Ephemera Newsletter Iss June.4

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, Siabry! (Belarusian for “friends”).

June’s final newsletter is this one! Due to some odd days accounting, as it were. And this issue we get to read the final poem from June’s Poet @ Ephemera, Ann Huang. (Link takes you to her dedicated page). We’ve been super pleased with her work this month and hope you’ll explore her poetry more thoroughly. Thanks, Ann, for a great month of poetry!

Also, check out last week’s letter if you missed it. And here are some reminders:

• Call For Subscriptions and Submissions: If you are a paid subscriber to Ephemera, you can submit to poetry @ Ephemera for free as a membership perk! Free subscribers and anyone else can submit, too, with the reading fee and can submit up to 10 poems. Paying the reading fee will grant you 1-month paid access. Now accepting submissions for the August issue.

In Brief…this week’s features:

• Music from Domenique Dumont, a quiet Eastern-European electronic artist and instrumentalist duo or trio (they purposely play up false identity) that makes quiet, sometimes film-based tracks.

• Setsuko Klossowska de Rola, terracotta sculptor and art ambassador works with natural images and focuses on texture.

• June’s poet Ann Huang and her poem “Untitled”

• Our weekly lists: 3 magazines with open calls, 3 awards/prizes from respected institutions, 3 recent job listings.

• More ephemera: check out an Interesante article on filtering (variation on last week’s theme) what we read ruthlessly but reading a ton; Book recs, bonus content, and our mini-essays to start!

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Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.

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Ephemera

Dear Readers,

Summer can be loud. Parties, pools, ambitious travel, the 4th, family beach trips and the like. Living by doing, going going, is a type of movement sound that makes noisy bursts and waves. That’s great. We so often need those big, bold moments to exist without thoughts ranging back to the minutia of every moment or future moments that require angsty attention. Roar and ring and do. However, quietness finds us even in unlikely spaces. Ever been to a dance party and found yourself more intrigued by the shapes of revelers, shadows, the detritus of the party than the action and boisterousness of the celebration? Feltness matters for a creative, so bounce, and yell, and romp, and cause a ruckus, but, when you catch your breath, in the small lulls between shared shouts, take note of the quiet textures, of the ordinariness in your midst for these elements contain in them a collage meaning we might call wisdom, and even less important details that, while they don’t meet the criteria of what we know to be sage, are nevertheless imbued with essence, bounds within which many revel. Textures and the small and sturdy, inclusive of and yet paradoxically the whimsical and ephemeral, are points of interest unto themselves while often being the pedestal on which we stand when we upwell into revelry, resound and or cry joy.

“XXXX”
—XXXX

Our artist this week, Setsuko, and our music selection, “People on Sunday” by Domenique Dumont, tend toward textures and breathers, imbue their work with the ordinary, and through the quiet application of detail, voyeuring of others or the self in peaking moments, nature too, gain and reflect a wisdom of the quiet, in Setsuko’s case the natural world and in Domenique Dumont’s case the human every-day. Even if our ambition is not the quiet poem about a room, a novel about the homestead during wartime, we can learn from this type of work to look at ourselves, or from ourselves to create moments in our loud works that fit in with the quiet. Often, the quiet is en route to the loud. Watch for the angles of the body when folks dance. What textures emerge in the natural spaces of your hikes, your lake jaunts, beach parties and what have you? Where do people’s minds go when the eyes fleck down briefly during a pause? What leads to the updraft of spirit that fuels animation? Be present. Surge. But maintain a quiet ember of intrigue in the quotidian. Boredom and lulls can be pregnant unto themselves. It’s in our micro-expressions. The grooves of bark. The fletching of a quiet bird before it arrows away. A mature couple walking alone, together, before they arrive. Your itchy thought just before you join in crowing.

Padziaka!
(Gratitude)

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~We’re so happy you’re here!~

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Poetry by Ann Huang

Untitled

A mountain dreams
of its companion poem,
full of the finches,
full of tenochtitlan.

A poem with tears,
a cotton rope around the body,
intrepid and warm
and a warmth above all.

A snail strengthening 
by the air of the deadening,

the body’s recall.

Tomorrow part of you bellows, pains, 
your mind to be scattered in many states,
where ink drips thin.

You believe the mind believes it  
to end and to restart.

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Submit to Poetry at Ephemera (August)

We want to bring original creative work to our readership in conjunction with our content offerings and mini essays, to enliven the read and build a variegated creative experience. We select 1 writer for the month (4 issues) and one poem per issue. Please find more details by clicking the image which takes you to a dedicated post, or navigate to our Submittable page for more information (the button).

We look forward to reviewing and publishing your excellent work!

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Writers Submit: Three Magazines