The Chimaera emerges from Shit Creek
As II sinks beneath the surface of Shit Creek to lurk amidst the murk and possibly surge up again at any moment, a strange, bedraggled creature heaves itself from the waters, crawls up the muddy bank, shakes itself dry with a toss of its three heads, and prepares to gallivant off across the wastelands to terrorise Mount Parnassus.
It is The Chimaera. A terrible beauty is born.
The Chimaera will be an independent literary miscellany which hopes to publish a wide range of serious and satirical verse and prose. The design and content of The Chimaera will be similar to that which characterised II , but will develop in new directions over time. The Chimaera will be published separately from SCR. SCR will primarily focus on its mission of poetry/art/html fusion, but The Chimaera will be more text-based.
There is no set theme for poems or prose submitted to the October issue of The Chimaera: send us your best 1–5 poems, or one or more prose pieces, on whatever topic you like. We are happy to consider both formal verse and vers libre, and humorous, satirical and light verse as well as more serious work. But please read the General Submission Guidelines before sending your submission.
The Chimaera is taking over publication of the range of prose published in The Shit Creek Review (which will focus on poetry), including fiction (stories complete in themselves of up to about 5000 words), critical essays, memoirs, reviews, reports on your local poetry scene, wit and drollery and so on. We are happy to discuss the suitability of your ideas for projected prose pieces prior to submission.
The October issue of The Chimaera will include a special feature on expatriate poets, and submissions of prose, verse or other material relating to that topic are invited as well.
Submissions for The Chimaera's October Issue must be received by Monday, September 17th, 2007. Please read our Submission Guidelines.
Send submitted work to editor@the-chimaera.com
We are firing up a blog for The Chimaera here
http://the-chimaera.blogspot.com/
The Chimaera Blog should soon be up and running, and will provide news and articles on matters relating to the publication.
When the first edition of The Chimaera is ready (in October—not yet!) its url will be
http://www.the-chimaera.com
The Shit Creek Review of course will go on paddling to even greater heights (!) bemusing, amazing and confusing the poetic multitudes just as it has always done since it first gushed forth from primal Chaos to flood the Land, as described by S.T. Coleridge:
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks, a splendid freak—
It flung up momently the cool Shit Creek.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred Shit Creek ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
Amidst a general tumult of lost paddles...
posted by Caratacus at 5:25 pm
6 Comments:
"[D]ire chimeras," Milton called them. Note that he never made a similar, denigrating reference to "dire shit creeks." Draw your own conclusions.
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Oh indeed? Dire indeed th'inception of The Chimaera hath been. But account for this:
Where were ye Nymphs when the remorseless Creek
Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old Bards, the famous Druids ly,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Shyt Creak spreads her wisard stream:
Ay me, I fondly dream!
Had ye bin there-for what could that have don?
What could the Muse her self that Orpheus bore,
The Muse her self, for her inchanting son
Whom Universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His goary visage down the Creak was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore...
...Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep nor speke,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the shitty creek,
So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore,
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves
Where other groves, and other creeks along,
With Nectar pure his oozy Lock's he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptiall Song,
In the blest Kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet Societies
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now Lycidas the Shepherds weep no more;
Hence forth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt good wreke
To all that wander in that Dire Shit Creke...
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As for the Coleridge, I never understand why the earth was in pants in the first place, let alone thick pants. Why not culottes? Or a dirndl? Or something in a nice summerweight worsted? Must be all that opium.
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Bugger! That's a typo. It should read:
'As if this earth in fast thick trousers were breathing...'
Still, your point remains valid. I wonder who Coleridge had as fashion consultant.
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Hogg. James Hogg.
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Ah! Hence the predilection for wooly trousers, shaggy breeches, and fast thick pants. One must be particularly careful, of course, of exploding trousers when in the vicinity of deep romantic chasms.
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