Liminal Spaces – June 2018 Guest Editor James Pate – here is the final edition of all selections curated by James Pate during the month of June 2018 for his theme of Liminal Spaces – thank you so much to James for all his hard work during the month and for the impeccable way he managed and curated his month’s editorship. To have been avid readers and fans of James’ writing – especially his essays during the days of the incredible and much-missed Montevidayo site – to have James collaborate on BHP for a month has been such a dream experience. Thanks, James! – and Thank You So Much to all who contributed such magic work to the theme – Here it is, June 2018 guest editor James Pate’s Liminal Spaces edition – enjoy! Continue reading “Liminal Spaces – June 2018 Guest Editor James Pate”
By Fredric Nord
Zero is the only numeral with the ability to remain itself in solitude. Zero is defined by the ability to not change. All other numerals are relative to each other and depend on each other for existence. They always change and change together. Without each other, stripped of cohabitation, they have no meaning or personality. That’s why all numerals in solitude equals zero. The total amount of numerals aren’t gazillions but one and a half, generously measured. Continue reading “Footnote to silence”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome JAMES PATE as our fifth guest editor! James will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of June – when he will then hand over the reins to our sixth guest editor for the month of July.
Submissions for James are open from today – 1st June and will remain open until 23rd June.
James’ Theme/s for the month are as follows
Liminal Spaces
James has introduced his theme for your guidance:
I’m fascinated by those spaces that are on the threshold between the interior and exterior, the conversational and the unnamable, the recognizable present and the intangible future. Please send work you feel might be too eccentric for other venues—writing with twilight-lit edges, photography that blends the particular with the anonymous, art that is charged with the radically other.
Are there images and phrase that only grow more cryptic the more we think about them? Are there barely audible voices still waiting to be recorded? Alejandra Pizarnik’s poetry, Shirley Jackson’s novels, Sun Ra’s discography, Tarkovsky’s films, Beckett’s plays, Francis Bacon’s humanoid creatures, voices reading the Tarot heard in the static between radio stations, night gardens with metallic-seeming insects…mystic political tracts, literary realism haunted by sci-fi, Gothic verse imagining lunar vistas of paradisiac ruin…Please send work involving liminal spaces that question and invoke.
James Pate is a poet and fiction writer. His books include The Fassbinder Diaries (Civil Coping Mechanisms), Flowers Among the Carrion: Essays on the Gothic in Contemporary Poetry (Action Books Salvo Series), and Speed of Life (Fahrenheit Press). He teaches creative writing at Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, WV.
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For submissions, James is looking for your poetry, short stories, flash fiction, prose poems, art, collage, painting, photography – as well as non-fiction submissions: essays, reviews, commentary, features, interviews – and all hybrids and cross-forms.
Submission Guidelines
All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com
Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: LIMINAL SPACES/POETRY
Poetry and Fiction
For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.
Submissions are open from 1st June til 23rd June – and will reopen again on 1st July for our sixth guest editor.
BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing JAMES PATE – friends, send him your best!
Burning House Press are excited to welcome KARISSA LANG as our fourth guest editor! Karissa will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of May – when she will then hand over the reins to our fifth guest editor for the month of June.
Submissions for Karissa are open from today – 1st May and will remain open until 24th May.
Karissa’s Theme/s for the month are as follows
Identity:
Crisis • Creation • Multiplicity • Singularity
Continue reading “MAY’S GUEST EDITOR FOR BHP ONLINE IS KARISSA LANG!!!!”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome C.C. O’HANLON as our third guest editor! C.C. will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of April – when he will then hand over the reins to our fourth guest editor for the month of May.
Submissions for C.C. are open from today – 1st April and will remain open until 23rd April.
C.C. will be responding and publishing your submissions on a rolling basis during the month of April – and has chosen his themes for submissions!
C.C.’s Themes are
Place: Movement, Escape, Exploration, Architecture.
C.C. has introduced the themes himself for your guidance:
“The act of journeying contributes to a sense of physical and mental well-being, while the monotony of prolonged settlement or regular work weaves patterns in the brain that engender fatigue and a sense of personal inadequacy…”
– Bruce Chatwin, from Nomad Invasions
Overall, I’m not looking to reassure, but rather, to some extent, to unsettle.
For submissions, C.C. is looking for your poetry, short stories, flash fiction, prose poems, art, collage, painting, photography – as well as non-fiction submissions: essays, reviews, commentary, features, interviews.
Submission Guidelines
All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com
Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: ARCHITECTURE/POETRY
Poetry and Fiction
For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.
Submissions are open from 1st March til 24th March – and will reopen again on 1st April for our third guest editor.
BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing C.C. O’HANLON – Friends, send him your best!
