gorse No. 11

Following a long hiatus in publishing operations at gorse - the previous issue No. 10, a special mixed-media book-in-a-box issue I edited in full, was released back in September 2018 - I'm very pleased to report that we're back with issue No. 11, published last month and now available for purchase.

gorse No. 11 has been produced as a tête-bêche (meaning 'head-to-tail', where a publication is printed in two halves, upside down and back-to-back, so you can read one half then flip it over to start reading the other) and which reflects the issue's guiding concept of 'Borders', with a North/South (Whins/Furze) editorial structure.

According to A.T. Lucas, in his book Furze, A Survey and History of its Uses in Ireland (1960), "There are two general English names [for gorse] current in the country. A line drawn from east to west across the country from the neighbourhood of Drogheda to that of Westport approximately divides the territories where these names are in use. To the north of that line the name used is 'whins', to the south of it 'furze'." We changed the title of the publication for this issue to whins and furze to indicate loosely the division of the book between North (whins) and South (furze). The cover shows a close up of a border division on a map, north of the line is Whins and south of the line is Furze. The two covers line up side by side to show a longer stretch of the border and they can also be arranged in an endless repeat of a divided landscape. A linguistic divide is much more ambiguous than a geo-political border, it suggests a much broader in-between and a gradual cultural blend rather than a definitive hard line.

While at gorse we are moving away from dividing our table of contents into explicit genre categorisations, I'm excited in my capacity as poetry editor to be including in this issue work from Francesca Brooks, Róisín Power Hackett, Tim MacGabhann, Jona Xhepa, and Rike Scheffler & SJ Fowler in collaboration. Poetry also makes an appearance as a coda in Jonathan C. Creasy's essay, while visual-poetic elements mark the contributions by Sarah Lundy and Katie Holten.

In full, the issue features work from:

(North/Whins): Darran Anderson, Jonathan C. Creasy, Alan Cunningham, Jarlath Gregory, Róisín Power Hackett, Nathan O’Donnell, Bridget Penney, Lee Rourke, Rike Scheffler & SJ Fowler. 

(South/Furze): Rachel Andrews, Francesca Brooks, Orla Fitzpatrick, Lauren Foley, SJ Fowler & Rike Scheffler, Órla Foyle, Niven Govinden, Katie Holten, Sarah Lundy, Tim MacGabhann, Colm O’Shea, Jona Xhepa.

It also includes two editorials by general editor and publisher Susan Tomaselli: 'This is Not an Exit' (Whins), and 'No Maps for These Territories' (Furze).

Cover design is as ever by Niall McCormack.

gorse No. 11 is available to order directly from the gorse website, or from selected stockists.