Nightingale & Sparrow

Author: juliette

  • All the Shades of Grief by Ellora Sutton

    All the Shades of Grief
    by Ellora Sutton

    Publication Date: 8 September 2020
    Nightingale & Sparrow Press

    Genre: Poetry

    Borrowing from nature, art, mythology, and personal memory, All the Shades of Grief represents an attempt to articulate the universal language of loss. From the death of a loved one to watching flying ants dying on the pavement, each poem in this chapbook seeks to confront grief and force it into the light as something we must all experience and exorcise.

    Some of the poems refer directly to the personally seismic event of the death of the poet’s mother, such as an honest rehashing of ‘The Five Stages of Grief’. Others deal with grief and loss in a more ‘everyday’ way, trying to encompass all the myriad shapes (or ‘shades’) of grief that we go through, the kind that can creep up and breathe down your neck with no warning whatsoever, the reverberations that never quite go away. Poems such as ‘Apollo and Hyacinth’ and the first-place prize-winning ‘Daphne’ translate death and loss from ancient mythology to modern-day relevance. This book doesn’t seek to tell you that everything will be alright, that the pain will go away – rather, it wants to hold your hand and feel it all right beside you, to whisper in your ear that you are not alone.

    All the Shades of Grief is part coping-mechanism, part moonlit-wondering, and a whole heart, trying to heal itself.

    Print | PDF | Kindle

    Zoom Launch

    [one_half]

    [/one_half]

    [one_half_last]

    From Ellora: “Please join me for an evening of poetry readings to christen my debut chapbook, All the Shades of Grief. There will be readings from poets Jack Cooper, Nadia Lines, and Kevin Kissane, as well as readings from All the Shades of Grief. I am so excited to share my first book with you all. Come and enjoy an evening of free poetry!”

    Tickets available here

    [/one_half_last]

    Previously Published Pieces:

    Take a sneak peek at some of the poems included in this chapbook: 

    About the Author

    ellora-sutton

    Ellora Sutton is a Creative Writing MA student living and working in Hampshire, England. Her work has previously been published in Nightingale & Sparrow, The Cardiff Review, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, The Hellebore, Poetry News, Honey & Lime, and Eye Flash Poetry Journal, among others. She has been commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize and has been a winner of several Young Poets Network challenges. Her favourite things to write about include badass women, art, nature, and death. She only feels like herself when she’s writing.

    Twitter

  • An excerpt from All the Shades of Grief

    On the anniversary of Van Gogh’s death

    You, who wielded yellow not like a weapon
    but like a looking glass. Did you find it?
    The ochre on the inside of starry eyes,
    in the yawning mouths of terminal flowers,
    the hay in the buttery shade of cypress trees?

    You, who forged blue into an ocean of tiny suns,
    burning Paris back to itself on the wings of crows
    scouring away their heartfelt blacknesses and cawing
    in that moment, forever. The people in your paintings
    always have such heavy shoulders.

    It must have been unbearable.

    from All the Shades of Grief

  • Author Statement: All the Shades of Grief

    Dear Reader,

    As I sit here, looking out my window at ferns and nettles dancing in the British rain, it occurs to me for the first time that the publication of my debut chapbook is a somewhat bittersweet occasion. Sweet, of course, for the obvious reasons. Bitter, because the one person I want to share it with most will never get to read it. Allow me to use this space to tell you a bit about that person, that such a person once existed.

    My mother, Victoria Sutton, was a deeply remarkable woman. She was a teacher. She read me bedtime stories. She would write down the stories I told her, long before I fully understood what an author was. Every blouse she owned was purple. The only thing she could cook was spaghetti bolognaise. She took me to see a big Van Gogh exhibition in London. She showed me a beachfront in Italy where she fell in love once. She could always win something out of those arcade claw machines. She loved Peter Andre. She wrote I love you in the front of every book she ever bought me. Above all else she was unwaveringly and profoundly kind, a kindness of sorts that very few possess. Often, when I think of her now, I think of her before I knew her – as a teenager, charming her way across the US to visit James Dean’s grave; hiding a stranger from the police in the boot of her bright pink beetle; wearing bottle after bottle of Bodyshop perfume.

