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Magma 78: Collaborations

Issue 78 of the poetry magazine Magma is devoted to an exploration of collaboration in its "hive-minded, symbiotic, experimental and downright radical" expressions of the form. I'm pleased that the issue includes 'Poem A: Fashion Week', one of the two strands comprising 'stone washing', my bilingual collaboration with Pierre Alféri - novelist, poet, and essayist, and son of the philosopher Jacques Derrida and psychoanalyst Marguerite Aucouturier.

Magma is based in London and publishes three issues a year, with each issue focusing on a different theme and collated by different editors. Magma 78 is edited by David Floyd and Alice Willits.

My collaboration with Pierre was originally commissioned by SJ Fowler - who is the subject of an in-depth interview in Magma 78 - for the 2019 edition of European Poetry Festival. From our collaborators' note printed in the issue:

'stone washing' is a two-strand bilingual process poem taking the form of cumulative texts as a record of series of rewrites between Pierre Alféri in Paris and Christodoulos Makris in Dublin, and alternating across French and English. Each strand began with a brand new poem by each poet, which was then omitted from the final text. The strand printed in Magma 78 began with a poem by Christodoulos. From the start and throughout, mistranslations, miscommunication, deviations and healthy disrespect were actively and mutually encouraged, and were central to the process as a means towards liberating little monsters lurking within the poems. - Christodoulos Makris & Pierre Alféri

The issue is available to buy from the Magma website.

In addition to the print version, Magma 78 encompasses a special online edition which showcases interdisciplinary audio and film poems extraneous to the printed material.

An online launch takes place on Thursday 19 November with the participation of some of the poets featured in the issue. The event is free, and tickets are available here.

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