Ephemera Newsletter Iss Oct.3

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter free edition, Sāthīharū (Nepali for “friends”)

Poetry October is here with our finalist Jack Stewart whose work will be featured in each issue of October. You can review his poems altogether once they publish as well as artist statement and bio on this dedicated post on our Substack page. We thank you for checking out Jack’s work.

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In Brief…this week’s features:

• Thoughts on the light artwork of Darius Twin

• Listening to Richard Houghten’s acoustic cover of one of our favorite Grime’s songs, “Genesis.”

• October’s poet, Jack Stewart’s third of four poems, “Drawn To It”

• Our weekly lists:

  • 3 magazines with open calls

  • 3 awards/prizes

  • 3 recent job listings for editors and writers.

• Interesante: a visual map of book genres that looks like star systems.

• Book Recs, bonus content, and our mini-essays to start!

  • Support us on Bookshop - See our past book recs and others. A highly curated list.

• Last Week’s Letter.

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

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Ephemera

Dear Readers,

So much for the warm embrace of New England fall—we promptly caught whatever nasty bug that was terrorizing everyone unspokenly. We didn’t know how vigilant to be… That knocked us back a week! We pray our readers keep their necks scarfed, hands washed, heads rested. A pox on creative setbacks! Luckily, our illness fell at the tail end of our travels and a robust campaign of inspiration foraging: conversations with poet friends over toddies, studio visits with painter friends to see how they work as much as on what they’re working, treks down emblazoned paths, and a visit to the sculpture mecca Storm King. A packed week. Lots of feels. Our notebook pages brimming. We have so many sensations to yet record, yet unravel from the intelligence of our bones.

What is the most challenging part when making Light-art photography?
“Holding yourself ransom to the vision of your mind. Also known as not compromising.”
—Darius Twin from imprintlab.com

Those memories and intricate knowings learn from stalagmites and stalactites; the wisdom of calcium is slow. One must think of time on the glacial scale. The now, skin and eye time, is time as ridden by ladybugs and butterflies. The bones are deep time, long exposures—see: this week’s skeleton-light artist—reminding us that our creative ability is not whatever we can deliver at any moment; it is the sum total of moments, many iterations of invention, retraction, polishing, and re-invention, each go around of which brings to bear new pieces of us from that studio visit, or that epiphany jotted down when your family disappeared into a lull after dinner, or the hierophany experienced by the pond with ravens yammering and the fish spinning like Koi. Deep time. We condition the environs of our art such that at the right moment, we emerge as if fully formed, the orchids of our greatest creative endeavoring, beautiful and impossible.

Kr̥tajñatā.
(Gratitude)

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Poetry by Jack Stewart

Drawn To It
         

Above the waves of distant palms,
The mast of a steeple:
Hymns bubble in the belly of the hull.

I go sometimes because I need
To stand somewhere I can’t 
See well. Old air cloaks candle-flicker,
And language is brighter after I whisper
Words I don’t quite understand.
Have you ever mouthed something you
Were almost embarrassed to say?

Everyone needs to sit shoulder
To shoulder at some point. Jerome
Leaned into the arm of silence
And tried to learn the world
The way a verb comprehends the touch
Of a noun. The way the beginning
Of a sentence survives

Even after it realizes
It cannot express 
What it wants to say.

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Music: Richard Houghten

Houghten’s faithful rendering of the Grimes classic “Genesis” is delicious. Grimes’ original works with digital sounds, lots of production, lots of complexity filling the space. For Houghten to capture the original this well in acoustic guitar is impressive from our point of view, although, upon umpteenth listen, we’re able to hear, or at least it feels like we can hear effects on the guitar and maybe even the aid of recording software. …