Mask in the Making

Poem Recognition Contest

The first prize is a free read of the Shit Creek Review.

The poem in question is an epigraph to another poem by Jean-Marc Bernard (b 1881 d in action 1915). His poem is called De Profundis, and the title is followed by a four-line epigraph from another poem which seems to be called 'Quelques Essais'. So who wrote the lines 'Le nécessaire...Votre œuvre inachevé'? Hein?

De Profundis

Le nécessaire de ma raison de vivre,
O morts, je l’ai trouvé,
Et je sais aujourd’hui que je devrai poursuivre
Votre œuvre inachevé

Quelques Essais

[Bernard's poem then begins...]
Du plus profound de la tranchée,
Nous élevons les mains vers vous,
Seigneur! ayez pitié de nous
Et de notre âme desséchée...

[Then follow four more stanzas of Bernard's poem.]

PS. We don't know the answer to the question of who wrote the epigraph. We're hoping you do.

Torn?

Submit all your masks...but do it by Sunday!

Beasley Street

John Cooper Clarke at The Argotist.

Evidently Chickentown.

Four Chapbooks and a Deadline

Rick Mullin's work has graced the pages of SCR/TC on more than one occasion:

'Amity After the Fire'

'Shrine to Satan' (An SCR Pushcart Prize nomination)

'Still Life with Mackerel'

'Waziristan'

Now he has a new chapbook out, Aquinas Flinched, available from Modern Metrics. You'll also find books there by SCR/TC contributors Mark Allinson, Mary Meriam and Quincy Lehr.

+

SCR#7 'Masks' issue deadline is SOON!

March 23rd, 2008, in fact. Crikey! That's next week this Sunday!

Submissions for SCR #7

The Chimaera's 'Belonging' issue deadline is pretty soon too—April Fool's Day.

Grab some vellum, sharpen those quills, a quick quaff of laudanum, and start composing!

Submissions for The Belonging Chimaera.

SCR in Safe Hands

Paul Stevens, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of SCR, and CEO of the Shit Creek Corporation, captured in a reflective moment.

Paula Berinstein interviews Joseph S. Salemi

Joseph S. Salemi, who has published work in The Chimaera and SCR (here and here), was recently interviewed at length by Paula Berinstein of the Writing Show website on the problems of contemporary poetry. This interview will be of interest to all engaged with poetry, whether they agree with Dr. Salemi's argument or not. 'The State of Poetry Today' interview can be accessed as an audio podcast at http://www.writingshow.com.

Also, one of Salemi's translations of Horace's Odes was a finalist for the latest Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.

Kudos!

Pat Jones in the Guardian

Pat Jones, Shit Creek Review's Resident Artist, is also a very gifted poet. We are proud to announce that her poem 'Fog Woman' not only features in The Guardian's poetry workshop for March hosted by David Morley, but a richly evocative phrase from the poem, thick with season, is used as the title for the whole workshop article! Pat has been the heart (!) and soul of SCR since our first tentative paddlings up the proverbial, and is also the artist/photographer for The Chimaera.

Good on you, Pat!

The Rapidly Rising Organ of The Shit Creek Review

The Guardian, once described by Frederick Engels as 'an organ of the middle class’, but now the leading centre-left British newspaper, has recently noticed another organ in the paddock (so to speak), namely The Shit Creek Review.

Tim Radford, a columnist in the Education section of The Guardian, discussing the ubiquitous term 'edgy', refers to an SCR article written by Rose Kelleher:

I first noticed the word "edgy" in poetry reviews. It is still a poetry word. "Of all the ongoing poetry wars, the one that most interests me these days is Edgy vs. Nice," says a commentator in the Shit Creek Review. This organ helpfully invokes the American Heritage Dictionary, which defines edgy as "daring, provocative, or trend-setting" to make a point, but very often, the word edgy makes no particular point at all. Decades ago, poetry critics used to describe verse as being "taut" or "sinewy" or "nervous." These days they use the word "edgy". The implication is that "edgy" is good, without actually committing the critic to any precision about the nature or extent of this goodness...

—Prosaic postcards from the edgy

Tim mentions Rose's essay to support his claim that 'edgy' is still a
'poetry word', and his column makes some similar points to Rose's essay.

Rose Kelleher's essays are good value indeed—almost as good as her excellent poetry (which has appeared on and off in SCR since our very first issue). Her essay 'Edgy vs Nice' broke new ground in the hot new field of Edginess Studies.

As for The Guardian's description of The Shit Creek Review as an organ—well, your editor's mind boggles! Clearly The Guardian, as it ventures into the murky waters of Shit Creek, is beginning to realise that there is another proud organ on the rise, a magnificent instrument that will expand and grow to gigantic heights. One day, paddlers, SCR will rival and surpass the great Guardian itself, which is destined to fade into the gloom of our mighty shadow!

A Prayer for Sobriety

«Hart Crane, Wystan Auden, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, Delmore Schwartz, Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Bogan, John Ciardi, Dylan Thomas, James MacAuley, John Berryman: this is only a short list of remarkably talented 20th Century poets who destroyed themselves with alcohol. I am well along my way to doing the same, which is why I am seeking help at St. John’s.

Curiously, none of these gifted writers wrote compellingly of the thing that slowly or suddenly killed them, thus leaving me “open field running” as a football coach might say. As part of the reconciliation with the truth prerequisite to any recovery from alcoholism, I have gathered together my poems of the last decade which bear upon this affliction... »

Tim Murphy's poems on alcoholism can be found in The Chimaera #2.