    There is no way of dressing this up. She died when I was fifteen, after four years of a cancer that was supposed to have killed her within weeks of diagnosis. Death is rarely a truly peaceful process. For those left behind there is a cacophony that births a tinnitus that never completely dissipates. The poems in All the Shades of Grief give form to my own personal tinnitus. They are not all about the death of my mother but rather they are all coloured by the background noise of that grief, as everything is and always will be for me.

    The result is, I hope, not intensely depressing but honest. And kind, like her.

    All my love,
    Ellora x

  • Content Warning – schoolhouse

    Content Warning: Gun Violence

    Some pieces included in this issue may be triggering to some readers—the resources below may be helpful:

    School Shooting Resources | The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

    Federal Resources for Helping Youth Cope after a School Shooting

    American Psychological Association (APA)’s Advocacy on Gun Violence Prevention

  • schoolhouse – micropoems

    In the leadup to our seventh issue, schoolhouse, we shared a series of micropoems from some talented submitters:

  • schoolhouse

    schoolhouse

    Contents

    ISSN 2642-0104 (print)
    ISSN 2641-7693 (online)

    Print Edition

    Online Edition

    Editor’s Letter

    Founding Editor, Juliette Sebock

    Content Warning

    Poetry

    Lesson Plan, Anannya Uberoi

    Elementary School, Charlotte Friedman

    a thank you note for my kids, Noreen Ocampo

    Lesson one, Claire Marsden

    Easter Break, Ann Howells

    Petrichor, Aditi Krishnakumar

    The Strength of Women, Hannah Napier Rosenberg

    Lurking in the side-lines, Nishtha Tripathi

    everything school taught me, Trishita Das

    Nonfiction

    We Were Just Kids, Yelaina Anton

    Fiction

    Beginnings, Mary Sophie Filicetti

    Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, Nina Fosati

    Returning, Rachel B. Baxter

    Photography

    tires at playground, Tucker Lieberman

    green house, Tucker Lieberman

    Cover Image

    door with knocker, Tucker Lieberman

    Micropoems

    In the leadup to schoolhouse, we shared a series of micropoems across social media: 

    schoolhouse micropoems

  • Letter from the Editor – schoolhouse

    Dear Reader, 

    When we released issue no. VI, melody, a few months ago, we were shocked by the circumstances under which we were preparing and publishing it. For schoolhouse, the greatest consistency for most of us has been the continuation of that uncertainty. 

    Still, we’re proud to bring this issue to you, to where you read it today. This is our shortest issue yet, and yet it’s one of our saddest. schoolhouse surprised us with the heaviness of its subjects. The circumstances and emotions that come through in these pieces are all too real. From COVID-19 and its effects on education to the horrors of school shootings and other violence, our contributors took the idea of schoolhouse to a far deeper level than we could have imagined when we set the theme over a year ago.

    That isn’t to say that the entire issue focuses on the more negative aspects of its theme. Others capture other emotions—the bond between a teacher and their students, lessons and less conventional learning, playgrounds and petrichor. Like school days (and, dare I say, life), this issue moves along a spectrum of event and emotion, one that I’m honoured to help bring to life. 

    As always, thank you to my wonderful team for putting in the work to build this issue, particularly amidst the chaos of 2020. And a repeated thank you to our “nest,” the submitters and contributors, readers (hi!), social media followers, book, merch, and lit mag purchasers, and even Ko-fi donors who make this production possible. Despite an unsteady year, we still have big plans for Nightingale & Sparrow, and can’t wait to have you along for that flight. 

