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⌖ BAREKNUCKLE POET JOURNAL OF LETTERS: EDITORIAL JULY 6, 2020
Dear fighters,
This next round of FIGHT will be our last for the foreseeable future.
We have been doing our best to give back, and the response from our community has blown us away. For that we are humbled, and so thoroughly grateful to be reminded again and again of the power in art and community.
This initiative has always been an unsustainable sprint; a quintupling of our workload under pandemic conditions. Our reach exceeded our grasp, as Browning would put it, but we believed it necessary. We believe in poets, in the worth of our words, and we make no bones about doing our goddamned best ‘til we could do no more.
To those that have submissions pending; your work will be considered for FIGHT: Round 4. Any work submitted beyond the date of this announcement will unfortunately be declined out of necessity.
But enough of the dour stuff. What’s next?
First: we sleep. We’ve heard good things about it, figured we’d give it a go.
Second: we reevaluate. The Australian poetry landscape is changing and, for what good FIGHT has hopefully achieved, we have fallen short elsewhere. I personally have fallen short elsewhere. As an ally, a voice, and as proprietor of a platform with reach, limited thought it may be. We’re going to take this time to figure out what we want Bareknuckle to become, how we’ll get there, and then we’ll get to work.
Third: we return strong. Bareknuckle Books returns strong.
Earlier this year, we made the decision to suspend business through our publishing house due to association with a destructive force. We had intended to purge and bounce back swiftly, and perhaps we would have in a less volatile year. However, the facts cannot be denied: for all we’ve achieved through Bareknuckle Poet? Bareknuckle Books has suffered neglect.
That doesn’t sit right.
So. Fighters.
Bareknuckle Poet is easing off the gas. Bareknuckle Books will be getting a booster shot (or twelve). We’re mixing metaphors and medication, but whatever it takes; the fear and fog of 2020 won’t hold us down.
Look after each other. We’re all we have.
Jerzy Beaumont
Editor-in-chief
Bareknuckle Poet
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All works published by Bareknuckle Poet ISSN 2204 – 0420 are licensed under a
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© Bareknuckle Poet ~ Journal of Letters & Individual Authors 2020. Edited by Jerzy Beaumont, Arielle Cottingham & Guests.
BAREKNUCKLE POET JOURNAL OF LETTERS ISSN 2204 – 0420 Published by Bareknuckle Books ABN 13 287 594 649
Est. ~ BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA 2014
Think forward ~ Answer back
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