SWERVE
SWERVE
Zoom, creating lifelines in a time of uncertainty and fear. It quickly became clear that a sense of creative purpose and community is essential to a meaningful life. When we published SWERVE 1 in 2022, we watched in shock as events in the Ukraine began to unfold. By the summer of 2023 and SWERVE 2, the war had taken hold. This was reflected in the subject matter of the magazine, most notably in the work of Jonathan and Nick Wonham, who produced a stunning series of anti-war poems and prints. In 2024 we bear witness to catastrophe in Gaza and our writers and artists have again risen to the challenge. In SWERVE 3 we present writing and visual art that responds directly to what we have seen in the news and on social media. Artists and writers have always been quick to say “No! Not in my name!". However, not everyone is able to protest directly, and their work may not readily lend itself as a focus for dissent. We strongly feel that in this anxious time anyone who writes, paints, draws, takes photographs, dances, sings or makes films is taking part in daily acts of resistance. The creative spirit has always been an antidote to war, terror and inhumanity and, whilst it seems that the uncertainty and fear we felt in the pandemic is still very much alive in the world, as artists we are in a good position to counter it. Resistance and Hope are powerful words. Art gives hope. Gathering to sing and dance and listen to words and music is the most human of activities. Painting is primal. Writing is power. Art is reciprocal and connectivity is crucial in a world that seems fractured and beyond repair. It is essential that we meet to exchange and communicate because if we do not, we will die. The activity does not have to be grandiose. SWERVE is a small hub in a small rural town in Ireland: Skibbereen, West Cork. We seek to form connections and to have conversations and we feel that small presses and independent cultural spaces are crucial in making this happen. We do not need to come up with answers; it is enough, sometimes, to ask the right questions. To foster the urge for inclusivity, SWERVE has grown to encompass a pop-up gallery and an artist/writer-in-residence programme. We also create artist-writer collaborations and arrange regular readings, most recently at SWERVE's Lit Lounge, a performance space created at our Skibbereen base. None of this would be possible without the brilliant contributions of our writers and visual artists. SWERVE would like to thank everyone who submitted; we only wish we could have published more. We are honoured that new and emerging writers and artists from Ireland have entrusted us with their work and feel very fortunate that more established, international names are also willing to take part in the SWERVE experiment. This year our very special guest contributor is the superstar photographer, John Minihan, who lives and works in Skibbereen (interviewed by Donal Hayes, a Skibbereen native). We welcome San Francisco artist, Ingrid Wells, who writes movingly about the creative life. Painter Charlotte von Poehl shares her visual art, made as an Albers artist-in-resident in Glandore, West Cork, a short drive away. Poet Jason Stoneking writes to us from Paris. Also featured is a series of biographical photographs of Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska by Ania Ready, a Polish UKbased photographic artist. We are very pleased to publish new poems by British poet, Sarah Corbett (Sarah was interviewed by our poetry editor Dan Fraser, whose poetry we include alongside). We feature UK artist Henny Lees and Cork poet Kemi George Simpson who met as part of the 2024 SWERVE artist-writer collaboration. We have chosen three poems from the award-winning Irish poet, Catherine Ronan, together with two stunning translations of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish by the Arabist, Maurice Sweeney. We present the poetry of German-Turkish poet Özlem Özgül Dündar in an extraordinarily complex translation by Sue Vickerman. West Cork poet, Pol O’Colmain, contributes four self-translated poems from the Irish. As ever, SWERVE 3 was produced on a shoestring. Our small team of editors, Dan Fraser (poetry), Anne Mullen (proofreader and prose editor) and sub-editors, Donal Hayes, Janet Heeran, Sue O’Connor and Gillian Watt worked voluntarily, and all our artists and writers shared their work for no fee. We wish to thank Cork County Arts for the funding we have received. We are most grateful for the precious match funding from local small business owner and supporter of the arts, Jonathan Doig, that provided the means for us to go to print. Small magazines such as SWERVE provide an essential platform for emerging writing and visual art. Without such support, artists and writers would not be able to produce their work which results in such vibrant cultural ecosystems both here in Ireland and in their native countries. I would like to end by thanking everyone involved in SWERVE 3. It is an absolute joy and privilege for me to put the magazine together and to work with such an amazingly talented group of creative individuals.
