What I’m Writing: Gothenburg Blues

Words and Picture by Reece David Merrifield

Up till now I have spent an increasingly large amount of time in Gothenburg. For the most part I have been traversing the trams, allowing me to build a picture of the daily and nightly routine of the citizens. The best way for me to be able to physically capture these thoughts and moments, rather than a camera, is the method of Kerouac’s blues: simply carrying a pocket notebook and fill each page with the moment, in a way which is spontaneous but am also highly conscious of what is around me.

Over time I have seen great fluctuation in weather patterns, visited a film festival, became guide to a friend of mine and attempted to visit what the city has to offer, as well as picking out either the more abnormal or ‘too’ normal events that make the city the intrigue I believe it is.

I hope to store a myriad of these little poetic images over the time I am here, and let the spontaneous combustion come up with all sorts of strange or clever patterns in my wordplay that otherwise would never arise.

*Final reminder, you have a week left to submit our work, so if you’re reading this and would like to have the chance to be published, visit our homepage for more information.

Ginger Wine Poems – Experimental Writing

Words and Picture by Joshua Cialis

Todays article comes as part of our works in progress series. We are looking at how different poets work and how their poems develop. This article looks at Joshua Cialis’ most recent delve into Experimental Writing:

I am general a spontaneous poet. I generally write what comes to me when it comes to me; this is most often complete poems written in one sitting. My writing is often fieldwork in that most of my poems are written mostly out and about, on busses or trains, walking around town, in coffee shops, or bars. However, I tried experimental writing over the weekend while stuck at home. I had been with some friends drinking Ginger Wine and decided to go home and continue my night at my notebooks.
I tried lots of different experiments to generate poems; each of these poems will be left unedited, and therefore, in their purest form.

These experiments took the form of listening to poetry performances [I used the Beats live at the Albert Hall] very quietly against the amplified sounds of the city. Or watching videos of swirling starlings. These poems also took form simply from reading a book by lamplight or by studying the shape of a Ginger Wine bottle. The poems in this forming collection demonstrate a sense of forced spontaneity and its ok to sometimes explore the unfamiliar or to experiment with the familiar. I will share some of the poems from this collection at a later date.

Call for Submissions

This is a reminder that we are open for submissions of poetry, prose and art. So send us your experimental, form bending, or traditional works. The whole point of Foxtrot Uniform is that its a free place for creatives to share their work without the hindrance of the omnipotent publisher.

So send your work to foxtrotuniformpoetry@gmail.com

What’s in My Bag? – III

Words and Picture by Reece David Merrifield

Ever since I’ve been able to, I’ve always been looking to travel, explore and experience as much as I can. The bag pictured above has probably been with me for the past 6 years, holding countless amounts of items, broken and being fixed enough times now to consider it having its own little life.

Mainly however, you will usually find a book (or two), pen and notebook, along with a scarf (never particularly confident about the British weather) and maybe the odd train ticket, which I have been collecting over the past 6 years as a documentation of travel. Sometimes I even take the bag in its empty state, which people have questioned multiple times, but I’ve always felt it necessary to have it with me, because you can never predict what you may pick up during the day.

Currently, as most people are probably aware, I’m living in Sweden and that required a bag a tad bigger than my little rucksack. It has proved to be invaluable on my travels so far; from London to Copenhagen to Gothenburg via coach; and Trollhättan to Stockholm to the higher climes of Finnish and Swedish Lapland and one of the Norwegian Fjords. Even then though, my little bag has followed me from within that bag as well, holding my books and pen, ever dependable and much more portable, what a supermarket would call a ‘bag for life’.

It may seem that I’m sentimental, or that I’ve never purchased other bags in the last 6 years, because admittedly the poor bag is a wreck. However, no bag has lasted longer than this one, and until it fully dies will I dig into my pockets and invest in something similar (before you ask, a funeral is not on the cards at this point).

We hope you have enjoyed the series and appreciate how we view a bag as quite an important instrument to support our creativity. And remember to keep submitting your work, we are forever looking forward to the next print of the magazine!