Issue 29: A J Moore

BACK-BURN

we are the granddaughters’[1] joyful boldface ubiquity lithographed stamped screen-printed on mugs t-shirts mouse-mats or sharpied on cardboard box placards at demos kinship’s cri de coeur kindling for Early Modern paranoia’s ermine edged bicep-flexing royal appointment line from obsessional monarchs favour seeking *gentlemen* to vote chasing senators on-the-make lawmakers à la mode inquisition’s beleaguered stale locker room culture exposure of unextinguished resistance’s alleged witch’s mark with handcuffed held down forced strip search violation repealed legislation’s state sponsored scold’s bridle feared cycle app surveillance criminalised loss piecemeal incineration of agency self smokescreened spun by historic rote-learned Teflon®-coated  defence [for your own or failing that for society’s good] and inquiry approved forcible intervention stoking wonted humiliation’s systematic slow-burning reverse-gear propulsion towards needle scarred ancestors’ constitutional silencing ratified regulated by any means necessary

[1] ‘We are the granddaughters of the witches you weren’t able to burn’.  Tish Thawer, The Witches of BlackBrook.

[A J Moore is a Creative Writing PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, researching archives, intertextuality and identity under the supervision of Ágnes Lehóczky and Adam Piette.  Her work has been published in Route 57, Blackbox Manifold, Beir Bua Journal, The Babel Tower Noticeboard and  For The Love Of.  Her debut pamphlet, M(P)atriarchive is published by Beir Bua Press.  She is a founder member of Cut Collective Writers: cutcollectivewriters.org.  Twitter: @AJMoore_70.]

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