OFILE: DONAL HAYES
OTOGRAPHS: JOHN MINIHAN
t breaks where no sun shines; ere no sea runs, the waters of the heart h in their tides
LAN THOMAS
walk from Plewman’s Terrace to St. Michael's church isn't very long. John isn’t sure what age he was, five be six, it was a few years after the war, and Plewman’s was a new scheme built to accommodate families cated from the old lanes and alleys by the canal. He was kicking stones and picking conkers, over the bridge he lock gates, across the Barrow and on to the parish church of Athy. John loved the sense of community h a packed church in Sunday clothes and the comforting smells of polish, candles, and damp wool. The priest d the marble altar, raised a gold chalice and spoke unintelligibly in Latin. Many people drifted off in their own lds, some prayed private devotions and the rhythm of rosary beads counted prayers and marked time. John started to fidget so his aunt passed him her missal to distract him. The brown leather prayer book well worn and bulging with Memorial cards, keepsakes of dead friends and neighbours. There was a small k and white photograph on each card with local names, Byrne, Nolan, Mullhall. He turned each over slowly, merised by the connection he felt with the photographs. Entire lives were captured in single shots. He saw py stories, violent stories, tales of lives well lived and haunted men, one glass of whiskey from the gates of hell. h a single picture, he saw their whole lives. John Minihan’s destiny was sealed. More than seventy years later I am sitting across from John drinking tea in a friend's kitchen in bereen. I was born across the road but haven’t been back here in years, John lived in London for most of his and moved to West Cork thirty years ago. We both wear Chemo caps warming us against the cold bbornness of ill health. There is no sign of illness with John, no sign of slowing down, no threat of a portrait on emorial card. On the face of it, it would be easy to look at John’s formative years and wonder how he navigated the os of rejection (his mum gave him away to his aunt), poverty, Christian Brothers (fine fellows), heavy drinking, migration. But these things don’t impact him in the slightest. On the contrary, they are shrugged off as evant “I couldn’t have had a happier childhood”. He is disarmingly honest and witty and has no interest in owing. I am warming to him a lot.
Another walk, he is fifteen years old, has left school and is heading to his first job as an office boy with the Daily Mail. He gets the tube from Barons Court to Blackfriars and walks up to Ludgate Circus. On his right is the magnificence of St. Paul’s and on his left the raw excitement of Fleet Street. It was 1962 and John became an apprentice photographer. To paraphrase Oz, "We're not in Athy anymore.” He loved the alchemy of creating prints from film. In the dark room he would develop rolls from staff photographers and when the pictures appeared, as if by magic, John would be the first person in the world to see them. Being part of the moment was hugely important. Part of the excitement of the editorial floor, the phones going non-stop, typewriters a metal symphony of clackety clack and runners making deadlines with stories from Reuters, Associated Press and dozens of agencies. Hardcore, old school editors like Bernard Levin ran on coffee and Players No. 6, and deadlines and exclusivity were everything. John’s salary as an apprentice was small so he would moonlight in the evenings photographing young up and coming bands for the musical press. The raw images of The Who, The Kinks and The Animals in small clubs in Soho and The Rolling Stones in the Railway Hotel in Richmond captured a musical world about to explode. About this time, John started another project that was to last close to forty years. John travelled to Athy a number of times a year and a living chronicle evolved where he recorded the daily lives of the ordinary folk. He describes this as being the “heartbeat of his work”. These photographs began appearing in British photography journals and he evolved from being a jobbing photographer to an artistic documentarian. During our talks, John regularly remarked that the themes of his work were “life, love and death”. He never mentions the beauty of his pictures or the obvious wonder he had with architecture and landscape. This was sequential photography: a continuum over many years where the individual images mattered but the collection was far more than the sum of its parts. This project probably reached its zenith with the Wake Of Katy Tyrell when John recorded the wake and funeral of a local woman over a period of three days. Mirrors were covered, clocks were stopped