C.C. O’Hanlon is a relentless traveller, polymath and occasional diarist. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Ernest, Minor Literatures and The Learned Pig. It has also been included in several anthologies and ‘best of…’ collections. Born in Sydney, and raised nearly everywhere else, he has lived for the past five years in Berlin. He is now en route to somewhere else.
March 2018
Guest Editor: Amee Nassrene Broumand
4 March
Professional Mermaid by Megan Dunn
After the 10th Date by Sam Frost
gibbous moon waxing by Lewis Ellingham
Three Poems by Jared A. Carnie
Charon’s Amusement Arcade by BR Williams
10 March
Three Poems by Laura Potts
Plastic Eggs by C.B. Auder
Night Photos of Newstead Village & a Poem by Sophie Pitchford*
L’Idole by Laura Izabela
Two Poems by Annette Skade
A Bacon Sandwich by Jim Gibson
Solitaire by Attracta Fahy
17 March
Three Poems by Ivan de Monbrison
Forgotten Astronaut by Spangle McQueen
What Else Can I Do? by Rob True
How to Tell Men Apart by Breslin White
Invitation To Move On by Jonathan Humble
Two Poems by Kate Garrett
Stealing Sleipnir by Alison Lock
The Transformation by Emma McKervey
24 March
Three Poems by Samuel J Fox
Sing a Song of Ever Changing Perception by Michelle Diaz
Photographs of Bristol & a Poem by Jason Jackson*
When Food Goes Bad by Kelly Froh
Two Poems by Anna Wall
7yrs bad luck by Richard Biddle
Jack by Gene Farmer
30 March
Two Pieces by Erin Calabria
genesis by Clark Chatlain
Baroclinic Instability by katillac tweed
A Catalogue of Small Shatterings by Makensi Ceriani
Bear off a Leash by Stephen Lightbown
Photographs of New Orleans by Julia Skop*
Two Poems by Kate Dlugosz
Interminatus by Cory Willingham
The Boyfriend Pinch by Christopher John Eggett
Dissociation in a Museum Café by Belinda Rimmer
Two Poems by Soodabeh Saeidnia
The Linen Man Suite by Lorie Broumand
An Interview with Poet Laura Potts by Amee Nassrene Broumand*
Featured Image: Solar Eclipse from Salem, Oregon 2017 by Amee Nassrene Broumand
Individual featured images by Amee Nassrene Broumand unless marked with an asterisk
Someone is whispering
Someone, somewhere is whispering,
blue thoughts to the sharpened night,
leaving words born of the bottle
to shrivel under sleep’s new weight.
Thin syllables drip from bitten lips
moist with gin and clumsy kisses,
and a tongue lolls, slug-like, slurring,
while only the sliced moon listens
to the promises and prayers the night
drags from that full, unguarded heart.
There! Someone is whispering
and your new, cold day has yet to start.
Continue reading “Photographs of Bristol & a Poem by Jason Jackson”
Tungsten
the light is
tungsten
tungsten
my incandescent affiliation
street lights emit orange
tungsten lights, bless
anoint the streets with orange haze, creates vignette
turns street in to theatre
under street light is under spotlight
glow from window illuminates intricate net-curtain-call
There is life inside, electricity
rows and rows of windows glow,
currents of electricity form circuit board called estate, village
street light snoot renders unsuspecting object still-life masterpiece
catchlight from car roof becomes moon-lit-fjord
until sun rise
garish day-time, floods night-time majesty
over-exposed
until sun set Continue reading “Night Photos of Newstead Village & a Poem by Sophie Pitchford”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome Amee Nassrene Broumand as our second guest editor! Amee will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of March – when she will then hand over the reins to our third guest editor for the month of April.
Submissions for Amee are open from today – 1st March and will remain open until 24th March.
Amee will be responding and publishing your submissions on a rolling basis during the month of March – and has chosen her themes for submissions!
Amee’s Themes are Masks // Transformations // Cosmos // Personal Myth.
Amee has introduced the themes herself for your guidance:
Wrestle with illusion, seek truth. See your various aspects as masks; consider their individual appearances & reflect upon why they’re shaped as they are. We all have masks; what are yours? Play with this idea, infuse it with mystery. Perhaps make yourself a new mask, one that taps into important yet hidden aspects of your life or mind. Create something that intrigues you, not as a product but as a catalyst for personal transformation. Make something magical; give yourself chills. Mark it with the fire that comes from grappling with your own consciousness. “We are made of star stuff.” –Carl Sagan. Create work inspired by astronomy or cosmology. Contemplate time & the universe & how it all began. Consider the origins of matter & your place in All This. Note the night sky, the turning earth, auroras, eclipses, & the solar system; contemplate nebulae where stars form over eons, contemplate supermassive black holes brooding like giant spiders in a great intergalactic web. Forge a connection to the vastness; create a personal myth that integrates your own mind / dreams / experiences / family / heritage / community / culture / local plants or animals or natural landmarks with the universe at large. Become a drop swimming in an ancient & sublime night. Astrophotography welcome!
