Red Door Magazine 23

R E D D O O R 

LANGUAGE ISSUE #23 

WWW.REDDOORMAGAZINE.COM

R E D 

D O O R 

ISSUE # 23 SUMMER 2020 

This 10th anniversary issue has been compiled in our current physical location in Copenhagen, 

Denmark. With collaborations from Australia, Mexico, Colombia, Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, Canada, 

NY and other areas of the US, as well as various other countries in and out of lockdown, in a 

world still without a cure for COVID, the pandemic of our current times. 

This magazine encourages free expression, inclusiveness, intellectual education, information and 

creative expressions, as well as the spread of knowledge through art and culture, which is why the 

magazine exists. All the articles found here are property of the authors and may not directly represent 

the sole views of the magazine, but are curated for synchronicity and eloquence to provide 

you a selective, enjoyable submerssion in each issue of Red Door. 

Thank you for having us. 

www.reddoormagazine.com 

23 

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Tiers start at 3usd a month, and the funds received go directly to 

the expenses related to running and maintaining this magazine, 

the Red Transmissions Podcast, and the Poetic Phonotheque, all 

initiatives of free access to our communities. In exchange, you gain 

access to exclusive content, early releases, downloads, mp3s, prints 

and more! Thanks for helping Red Door continue! 

2 www.reddoormagazine.com 

www.patreon.com/madamneverstop

ISSUE # 23: LANGUAGE 

Editor in Chief, 

Design & Art Director: 

Elizabeth Torres, Denmark 

M A D A M N E V E R S T O P 

Correspondents 

IN this issue: 

The Neon Rebel 

The things we say today are the 

things our children will inherit 

Tanya Cosio, MEXICO 

Bouquets of flowers, 

virus and languages 

Keith FeM: A new community radio. 

Kultivera: The Art of LEITH ABBAS 

by Frank Bergsten 

ISSUE #23 FEATURES 

FEATURED ARTIST: 

SERENA SAUNDERS 

Cover art title: Push Back 

WITNESSING CHANGE 

Photojournalism of BLM by: 

Oveck Reyes NEW YORK, USA 

BLACK POWER TAROT 

Conversation with King Khan 

Magazine designed on InDesign and 

Illustrated digitally by Eli 

www.madamneverstop.com 

Fonts: Aileron for text, 

Aktiv Grotesk for subtitles and titles 

10...9....8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1 

RED DOOR 

MAGAZINE 

The LANGUAGE issue 

In this issue: 

#23 

POETRY BY: 

Patrick Williamson 

Harry Owen 

Ted Stenson 

Debasish Parashar 

Tayler Walters 

David Davies 

Vlad Pryakhin 

Boris Slutsky 

Tatiana Bonch and 

Mariana Galina 

with translations 

by Nina Kossman 

Ali Sadki Azayku 

Translated by El Habib Louai & 

Lahoucine Dassagi 

ESSAYS: 

Language and Identity 

Essay by Olena Jennings 

ON SKINSHIP 

Essay by Brian Richard Bergstrom 

ART BY: 

Serena Saunders - Featured art 

FOUR CARD SPREAD by Mymajo 

Michael Eaton - BLACK POWER 

TAROT 

RED TRANSMISSIONS PODCAST: 

Ethan Minsker - The Man in Camo 

LEITH ABBAS - Kultivera Article. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER 

NY photography (WITNESSING 

CHANGE) ISSUE # by 23 - Oveck LANGUAGE Reye 

3

ABOUT RED DOOR 

COLLABORATORS: 

is an artist run gallery. Alternatingly it presents solo artists 

and shows with two artists, whose works were selected to 

start a conversation in the space. 

One of the latest ideas born from this realm is Keith F‘em. 

The internet radio started broadcast the DJs live from the 

bar and is now hosting shows from different countries. 

Keith is a bar in Berlin, Neukölln, opened in 2015. Hosting a variety of events in its backroom, 

Keith has been more than just a bar since the beginning. It’s a place for people to find friends 

and collaborators, and develop ideas as well as present them to the audience all in one. One 

of these ideas is Keith FeM a community radio project. 

For 3 years the backroom hosted an art gallery, which became SP2 after it moved next door 

into its own rooms, yet still hosting events together or in conjunction with Keith. 

4 www.reddoormagazine.com

RED DOOR MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2020 

Based in Tranås, Sweden, Kultivera is a meeting 

place - between somewhere and nowhere - that interconnects 

creativity that provides exchanges and 

development through our activities in contemporary 

art, literature, dance and film. We work with professional 

cultural practitioners in our cultural residence 

and invite amateurs to meetings with these 

in the local meeting the global. 

www.kultivera.nu 

ISSUE # 23 - LANGUAGE 

5

THE RED DOOR 

TEAM: 

ELIZABETH TORRES, (Madam Neverstop) 

Denmark 

Originally from Colombia and raised in the US, Elizabeth is a 

multimedia artist, translator and published author of over 20 poetry 

books in Spanish, English, Danish and German. She founded 

Red Door Magazine in 2009 and now resides in Copenhagen, 

where she hosts Red Transmissions Podcast and is cultural 

organizer through Red Door Gallery in the Nordic regions. 

MELAINE KNIGHT, (the NEON REBEL) 

Australia 

International Rock’nRoll Undie Washer. Soothsayer. 

