IMMINENT Issue 10 - blue moon

IMMINENT Issue 10 arrives with the autumn dark and clear, cold skies, bright moons and longer nights, as the temperatures begin to fall.

Issue 10 is called blue moon - a blue moon being the name for an unusual event, and indeed the next blue moon will not be seen until 31st May 2026. This will be a monthly blue moon, meaning that it will be the second full moon falling within that month.

The other monthly full moons all have their own names, and the particularly bright supermoons that we have had in recent months inspired me to make this issue. We contemplate why the moons have their names, why we feel we have to name things, and the limitations of words to understand the full nature of nature's universe around us.

Artwork by Carole Miles appears throughout the issue, created using handmade cuts and prints that are then digitally manipulated and transformed once again by me as they translate into the zine riso print medium. I love this kind of collaborative creation that the zine allows me. Carole's images draw connections between the moon's phases and the hands that tend the gardens, Carole being both an artist and a keen gardener. Mark Goodwin's poems connect our ways of knowing through fingertips and the senses, and Anna Reckin's poem considers the ways that we use words to describe and name the Blue Bell. Kate Silkosi's autumn's edge is a visual poem which questions the use of words at all.

As I write this, on the 16th November, last night was a final supermoon for the year. I have had some astonishing encounters with supermoons this year, managing to find places away from artificial city lights and experience those clear, dark skies. This issue will be my reminder of that year.

Kate Siklosi is a writer in Canada, published in IMMINENT for the first time. Kate has a book of poems, Selvage, which you can find here. As Johanna Drucker describes it, "In Selvage, Siklosi invokes motifs of leaves, stitches, and botanical growth to demonstrate the fecundity of communicative networks."

I had the privilege of working on some of the layouts for Mark Goodwin's recent book, At, now available from Shearsman books. Placement of words on the page are significant in Mark's work, and the process of creating the layouts for some of the poems is an exercise in discovery, as words overlap or juxtapose in different ways, all part of the creation of the poem.

Issues of IMMINENT Issue 10 are now available online from my shop. Thank you for supporting writers and artists to continue to make this zine for the last 5 years.