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‘Palimpsests’. (a five-poem excerpt) published in Blackbox Manifold, 8 (2012)

Blackbox Manifold is an online journal hosted by Sheffield University. Its “slant towards innovative poetry that has prose, narrative, or sequences in its sights” and “aim to present new juxtapositions of voice while using the Web’s fluid solidity to cast around for as wide and varied a readership as possible” make this an important forum for visually and linguistically innovative poets and writers. Its open-access delivery allows for a wide, international readership.

The journal is edited by Alex Houen and Adam Piette. Alex Houen teaches English Literature at the University of Cambridge http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/people/Houen/Alex/

Adam Piette is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Sheffield http://www.shef.ac.uk/english/people/piette

The work I have presented on this forum is boldly visual, though rooted in language and process. The trails of language that from vignettes in and around the main bodies of text represent the trace of process and the linguistic centres of gravity in the piece (akin to a ‘key’ to use a musical analogy). Additionally, these excerpts are based on my own translations and transliterations of Y Mabinogi and reflect a consideration of Welsh identity, language and culture in the postmodern poetic arena. These poems are visual/linguistic hybrids and sit comfortably, alongside my other creative outputs, in the discipline of language art and poetics simultaneously.

Published in the same issue are: Rae Armantrout (Pulitzer Prize, 2010) Alison Brackenbury (Singing in the Dark . Carcanet, 2008) and Bob Perelman (19 books of poems, including: Iflife (NY: Roof Books, 2006); Playing Bodies, in collaboration with painter Francie Shaw (NY: Granary Books, 2004); and Ten to One: Selected Poems (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1999). The previous issue included Nathaniel Mackey (National Book Award, 2006). Blackbox Manifold is a significant platform for the presentation of postmodern writing.