Freedom Fighter. 

Image Maker. Velvet Lover. Guitar Slinger + Howler. 

Writer of Songs. 

Melaine works across genres in Film/ TV, Theatre + 

live music performances. 

Her background + passion is in music, theatre + 

dance. 

She has been graced to work in the tour wardrobes 

of some of the music industry’s leading artists like 

Prince, Madonna, Beyoncé, Jack White, Dolly Parton, 

Stevie Nicks, BOYZIIMEN, Leonard Cohen, Rhianna, 

DRAKE, JLO among many others. 

BRANDON DAVIS, x-US, nomad 

currently in Catalonia 

Musician and avid creator, Brandon Davis has performed 

in numerous bands such as Psychic Ills, Indian Jewelry 

and Lower Dens, as well as his own bands Terrible Eagle 

and Electric Set. He is also the initiator of the Neverstop 

project. 

Brandon and his wife Marie are currently residing in 

Spain, where they have started an art residence project at 

Finca sin Numero, as well as continue touring and playing 

as the band Actual Figures. 


TANYA COSIO, 

Mexico 

Originary from Jalisco, Mexico, Tanya Cosio is a 

renown figure in the world of poetry in Latin America, 

as well as an actress and performer with various 

published books and theater plays. Her work also 

appears in various anthologies in the US and Latin 

America. Tanya is one of our correspondents since 

the beginning of Red Door Magazine. 

MARIO Z PUGLISI, 

Mexico 

Poet, editor and cultural organizer, Mario Z. Puglisi 

is originary from Guadalajara, Mexico and author 

of various books, and is the founder and director of 

the cultural magazine Meretrices. Mario Z. Puglisi is 

one of our Mexico cultural correspondents since the 

beginning of this magazine. 

DAVID E. VANEGAS 

The Cosmos 

David E. Vanegas, aka the Magician was a musician, 

guitarist and vocalist in the band Neuronautas, 

worldthreader and powerful being, who helped 

come up with the idea and concept of Red Door 

Magazine, and was a music correspondent from 

NY and various music festivals from the magazine’s 

beginning. 

This July, 4 years since he began his voyage towards 

the cosmos, we honor his memory and his light, 

which remains strong in all of us who love him.

EDITORIAL: 

BY MADAM NEVERSTOP 

As the saying goes, when life gives you 

lemons, something-something lemonade. 

But what happens when these lemons 

come in the form of a cancelled year, due to 

a pandemic, with sprinkled racial inequality 

and blatant corrupt systems in power ensuring 

that certain minorities don’t receive 

the protection and support needed to survive 

the catastrophe? 

What we are experiencing right now, this 

2020 that surpassed all the fiction books 

and movies we could ever have piled up in 

our imagination, is not a sudden surprise 

rain of rotten lemons, but the actual piling 

up of years, decades of injustice and systematic 

discrimination, from the people 

governing us, in a combination of economic 

interests and lifetimes of disinformation 

towards our own communities, resulting in 

gaps of separation that sometimes seem impossible 

to bring closer together. 

When a system is as organizedly corrupt as 

we are seeing the United States is, natural 

disasters (such as Hurricane Katrina, or this 

pandemic) become disproportionate human 

tragedies that could have been avoided 

and which by default, should bring forth 

all the rage and legal justice on the heads of 

those allowing them to happen. 

In my interview for the Red Transmissions 

podcast #15, I spoke to King Khan who 

shared the story of Malik Rahim, a veteran 

and former founding member of Black Panthers, 

an American housing and prison activist 

based since the late 1990s in the New 

Orleans area of Louisiana, where he grew 

up. In 2005 Rahim gained national publicity 

as a community organizer in New Orleans 

in 2005 to combat the widespread destruction 

in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

There, in his own home, he co-founded the 

Common Ground Collective as an immediate 

response to support the Black community, 

which was being sent away by the police, 

with such atrocities as paper-bag skin 

tests, where anyone with skin darker than 

their paper-bags would not receive immediate 

help after the hurricane. 

If these stories sound surreal and like something 

that wouldn’t happen in our time, 

think again, because at the age of 72, Malik 

Rahim is still working hard to protect the 

Black community of Louisiana, and King 

Khan is joining forces to support his work. 

Listen to the podcast or visit King Khan’s instagram 

to learn how to help them. 

Then we travel to Australia, where Melaine 

Knight, the Neon Rebel who so dedicatedly 

has been a correspondent of Red Door Magazine 

for the past 10 years, interviews Philly 

MC and musician NGAIIIRE, both Black musicians 

who shared their experience of being 

Black in Australia. 

She lists common microagressions and 

shows us common racist statements so that 

we learn to check our daily communication 

to become more inclusive and respectful. 

Because it all starts there. With language. 

The theme of this magazine is LANGUAGE 

because it is an integral aspect of our current 

society. From the written and visual language 

we are bombarded with daily by the 

media and corporate organizations, to the 

languages we use to communicate offline 

among one another, and most importantly, 

the ways we express our fears, opinions and 

beliefs in our daily lives, with or without repercussion 

depending on the privileges we 

each have.

A friend recently told me he’s sick and tired 

of the whole feminist agenda and of being 

told to check his privileges often, and this 

is exactly what the rest of us mean by privileges. 

