Evolution

A month or so ago I started scouting around for a Zine Team. Side Stream started as a little project in 2007 and after three and a half years, it's time to open it up to a bunch of new people to run it.

So I have put together a team.

Michael Botur will be the new editor of Side Stream and will be leading the new Side Stream team. He is a fabulous writer, an experienced editor of zines and an all round great guy with just the right kind of community focus and give-it-a-go.

Jason Morales will be our volunteer & events coordinator. Jason is an accomplished poet. He is involved in running events with Bright Yellow Beetle Records. Jason & I have known each other since I was 15.

Tim Donaldson will be our new type-setter & designer. Tim is a designer and he can make text look beautiful on a page. He lives in Tauranga, but visits Auckland often and the team will utilise technology to make everything happen.

I will oversee all of this, but between them, these three will be running Side Stream from September onwards and I'm more here for guidance.

All contact details and guidelines will stay the same, but Jason & Michael have already suggested some pretty cool evolutions for the coming months.

Hopefully with specific people in specific roles, Side Stream will be able to grow and develop into something much more than what it is currently.

Though from that first issue with 5 or so poems and no image, I feel good about what has come of it all so far. We go all over the place. Wonderful connections have been made. The latest Berlin issue is case and point. The Poetry Brothel is one of my favourite things to have done.

One of Jason's first points of call is to recruit more people to join the binding crew. We need a big enough pool to ensure that enough people will be available to bind each issue. When there's a good group it's lots of fun, you get to talking, it's mostly other poets, so it's a social thing as well as a great contribution.

If you are interested in being involved in that, please email us at sidestreamnz@gmail.com

Thanks to everyone for supporting this project all this time, for getting behind something grass roots, and here's to its ongoing success!

Miriam Barr

Issue 21

Issue 21 Contributors
September 2009

Cover art by Ernest Williamson III - world peace held

Cy Mathews - The Return
K.A. Phyn - A Meditation on Heath Ledger’s Cleaning Woman
Jason Morales - 6 p.m. Sunday
Ila Selwyn - stolen voices
Hayden Hyams - Slip Cast. Smoke Fired.
Neesha Bremner - Art — Cherry Stained
Ernest Williamson III - the jazz of old wine
D.J. Grierson - ‘Abraham’: A Soliloquy on Sand.
Michael Botur - Wellington
Aleksandra Lane - Holding hands is so third world
Daniel Larsen - The Day Michael Jackson Died

Submissions for Issue 22 (the last of 2009) close on October 15th for a November release.

New contact details

We've been getting lots of submissions and my personal email is becoming a bit overcrowded now. So, Side Stream has its own Gmail account now. Side Stream is very excited about this new-found independence and autonomy.

From now on, please direct your submissions and any other correspondence to sidestreamnz@gmail.com

Issue 20 was launched last week and is currently finding its way out amongst you all. Auckland should start seeing outcrops appearing now. Other cities in the next 4 - 10 days.

Our next fundraiser is fast approaching - August 14th at Thirsty Dog for Bukowski's Birthday. To celebrate (and raise funds for Side Stream) poets from Side Stream will be winging performances to live improvised jazz music by the Dirty Words Live Sessions Band. The infamous Shane Hollands of Fleet Fm will be MCing the madness. $10 on the door to raise funds for issues 21 and beyond. Let's keep it happening.

Issue 20 & Bukowski's Birthday approaches

Issue 20 has been typeset and is ready for the printers! It's a great issue too. I think they might be getting better and better each time. By issue 40 we'll be golden!



Our next fundraiser is 8 pm August 14th @ Thirsty Dog on Karangahape Rd.

Side Stream poets Miriam Barr, Daniel Larsen & Christian Jensen mash it up with live, improvised jazz by the Dirty Words Live Sessions Band. All proceeds raise money to fund the next issues of Side Stream. MC Shane Hollands.

