Really lovely to be part of the Broken Sleep Books showcase!
This poem is from infra·structure, co-written with Katy Lewis Hood and available here:
https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/katy-lewis-hood-and-maria-sledmere-infra-structure
Thanks to the rest of the Scotland-wide Broken Sleep clan for your gorgeous readings!
Released 31st March, 2023 // 56 pages // 978-1-915760-92-0 // RRP £8.99
It’s been a real pleasure and twang of the heart to work with Aaron Kent on this anthology for Frightened Rabbit. How to make sense of all that salt and the greys in your eyes looking back through the years as if to still be sitting in the living room with a whisky, listening to ‘It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop’ or like analysing lines with the passion of teenagers trying to make sense of everything that can only be felt in the body, or walking backwards or into the wind and sea. Thank you to everyone who sent us work and especially to our brilliant contributors who have shared something really special. This will be with us in the world at the end of March, a weird three years on since my first Broken Sleep release with Katy Lewis Hood which came out on 31st March 2020. What times we constantly live in.
~
The Last Song is a poignant tribute to one of the most beloved bands of our time. This book takes readers on a journey through the heart and soul of Frightened Rabbit’s music, exploring themes of love, loss, and the human condition with raw emotion and lyrical beauty. Each page is a powerful reflection on the band’s songs, offering a new perspective on the music that has touched so many lives. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or discovering Frightened Rabbit for the first time, The Last Song is a must-read for anyone who appreciates the power of music to move us and inspire us.
PRAISE for The Last Song:
Scott and Frightened Rabbit left us a wonderful legacy of music and words in their wake. This collection shows that that legacy doesn’t have to be a passive, inert thing; the ripples of their writing continue to spread ever outwards, making tiny changes as they go. This is a beautiful tribute to art, and to an artist we still hold in our hearts.
— Frank Turner
List of contributors
Foreword by Aaron Kent and Maria Sledmere
Laura Theis
Ian Farnes
Emma Whitelaw
Alice-Catherine Jennings
Catriona Murphy
Anthony Desmond
M Mccorquodale
Geraint Ellis
Michelle Moloney King
Aaron Kent
Jo Higgs
jade king
Carl Burkitt
Tulian Colton
Andrew Blair
Charlie Rose Evans
Maria Sledmere
Kyle Lovell
Vita Sleigh
Gavin Baird
Lynn Valentine
Al Crow
Pleased to announce I’ll be working with Aaron Kent in editing an anthology of poetry and prose in response to Frightened Rabbit. I’m anticipating this as a really special project, and a chance to make something collaborative in celebration of the work of a band that touched the lives of so many. I love music! The pandemic knocked some of that out of me for a while, but it sounds good again. Music! I want to write about it all the time. Send us your best odes, ekphrasis, reflections, fiction, mini essays, lyrics etc.
~
I went looking for a song for you
— Frightened Rabbit, ‘The Oil Slick’
Edited by Maria Sledmere & Aaron Kent
From the release of their debut album, Sing the Greys (2006), Frightened Rabbit were a phenomenal presence in the lives of many. To be at a Frabbit show, to read the liner notes, to belt the words back at your friends was to feel if not release then solidarity in suffering. To catch love from the greys and live in colour. The band’s inimitable singer Scott Hutchison (also a talented illustrator) penned lyrics that captured the weight and heat of adolescence and its wreck, of joyous chaos and loneliness, of growing into a person, falling in and out of love. Frabbit helped many of us nurture a voice in the woodpile of the dark, and to embrace what happens when it sparks.
This anthology is a celebration of Frightened Rabbit’s work in both music and community. Their songs inspired many of us to pick up a pen and write, or share our stories and inner lives with others. We are looking for work that engages with the themes of the Frabbit discography: work that takes its cue from a quoted line, a song, a title, a particular performance. Work that processes the memories filtered through music, that delves into the landscapes, emotional topographies and rich imaginaries of the Frabbit world. Work that shows us how the band’s immense legacy continues through our words, and makes tiny changes.
As Tom Johnson, founder of the magazine GoldFlakePaint writes in a heartfelt tribute to Scott, not long after his passing: ‘The songs are right there anyway; they will always be there’. This is an invitation to carry on the songs. Send us your poems, send us your words.
submissions@brokensleepbooks.com
Please send:
Email:
Deadline is 31st May 2022.
SNACK DROP!
A new pamphlet-length poem, ‘Polychromatics’, responding to the textile and ceramic work of Anna Winberg, is out now with Legitimate Snack (Broken Sleep Books).
Cashless, the snow fell in your dream
three million times osculation
of this surface once was grass, soft silhouette
in pink snow. I scoop masses
of this snow
to carry around for hours.
🍬🍭🌨️🎨🍬🍭🌨️🎨
Paper: Gmund Cotton Linen Cream (110gsm)
Cover: Pastel Pink (210gsm)
Endpaper: Pink Gold Vellum
Titles: Gravesend sans (Medium, 8pt)
Text: Mokoko (Regular, 8pt)
Thanks to Aaron Kent for gorgeous assembly & publication!
Order for £6 here.
mariaology 