Some of us do not have the luxury of 

complaining about these things, because 

we’re busy trying to survive instead. 

As a person of color, I have experienced 

racism and microaggressions of all sorts my 

entire life, to the point where sometimes I 

don’t even bother correcting others or making 

myself respected, because that, ladies 

and gentlement, is soul sucking. And this is 

a Latina with light skin, so what about our 

Brown and Black brothers and sisters, who 

have spent their entire life dealing with rejection, 

denial, economic and verbal and 

physical violence as part of their average 

expectations? 

I celebrate that in spite of the horrible tragedy 

that COVID-19 has been to most countries, 

(but especially the US, I wonder why, 

no I don’t, we all know why) the thing we 

all knew is finally out in the open. There’s a 

fuckton of racists everywhere. They’re the 

presidents and governors and community 

leaders, they are the police and the bankers 

and the media. And we know they’re there 

and they know they are there and it’s time 

we stop pretending it’s not happening. Our 

voices, our votes, our opinions, count and 

have weight, and it is our responsibility to 

discuss these subjects openly so that future 

generations can grow up in a more balanced 

world. 

Although Red Door Magazine is by definition 

an Arts & Culture publication, we do 

not shy away from the current issues that 

face us and change us, because being artists 

does not mean being distanced from 

our surroundings or living in imaginary alternate 

realities. 

So please, take a look at the photographs 

by Oveck Reyes of the BLM marches in NY, 

and listen to what our Australian friends 

have to say, and listen to what King Khan is 

discussing and the reasons why he created 

the Black Power Tarot, because these are all 

very important pieces of information. Each 

page of this publication, each article, each 

story, may contain the inspiration for your 

next project, or give you the strength to embark 

on the path you are meant to take in order 

to help your community and our world. 

I am constantly asking myself how this publication 

can become more inclusive, and 

how I in my own network can begin to be 

more proactive in the activism of my daily 

life. I invite you to take the opportunity of 

these open discussions, to question your 

attitude / behavior and find ways how you, 

too, can be more proactive, and stand by 

the side of our Black brothers and sisters, 

who as usual, are showing us the way and 

making room for the rest of us in suppressed 

minorities so damn used to invisibility. 

If you are involved in other activist projects 

that strengthen our communities, or art projects 

that educate and inform, encourage 

diversity and peace, or daringly point the 

fingers towards the injustices being committed 

and want to document this, please 

reach out to reddoorny@gmail.com so we 

can share your story. 

Special thanks to those of you who have 

joined my Patreon campaign and given 

your economic support, which directly 

covers the expenses of maintaining this 

magazine. If you’d like to receive exclusive 

content, early releases, extended podcast 

episodes, stickers, pins, prints and more, 

and give your money to support this publication, 

I invite you to visit: 

Patreon.com/madamneverstop 

Tiers begin at 3 usd monthly, and allow for 

this publication to continue. 

Time to make lemonade! 

- Madam Neverstop.

LEITH ABBAS 

BY FRANK BERGSTEN 

His name means ‘lion’ in his mother tongue. His 

name is Leith Abbas and he has a masters degree 

from the College of Fine Arts in Baghdad 

where he also worked as a teacher. Today he 

shares his hours between the furniture industry 

where he works, and the workshop where he 

creates ceramic art. One can tell he really lives 

for his art: -When I’m not thinking about art I feel 

like I’m almost choking. 

But maybe we should start from the beginning. 

Leith Abbas comes from Baghdad,and he tells 

me he always was a bit of a thinker growing up. 

His dad, himself a highly educated artist, probably 

has something to do with that. -We used to 

have long, deep discussions about science and 

philosophy where names like Darwin and Edison 

and other famous thinkers came up. Leith 

means this helped to build his character. 

He tells me since he’s always been interested in 

math, physics and chemistry, he studied science 

at high school with the intention of becoming an 

engineer. But since he also proved to be a talented 

painter he was advised to apply to the College 

of Fine Arts in Baghdad and was admitted 

in 1989. 


-That’s where I started with ceramics, Leith says. 

Aside from the fact that he enjoys the craft and 

working with his hands it reminds him of science. 

Besides having to think about the perspectives 

and the three dimensional aspect, it’s about 

plasticity, temperature, glazing and much more. 

-It’s like chemistry, says 

Leith. You can’t cheat when 

you’re doing ceramics. 

While studying at the university he was working 

as a teacher at the Plastic Art Department, where 

he taught ceramics and sculpture. He stayed at 

the university until 2007 when he arrived to Sweden. 

Soon enough he got in touch with the local art 

society Tranåsmålarna & Co, and he’s been 

with them since then, having his workshop in 

their gallery. He was also advised to contact the 

Swedish Artists Association which made easier 

for him to reach out to the public, and up until 

today he’s had ten exhibitions. 

When I ask him what he would call his craft he 

says he’s an artist who works with ceramics, 

made into sculptures with lots of painting involved. 

His work ranges from the abstract to surrealism, 

and he’s inspired by nature as well as 

science fiction. He says his work is transcending, 

but he emphasizes that his work should be open 

to interpretations. 

He’s very passionate about his work. He says it’s 

important your art is for real, that you let your inner 

emotions show in your work. -I want to show 

myself through my art, and at the same time I 

want people to feel joy and harmony when they 

see my work. 