and neighbours and friends cleaned and dressed the body in preparation for her final journey. This visual essay was one of deep respect and captured the end of a time before the formality of funeral homes. Katy became every woman in death. Lying in repose on a snow-white pillow, dressed in a burial gown and with rosary beads wrapped around her hands she could have been a Russian queen or an Apache elder. The ancient Celtic traditions sat easily beside Catholic rituals and the closing in of a community in death was palpable. It was a remarkable piece of work that opened many new doors for John. If John’s obsession was Athy, then a parallel obsession became the Irish Literary and Artistic world. Despite a limited education, he became part of a milieu of intellectual giants, befriending Edna O’Brien, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Graham Sutherland and, of course, Samuel Beckett. Late in the year of 1985, John met Beckett in a café in Paris and took what has regularly been referred to as the photograph of the twentieth century. John Calder credited Minihan with capturing, ‘the introspective, infinitely sad gaze of a man looking into the abyss of the world’s woes’. John moved to West Cork in the early nineties seeking the tranquillity and inspiration of the Irish countryside and a new influence on his work and lifestyle. His style has evolved but the core is still there. He has brought me a portfolio of images from the last thirty years of portraits of people in West Cork, and the plan is for me to select a half dozen for this publication. This is inordinately difficult and each photograph brings me to a place and a time in my own life. People I may not have met but I know so well. The pictures appear to be strikingly simple and yet there is an emotional depth and a connection with his subjects that is very intimate. This intimacy is evident in the direct and unguarded expressions he captures, making his portraits resound with authenticity and emotional resonance. Minihan's work is not just about the physical likeness of his subjects but also about conveying their inner world, resulting in photographs that are as much about storytelling as they are about visual representation. He employs black and white film, which accentuates the textures and contrasts in his images, lending them a timeless and classic quality. This is a West Cork that I know so well and yet one that appears completely fresh to me. Again, the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts and, like Athy, is a record nonpareil. This is John Minihan’s West Cork, this is my West Cork.
ivated by her own hands andFOUNDATION thought process) within TIST-IN-RESIDENCE ALBERS GE: Detail HARLEQUIN 2017 latively rigid Poehl and pre-imposed enables her, RRAIG-NA-GCAT, rlotte von GLANDORE, was born framework inWEST Lund,CORK Sweden and trarily to what one might to access new ks in Paris. Her artwork hasexpect, been exhibited in solo vidual From this point of view, Theas Notepiece bitionscreativity. at international museums such Henry utifully embodies tension2011, for ore Institute, Leeds, this 2006,contemporary Gävle Konstcentrum, mankind: her fate, as2014, a living beingd´Art and body aspiring ds Konstmuseum, Musée moderne de to la dom, and at the same time, as a being attached de Paris, 2016 and Skissernas Museum - Museum to of al activities which are Art, increasingly subjected to the stic Process och Public Lund, 2017. xible rationality of technology. Charlotte von Poehl's k isanlodged precisely with in this between the ing artist residency thetension Albers Foundation in ectification ofshe thecreated individual gesture the raig-na-gCat several new and artworks ectivisation broader ired by the of colors and collective landscape programmes. in Ireland.
A GARIMORTH
Students often worry about choosing their way During my residency at Carraig-na-gCat I always tell them you can go anywhere I read the wonderful books in the library. from anywhere./ Anni Albers. My everyday ritual started at 7 am and To let threads be articulate again and find a form included me sitting behind a desk with for themselves to no other end than their books open at specific pages. I read and own orchestration, not to be sat on, walked wrote down texts by Anni and Josef Albers on, only to be looked at, as is the raison d’être in my notebook. With several threads of my pictorial weavings./ Anni Albers interwoven and the magical landscape Thus art is not an object but experience to be able with its colors as a window, I continued to perceive it we need to be receptive. Therefore the action. Nothing is where it seems to be. art is there where art seizes us./ Josef Albers.
