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“what this heart might look like — in a girl”: a review of i’m probably betraying my body by linda harris dolanIn her candid new poetry chapbook,
2024-11-04 12:01
Poetic Conversations: Between Horror and The Soil’s Plenitude ~ On Petra Kuppers’ “Diver Beneath The Street”Cover for Petra Kuppers’ “Diver Beneath The Street” (Wayne State Univers
2024-10-29 11:36
What do you think of when you hear the word “burn”? Do you think of a fast and brutal annihilation?
2024-09-10 06:18

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CALLS

Call for Submissions to Code Poetics Folio

I know that when Darcy wrote the tweet it was supposed to be a gesture of appreciation, nothing malicious. However, on my end, it felt like being called a slur. For those inclined to do so, feel free to roll your eyes and think the words ‘race card’. I dare you. I’ve been called a nigger by white people to my face, and I’ve been called a nigger without the word ever being said. This wasn’t that, not exactly, but language contains all kinds of coded variations on a theme – Walking embodiment. Not my business. Bojangling. I am well-versed in the ways whiteness protects itself, the ways it always rushes to its own defense.
—Casey Rocheteau, “Literary Juneteenth (or Why I Left The Offing)”

Code poetics is writing aimed at disrupting coded language meant to oppress and silence others. It is a practice of textual interpretation and compilation, a poetic disruption of machines. While the master's tools may not dismantle the master's house, code poetics is intimately occupied with the construction of that house, honing strategies for its disassembly while revealing its dissemblance. Machines are any persons or things that automate and reify the programs (institutions) as written by history and disciplined by codes (standards of behavior) that run us. Rather than bring disorientation though code, a true code poetics brings poetry into and against code. Automation is the end of engagement. Practicing code poetics is interpreting with a body; compiling towards a shared memory.

Poetry is a place from which language responds; poetry is and will be a source from which new language emerges. Language is not a reaction. What may we write together that we could not write apart? What elements of style are necessary for a new oratory of order? Code poetics is too about new codes; new systems; new infrastructures of hope. We will not be bound by what was built for our breakdowns.
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Attach up to five poems in a single document to codepoetics [at] gmail [dot] com. Please include a short bio in the "Cover Letter" field.
 

Call for Blog & Feature Writers

We're looking for writers who are interested in contributing in an ongoing manner to the Drunken Boat Blog, either by proposing a column or series, or by joining a team of staff writers who both pitch and take on assigned pieces for the blog. We are particularly interested in writers to focus on reviews, interviews, and profiles of artists and writers; and in getting pitches for columns or series that focus specifically on a particular artistic or writing community within the purview of our expanded mission. If you are interested, please send an email to Editor Erica Mena with a paragraph about what you're interested in writing about and your CV attached.

Call for Folio Proposals

Drunken Boat features three special sections, that we call folios, in each issue, and between issues. To propose a theme or topic for an upcoming folio, please submit a brief, 500-word description, making sure to specify what genres will be included in the content of your folio, and the names of some potential contributors (you do not need to already have content selected, just a few names as examples!). 

Folios proposals are accepted and reviewed on an ongoing basis. Propose a folio here.

Drunken Boat Books

Union: 50 Years of Writing from Singapore and 15 Years of Drunken Boat

The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground

A hybrid of poetry and digital art by Collier Nogues, published by Drunken Boat.

​Radha Says

The final collection by award-winning poet Reetika Vazirani, published by Drunken Boat.

The Hide-and-Seek Muse

Annotations of contemporary poetry edited by Lisa Russ Spaar, published by Drunken Boat.