    And so, without further ado, welcome to our schoolhouse. Submitters wrote from our prompting: “We want your poems written in the margins of class notes and stories of school days. Tell us about your favourite teacher or what you learnt outside of the classroom. Show us your playgrounds and study halls.” We honestly weren’t prepared for the powerful work we got in response. Reencounter the strength that makes up teachers and students alike in pieces like Claire Marsden’s
    Lesson One” and Yelaina Anton’s “We Were Just Kids,” and return to simpler days with “Easter Break” by Ann Howells and  [tires at playground] by Tucker Lieberman. 

    Most importantly, enjoy schoolhouse, in all its iterations.

    Juliette Sebock
    Editor-in-Chief, Nightingale & Sparrow

  • Bouquet of Fears by Noa Covo

    Bouquet of Fears
    by Noa Covo

    Publication Date: 28 July 2020
    Nightingale & Sparrow Press
    9 Pages

    Genre: Fiction

     

    This microchapbook bridges between nature and personal fears, creating a story in which the natural world is intricately tied with the emotional. It is composed of three small fiction pieces: Ocean, Bouquet of Fears, and There Used to be a Sea Here. Each piece contains nature, whether it is inside me, beside me, or around me, and explores fear, worry, and insecurity through the lenses of a force far more significant than myself.

    The consistency of nature is the backbone of this microchapbook, but it is not a work of stagnation, but rather one of human development. It is a work of slow, never ending personal growth, constant, and yet always improving, entwined with the tides, the seasonal blooms, and the slow formation of mountains.

    This tiny book contains three fiction pieces and measures approximately 2.125 x 2.75 inches. Each book is handmade and numbered, representing its place in the limited 100-copy run.

    Each copy is uniquely hand-crafted/folded; because of this, some uneven edges do occur. We think it gives them more character!

    Print | PDF | Kindle

    About the Author

    Noa Covo

    Noa Covo is a teenage writer and high school student. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Reckoning, a journal of environmental justice, Newfound’s Virtual Realities issue, and Rune Bear. She lives in Tel Aviv, Israel with her parents, two siblings, and a fat cat.

    Twitter

  • from “Ocean,” an excerpt from Bouquet of Fears

    from “Ocean”

    I was once taught that all life on Earth began in the ocean, and that, biologically, humans are seventy percent water. That means seventy percent of us is made of what used to be home.

    I think of the ocean hidden inside me,  tucked away in my cells, mixed with my sweat. I feel the tides in my pulse and the salt in my tears. I haven’t forgotten the ocean. I haven’t forgotten its depths.

    continued in Bouquet of Fears

  • Review of Bouquet of Fears by Noa Covo

    Review by DW McKinney

    Reading Bouquet of Fears is to stand barefoot on the edge of a seaside cliff, staring down the expanse before you as the waves gnaw at the ground beneath you. It is both a plaintive declaration of self and a tacit acknowledgement of the unknown. This microchapbook by Noa Covo is a piercing progression of self, mind, and history detailed in three short stories.

    “Ocean” reflects on the unnamed narrator’s primordial origins and the monsters that followed their ancestors from the ocean’s depths. These monsters don’t become flesh and bone but terrors that make “their way up from my stomach and nestle around my heart.” The story merges with “Bouquet of Fears,” another story that beautifully unravels the narrator’s fears. It’s unclear if these fears are the manifestation of the monsters in “Ocean,” but it doesn’t matter. They carry their own urgency. There’s a delightful power in the way that each fear blooms and is named—or plucked—into existence. The last story, “There Used to be a Sea Here,” brings the collection full circle. Where once the narrator emerged from the wet dark, they long to stand on the rocky shore of what one assumes is hope or wholeness, as they proclaim, “there used to be a sea here” —the monsters receded with the tides long ago and a new history carved within themselves.

    Covo writes with a sharp elegance that ensnares the reader. Her words carry us along on a journey that ends as it began, back at the sea, where we ebb and flow. And this is why Bouquet of Fears must be read again and again. There’s so much to uncover in the brief pages. The words need to rest on the reader’s tongue so that they can divine the salt, bitterness, and sweetness in each line.