Jack Solloway

ALT A CALL TO ARMS: One book could make all the difference. We got the news, last week, that the Arts Council have rejected our recent grant bid. While this doesn’t affect our plans going forward, it does mean we don’t have the same financial security as other arts organisations may have. We have over seven thousand (7,000) newsletter subscribers, and over twenty thousand (20,000) followers spread across our social media accounts. If everybody who is subscribed to this newsletter bought just one book we would have the sort of financial security we could only dream of. It would ensure we can continue to create and grow new avenues for Broken Sleep Books, while maintaining the charitable and community-based endeavours we have always engaged in. We have got to where we are because of you, because of every reader and author we’ve ever worked with, for, and towards. Just one book from every newsletter subscriber and we’d be safeguarded for years.

ALT A CALL TO ARMS: One book could make all the difference. We got the news, yesterday, that the Arts Council have rejected our recent grant bid. While this doesn’t affect our plans going forward, it does mean we don’t have the same financial security as other arts organisations may have. We have over seven thousand (7,000) newsletter subscribers, and over twenty thousand (20,000) followers spread across our social media accounts. If everybody who is subscribed to this newsletter bought just one book we would have the sort of financial security we could only dream of. It would ensure we can continue to create and grow new avenues for Broken Sleep Books, while maintaining the charitable and community-based endeavours we have always engaged in. We have got to where we are because of you, because of every reader and author we’ve ever worked with, for, and towards. Just one book from every newsletter subscriber and we’d be safeguarded for years.

ALT Grey book cover, yellow ice lollies, each with two pink stripes, patterned across

ALT That Dark Harp (Angl. Sax. Ballad, Cantab MS A XV) ‘As a crab has a claw, As a hawk has a craw, And an asp’s sharp jaw Has a fang, As a plan has a flaw, As a plank had a saw, And a bad man, by law, Always hangs, As a path has a track, Atlas has a bad back, And a blank has a lack, Alarms rang At my fall, my fall... My chasm’s black walls Shrank — away crawl My gang. As a wasp always swarms, And man’s wrath always harms, My harp’s always warm,’ Satan sang.

ALT Here What Licks Sins I’m sorry we’re moving, I’m sorry we’re moving again. Our last stop will be your hometown. The one with all of the hauntings. This is how the world ends. A ghost is never what you think, you can’t catch a ghost like you catch a butterfly. A storm of empty crows perches on the telephone lines in August, and someone you know will die and they’ll die by a bullet, a knife, an explosion or a long string of cigarettes. They’ll die of a bad dream of a long winter. They’ll die by their own hand. The way I die is by breaking my back while trying to make a window where there isn’t one. It looked easy and took less than a minute. We don’t talk about these things, the ways we can make it all go away. You can’t kill a ghost, but if you could wouldn’t you be tempted to try? There’s too much noise, too much static in my head. When we’re done, we’ll sit out the silence in the woods with you. We’ll be quiet and patient with ourselves as we watch this world burn.

ALT The Giant in the Hills One of our number is sleeping / his back is pincushioned / white lines of silver birch / he carves a gentle hill / he is coated in feather down / a flock / his dream is song / or years / rainwater in his open palm / he dreams he is basalt / or mica / he imagines becoming granite / one day / he may be pulled inch by inch / scraped clean of moss / tadpole / the rabbit nesting in his ears / he will be mined / they will cut from him a rock they do not know was a heart