Play chapbook
ion unnatural's itch.io pageBio
I'm from colombo, sri lanka. have written a bunch of prose which you can see at http://vajra.me but very little poetry.
Synopsis
it's sri lanka's national day today (feb 4) which means militarized parades and obscene ethnoreligious-supremacist triumphalism and really, too much endless fuckery to even cite here. I felt the need to write something to spit in it's eye just a little bit, so I did.
this chapbook contains 13 poems written against national day, featuring war & war-machinery, nationalism & ideology, grief & mourning, many ghosts, sex, death, & monkeys. their titles are:
1. langurous
2. the sound of the ending, repeated
3. psychopomp and circumference
4. quartered
5. yellow like a king
6. spearheads into figleaves, 1972.
7. pour one out for
8. interval
9. eosphoros
10. that yellow light
11. uxore
12. roachkin
13. manifest
ps: the monkeys are real and on my roof right now
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Comments
"ion unnatural" by Vajra Chandrasekera (twitter/website). I must admit I was already a fan of Vajra's work, particularly the short story "On The Origin of Specie" which I 100% recommend you read. It's motivated me to get into writing short stories myself. So I was very happy and surprised when I woke up to see this submission in my notifications, and when I read the summary I became aware of it's significance and importance as the work it is and what it is addressing. "It's Sri Lanka's national day today, which means militarized parades and obscene triumphalism and really, too much endless fuckery to even cite here. I felt the need to write something to spit in it's eye, so I did. This chapbook contains 13 poems written against national day, featuring war & war-machinery, nationalism & ideology, grief & mourning, many ghosts, sex, death, & monkeys." I deeply appreciate this submission and what it discusses. I love the design, I love the readability, I love the fonts, and more than anything with this submission alone I consider this jam a success. A writer I admire got a cathartic opportunity to write poetry as opposed to prose about something substantial. That's all I wanted. Please read this one, it represents what I hope the future of anti-industry poetry promotes and encourages.
I'm so glad you liked this—and Origin! Thank you so much. I'm also very happy that you liked the design, haha. That was the part that I was most unsure/least familiar with, so it's really good to know it works.
It super does, it's probably the most in-depth visually out of the submissions so far. It's *very* chapbook-esque in that it would translate to print very well as is.
I like the aesthetic!
Thank you!!