Monstrous Regiment - feminist publishing house based in Edinburgh

Monstrous Regiment, an indie press based in Edinburgh, was founded by Lauren and Ellen, two publishing students. Their publications focus on themes of feminism, sexuality, and gender. I recently ordered several of their publications and was very impressed.

She Walked Out to the Desert is a small but perfectly formed poetry zine which was created for the London Radical Book Fair 2018. Its mix of poetry and collage explores mental health and materialism.

The Bi-ble is a collection of essays and personal stories about bisexuality coming from a variety of viewpoints and covering topics including bisexuality and fan fiction, bisexual invisibility and sexuality and religion. The stories are well written and interesting, sometimes amusing and often moving. (In fact I abandoned all other reading material to read this in one go). The editors are looking for submissions for Volume 2 of the Bi-ble, you can find out more here.

Crimson is the first issue of the Monstrous Regiment literary journal inspired by blood, lipstick, blushing and other shades and incarnations of the colour red. The photos, artwork, poetry and short stories cover topics such as shame, bullying, death and gender identity. There's a good variety of styles of writing and art, it looks beautiful and is well worth reading. The next issue will be Emerald and stories, poetry and art inspired by the colour green are invited, a feminist slant is preferred but not mandatory, for details see here.

Blues

The colour of the sky and his eyes
Ocean endless to the horizon
Forget me nots and sapphires
The saddest music in the world
Bruises on her upper arm

Regret for all the words
said and unsaid.


Originally published on Sketchbook  and first posted on this blog in 2006. 

I also reposted an old poem today on Crafty Green Poet, you can read it here. 

If you like my poetry, you can now buy me a virtual coffee on Ko-Fi!

Major New Artist

This poem originally was a response to a Poetry Thursday challenge back in 2006 to write a poem in someone else's voice. The poem had already been published and I just lazily used it for Poetry Thursday!


Major New ArtistI have spent the last six
years with incense sticks
burning holes in shirts.

Shirts of all types
from Hawaiian to pin stripes
but all have holes burned in.

All the holes are regular
extreme boredom does not deter
me from my art.

Some see meaning in the holes
they are but fools
there is no meaning only art.

previously published at the now defunct Mentress Moon
There's another one too, earlier in this blog here. 

I posted another poem from the past on Crafty Green Poet today too, you can read it here.