Fortnightly Footnotes: Make Way for the Avant-garde

Experimental poetry, book recommendations, and a 16th century tome that can be read in six different ways

Image from Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

Happy Friday everyone,

In case you missed it, last week I wrote about the 4th century Chinese poet Su Hui and her hypnotic palindrome poem, “Star Gauge” which you can read here:

Su Hui’s Epic Palindrome: Star Gauge

While researching “Star Gauge”, I came across a couple of sites that showcase some more experimental/avant-garde poetry which I’ve included in the footnotes.

Also, don’t forget to vote for next week’s content in the poll at the bottom of this post :)

And now here’s this week’s F¹o²r³t⁴n⁵i⁶g⁷h⁸t⁹l¹⁰y¹¹ Footnotes:

1. 📚: I read Wendy Cope’s charming poetry collection Family Values about a month ago but I’ve only just remembered it this past week—not because it was bad, but because I read it in about forty-five minutes and simply forgot about it.

Many of the commissioned poems near the end of the book didn’t do much for me. In fact, most of the book is what’s considered “light verse.” But several of the poems at the start were indelible. There’s a stanza—the first of the poem “Differences of Opinion”—that goes like this:

He tells her that the earth is flat—
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

Yeah, I liked that one too.

My rating: ★ ★ ★ ✰ ✰

2. 📚: If you check the top of my homepage, you’ll notice I’ve added a new tab called Book Recommendations. Clicking this will take you to my Bookshop.org storefront, where you can shop for books I personally vouch for. Purchasing a book through my storefront will support local bookstores (and I’ll receive a small commission as well).

So far I’ve only listed some of my personal favorite reads, but I plan to add many more books in the future so be sure to check in now and then.

3. ✒️: A recent zine discovery: Voidspace, which publishes interactive poetry and fiction. One of the best things about online literary magazines is that it can do something that printed magazines cannot—have hyperlinked text that allows you to jump from page to page at the click of a mouse. Some cool stuff here.

4. ✒️: Another home of experimental poems is the website Poetrishy, which has an interesting website design befitting a site that’s home to avante-garde poetry.

5. ✒️: Two weeks ago I published my first choose-your-own-adventure story on Instagram so I was intrigued by this poem in the same genre, called “Multiple Choice” by poet Harry Mathews.

6. ✒️: Speaking of Instagram, I recently started following Emilia Motoasca, who crafts some of the most sublime blackout poetry I’ve ever seen. Give her a follow if you haven’t already.

7. 📚: Here’s an interesting concept: a 16th century book that can be opened and read in six different ways. I’m still not sure why anyone would want to make a book like this, but it’s fascinating purely from a designer’s perspective.

8. 📚: Here’s the “100 Greatest Film Books of All Time”, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

9. 📰: Do you like dynamic infographics? How about essays on contemporary culture? Both? Great, then you need to check out The Pudding.

10. ✒️: Here are three of my favorite Substack reads over the past fortnight:

Three Poems

A Selection of Poems by Louise Glück

Playing Games with Punctuation

11. 🗳️: Enough about me—let’s talk about what you’d like to see in your inbox next week.