Charles Bukowski was born on August 16th 1920. He worked in the post office. He was around before, during and after the beat movement. He butted heads with publishers. He wrote about the underbelly, about the fringe. He gave beauty to ugliness. He would have dug Side Stream. Bukowski's Birthday brings the infamous Shane Hollands' Dirty Words Live Sessions together with poets from Side Stream. A three-piece jazz band improvises music and the poet has to follow their lead, winging a performance to whatever it is they have created. It's just electric. $10 on the door to raise funds for the next issues of Side Stream.



Contributors List

Issue 20, July 2009

Cover art by Rachael Naomi Heimann
Jill Chan - Unsimple
Vaughan Gunson - at work
Aleksandra Lane - Nursery Rhyme
Judith McNeil - I wandered lonely
Matt Gould - fair enough
Mark Pirie - Elizabeth 1: The Virgin Queen
Helen Rickerby - Reading the signs
Jonathan Wright - Vodyanoy
Colin Munn - Be Lovers
Ross Brighton - A Note of Apology
Colin James - In Capable Hands



Submissions for issue 21 close on August 15th for a September release.

Side Stream 19

Well, well, looky here, Side Stream has found itself a blog. This could be dangerous.

Issue 19 of your favourite, independent, pocket-sized zine came home from the NEW printers on Thursday looking all beautiful in its lavendar coat. We have a new printer because the old printers bailed on the project; being the big corporate that they are, Warehouse Stationary got itself a new manager who pulled their support by revoking our discount. For a while there we didn't know if we'd find another print shop who would offer the same discount. But lo and behold Rachael's local printers at the Dominion Road shops agreed to support the project and things are all back on track.

I am stoked with this latest issue. We'll be releasing it on May 12th at Poetry Live in Auckland, and then sending them off around the rest of the country and the world. We've now published 88 different poets since we started out in Feb 2007.

Submissions for Issue 20 close on June 15th. See www.myspace.com/sidestreampoetry for submission guidelines and more information. There's also a Side Stream facebook group as well - see http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=29140599067

Issue 19 Contributors List
May, 2009

Stasia Balkarey – Cover art

Vincent O’Sullivan - Witness 217
Rachael Naomi Heimann - Magical
Aidan-B. Howard - The Single Malt
Jodie Butler - I Met a Girl
Carl Palmer - Dad’s Hands
Scott Owens - Spring and All
Hannah May Thompson - Full-Time Writer
Aleksandra Lane - Fishmonger’s Wife
Michael Botur - excerpts from Niche Pandemics
Murray Lee - Pure Evil 5
Duncan - Autistic School-Weekend Report
Jason Morales - circles on water
Colin Munn - Cockscrew

Keep those submissions coming.

Cheers for now.

Miriam Barr
Side Stream editor

Issue 20 seeks submissions of cover art and poetry

Sidestream !


Side Stream issue 20 is now open for submissions. So pop along and refresh yourself with the submission guidelines. The main criteria, aside from being fabulous, is that each poem you submit be less than 50 lines long (but remembering that poems of 25 lines or less get preference). The deadline for Issue 20 (July) submissions is June 15th.

On the news side of things, the corporate world jumped up and bit us last month when Warehouse Stationary got a new manager who decided to withdraw the discount that was making our print run possible. Luckily we have found somewhere else that will match the deal we were getting - more on them later, the angels. Now if we could only find a different paper source that was as cheap as Warehouse Stationary, we could start boycotting them altogether. Suggestions anyone??? In NZ of course.

The contributors to the latest issue are now up on the Contributor's List blog on the Side Stream Myspace (www.myspace.com/sidestrea

mpoetry). I can't wait for you all to read it, 'tis a wicked little collection. The issue will be printed and constructed in the next couple of weeks - ready to be launched, just one month late, on May 14th. This may mean we only do 5 issues this year, or bring one issue out a month early. Time will tell.

Keep an eye out for the next fundraiser too, which I imagine will take place some time in June.