He splits the work into three parts; Idea - Technique 

- Form. Idea is connected with education, 

technique with experience and form with talent. 


11

In addition to his own work he’s got big plans he 

hopes to realize some day. He says he got the inspiration 

to the project from the surroundings around 

Tranås. He speaks with great enthusiasm about 

this project, that somewhere in the forests create a 

fairytale world. He wants to create a world with his 

sculptures that would be like opening a window to 

a completely different world. It’s an idea, or more 

likely a vision he’s very passionate about. -It would 

be totally unique and a total experience. Imagine 

attracting people from the whole country, from the 

whole world, he says. 

He’s very passionate about art and much of his 

waking hours is related to it. All this consumes lots 

of energy and I ask him what he’s doing to unwind, 

and he mentions his allotment where he goes to 

grow vegetables and recharge his batteries. 

-But even then I’m inspired and come up with new 

ideas. Maybe that’s the place he’ll figure out how 

to realize his dream project - The Fairytale World. 


Article by: Frank Bergsten 

for Kultivera. 

Learn more about Leith Abbas by visiting: 

Learn more about Kultivera by visiting: 


13

BOUQUETS OF FLOWERS, 

VIRUS AND LANGUAGES 

BY TANYA COSIO 

My daughter and I arrived 

to the supermarket in Tuxla Gutierrez, 

Chiapas. Suddenly she turned around to 

look at me, surprised – Mom, look, they’re 

foreigners… where could they be from? – I 

must clarify that she grew up in my wound 

and arrived during my stay in San Cristóbal 

de Las Casas, to then move to live with me 

in Guadalajara and Monterrey, territories so 

racists within themselves that the other languages 

of this Mexican motherland are not 

often heard. This is why, here in Chiapas, 

flower of happiness where songs are sang 

in many languages and pain is howled also 

in its many various accents, she was surprised 

at seeing a couple speaking Tseltal. 

I answered to her: 

-No, they’re not foreigners. 

I will explain to you shortly. 

Come. 

Her eyes were open wide and her ears paid 

close attention to their strong and guttural 

accents, while she observed their clothing. 

Her question kept resounding in my head. 

“Where could they be from?” 

I thought that maybe it was due to our lack 

of becoming more grounded, of coming 

closer to one another independently from 

the languages we speak. I know it is difficult 

sometimes to understand, it seems 

that abysses grow out of bodies in spite of 

speaking the same languages, and yes, we 

add the futility given to certain languages 

spoken by minorities and the way in which 

the masters and mistresses of the world pretend 

to dissipate the linguistic diversity by 

imposing certain tongues as priority to have 

access to a more global communication, in 

an act of elaborating a warp of five colors as 

an exercise of absolute abuse towards the 

other, towards the others. 

In Mexico, there exist sixty-nine official 

languages; sixty-eight of them 

indigenous, in addition to Spanish. 

The ten most spoken languages are 

Nàhuatl, Chol, Totonaca, Mazateco, 

Mixteco, Zapoteco, Otomí, Tsotsil, 

Tseltal and Maya. 

Each one of them has variations, from a 

municipality to another there are bifurcations 

and certain words stop being understood 

along the path. Due to the contempt 

towards these languages in Mexico, there 

are also people currently deprived of their 

freedom due to lacking the ability to speak 

Spanish fluently: the official language. 

I believe that there shouldn’t be languages 

lost, especially if the reason for this is racism, 

the xenophobia which can lead others 

to not speak the language of those who are 

in appearance more fortunate. 

I imagine these tongues as if they were bouquets 

full of flowers, as big as Brazil, and if 

we could see it this way, in the literal form, 

maybe our fascination would be so strong 

that we would keep watch over each of 

these colors and textures so they would remain, 

we would to the unimaginable for the 

respect of each person, their language and 

territory. 

Each language is a passage toward their 

ancestors and cosmic visions, towards centuries 

of walking the paths of each particle 

of earth that forms this world. I don’t know 

why when I say idioma (language) I think of 

the father and when I say lenguas (tongue, 

as in language) I think of the mother. 

The word idioma sounds harsh and dry, 

and when one says lenguas that part of the 

body moves in the cavity of the mouth, and 


this tongue and its saliva are equal in every 

body, nationality and social class. The root 

of the word idioma comes from the latin idioma, 

and this from the greek idioma, of idios 

(private, particular, own, of oneself). In 

another definition it is attributed to the word 

idiot, he who only worries of its own property. 

It can lead to the word tongue in latin, 

lenguas, and tongues as in anatomic organ. 

There are currently approximately 7.8 billion 

people in the world and approximately 

7,097 languages spoken. This invites us 

to reflect on this question: If it isn’t possible 

among 7.8 billion to respect 7,097 languages, 

how can we respect these 7.08 billion 

people with everything their individuality 

implies? 

In the middle of this pandemic, the indifference 

of maintaining only that which is 

private property becomes revealed. In that 

sense we are closer to the definition of idiot 

and its greek root, when it wasn’t an insult 

but a normal expression. 

