Welcome dear readers! Due to a large number of submissions this time round, we have been a little late in publishing Collection 4 which again showcases fine work from around the globe.

 

Reading through the 12 poems featured here, I am struck by a magical quality that is held in the nuance and detail of language and form. Many of the pieces read like list-poems that offer line after line of trails into unexpected corners of the mind, opening up new ways of thinking about the everyday and how we might transcend it through the written word. When the voice, tone, shape and structure of a poem juxtapose in various and unusual ways, we don’t just see the creation of metaphor but a revelation of human experience that is unique and authentic. The writing of poetry can thus enrich our understanding of people; their history, geography, biology and mathematics- how they calculate, correct and add up their perceptions of the world to make sense of a whole. In this sense, a poem is a school but one that teaches us things we don’t necessarily learn in school- to take risks, think outside the norm, challenge what is presented as ‘knowledge’ and question everything. This is why Einstein valued creativity as much as science and how the greatest scientific discoveries were made. 

 

Over the last few years and during my recent poetry residency at the University of Warwick where I am helping to promote women in science, I have been exploring ways of presenting poetry in ways other than through traditional publishing. From printing on the fanny panels of knickers to recording spoken word into toy key-rings, to sharing poems that can only be read through a microscope, my aim was to re-imagine words and their worlds through the use of found objects and installation. Having spent 4 years at art school those words were never going to just stay on a page. Sometimes they need to, sometimes they don’t. What connects me to poems in Collection 4 is a sense that they have also escaped the page, but without actually moving…and there’s the magic right there: Light Mountains, a Glass Harp Presage, re-wilded Biscuit Tins, starfingers, an abandoned Harlequin, bleeding petals, a mermaid's purse, coffin lid clouds, a glassed peon, the ashes of old poems, rust and yeast- things that eat, a rust-stained glacier, friction idiophones, are some of the fantastical exhibits on show here.

With gratitude
Sujatha

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