Halloween is just around the corner and we're very excited about this suitably spooky poetry anthology Spells, featuring a wide range of incredible poets including recent PBS Selections Kaveh Akbar, Amy Key and Vahni Capildeo.
Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry brings together 30 contemporary voices exploring the territory between the occult and the subversion of patriarchy. Spells are poems; poetry is spelling. Spell-poems take us into a place where the right words can influence the universe. Occult poetics is a method of self-determination and transformation through a summoning of the world, through remaking reality. Capable of holding the contradictions of identity and trauma, poetry as magical language is talismanic, offering a sacred space away from everyday experiences of oppression. Spells honours the world of feeling, the world of the unconscious, the world of the body: desires and practices that are messy and diverse, as well as joyful, fun and celebratory.
Featuring Kaveh Akbar, Rachael Allen, Nuar Alsadir, Khairani Barokka, Emily Berry, A.K. Blakemore, Jen Calleja, Vahni Capildeo, Kayo Chingonyi, Elinor Cleghorn, CAConrad, Nia Davies, Kate Duckney, Livia Franchini, Will Harris, Caspar Heinemann, Lucy Ives, Rebecca May Johnson, Bhanu Kapil, Amy Key, Daisy Lafarge, Dorothea Lasky, Ursula K. Le Guin, Francesca Lisette, Canisia Lubrin, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Lucy Mercer, Hoa Nguyen, Rebecca Perry, Nat Raha, Nisha Ramayya, Ariana Reines, Sophie Robinson, Erica Scourti, Dolly Turing, Jane Yeh and many more.
Spells is the debut book from Ignota Books, a new publishing project and experiment in the techniques of awakening, founded in the Peruvian mountains in the last days of 2017. During this turbulent passage from the collective hallucination of one epoch to the next, Ignota seeks to open a space for the unknown: that which is "nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt" (Audre Lorde). Ignota is an invitation to awaken, and at the same time, dream.
You can also join the Ignota Halloween Party to launch Spells on Wednesday 31st October from 7pm at Somerset House. The evening features: readings from Daisy Lafarge, Amy Key, Rebecca Perry, Bhanu Kapil’s spectre, special rituals, with music from TTB and Lia Mice. Tickets cost £7 here.
We'll give a FREE copy to the first new member to sign up using the code SPELLS at the checkout. Existing PBS members can order it here with 25% off.