Yoruba family name means wizard’s beads. GE: ANTONIO CARDEAL Our first leader was called Birm.
xed race children are degenerate because white blood makes then ambitious and power hungry and black blood makes them animalistic and savage.
run the supreme god has no gender. There are more canals in Brum than in Venice ‘ar kid Mixed race children are messengers of racial harmony.
run sent Oduduwa the father of the Yoruba and his elder brother Obatala to create the earth descending a chain, with a handful of dried soil, a five toed fowl and a guidance note.” JRR Tolkien thought the Moseley bog was bostin. Mixed race children are all mixed up.
the forest there is a giant tree the Yorubas call the “Iroko,” which is shunned by all people, for in it lives spirit of an old man who prowls about at night with a little torch and frightens travellers.” 1 D’ya know, the society of lunatics met ee-ah under a full moon. Mixed race children grow up with more tension in and between their kith and kin.
‘King of the Forest’, Akiti the famous hunter and wrestler defeated a giant, a leopard, a lion, a wolf, a -constrictor, and an elephant.” 2 Birmingham City Football Club woz’ cursed by Gypsy’s angry at being evicted from their land. Mixed race children get on with black and white people. Yoruba consider the bat to be mischievous as it is neither rodent nor bird, and lives partly on the earth partly in the air.” This is the birthplace of custard Mixed-race babies are so much prettier – aren’t they?
Yoruba Legends by M. I. Ogumefu, , London 1929. Yoruba Legends by M. I. Ogumefu, , London 1929
as GE:called ANTONY The Mermaid BUONOMO Lounge ch always pleased my younger sister—who loved mermaids with a passion matched by the bar’s regulars. m just called it work. t years old: I remember the absence of windows a grey floor that always seemed sticky. were only brought on afternoons, prior to opening, n Mom needed to pick up her paycheck— ded enough that it couldn’t wait until her next shift.
other employees: always kind to us as we climbed barstools. tender Larry smiles as he offers a highball glass d to the brim with maraschino cherries. oman sits next to us, asks how we like school. sister tells her she likes her nightgown.
we all feel a little embarrassed? Or is that just the passage of time— mind shading memories with shame? kening that shade with shame for feeling ashamed. member the first hot flush of humiliation two years later: for later memories’ colour.
nd in Jason’s living room while he collects his baseball mitt. father on the couch with another nameless dad— h fat, bulbous, sweaty, beers-in-hand. rks at his friend while addressing me with too many italics. te the great.You tell your ma I said ‘hey’, will ya? t I’ll see her on Tuesday.” kers from both. the boy shade a darker red. Hating himself for nodding quietly not yet understanding why.
vens GE: TETIANA send forthMILYSHYNA rain, ming down, and the lightning scores sky until it wails some awful, beaten creature. hope is in destiny to stay alive, verse along the road.
e we crazy to be here?’ I ask ia alongside me. She laughs. watched the sky erupt before us, ing rain pelting down on our faces, poncho-clad, seek shelter in outhouses. his what they call pilgrimage?
GE: LISA in thePOWER voice of the fictional Catalan poet Alberto Cenas
sirocco with its corkscrew oscillations, amed asperities, is busy about the parasols Café Julijana, about the plates of fragrant pimientos. ttle my face against its blandishments, nd above my bowl of escudella.
been rejected by Quaderns Crema. been informed -a mere two hours agomy poems want for certain certitudes, my work, while holding much to appreciate, n’t quite right for this edition.
ght as well repair now to the family firm, up, again, my lightest of light duties, rn to my teak desk, so seldom tested, Uncle Jordi nursing the shutters up he delivery yard each morning.
sirocco with its brisk, invisible sinews erves the practicalities of springtime. urries the hour-hand forward. fles pigeon after pigeon m the handrail of the terraces.
t swithering wind might as well me anywhere now.. uld disembark at any random waterfront, ke inland until I chance upon and of avocado trees,
olive-grove up for auction, an-to I’ll spend seven years restoring. ere was I? Ah yes. other rum, please, garçon, ther cup of agitated springtime.
sirocco concertinas seaward, back in again, ores the pigeons to their ruffle-crested colloquy. s briskness it strokes the parasols, steaming escudella bowls, the pimientos on their cooling, fragrant platters.
