Form, Form-Transgressive Poetry

Once upon a time, before university and the wonders of studying the craft of writing as envisaged by academics in an educational institution, I thought of myself as a freeform writer and that Form was archaic, constraining, and redundant. Needless to say, my attitude has changed with exposure to form in all its wondrous guises and now I find myself in the unexpected position of not only searching out new forms but in bending, manipulating, and ultimately creating variations of or challenges to what I encounter.  

This is a practice that has existed as long as the many forms have been in existence as far as I can ascertain so I’m rather surprised to find that poetry that walks a path of exploration meets with such furrowed brows by fellow poetic travellers. Thankfully there are intrepid outlets that actively encourage deviations from the norm so if, like me, you’re creating new poetic paths and want to share your journey, here are just a few of the publishers (online examples where possible) who understand poetic explorations and form rebellions. Good luck with your journey and send me a poetic postcard from your travels.

(These are just some of the over 40+ outlets for my poems but it gives you a flavour of different paths you could be treading...)

Pennsylvania English Literary Magazine (university-affiliated), Smeuse, and Star 82 Review are ‘must haves’ but are print outlets so you’ll have to grab copies to see my work and that of others.  

Otolith: 

What can I say about Mark Young’s great print and online resource?  Four of my poems in the current issue include a redacted sonnet duo and a split/merge poem. He actively encourages divergence and has done for decades. All hail to Mark!!!

https://the-otolith.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/karen-downs-barton.html

Jazz Cigarette (now Petrichor)

This is generally a form-free zone but took a walk on the wild side for one issue that celebrated the use of form for contemporary issues. There is a copy of my modern pantoum available at: http://www.jazzcig.com/k_barton_01.html  

The Curly Mind:

Another great guy, Reuben Wooley has published many of my poems and this online poetry zine is all about the minds wot curl! Care Guide is a redacted poem that is quite lighthearted – just to prove that not all poetic iconoclasm has to be serious – God forbid!

https://thecurlymindblog.wordpress.com/tag/karen-barton/

Don’t forget that some universities have magazines with online issues that support innovative poets. Check out The Goose which is the official publication of ALECC (Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada / Association pour la littérature, l'environnement et la culture au Canada) and in my humble opinion holds up academic banner for being open to creative excellence in literature.  http://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1253&context=thegoose

Okay, so now you’ve seen that the outlets exist – and these were just a fraction of what is available as you'll see when scrolling through previous posts – and the sort of poems they’ve already accepted…. go submit and broaden the range of form transgressors getting their voices heard.

Text and Images

In the run-up to Christmas I wasn’t posting as I was on one of my ‘walkabouts’ this time staying in Cape Verde studying the art of Portuguese Manueline style art – well, where I could – and taking in the sights.

Manueline was totally new to me before one of the tutors on my art history course brought it up and if its new to you too then here is the low-down on it. It is a Portuguese late Gothic style that has influences of Mudejar (okay, one of my favourite styles) and even Indian architectural ornamental leanings. I was fascinated by the inclusion of what looks like rope – a reference to a seafaring trading nation? – and as I knew that Portugal and later the Dutch had used the Cape Verde islands as staging posts I decided to investigate while I was staying there.

The rope side of things is obviously problematic as it has strong associations with the ‘goods’ that were traded at the islands, slaves. As you can see from the images below, there is a lot of poverty in the islands but I found it inspiring, not least due to a lot of misconceptions written about the archipelago by people who haven’t even visited it. Bizarre!

As always my reaction is to write about what I see and the things that make me go ‘hmmmm’ and I’m pleased to say that the resultant poem ‘If I Could Tell You About Cape Verde’ has just been published by Tropica Laced Literary Magazine (you can see it on their tumblr page: https://tropicalaced.tumblr.com issue comes out in June so this way you don’t have to wait J ). They were kind enough to offer homes to two other poems that aren’t Cape Verde related, one about my grandfathers pigeon shed (a pungent and brutal place) and the other about the harem gate aviary at Topkapi Palace along with two unrelated photographs.

I’d also like to show how a contemporary ceramic artist has responded to African, Portuguese, Manueline, slave heritage of the islands with this beautiful and monumental vase called Africa.