Glasfryn Project

Somewhere out there, many light-years from earth, two vast and exorbitantly randy black holes are grinding and osculating in an unrestrained and unashamedly public similitude of passion. We know this because the energy created by this unsavoury event sends gravitational shockwaves through space, with the result that, a few billion or so years later, the last quivers of those exhausted tsunamis make two tiny mirrors on the surface of our planet tremble. We hear about it on the news and it makes us wonder; it might even make us shift uneasily on our seats. But at the same time it’s oddly calming to be reminded that even the most outrageously distant cosmic cataclysms have their neat, human-sized,  parochial outcomes, demonstrating once again that distance and nearness are just two sides of the same medallion.

In accord with these enormous interstellar domesticities, as a portion of the general task it has set itself, Junction Box is committed to continuing its exploration of worthy cultural practises local to it. This comes not from any particular faith in the redemptive power of geographical or cultural vicinity, but because we keep bumping into writers and artists of talent who live and/or work within striking distance of HQ, some of them deeply rooted, some just passing through. This feels like a healthy enough way of going about things, as long as it’s balanced with the longer focus, and this issue, like the previous ones, features writers and artists from all over Britain.

In this edition, we have poets talking about aspects of poetry and language and performance, an artist talking about art; we have collages, short stories, a report on a little corner of Utopia and an idiosyncratic view of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

It’s noticeable that a tradition seems to be developing whereby practitioners make use of Junction Box to talk specifically about their own work, in general or immediately in progress. It seems to me that this could prove to be a valuable resource, perhaps one of the real contributions Junction Box can make to the culture.

Also in this edition, in spite of the fact that this is mainly a prose magazine, we’ve found it irresistible to include some poems. I think it likely that this will become a more regular feature. We also have a film of a poet (Chris Torrance) reading, and this, too, is probably something we’ll do more often.

Anyway, welcome to Junction Box whoever and wherever you are and however exorbitant the distances you carry inside you.

View all: Issue 8, Junction Box | Posted on 1 Mar 2016 |