According to the blog ComaconComilla the 

word idioma appears documented for the 

first time as the way of referring to a person 

or literary style of a writer in Don Quixote, 

(chapter VI, first part) and Cervantes presents 

it as coming from the mouth of the 

priest Pedro Pérez: 

“Ahí anda el señor Reinaldos de Montalbán 

con sus amigos y compañeros […], y en verdad 

que estoy por condenarlos no más que 

a destierro perpetuo, siquiera porque tienen 

parte de la invención del famoso Mateo Boyardo, 

de donde también tejió su tela el cristiano 

poeta Ludovico Ariosto; al cual, si aquí 

le hallo, y que habla en otra lengua que la 

suya, no le guardaré respeto alguno, pero, si 

habla en su idioma, le pondré sobre mi cabeza”. 

(referring to sir Reinaldos of Montalbán arriving 

with his friends, all who deserve permanent 

exile if not for the intervention of 

Ludovico Ariosto; whom, if speaking in other 

tongues than his deserves no respect whatsoever, 

but if speaking in his own tongue 

/ idioma- deserves for his head to be put 

over the shoulders of the priest). 

If in countries like Mexico people who speak 

their own tongue are received with disdain 

and face discrimination, they will find themselves 

in a position of having to separate 

from what belongs to them, and all this entails, 

to become an amorphous mass that 

speaks a language imposed by insensitive 

conquerors, who in turn were conquered by 

the Moorish, were fed their words and gave 

life to the Muslim Spain. Thereby the history 

of the world, which is one of being attached 

to bazookas, and absurdities as with the invasion 

of Algiers: 

The bey of Algiers hit the consul of france, 

Mr. Duval, with a fan, and the consequence 

to such an outburst of anger was the conquest 

of Algiers by the French, and therefore 

the language was modified. 

We are, by default, the sum of an infinite mixture 

of features and words that transform us 

into others and separate us from the etymological 

definitions that brought us close to 

the intimacy of 

the language, to throw us against the barbarity 

of exchanging death by installments 

with the potencies of the world depending 

on convenience according to each historic 

phase. 

All we are left with is making a vessel of what 

is ours, without being idiots, and protecting 

also that which isn’t ours, where we can inhabit 

as a great bouquet of flowers, as immense 

as Brazil, where now, by the way, the 

ill also speak the same language as the rest 

of the work, which is the language of COVID 

19: A language anyone understands from 

the idiomatic imposition of those who have 

the resources to surive, and the nevermores 

who like Poe’s raven, have had something 

more beyond their tongue. 

Tuxtla Gutiérrez, 

Chiapas, México 

June, 2020 

Translated by ElizabethTorres 


15

RAMILLETES DE FLORES, 

VIRUS E IDIOMAS 

TANYA COSIO 

Mi hija y yo llegamos a un supermercado 

de Tuxtla Gutiérrez, en Chiapas. Y de pronto 

volteó a verme extrañadísima: —Mami, mira, 

son extranjeros… ¿de dónde serán? Debo 

aclarar que ella creció en mi vientre durante 

una estancia en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 

para luego vivir en Guadalajara y Monterrey, 

territorios tan racistas en sí mismos que 

no suelen escuchar los otros idiomas que 

pueblan esta matria mexicana. Así que, en 

Chiapas, flor de alegría donde se canta en 

tantas lenguas y se aúlla también el dolor 

en sus muchos acentos, le sorprendió ver 

a una joven pareja hablando tseltal. Le respondí: 

—No, no son extranjeros, 

ahorita te voy a explicar, ven. 

Ella estaba con los ojos como platos y abrió 

oídos a aquellos acentos fuertes y guturales, 

mientras observaba la ropa… Aún retumba 

en mi cabeza: “¿De dónde serán?”. 

Pensé que quizá se debía a la falta de costumbre 

de vincularnos, de acercarnos los 

unos a las otras independientemente de las 

lenguas que hablamos. 

Bien sé que es difícil entenderse, parece que 

le crecen abismos a los cuerpos a pesar de 

que hablan el mismo idioma y si, además, 

sumamos la futilidad que se le concede a 

las lenguas que hablan las minorías y a la 

manera en que los amos y amas del mundo 

pretenden disipar la diversidad lingüística 

al imponer ciertas lenguas como prioritarias 

para acceder a una comunicación global, 

en un acto de elaborar una urdimbre con 

cinco colores cual ejercicio de abuso absoluto 

hacia lo otro, hacia las otras, los otros. 

En México existen sesenta 

y nueve lenguas oficiales; 

sesenta y ocho de ellas 

indígenas, además del español. 

Las diez lenguas indígenas más 

habladas en la actualidad son: 

náhuatl, chol, totonaca, mazateco, 

mixteco, zapoteco, otomí, tsotsil, 

tseltal y maya. 

Cada una de ellas tiene variantes, de un 

municipio a otro se bifurcan sus caminos 

y dejan de entenderse algunas de sus palabras. 

Al menosprecio por esas lenguas 

se debe también que en México haya, hoy 

en día, personas privadas de su libertad 

sólo porque no pudieron defenderse en español: 

la lengua oficial. Y hablo de un país, 

pensemos en la diversidad que habita al 

mundo. Es inasible y por ello indispensable. 

Considero que no debería perderse ninguna 

lengua, y menos si la razón es el racismo, 

la xenofobia que puede provocar no hablar 

el idioma de quienes en apariencia son más 

afortunados. 

