ODRADEK! - Issue 1

The Odd Review newsletter.

Hello!

Welcome to Issue 1 of our new ODRADEK! newsletter, in which we share all things related to The Odd Review.

I have been using the name Odradek for a while now as an umbrella name for all the events and activities I’ve been involved in over the last few years. My hope is that it becomes, like the term dada, a kind of heterogenous group — in a certain sense, a collage — and similarly, a signifier of a certain sensibility.

This week, we are sharing Phoebe Eccles’ wonderful ‘Summarising Poem’, which I believe exemplifies something of that sensibility. You can read it below. Wystan Loope, our poetry editor, had the following to say about the poem:

‘It’s a piece of writing that playfully combines a witty absurdity with sparse, irreverent sentences to create a poetry of contingencies. No one sentence ‘turns’, heightens or resolves the poem, there is little interest in symbolism, metaphor, or even narrative. Eccles is more concerned with language as a material, as something real and malleable. Each sentence joins as one might plug-in a machine, each word modifying the last to build a quilted language that operates according to its own idiosyncratic system. The result is not some dry experimentation, but a poignant, strange poetics, at times prophetic and profound.’

In addition, this week Wednesday (27.11), we are hosting our very first writing workshop at Abney Books in Stoke Newington. If you are in London, see below for more details.

Lastly, we still have a dozen or so copies of our print journal, ‘The Odd Review: a selection of Odradek writing, No.1: July 2024’. Let us know if you’d like to buy one.

I hope you enjoy Issue 1 of the newsletter, and if so, please forward it along! Any questions, comments, or feedback are welcome. And, please get in touch if you’d like to be involved.

All the best,

Noah L. Swann

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by Phoebe Eccles

my hair is tall, my hair is a corinthian column. i lost my fortune in a bet with a pile of dry leaves. liars don’t interest me, pencils neither. the development of babies, though. first growing their silver scales, then their machine. my own childhood was notably brief. my machine swallowed me when i was just four. before then, i ate sequins from the pavement. reason for my sparkling eyes, say my colleagues. some people are animals, some people are meat. i fall into the latter category. that’s why i’ll never ask a baby about its machine. to get his water, my brother drinks soil. i should tell you, my brother is a liar. not like my best friend, the runner bean. not like my first born, the platypus. the walnut kernel conceals the terrible fate of dust traversing through light. in my past life i had a fruit phobia. in my present life i am sentimental, mainly about being eaten. my skin gleams with the promise of fur. not enough time now to grow a coat. barely enough to fall in love. my lover likes me to wear my column of hair down. the flooding of local canals a problem. my favourite baby is also a machine. it flattens coins into souvenirs. i wish i had trained to be a whisk, but the oils of fat don’t succumb, not to the unity of sauce. the creche worker no different to béchamel, although i speak only for myself.

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On the 27th of November Odradek is hosting a collage and procedural writing workshop at Abney Books in Stoke Newington and in preparation for the second issue of The Odd Review.

The night will involve a brief introduction introducing Odradek and some of the theory and historical context of collage and other avant-garde or process lead writing practices. Some examples will be discussed  (from Dada, Oulipo and the New York School), after which we will invite everyone to try their hand at their own experiments.  

The aim of this night is simply literary production - generating texts. We hope that those who attend might continue their own experimental practice outside of this particular workshop. Developing on the texts or ideas begun on the night. 

We provide a pile of books and texts to use as material, to cut up, erase, obscure but you are welcome to bring anything you wish. Scissors, glue and paper will be provided too, but we ask that you please bring your own if possible. 

Please get in touch, either through our Substack, email (odradek.collage@gmail.com) or our Instagram (@odradek_fragments) if you would like to come. You are welcome to bring anyone you think might be interested in such an event. You may also bring your own drinks. 

A list of optional reading resources will be provided closer to the night of the event through  a shared Google drive folder. 

Come for at 6:30 for a start at 7:00 and we will continue until 9:30 with brief discussion about the work. We should be done by 10:00. 

Copies of the first issue of The Odd Review will be available for £5 on the night. Please consider buying a copy to support us. Every purchase helps us put on more events and continue the publication. 

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Thank you for reading ODRADEK! <3