What is SPORAZINE?

SPORAZINE is a journal of experimental literature written by trans people. It is edited by Ava Hofmann.

Why experimental literature?

SPORAZINE believes we are living in a moment where visual and experimental poetry, mediated by digital technologies, has more potential than ever before. Yet, experimental and visual poetry is currently under-represented in the poetry community in favor of more conventional lyric modes.

SPORAZINE wishes to, in some small way, correct this fact.

SPORAZINE rejects the market-voyeurism of the neoliberal lyric, the false revelation soft violence of institutionally-backed poetry.

SPORAZINE believes in poetry’s potential to radically communicate experience in disrepresentational ways. A radical, personal navigation of one’s experiences cannot just be communicated through the making of one’s voice, but also through the fashioning of form.

Why trans people?

For some, transness itself is a kind of radical experimental art. Transition is a making of one’s voice, a fashioning of one’s form. Transition is a complicated navigation of the violences of a stable self. The lyric I becomes an avenue for the self-assertion of one’s identity, but also a pathway for a cis audience’s leering stare.

SPORAZINE believes that trans people’s artistic practices are put into a double bind by the in-favor poetic style: either we toil away in the obscurity of experimental writing, or we risk becoming a site for cis spectacle. SPORAZINE offers a place to gather that obscure work. SPORAZINE is a protective opacity.

What counts as “experimental”? What counts as “trans”?

Use your most expansive definitions for each. SPORAZINE is, however, actively interested in works of visual and concrete poetry, as well as voices underrepresented in the trans community.

Where can I submit?

If you want to be part of SPORAZINE, email your submission to Ava at felicity.h.cockayne@gmail.com