Imagino a las lenguas como si fueran un ramillete 

inmenso de flores, tan grande como 

Brasil, y que quizá si pudiéramos verlo así, 

de manera literal, sería tanta nuestra fascinación 

que velaríamos porque cada uno de 

esos colores y texturas permanezcan, haríamos 

hasta lo imposible por respetar a cada 

persona, su lengua y territorio. 

Cada lengua es un pasadizo hacia sus ancestros 

y cosmovisiones, hacia siglos de andar 

los caminos de cada miga de tierra que 

conforma este mundo. No sé por qué cuando 

digo idioma pienso en el padre y cuando 

digo lenguas pienso en la madre. 


La palabra idioma suena más dura y seca, 

y al decir lenguas esa misma parte del cuerpo 

se mueve en la cavidad de la boca, 

y esta lengua y la saliva que la respira son 

iguales en todos los cuerpos, nacionalidades 

y clase social. La raíz de la palabra 

idioma proviene del latín idioma, y ésta del 

griego idioma, de idios (privado, particular, 

propio). En otra definición se le atribuye a la 

palabra idiota, quien sólo se preocupa de lo 

personal. O te remite a lenguas en latín, y las 

lenguas al órgano anatómico. 

Existimos aproximadamente 6 000 millones 

de personas actualmente en el mundo y se 

hablan alrededor de 7 097 idiomas. Lo cual 

nos invita a reflexionar al respecto: si no es 

posible que entre 6 000 millones de personas 

respetemos 7097 idiomas, ¿cómo podremos 

respetar a 6 000 millones de personas 

con todo lo que cada persona implica? 

En medio de esta pandemia se trasluce la 

indiferencia que desde siempre ha habitado 

a la mayoría de los seres, por cultivar 

sólo lo propio. En ese sentido estaríamos 

más cerca de la definición de idiota en su 

raíz griega, cuando aún no se convertía en 

un insulto y era lo natural. 

Según el blog ComaconComilla la palabra 

idioma aparece documentada por primera 

vez como la manera de hablar de una persona 

o el estilo literario de un escritor en 

el Quijote (capítulo VI de la primera parte) 

y Cervantes la pone en boca del cura Pedro 

Pérez: “Ahí anda el señor Reinaldos de 

Montalbán con sus amigos y compañeros 

[…], y en verdad que estoy por condenarlos 

no más que a destierro perpetuo, siquiera 

porque tienen parte de la invención del famoso 

Mateo Boyardo, de donde también 

tejió su tela el cristiano poeta Ludovico Ariosto; 

al cual, si aquí le hallo, y que habla en 

otra lengua que la suya, no le guardaré respeto 

alguno, pero, si habla en su idioma, le 

pondré sobre mi cabeza”. 

padecerá el racismo, así que se verá en la 

necesidad de separarse de lo propio, con 

todo lo que esto conlleva, para convertirse 

en una masa amorfa que habla un idioma 

impuesto por conquistadores insensibles, 

quienes también fueron invadidos por los 

moros, se alimentaron de palabras y dieron 

vida a la España musulmana. 

Así la historia del mundo que es un pegarse 

de hostias y bazucas y absurdos como 

cuando la invasión de Argelia: El bey de Argel 

dio un abanicazo al cónsul de Francia, 

Mr. Duval, y la consecuencia de semejante 

arrebato de ira fue la conquista de Argel por 

los franceses, y entonces el idioma se modificó. 

Somos, pues, la suma de una infinita mescolanza 

de rasgos y palabras que nos convierten 

en otros y nos alejan de las definiciones 

etimológicas que nos acercaban a 

lo íntimo del habla para arrojarnos a la barbarie 

de intercambiar muertos a plazos con 

las potencias del mundo según convenga y 

sean en cada etapa histórica. 

Sólo queda hacernos de un barco de lo 

propio, sin ser idiotas, y cuidar también lo 

ajeno, donde podamos habitar como si 

fuéramos un ramillete inmenso de flores, 

tan grande como Brasil, donde ahora, por 

cierto, los enfermos también hablan el mismo 

idioma que en el resto del mundo, el del 

virus del Covid 19: un lenguaje que cualquiera 

entiende desde la imposición idiomática 

de quienes poseen recursos para salir 

bien librados y los, las, que jamás y nunca 

más, como aquel cuervo de Poe, han tenido 

algo más allá de su lengua. 

TANYA COSÍO 

Junio de 2020 

Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, México 

Si en países como México la gente habla 

su propia lengua se le menosprecia y 


17

THE BLACK POWER 

TAROT 

A CONVERSATION WITH KING KHAN: 


King Khan Left home at 17, when he played punk 

music in a band called The Spaceshits, known for a 

chaotic audience that got them banned from a lot 

of clubs in Canada, where they resided. Two friends 

of the band were Mohawk Indian, which led him to 

spend a lot of time on their Kahnawake Mohawk reservation 

where they practiced, something he mentions 

as one of his first influences, as well as his Canadian 

and Indian mixed heritage. 

Khan tells me he read Malcolm X at 12 and was 

touched by his story of catharsis due to torture, prison 

and enlightenment and for this reason, Khan’s choice 

of including him in the Black Power Tarot, the subject 

I have asked him to discuss on this issue of the Red 

Transmissions Podcast. He adds that it was Malcom 

X’s autobiography that led him to understand another 

world was possible. This is how we begin our interview. 

