Just printing off and tallying up the submissions we’ve been sent.
We’re up by about 50% more submissions than past issues and the standard of the submissions is outstanding. Issue 9 is going to be a goodie!
Ya-wen and I will start reading through and discussing all the submissions first thing tomorrow morning. Just a few hours left for you to get your work in if you’d been planning on submitting but haven’t yet.
We’ll keep you posted.
“What would it be like to be outside of, or beyond, language?” Language, and by extension writing, is an abstraction, an idea to be played with, a constraint to be stretched. It is a concept which can be explored and transformed into a liberator of ideas through its very restraints. Kelly Malone is not the first writer to view language and the written word in this way, the Oulipo movement can attest to that, but Kelly’s perspective and experimental investigations into writing are fresh and unique.
Kelly describes both language’s constraints and possibilities in her poem I use poetry as a means to get beyond words ‘[language] imposes on me… Poetics comes along / offering manoeuvres’
Kelly was first published in Potroast in Issue 3 with her poem Doing; an exploratory poem about the verb ‘to be’ analysing what it can, as a common and indispensable sentence component, accomplish within communication. Kelly’s sense of adventure, and at times existentialism, within the bounds of words is not limited to grammar and language in and of itself, but how it works and functions as a communicator.
Kelly’s chapbook, Chapbox, is a book, a sculptural work, a box and a series of poems exploring all four (books, art, form & poetry); what they are and how they can inform each other. As Kelly explains it, she delves into “the relationship between written language and other textual forms such as the visual, and / or aural, and how these forms presuppose the sign, and engage with written language to create a new synchronous act.”
Kelly’s new investigation into language and its possibilities, which she calls ‘Transtext’, translates words and poems from standard English into Morse code, and from there into musical composition while still leaving the aural score to present itself as a visual poetic piece, which relates to Kelly’s interest in “the materiality / opacity of language – even though it can seem transparent we cannot get ‘outside’ of language”
Keen to see what else Kelly has been working on? Check out her website kellymalone.me
We expect to see more of her within the pages of Potroast, so watch this space.
Purchase Issue 3 here
Narrative drawing is one of my favourite mediums; moments and thoughts conveyed and explained in images and drawing, sort of how a short story is to a novel. Joseph Harper’s work is great example of this.
This work was published on Page 10 of the 3rd Issue.
Click here to purchase
think of it
as the slash and burn of feet
fingertips twisting like
newly caught fish
Excerpt from Salsa by Renee Liang
Published in Issue 3 (page 23)
Read the full poem here
Issue 3 is now available for you to read in the
Potroast Archives
First published in August/September of 2009.
The issue includes work from:
Thomas Casey, Alexander Abraham, Richard Richards (aka. Richard Kearney), Makyla Curtis, Joseph Harper, Emily Starrett Wright, Matt Hammond, Kelly Malone, Renee Liang, Varia Karipoff, Ulrika Jansson, Chris Lindores, Alistair Quietsch and Ya wen Ho.
Printed in The Deformed Paper Sept '07
I first met Eli Lamont when he moved into our flat in Point Chevalier in 2005. Eli was always drawing rocks, shells, pine cones and his feet. Anything he could sit and stare at from the couch and draw in minute detail, and often only the minute detail. His work has come a long way from these exploratory drawings, but this grounding in natural form and shape has continued to inform his work.
Influenced by the likes of pop surrealism, Moebius and the psychedelic, Eli’s illustrations and drawings are vivid and colourful. Solid line-work and bright colours give his drawings a comic feel implying hidden overarching stories and themes, as if the dialogue boxes have been left blank and the frames cut out. Like one off character studies, you often want to know more about the characters depicted. This is particularly evident in Eli’s poster designs (see the website below).
The repetition of faces also act as visual metaphors (for those looking for them) – for example the mechanical functions of the brain, or the dual nature of personalities.
Eli’s recent works feature protrusions or projections of the mind. Like profound moments, epiphanies and internal quandaries set down in image – his drawings depict the workings and perceptual distortions of the psyche without the come down of the psychedelic genre’s typical clichés.
Projections of the Mind
Now based in Whanganui where he grew up, Eli has been creating posters for the local music scene. If you’re from those parts, you’ve probably seen a lot of his work already!
Always one for intense bouts of research, Eli has recently started a blog recording his recent finds online. If you’re keen to see what influences Eli’s outrageous work, have a gander here:
http://spaciousmind1.tumblr.com/
And have a look here for Eli’s gig posters:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Elis-rad-gig-posters/3578371
Eli Lamont will continue to be a feature within Potroast’s pages, so you will definitely get the chance to see more of his work!
(Eli’s work can be found in issues 6 & 8, click here to purchase)
Sonic Projection, by Richard Richards (aka Richard Kearney), was printed back in June 2009 in Issue 2.
Potroast contributor Frank Bonny (Issue 1 – Pretty Girls – with Ya wen Ho) has started a new quest to write a poem a day, building on an online book of poetry which can be found on his website http://www.diesubconsciousdie.co.nz
Each poem feeds on from the one before, a daily addition to create a complete poem by 1st January 2013.
You can like the book on facebook to receive poetry in your facebook feed; https://www.facebook.com/DieSubconsciousDie
Or follow @franklybonny on Twitter to receive poetry tweets.
As a taster, this is today’s poem:
Racing horse, around the course, broken leg, bullet in the head.
‘I want to see if I can remember the last thing I said to my parents…’
Read the full poem by Alistair Quiestch here
(Page 13 of Issue 1)
POTROAST 