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Barbara

@thebarbaraverse

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Dundee-based broadside featuring poetry and writing from Scotland and beyond. Giving voice to the outsiders. The feral, the earthy, and the liminal.

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Edition 5 is being copied and folded and sent out into the world...

This means it's a whole year since our first edition of barbara was born - we hope you'll join us in wishing barbara a joyful happy birthday!

We’d like to take this opportunity to offer our heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s submitted to and/or supported barbara over the past year. Congratulations to all of you who we've published so far, and we look forward to the creativity and sparkle of our future contributors. It’s a delight and an honour to read your words, to type them on our typewriters, and to give them a helping hand, sending them out to reach the hearts and minds of our readers.

We were also delighted this month to see one of our Edition 5 contributors published in Mslexia magazine (issue 111) - huge congratulations to Khayelihle Benghu!

Head over to our website to find out more about barbara, to read past editions (a PDF of edition 4 is now available!) and to submit your own bitesize poems and prose. The link's in our bio :) by @thebarbaraverse

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5 days ago

barbara 4 has made her way into the world! She can be found in corners of the world from this library in Scotland all the way to Costa Rica! barbara 3 can also now be read digitally on our website (link in bio). #poetry #thebarbaraverse by @thebarbaraverse

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3 months ago

barbara could be found @hayfestival this week, finding new readers and enjoying some fabulous poetry and music. Highlights include the Jerwood poets, @gwennosaunders, and @theamazingdevil. Now looking forward to reading and being inspired by Gub, following Scott Mckendry's performance in St Mary's church on Saturday night. We hope our own readers are also finding inspiration and enjoyment - do let us know of any recommendations, we're always keen to discover new poetry! And keep a look out for barbara 4, rumoured to be appearing around the summer solstice... by @thebarbaraverse

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4 months ago

barbara 3 is a celebration of poetic form: from Japanese to Welsh, the strict to the experimental; syllables, rhyme, cynghanedd; the shape of the poem on the page.

Form can be both restrictive and liberating - 'singing in chains', as the Welsh author Mererid Hopwood describes it, in her fantastic book of the same name. A form provides boundaries within which to work, helpful for providing structure, but also, in some cases, fiendishly difficult to execute. Short forms such as haiku are perfect for barbara, and the Shakespearean sonnet, at 14 lines, is just small enough.

Do you like to write in form? Do you find it limits you, or do those limits create a space for play and imagination to flourish?

Are there other forms you'd like to see in barbara? Why not send them our way!

And finally, we're delighted to let you know that barbara 2 is now available to read digitally! Find it on the edition 2 page on our website, at barbara.pub/editions/2 by @thebarbaraverse

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6 months ago

Had a great day on Saturday at @dundeezinefest sharing barbara and swapping zines. Can't wait to explore our zine haul, from all the incredible artists, writers and zinesters we were lucky enough to spend the day with. Already excited for next year! by @thebarbaraverse

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6 months ago

We're delighted to be part of @dundeezinefest this year! Come and say hi on Saturday 14th March at Art Angel Dundee. Browse our collection of zines, short stories and poetry, and pick up your free copy of barbara edition 3, hot off the press! (7 year old me wanted to be a writer and would be so excited, though she did prefer climbing boulders...) by @thebarbaraverse

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7 months ago

The sun is here at last!

barbara is currently welcoming submissions for our March 2027 edition. It may feel like a long time away, but now is the perfect time to write your spring-themed poetry! Be inspired by the sun, the emerging flowers, the birdsong.

How might you capture the energy of spring in 14 lines / 100 words?

We're busy preparing for the Dundee Zine Fest on 14th March (if you're local, come and say hi!), and getting barbara 3 ready for publication. But right now let's take a moment to raise our faces to the sun and listen to the joyful song of the birds. May they bring inspiration and wonder!

#thebarbaraverse
#poetry
#wildwords
#broadside
#poetrymagazine
#publishing
#smallpress
#openforsubmissions
#opencall
#submityourwork
#writerswanted
#feralpoetry
#scotland
#dundee
#spring
#birdsong
#sunshine by @thebarbaraverse

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7 months ago

Merry Christmas from barbara! by @thebarbaraverse

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9 months ago

barbara Edition 2 is making her way out into the world!

We celebrated with tea and scones in the McManus cafe, with a glorious stack of 30 barbaras beside us.

If you would like to find out more about our wonderful contributors, the edition 2 page of our website is now live at https://barbara.pub/editions/2/

One more piece of exciting news: barbara 1 is now available to view on our website! Just go to https://barbara.pub/editions/1/ and click 'View PDF'.

If you would like to see your work in a future edition of barbara, submission information can be found on our website (link in bio). We'd love to hear from you.

#thebarbaraverse
#poetry
#wildwords
#broadside
#poetrymagazine
#publishing
#smallpress
#openforsubmissions
#opencall
#submityourwork
#writerswanted
#feralpoetry
#scotland
#dundee by @thebarbaraverse

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9 months ago

DAY 12: THE WONDER OF DARKNESS

On this, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, see if you can find wonder in the darkness. We invite you to step outside after the sun has set, and feel the quality of darkness and of the night. If you are in the southern hemisphere, there will be much less darkness at this time of year - how does the darkness, or relative lack of it, feel to you? The dark can be a place of hiding. A place of fear, or comfort. In many cities we can no longer experience true darkness, and this is having significant effects on animal and plant populations, as well as on our own circadian rhythms. We need the dark, just as we need the light.

Today, we invite you to write a poem praising darkness or night.

#12daysofwonder
#thebarbaraverse
#solstice
#notice
#slowdown
#poetry by @thebarbaraverse

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9 months ago

DAY 11: THE WONDER OF MUSIC

Do you like to listen to music while writing? I find it terribly distracting, but many people rely on playlists to write to, or find inspiration in the music they listen to. And when we’re not writing, music has an incredible capacity to alter mood. Music is as old as humanity, and studies have found that making music - particularly singing - in a group can have real benefits for our wellbeing. Even simply listening to a song we love can evoke strong emotion, recall memories, or energise and cheer us up.

All the sounds we hear affect us. I've been reading an interesting book about sound recently (Sound Affects, by Julian Treasure), and learnt that our responses to different sounds and music are primed in the womb: when we (and our mother) hear a sound, we then experience our mother's response to that sound through the change in the hormones circulated to us through her blood. In this way, we learn our mother's emotional response to different sounds, and this affects how we, after birth, respond to them.

Your invitation today is to notice the music and sounds you hear - or make yourself - and their effect on you. Perhaps write about this, or about a particular sound or piece of music and what it means to you.

#12daysofwonder
#thebarbaraverse
#solstice
#notice
#slowdown
#poetry by @thebarbaraverse

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9 months ago

DAY 10: THE WONDER OF TREES

Today your invitation is simply to observe a tree. If you have the time and inclination, perhaps take a walk in a woodland. Or simply look at a tree from your window, or get up close, feel the bark, consider the multitude of creatures that make this tree their home.

#12daysofwonder
#thebarbaraverse
#solstice
#notice
#slowdown
#poetry by @thebarbaraverse

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9 months ago