Straight to the point and with plenty of stories 

to accompany each important piece of information. 

At 22 he fell in love and married, and him and his 

partner began a family in Europe, where they still reside. 

It was around this time, twenty years ago, that 

he also started the Shrines, a band Khan envisioned 

as a combination of Sun Ra and James Brown. Ever 

since, he’s been playing, making music scores for 

films along with other multimedia collaborations, and 

for the past 8 years, working on the soundtrack of a 

documentary called The Invaders, to be released by 

NAS in the near future. It seems everything King Khan 

does is interrelated, a beautiful dance of brain and 

heart in action. 

The movie discusses activism in late 60’s movements 

and peaceful rallies, Martin Luther King’s focus on the 

poor people’s campaign which almost cost him his 

following, the Black rights’ movements and the militant 

group The Invaders, who took care of the community 

with little means, in the style of the Black Panthers. 

Police infiltration and tactics of disruption. And 

how all of this is deeply interconnected to our current 

present. 

Then our conversation flows to a subject I am very 

fond of once he mentions Naked Lunch as another 

influence for his life and creative process. 

Naked Lunch was a book, he says, that helped him 

cope with the bullying he received due to him not understanding 

his early sexuality and others not understanding 

his mustache, his long hair and brown skin. 

He explains that this book left and “ooze” or residue in 

his brain that never left. “If I want to get inspired, I can 

reach out and touch that stuff and get inspired. 

He gave a middle finger to America, he was a volcano. 

What happens with a volcano? After it erupts it 

becomes magma, and becomes fertile soil. He paved 

the way”. 

“Picture a 13 year old me, you know, picking up Naked 

Lunch, getting their mind blown… and then years 

later, (…) I started a tour, met Jodorowsky, and it turns 

out Lou Reed is a fan of my music. Him and Laurie Anderson, 

and we get a call, they invite me to play in the 

Sydney Opera House. (…) I ended up getting arrested 

and begging the guards to let me out so I could go 

play for Lou Reed. I get to Australia, I’m a mess, sitting 

next to Lou Reed, and he’s singing a song called the 

‘Vanishing Act’, (…) these are some of the most fucked 

up times in my life, around a time when I lost 3 friends 

(…) and reality was bending, and this is where I met 

Hal Willner, who passed away from COVID this year. 

Not only did he produce all the Burroughs albums 

before, as well as Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson 

and Nick Cave and Sun Ra, but he also invited me all 

the time to be part of his compilations, his civil right 

shows… and after Lou passes, he calls me and he 

sends me an email, he says ‘I have a gift for you’, he 

sent me 10 tracks of William S. Burroughs reciting the 

worst, unspeakable parts of Naked Lunch. And I’m 

like a kid in a candy store… it was pure alchemy. He 

told me I could do anything I wanted with them. (…) 

and when I sent the first track to Hal, he told me cried.” 

This is how the record “Let Me Hang You” was 

born, with titles such as ‘Gentle Reader’ and The 

Exterminator, and a cover which was a collaboration 

with Michael Eaton, where Burroughs appears 

as The Devil. it was redesigned. In this devil 

image, the leashes are soft leather, and the young 

creatures can be interpreted as demons or other 

entities, with leather covering their privates. “The 

devil in that card is the one who laughs with all of 

his body, the one who laughs at non-sense, and 

that was Burroughs. He always had the last laugh”. 

I’m really proud of that record, think about the fact 

that it was the book that changed my life… and then to 

be able to add something to it. When something like 

this happens to you, then you realize you’ve found 

the right path.” 

We also talk about the other questionable aspects of 

Burroughs’ character, and the privileges of 

wealth and color which allowed him to 

remain free throughout his entire career and life.

“Tarot is simply language. 

If you figure out how to read it, 

you can help people find their path 

of illumination.” 

- King Khan 


19


The inspiration for creating the Black Power Tarot 

came after a dream. 

A dream with none other than Alejandro Jodorowsky, 

who in that moment was just a visitor to the dream 

realm, but later became his mentor and friend, and 

whose participation in the Black Power Tarot development 

process helped Khan define the characters 

and imagery. 

“I was the first in line in a classroom, he had a basket 

of eggs, he lifted my shirt and smashed and egg on 

my chest – it was like I was being canonized”. An hour 

later a I was asked to do the soundtrack off “Schwarze 

Schafe”, a film by Oliver Rihs. 

“When I started the Black Power Tarot, I had this vision 

that I needed to tell the story of Tarot, the journey 

of the full thorough life understanding of the world, 

with the light of Black Power, and use the right people 

for the right cards – choosing only people who really 

followed a path of illumination”. 

So Tupac, of course? 

“That’s one of my favorite cards, one of the most 

feared cards. A misunderstood card. What’s amazing 

is, in this card, this person has chosen to tie himself to 

a piece of wood and hang upside down because he’s 

doing a meditation, and he wants to see the world differently 

from everyone else. And when he hangs on 

this meditation he’s not concerned about winning or 

losing, he’s just concerned about being, and swaying 

back and forth.” 

Nina Simone is also there, as the Empress. “The card 

is of this young woman discovering her sexuality, 

blossoming. A card about fertility and maternity”. 

