Pages (PDF): 126
Publisher: Stonewood Press
Purchase includes: PDF

IN THIS ISSUE

Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot

[…] We are living in unprecedented and strange times; times of political change and upheaval, violence in our streets, times of mistrust and no confidence in the people who should be protecting us – politicians, police, military. These are times in which the people who are actually protecting us in very real terms were, until recently, considered low-skilled. They are in fact low-paid – somewhere along the misguided way lack of money has been translated as lack of skills. This is baffling. And the backdrop to this is a global pandemic. I’ve called this editorial ‘Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot’ because the language of the times is startlingly militaristic amongst all the chaos – we are at war, we must stay alert, we will win, we will beat this, we are warriors and heroes, battling on the frontline!

Footage, postings and news reports make it feel like we’re living through one disaster movie after another. Our leaders appear to think so too. However, when they don’t like the direction of the movie they tend to fire the directors, if the directors are scientists, that is. Or in some countries they abandon the film altogether in favour of an action flick with bible wielding would-be hero protecting his property from angry mobs (with no regards or empathy for why they might be angry in the first place). Or in the UK, maybe the movie is the tale of a man so desperate to protect his family in the midst of a plague he’s willing to sacrifice anything – and everyone else – to travel half-way across the country to reach his parents and find sanctuary for his children. But we’re not living in a movie, this is real life. Narratives are played out in real time and by people’s real actions and reactions – they aren’t fiction or film scripts. And, although we’ve been mostly locked in doors draining Netflix of its content, we can tell one from the other. Even if our leaders can’t.

But what has this got to do with art and literature? […]

(Editorial extract by Jacqueline Gabbitas)

Issue 46 of Brittle Star includes poems and stories by Janina Arndt, Edward Avern, Heidi Beck, Alison Binney, Ama Bolton, Jo Brandon, Justine Louise Budenz, Peter Burrows, Tamsin Cottis, Tina Cole, Jane Devoy, Philip Dunkerley, Maia Elsner, Madison Feshler, David Frankel, SK Grout, Karen Green, John Greening, Janet Hatherley, Louisa Hooper, Annette Iles, Fawzia Muradali Kane, Joan Lennon, Stephanie Limb, Simon Maddrell, Cara L McKee, Valeria Melchioretto, Julie Mellor, Jesse River Dylan Merry, Shan Mukhtar, Max Mulgrew, Jane Pearn, Kenneth Pobo, John Pucay, Rebecca Shore, Jill Townsend

Column by Sarah Pasingham – Epistolary Un-lockdown

Poetry Reviews by Paul Blake – Family Trees & Other Dark Woods

www.brittlestar.org.uk