ORDS AND IMAGES: INGRID V. WELLS
already knew and perhaps forgot along the way to becoming what everyone else thought you should be. In practical terms, for the multipotentialites among us, providing proper room usually requires around nine notebooks for separate projects going simultaneously. Do not be afraid, paper is relatively affordable in the grand scheme of art supplies. When you hear a creative calling, it can be glorious. Liz Gilbert discusses having a writing practice as almost akin to having a secret romance, where you steal little bits of time away from your regular routine to be with your work. It may not make sense to others who perhaps expect you to go on behaving and tending to obligations as if you have not tasted this particular honey. Listening to a call towards a creative path can be disruptive, confrontational even, to the metered existence prior to entertaining this type of change. At some point, however, if you do not heed your artistic desire, it will make itself known with the loudness of a screaming two-year old until appeased. Until you say, (as Gilbert discusses), “okay okay, yes I will take care of you. I will not abandon these creative parts of myself”. It is not unlike caring for a child, once you’ve made the agreement there’s no turning back. The Vikings would burn their boats before entering battle, a sign of their intentions to survive, to come out of the battle victorious. They left no other option. Artists should consider how this strategy may play into their own trajectory. When you lean into your craft as the only means for survival, it raises the stakes and often aids in your performance.Victory becomes inevitable when you give yourself no other alternative. In my own journey, I resisted the call, was torn and devastated that I had to choose between the relationships in my life as they were, or pursue my own self development. It first happened with painting, then writing, now speaking. At age 21, I had nothing more than the will calling me to paint, in many ways it was my freedom calling. But soon, I discovered that it was all I needed in the end: the will, the unstoppable romance with your own creativity that gives you life. If you let yourself join your mentors, the bright lights who have illuminated your creative path, you can become an energy center for others, a visible, vibrant example of what’s possible. Even if it’s only one person who sees you transform, a sibling or a friend perhaps, your impact will be what my Oma would refer to as, “quite something.” You may even turn around and be a guide for others with your teaching. Certainly a delicious part of teaching, the part where students believe you as the instructor to be a certifiable wizard, can be found in the live demonstration. Not dissimilar to the special magic of live music or theater, the demonstration in real time has the capacity to engage with this precious power, the energetic field between artist and audience, but only if you dare to take the stage and make something. The cost of regret is much greater than whatever perceived risks are involved, usually spouted by critics who have never jumped into “the arena of vulnerability,” as Brené Brown describes it, and agreed to their call. The world is full of critics and very few of us go on to contribute, to problem solve, to create solutions, innovate, to do something about the puzzles of the world. There are many fantastic challenges for us to move through together collectively - trauma to process, cycles to end, mountains to climb, new perspectives to embrace. It is the kind of work for those who are up for a bit of mischief. Artmaking can be approached from a place of grief, of humor, of joy. It can be practiced through good health or even on the days when you are rendered completely horizontal in some mysterious state of unwell. There is always a way to practice creation, as it is only reliant on the will. The vehicle of creation, the medium, can shape shift to match the energy you have available to feed it. In my experience, acting takes more energy than playing the clarinet for example. Painting requires more of my physical energy than writing. Writing is a bit more nimble than painting and perhaps even more flexible is the art of speaking. Then it begins to get interesting when we view creativity as the process of thinking. Then the process of not thinking and then simply being. Being is a creative act. Creating is life-giving for both the creator, the creation and it has the additional capacity to be life-giving for the viewer. This is why we collect art, we have a pull to live through the work. It brings us pleasure and has the capacity to touch that very specific non-verbal part of the soul, the part that needs speaking to, that craves healing. We as humans have one life experience where most of us pursue one, or a small handful, of careers. In
r Henny Lees. For Lois Lees and EhelSWERVE George ARTIST/ WRITER COLLABORATION
TIST: yourHENNY patternsLEES kept from lost days? ET: k, asKEMI nothing GEORGE stays the SIMPSON same. n see you fade, then blaze.
en I arrive, I see your thin grey ering contestants on TV games your patterns kept from lost days?
fall over, and I am in a haze, ds vanish from reference frames. n see you fade, and blaze.
r quilt of proverbs soared like waves owing shapes we long to claim. your patterns kept from lost days?
se arms give a tight embrace, r hug always knows my name n see you fade, then blaze.
Tartan and Ankara interlace, reams, do memories reframe? ht patterns are kept from lost days. n see we fade, and blaze.
SWERVE