‘Environs’ Special issue

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September Snakeskin will be a special issue on the theme of ‘Environs’, guest-edited by Tristan Moss. Tristan writes:

Environs will be the theme for the September edition of Snakeskin. Please interpret broadly.

Poems could be about the environs of a town or a city: for example, greenbelts, housing estates, rubbish tips, wastelands, nature reserves or parks. Or could be about the environs of a pub, school, workplace, allotment, shed, farm or space shuttle. Or you might want to write a poem about the virtual environs of a video game or website. Some argue that we now live in a global village, so by this measure the whole world could be seen as our environs.

Poems might show how an area’s environs have changed. Or they might show the effect of change on you (or other people); or the effect you or others have had on an area’s environs.

These poems should have a strong sense of place, with well chosen specific details, but there may be exceptions to this, too.

I welcome all forms of poetry, from traditional ones to experimental ones.

Send your poems to Tristan at tristanmoss@hotmail.co.uk before August 23rd.

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January Snakeskin

A happy and prosperous New Year to all our readers!

January Snakeskin will come online on January 3rd.

On the subject of Libraries…

The special November Snakeskin on the theme of Libraries and Bookshops has been a pleasure to edit. A nice variety of approaches, and plenty of warm feeling for these vital but threatened institutions of our culture. the zine should be going online late this evening.

UK readers who are concerned about the erosion of library services might like to consider signing this petition asking the government to ring-fence library spending. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/228742https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/228742https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/228742

Bookshops and Libraries

The November issue of Snakeskin will be one of our theme numbers. The subject is

Both of these sometimes look like endangered species these days, but we don’t just want elegies. Tell us about your favourite library, or the bookshop whose owner glared at you. Or the library where you learned the facts of life, or the bookshop where you learned the secret of love. Or whatever. Deadline 27th October.

Archive

I’d let the Snakeskin archive get into a terrible state, but a plea from a poet has finally induced me to clean it up.

It’s working fairly well now, but if you notice any problems or gaps, please do let me know.

Work

The WORK issue is on its way. I hope it will be online tomorrow, all being well. All not being well, it will arrive on Wednesday at the latest.

In terms of numbers of submissions, this has been the most successful special issue ever, I think.  At first I didn’t receive many WORK offerings, but then they arrived and arrived and arrived.

Choosing has been difficult. the main criterion is whether or not it’s a good poem, but I’ve also borne in mind the need for varied subject matter; this issue will present many many kinds of work. I’ve also had a tendency to prefer poems that seem to come from the writer’s own experience, rather than those in which a job is merely imagined – though one or two of those have crept in.

I’m still selecting, rejecting, wondering, making difficult choices. Editing can be hard work. The results of my labour will be online soon.

WORK

A reminder – May Snakeskin will be a special issue on the subject of Work.
Please send us poems (in a style of your choice) about jobs (your own or someone else’s.
We’d like to hear about hard work and soft jobs, about rewarding labour, about easy skives and about work of mind-numbing tedium.
We hope to include as many different types of work as we can, so please send your version to editor@snakeskin.org.uk within the next couple of weeks.

Snakeskin 250

Our 250th edition is now online!

I remember how excited I got when we reached our fiftieth edition, our hundredth, our two hundredth… At 250 I’ve grown, not exactly blasé – more accepting that this is the thing I do, and those issue numbers are going to keep on rising until I’m halted in my tracks by death, dementia or debility. Which I hope will be not too soon.

The 250th issue is one I’m especially pleased with – good poems, and varied as anything.

But another Snakeskin tradition is technical problems. This morning my email is playing up. I can’t send messages to the poets whose work has been selected. With luck I’ll be able to fix this soon. In the meantime – apologies.

Update: Email is now working again, the return to smooth operation as unexplained as the original malfunction. these are deep mysteries.

Love is in the air…

The November LOVE special issue is nearly ready – it will probably go online late this evening. I’m delighted to say that we’ve got a wide range of different approaches to the subject, from the romantic to the sardonic, the regretful to the passionate.

December and January will be straight non-theme issues. And after that – well, we’ll see.

Thanks, Jessy

Thanks to Jessy Randall for guest-editing the February issue of Snakeskin, on the theme of Maths and Numbers.

It’s meant that I’ve had a nice easy January, with nothing much to do, except set up the poems she chose, decorated by images from an ancient Maths book.

Life will get busy again now, with a general edition coming up in March and a new special issue in April…