One-Rabbit

Two publications, two launches and star alignments

In case you don’t keep the Mexica astral count, aside from being a Fire Horse, this year is also One-Rabbit, the first in the 52-year calendar cycle, which spells disaster for crops. Tree-ring data suggests that droughts occurred immediately before ten of the thirteen One-Rabbit years in the Mexica era, leading to the so-called Curse of One-Rabbit. A well-made curse, like a good charm or blessing, is a very imposing linguistic device. It’s efficacious partly because it's memorable, stamping itself on the mind, submitting its object to a path on which fate might be just round the corner. 

Anyway, our crop this issue was more than grand. We brought this up more just to say that as editors, we’re constantly reckoning with the serendipity, coincidence, and mystery of consensus. What might prove a defining issue for one submission pool might not be evidenced in a single poem the next. We leave it to you, our readers, to determine what binds the work in our forthcoming issue, which went to the printers this week. Also, quite apart from the fact that they hail from places as distant as Orkney, the West Bank, the Polish Beskids, and Glasgow, the poems and essays in the new issue insist that whatever prism we apply – whether it’s land or the dictates of the stars – we read for difference, whether in style or opinion.

Our contributors:

Helen Calcutt, Kevin Cormack, Meredith Macleod Davidson, Emily Fielding, Alec Finlay, Dom Hale, Jacob James Hurley, Stanisław Kalina Jaglarz (trans. Scotia Gilroy), Mona Kareem (trans. Sara Elkamel), Iona Lee, David Ross Linklater, Lucy Lovell, Eliza O’Toole, George Finlay Ramsay, Jacob Burgess Rollo, ariel rosé, Rupa Latif Rupa, M Elizabeth Scott, Taylor Strickland, Dalia Taha (trans. Sara Elkamel), Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese, Jinling Wu, and William Wyld.

Issue Seven is now available for pre-orders and you'll be able to buy a copy online on our website shop by emailing our communication manager at: diana[at]wetgrain.co.uk. We also have limited availability of physical copies for past issues, and you will be able to check our stock and request a copy of a past issue.

We'll slowly work on making some segments of the issue available to read (or listen to!) online for free, though obviously if you want to read it all at once and support us, the best way is to pre-order a copy.

📌Issue Seven Launches:

We’re launching in Edinburgh on the 15th of April (7pm) at Typewronger Books

We will also be launching in London the following week – join us at Housmans Bookshop on the 21st of April (7pm)

🍃Sheaf #1

We’re also delighted to share pictures of our first sheaf, designed and riso-printed by Typewronger Books. New prose on personal space by Aea Varfis Van-Warmelo and poetic responsibility by Helena Fornells Nadal. Poems from Issue One by Elle Heedles and Ken Cockburn have made their way onto seeded paper as postcards. The only way to get ahold of these is by subscribing to the magazine.

Paying subscribers can expect one of these through their letterbox later next week. Interested in becoming a paying subsciber? We truly appreciate your support, and you can read more about the perks of a paid subscription and how to start yours here, or by emailing diana[at]wetgrainpoetry.co.uk

✏️Land poetries workshop

This past Sunday Helena Fornells Nadal hosted out first writing workshop of the year at Broadside Gallery and it was an exciting scene of new ideas that yielded an amazing manifesto. Stay tuned for more on this and on our upcoming workshops if you missed the chance, and don't forget that paying subscribers can get a complimentary space in one of our workshops (Glasgow, Edinburgh, or London).

⏰Submissions

Submissions will open for Issue 8 on the 1st of May.

Who’s to say how Issue Seven will be read in Two-Reed (next year), thought to be the year the New Fire was traditionally lit. For now, we can say we couldn’t be prouder of it or more confident in the originality of the work, which responds to our invitation to consider land in a host of hues and tones. Together the poems herald a re-birth for the magazine to coincide with the beginning of the 52-year calendar, dispelling any ominous portents it might have had for poetry if any were left over after the publication of The Waste Land in One-Rabbit (1922).

An abundance of good omens,

Patrick & Nasim