The Maidens of SivilayHere, then, your mouth a chamber
Of earth, of brass, of lead and smoke.
Your hair is made of silenced poets!
Those lips of adamant tenderness
Unrelenting
Originally appeared in Touching Detonations, 2003.
In the twenty-first century poetry interfaces with animal-machine. The “human” is not a given concept, but rather is one that is made in an ongoing technological and anthropological process. They hope to publish an anthology of poetry that participates in technological, biological, representational, sexual, political and theoretical post-humanisms. They’re looking for poetry that engages with or is written by animals, beasts, monsters, creatures, aliens, cyborgs, etc. How do bodies that are misunderstood, misfitting, ugly, failures, etc., challenge western, enlightenment figurations of the “self” and “human”? What are the poetics of rhetorical bodies that exceed definition?
Any contemporary work in English (domestic or translated) that addresses the post-human is welcome. Please send up to 20 pages of poetry, in standard format (*.doc, *.docx, *.rtf, *.pdf). Previously published work is welcome; please include acknowledgements (if any) and a brief bio with your submission.
For further information go to:
http://posthumanpoetry.tumblr.comOr go directly to the submission form at:
http://posthumanpoetry.submishmash.com/submit
One of the interesting projects due at the end of July is submitting to Brian M. Sammon and Glynn Owen Barrass'
Steampunk Cthulhu anthology for Chaosium. "The age of steam meets the age of Cthulhu, in a past where technology unbound warps Victorian Britain and the world at large into a dark Steampunk reality." is the overall aim.
So, I find myself preparing an all new short-story, wondering how to pull it off. As much as I'd love to try it, I don't think I can do a Steampunk Cthulhu speculative poem justice at the moment. I should say, though, more than a few tongue-in-cheek titles have come to mind, such as the "Cogs of Cthulhu,""Anna and the King in Yellow," "The Steam Over Innsmouth," and "The Contraption Out of Space." It would be particularly apt to do a steampunk take on "The Fungi From Yuggoth" given that it was a long speculative poem from Lovecraft. Perhaps "The Last Brain to Yuggoth"? Nah.
On a more serious note, however, these are some of the questions I find myself considering as we prepare such a story.
How do you successfully reconcile two seemingly contradictory genres. It's not the subjects. As we've seen with anything from
Hong On the Range to
Firefly, you can make space westerns work, for example. But to me the greater challenge is resolving the underpinning philosophies.
In Steampunk alternate history, most of the protagonists are outsiders who are alienated from the mainstream society. This is compatible with a Lovecraftian story. However, we find ourselves faced with a genre that typically positions the retro-future as a space where individual pluck, technology and science can overcome any obstacle to save the day. It's often optimistic noir with more than a tinge of romanticism and nostalgia for a by-gone era that never was.
Lovecraftian stories on the other hand, are compatible with Steampunk settings for the brooding, noir atmosphere of decadence and decay. But they also operate within a cosmos where there are things humanity was not meant to know, cannot know, without descending into cosmic insanity. Science, reason, human efforts are feeble and meaningless in the face of all of this.
While both genres are capable of dealing with shades of grey, a Lovecraftian protagonist at best can hope to forget what they have encountered, or at least is going to be squished quickly by the end of the terror. So, what do we do with Steampunk protagonists operating under Lovecraftian conditions?
Of course, to create a good story that is appropriate to the theme I feel you have to navigate a fine line to avoid the criticisms of both genres. For Steampunk, the possibility of Empire-fetish, for Lovecraftian stories, the possibility of exoticizing and demonizing the Other, given his historic fear of foreigners and just about everything else under the sun. Steamcraft at its worst could be filled with many pro-Colonial stories of putting down subhuman, degenerate savage races. And that should raise eyebrows.
Since my hope is to turn in a Steampunk Cthulhu short story set in Laos, which once lived under French colonial rule during this era, there are therefore particular issues I consider such as the necessity to tell a story in which falang appear at all, or have to be acknowledged. With the 160 different ethnic communities that lived in Laos at the time, it's possible and perhaps preferable to create a lost tribe to serve as antagonists rather than use an existing one.
For this story, I'd also rather keep away from noble-fetish, romanticizing the role of elites of the society. In traditional Southeast Asian literature, there's often a tendency to ignore the story of 'commoners' and everyday people in the narratives. It's almost always centered on the princes and princesses. Which too me goes against the 'punk' aspect of steampunk. Their protagonists often work best when they're NOT the ones supposed to be in power.
And of course, as I try to incorporate authentic or historically plausible elements into this work, I hope not to have the problem I had with 'The Journal Who Shall Not Be Named' that apparently had no problem dealing with shoggoths and deep ones, but suggested no one was going to buy into a race called the Hmong, among other things.
But overall, I've found the process to be invigorating and enervating. With a limit of 8,000 words, it seems there's surprisingly little space for world development. I would say the breakdown thus far looks like: 25% world building and setting, 25% characters, 25% plot action, 25% technology and horror. But we'll see what comes out in the final equation.
How would you approach the Steampunk Cthulhu concept?
Edouard Dupas has completed the translation of my classic poem, the Ghost Nang Nak into French over at his website as
Fantôme de Nang Nak, an homage to the classic Southeast Asian ghost story based on my last trip there in 2003. He had to work with some very difficult wordplay in this piece, but I think he did well with it. Here is the original version in English.
The Ghost Nang Nak Hates the draft.
Isn’t very good on issues
Of fertility
But isn’t too bad
With the lottery
If you pay your respects
Properly by the takian trees.
She’s eating diced mangos
With a mouth of ebony ants.
Kept company by a
TV tuned to tacky Thai soap operas.
Surrounded by white mutts
Who hate black dogs of any pedigree.
Wants a simple life again.
To set down the Buddha’s yellow candles
For just a minute.
But she has a lot of karma to pay off
For trying to keep her family together
Spooking mischievous children at night
Who thinks she’s looking for playmates
For her beautiful baby
Toddling between Wat Mahabut
And the Prakanong River.
A big thanks to everyone who came to my book signing on May 19th at Cameron Books in Hemet. We had a good turnout for a Saturday morning and sold all but one copy of BARROW!
Hopefully we'll get a chance to do more signings in the future there with the upcoming books I'm preparing. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the event!
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Hi ai Bryan. We are doing great.
Thanks for asking. Happy 2012!!
how's your summer so far? is it hot enough for you?
have a nice day!ttyl
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