise Adams”
Ayuko Fujii (1903–1926)
Ayuko Fujii was born in Berlin; her father was an attaché at the Japanese embassy. She attended a francophone gymnasium, and by age fifteen, she was capable in five languages. Her passion was for English. “It is a funny, cozy language, full of misshapen words,” she wrote in her diary. “Any other language would be ashamed to own a word such as ‘dollop’ or ‘shrub.’ But not English—that is its genius.” Continue reading “Four Minor Modernists by Ryan Napier”
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 
The Colossus of Estacada by Matthew Spencer
The name misleads, slightly, and was coined for marketing purposes. In fact, the bronze figure measures thirteen feet tall—outsized, monumental perhaps, but not colossal. It stands contrapposto with one hand outstretched, palm inward, as if beckoning the visitor to approach. A thin but charitable smile creases the face, although patina has rendered the expression somewhat difficult to read, as have the iron security bars installed to ward off scrap hunters. Continue reading “The Colossus of Estacada by Matthew Spencer” →
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