GENERAL SUBMISSIONS: If you have work that doesn’t fall into any of these categories, submit it anyway! Hybrid, experimental, & highly imaginative work encouraged. My taste in all media is eclectic but tends towards the strange (in both subject & style). I love clarity, complexity, intelligence, genuineness, introspection, mystery, risk, & symbolism. If it’s too weird for the average literary journal, send it my way; if you walk to the beat of your own drum, I want to hear from you.
NOTE: I especially encourage submissions from women, POC, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, the neurodiverse, and other traditionally marginalized groups.
* * *
For submissions, Amee is looking for your poetry, short stories, flash fiction, prose poems, art, collage, painting, photography – as well as non-fiction submissions: essays, reviews, commentary, features, interviews.
Submission Guidelines
All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com
Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: MASKS/POETRY
Poetry and Fiction
For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.
Submissions are open from 1st March til 24th March – and will reopen again on 1st April for our third guest editor.
BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing Amee Nassrene Broumand– friends, send her your best!
by Amee Nassrene Broumand
This isn’t an essay. It started life as an essay but then it began to twist & bristle & sprout distinctly unessaylike appendages.
The eyestalks struck me by surprise.
Perhaps it’s an insect or some sort of strange crustacean.
* * * * *
Imagine you find a giant handbag bleating in the corner like a lost lamb. You take it & shake its contents out onto the table.
What do you find?
Take a minute to think about this.
author’s description
“Je l’élève sur mes pensées,
Et je vois éclore au milieu
De la fuite du cristal bleu,
Les feuilles des douleurs passées.”
― Maurice Maeterlinck “Verre Ardent” from ‘Serres Chaudes’, 1889“I hold the glass to my thoughts
and see in that crystal labyrinth
the petals of old pain bloom
as if they were not things of the past…”
― Maurice Maeterlinck ‘Serres Chaudes’, 1889 / “Burning-Glass” from ‘Hothouses’ translated by Richard Howard
Continue reading “Serres Chaudes, a series of visual poetry by hiromi suzuki”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome Florence Lenaers as our first guest editor! Florence will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of February – when she will then hand over the reins to our second guest editor for the month of March.
Submissions for Florence are open from today – 1st February and will remain open until 21st February.
Florence will be responding and publishing your submissions on a rolling basis during the month of February – and has chosen her three themes for submissions!
Her Themes are Languages, Letters, Lists. Continue reading “Submissions Are Open!!! from 1st Feb – until 21st Feb – for our first guest editor Florence Lenaers!!!”
From 1st February 2018 and for that whole month Burning House Press online will be edited by our very first guest editor – the amazing Florence Lenaers!
More info on submission details forthcoming – stay tuned – and a massive welcome to Florence to BHP!!! Prepare to send Florence your work…
Shadow
I’m an optimist with a shadow who pops in now and then
Just to let me know he’s still around.
He lies dormant like a bindweed vein in winter,
Waiting,
Watching for that glimmer of light
Always looming,
Anticipating his chance to make an entrance Continue reading “2 Poems by Fay Deller”
by Amee Nassrene Broumand
Snow doesn’t look like the idea of snow, not during a snowstorm. During a snowstorm the sky becomes a void churning with insensate bees, bees that sting & bite. Snowstorms are neither pretty pictures nor charming holiday romps—snowstorms are winter.
Winter unvarnished by the domesticating tendencies of sheltered human eyes.
The silence of grammar. The silence of morning fog. The silence of a tiger’s paw. Wandering silence. The I told you so silence. The silence of violence. The silence of the catacombs contained in a sheet of paper. The shimmer of summer night stillness silence. The ruins of love silence. The silence of God.
photos & an experimental essay
by Amee Nassrene Broumand
It’s raining at the moment. Calling it rain might suggest a downpour or perhaps a steadiness of purpose, but this rain is too ambivalent for any of that relative cheeriness. This is slacker rain. This rain drizzles on and off all day, turning the landscape into a listless void. It’s hard to even tell the color of the light in such rain—is it grey, or is it a lurid shade of green?
I’ve never been sure, yet I know it well: as I child I stared out of myriad windows into this rain—into the glistening trees that slouched with waterlogged branches—and tried to imagine the sun. It didn’t work, of course; the rain had seeped into my mental eye. Instead of sunlight, the inside of my skull grew lush with moss. Forests sprang up, haunted by arboriform spirits and carnivorous umbrella monsters. Predatory ferns infected my temporal lobes and burst outwards in Medusa-like fronds, marking me as forever coiled, an absurd Beardsleyan grotesque.
The sun is out of reach. Continue reading “The Fire, the Eclipse, and the Spiders”
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