The Small Machine Talks Episode 103 with Shloka Shankar
recorded on Friday, May 12, 2023
One of the most interesting things about the episode was how Shloka engages with the found poetry and Japanese short form poetry communities, especially for writing prompts. LIsten to the episode to hear various ways in which you can engage with forms and found poetry for inspiration.
Shloka Shankar
https://www.shlokashankar.com/
the field of why, Shloka’s full length collection of poetry is now available: https://yavanikapress.wixsite.com/home/the-field-of-why
Sonic Boom: https://sonicboomjournal.wixsite.com/sonicboom
Yavanika Press: https://yavanikapress.wixsite.com/home
Yavanika is currently open for submissions: https://yavanikapress.wixsite.com/home/submission-guidelines
I had a short but great conversation with Shloka Shankar about her writing, visual poetry and the work of Yavanika Press. I am grateful to Shloka and Yavanika Press for donating e-book publications to the AngelHousePress Caring Imagination Crowd Funding Campaign in both 2022 and 2023, and a regular contributor to NationalPoetryMonth.ca. Her work has also been featured in Experiment-O and she’s now an advisor for the Caring Imagination. http://caringimagination.com/
We discuss Shloka’s poetry, especially Japanese short forms and found poetry. I ask about Shloka’s teaching of online workshops as she celebrates her third anniversary of doing workshops. She discusses the mentorship program she runs. https://www.shlokashankar.com/workshops
Shloka talks about the variety of haiku styles , not just the 3 line haiku.
She talks about the importance of showing your style in whatever you do.
We talk about different workshop forums and groups. I mention Haiku Canada: http://haikucanada.org/
Shloka tells us about a weekly prompt from the Haiku Foundation of the USA: https://thehaikufoundation.org/category/featured-content/virals/
I praise Shloka for the way in which she combines many different forms, such as collage, erasure and short forms.
We discuss Shloka’s interest in found poetry, https://foundpoetryreview.com/ and the special issue on Ulysses by James Joyce: http://foundpoetryreview.com/la-bloom/
Cut-ups & the Text Mixing Desk by Lazarus Corporation: https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/cutup
Language is a virus https://www.languageisavirus.com/
I ask about how Shloka got into making visual poetry and she also talks about her collaborative work. I discuss typographic forms and visual poetry. We talk about using art and crediting artists for collage use. She talks about Februllage, an annual challenge to do a collage a day. https://www.instagram.com/februllage/
We talk more about Yavanika Press and its connection to Sonic Boom, its origins and other aspects of running a press. She talks about the advantage of the e-book and chapbook for her and the press.
Shloka mentions Sonic Boom’s annual visual poetry contest: https://sonicboomjournal.wixsite.com/sonicboom/contests opens from June 1 to 25, 2023.
She talks about the publications of the press: https://yavanikapress.wixsite.com/home/our-titles. We also talk about Shloka’s book, the field of why.
Yavanika Press usually does calls for submission. Check out the submission guidelines. https://yavanikapress.wixsite.com/home/submission-guidelines
On occasion, Shloka will send out an invited solicitation for work.
We discuss the challenges of shipping.
Thanks to Shloka for being on the show, to Charles Earl for processing, to Jennifer Pederson for the intro and outro and to all of you for listening to and sharing the episode. Stay tune for the final episode in May, a month with 3 episodes! for my conversation with writer and Between the Covers host, David Naimon.