PERVERSE 4H
Auriol
Loydell
Hershman
Dastidar
Neptune
Hullo there,
This is the final instalment of PERVERSE issue 4 - I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I’ve had some lovely messages from readers along the way and very much appreciate them. It continues to be a real privilege to read so many unusual poems, and to share them with you.
I’m going to have a little break now. I’ll open submissions in December, for a month, and then get back to PERVERSE in the new year. I’ll send out a mail in the next couple of weeks confirming that, along with a link to a PDF of the whole issue.
I’m also thinking about crowdfunding an anthology of PERVERSE poems next year, so as to print a physical book. Is that something you might be interested in? If so, it would be really helpful if you could please answer the three questions here - it’ll just take a minute.
Well, here’s the last gaggle of poems - I hope you enjoy reading them!
With warmest wishes,
Chrissy
PERVERSE Editor
(FYI if you are reading this on a mobile phone, it may be best to turn the phone sideways. Some of the poems are displayed as images, so make sure you’ve clicked “show images” at the top of this mail. If you'd rather read these poems in a PDF you can do so here, along with previous instalments of this issue.)
Rhiannon Auriol
always selfish, always cool
Rupert Loydell
RAPID TRANSIT
gets you nowhere fast.
Tania Hershman
Big Dips
Kim sips flimsily while Nick twists. It fits, Nick, chips Kim. Nick shifts. Bill’s drink tips, lightly spills. Whimsy kicks Kim, inciting high jinks: Kim flips, Bill hits Nick, Kitty slips in. Kitty licks Bill’s spill, hissing. Mix it, spits Kim, Nick in bits. Minutes. Philip, Tim, Liv arrive. Liv ticks Kim, lifts Miss Kitty while Nick flings limply. Bill flirts; Philip winks; Tim is stiff. Inside is sinful – Sit sit, I insist, little chits, my little milky imps.
Rishi Dastidar
stop making lists
i mean can you even market art these days without awards and prizes
towards Linnean strategic classifications for the promotion of art
the horizontalizing of achievement
the long tail of being culturally ignored eh
scarce cultural attention ≠ an artist’s infinite ego
aim for the metaphysical of prizes
yeah but if your art doesn’t have a proposition, how can you expect a campaign
there is always a space beyond the velvet rope you won’t get to
and if you do it’ll be empty anyway
Serge ♆ Neptune
Theories Concerning the Origin of Merpeople
Likely a riddle
Likely a wave of sound travelling wide distances and vaguely
recalling the language of god, that first brush that smeared life
unto the void-canvas
Likely eggs of some kind
Likely …
…
…
Likely touch of some kind or some weird osmosis
Likely water is a mother
Likely none of your concern
Likely intercourse between a land woman and some god of the sea
who may have manifested himself in human or fish form
Likely bubbles, clots of song clothed in air
Likely the sun, some spell or a scam
Likely a genetic error from a government’s secret project
Likely an avant-garde installation
Likely a whim, the trick of a laughing deity
Likely a miracle, some alchemy of gorgeousness, the moment
when water starts boiling and every living thing inside the sea is watching,
waiting anxiously for something great to happen.
Contributor Notes
Rhiannon Auriol
Rhiannon Auriol (she/her) is a writer currently based in Edinburgh. She has been writing and publishing work since 2015 after winning the BBC proms poetry award. Some of her work can be found online at And Other Poems and the Oxford Review of Books as well as in Cake Mag, SPAM Zine and 5.18 magazine. She is also copy editor at Sunstroke Magazine and creator and editor of Daughterhood Zine (ig @daughterhoodzine).
Note on ‘always selfish, always cool’:
“reading Andrea Long Chu’s essay Females I was struck by this particular phrase ‘always selfish, always cool’ pulled from Valerie Solanas’ 1967 SCUM Manifesto. i thought it encapsulated the simultaneously self-indulgent & semi satirical tone that i like to use for the speakers in my poems. i wanted to convey a ‘cool’ which is about both distance & demand – the post-sad-girl-theory popularity of first-person vulnerability in contemporary writing.”
Rupert Loydell
https://www.shearsman.com/store/Loydell-Rupert-M-c28271824
Rupert Loydell is a Senior Lecturer at Falmouth University, the editor of Stride magazine, and contributing editor to International Times. He is a widely published poet whose most recent poetry books are Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and A Confusion of Marys (Shearsman, 2020).
Note on ‘RAPID TRANSIT’:
“Hopefully ‘Rapid Transit’ speaks for itself. It’s a perverse, opinionated tiny poem.”
Tania Hershman
http://www.taniahershman.com/wp/
Tania Hershman is the author of a poetry collection, two poetry pamphlets, three short story collections and a hybrid book inspired by particle physics. Hear her read her work on https://soundcloud.com/taniahershman.
Note on ‘Big Dips’:
“I wrote this poem for a Poetry School course I was on a while ago, but for the life of me I can’t remember which course or what the prompt was! I’m pretty sure it was about doing strange things with language and rhythm, and, as someone who also writes fiction, especially very short flash fictions, this piece sits on that blurry and interesting boundary where poetry kisses fiction. Not sure I’ve ever written something so short that has so many people in it!”
Rishi Dastidar
Rishi Dastidar’s second collection of poetry, Saffron Jack, is published in the UK by Nine Arches Press. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press).
Note on ‘stop making lists’:
“It’s a spasm of irritation disguised as a series of tweets disguised as a poem, dashed off in haste after the winner of an art prize (I can’t remember which or what form) was announced.”
Serge ♆ Neptune
https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/serge-neptune-these-queer-merboys
Serge ♆ Neptune has been called ‘the little merman of British poetry’. His first pamphlet is These Queer Merboys, published with Broken Sleep. Some of his work appeared in Lighthouse, Banshee and Brittle Star.
Note on ‘Theories Concerning the Origin of Merpeople’:
“In my poetry I explore queerness through the metaphor of mermen and merpeople in general. This poem does exactly what the title says, listing a series of theories regarding the origin of this magical species but never providing a real answer.”