The people on these cards have been chosen as to 

Jodorowsky’s lessons and the original Tarot of Marseilles. 

“I feel like Nina Simone had such fucked up 

relationships her whole life. She was a slave to her 

husband, who even scared the police. This guy was 

a scary mobster kinda guy and she was beaten and 

tortured. I feel like this affected her so hard throughout 

her life, that she never was able to go into the next 

level of Spiritual Mother, she was also kinda trapped 

in the role of the Empress. I feel like, since she was 

born, she was born with her hands tied behind her 

back… and still she managed to become a volcano”. 

Then there’s Marie Laveau, the High Priestess, 

the Voodoo Queen. “In this card, she’s reading 

the secrets of the world in a book, she’s sitting on 

an egg, contemplating her fertility, probably giving 

birth – They say this card is connected to the 

Hanged Man, who is supposed to be the child 

that comes out of that egg – This card is about 

compassion, empathizing with pain, finding a 

way out for them, finding help. People came to 

her when they were desperate, when even the 

law was against them. 

Her role was incredible. To provide light, strength, 

and essential help”. 

King Khan shares of an experience he calls “losing his 

mind”, soon after having met Jodorowsky and Lou 

Reed, and feeling out of nowhere like he was losing 

reality. Thankfully there was a family safety net and 

a good emergency care system, and now that he’s 

gone through the process of seeking help and being 

diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, he openly discusses 

these feelings, the fear of taking medication and 

conquering the paranoia of fearing losing himself. 

He discusses them openly to overcome the stigma 

of mental illnesses so common in our communities. 

After a couple of years being a zombie and trying to 

find himself and thinking he would no longer return 

to his previous creativity, one night in a pitch black 

room the song “Darkness” came to him. This is how 

art returned to him, and how, by his own confession, 

it saved him. 

“The Tarot is the path of the fool.” Khan adds, now 

at 42 from his apartment in Berlin, returning to the 

conversation of the tarot, after discussing the role of 

comedy in society as well as in his life, his performing 

style, and his personal story. “In the Tarot cards the 

fool is the joker in the beginning… and you kinda have 

to be a fool to follow a path of illumination. That has 

to be the first step. And being a fool is laughing at everything, 

but being able to for example make fun of 

the king, the authority figures, and still being able at 

the end of the day to dine with them and be at their 

level… that’s very important, because that’s ultimate 

freedom”. 

Tarot should be done using only the major arcana. 

“You can study and memorize the minor arcana, put 

those images in your head and that will help you understand 

the major arcana. But the work that we are 

doing in Tarot, which is not the manipulation of fortune 

telling, or enforcing their powers in you, Tarot 

is simply a language, so if you know every card back 

and forth, the sacred geometry, which direction are 

they looking…once you figure out how to look at this 

stuff you realize you can help people to understand 

their path of illumination.” 

“There’s a part of voodoo which I really admire, which 

is basically just the chemical reaction of anger and 

frustration turning into light. When you read about 

Laveau, the voodoo queen of New Orleans, she used 

to do spells where she would cast a spell and put tons 

of chilli peppers in her mouth and chew them and just 

cry, so strongly, the energy is thrown out of you, and I 

believe in this strongly. I have seen it in practice”. 

Jodorowsky taught Khan never to charge for readings 

so he hadn’t until now, where he is at a position 

where he can ask for an amount and directly donate 

it to the causes he is passionate for: 

The money collected from his readings and 

t-shirts goes directly to Malik Rahim, community 

leader, from the Black Panthers in Louisiana.

“The horror stories he can tell you, about Katrina, the 

paper bag tests that the police would do – they would 

hold up a paper bag against your face and if you were 

darker than it, you’d not be able to go to safety across 

the bridge”. 

In discussing the upcoming printing of the Black 

Power Tarot, King Khan shares that the new edition 

will include more cards. “I changed the Sun Ra card, 

because I had a deep conversation with Knoel Scott 

who’s been with Ra since the 70s, I played with Sun 

Ra a few times live, and was a part of the Arkestra… so 

I was talking to them and they said they thought the 

card could be better. I realized I wanted to put Knoel 

and Marshal (Allen) in the card. (…) and so I changed 

the babies in the card to them as young people, the 

sun and enlightenment in them… I also wrote Le Panther 

Noir (Black Planthers in English) in a card, because 

I wanted to put Malik on the deck (…) what we 

did is we put him in the card and behind him is a mural 

of Angola 3, made by a bunch of kids who wanted 

justice, which the police erased the day after it was 

made. And it’s Malik raising his fist, and it’s the sign 

of infinity, meaning you are forever a Black Panther”. 

Michael Eaton, the Irish artist who made the visuals 

for the tarot, met King Khan at a concert 6 years before 

deciding to write him, asking to collaborate in a 

project together. Coincidentally, this was precisely at 

the time Khan had been working on the tarot concept 

with Jodorowsky. Eaton was working for the Game of 

Thrones, so it was easy for him to understand the aesthetics 

of the Marseilles Tarot and reinterpret it in the 

Black Power Tarot. 

“We work like this: I fill up Michael with a dream… I envision 

something, or even do little sketches or write 

to him, and then we start this process of passing the 

idea back and forth until we get it perfect. What I love 

about him is that, I am able to harness my bipolarity”. 

Here, we enter into a discussion of transforming the 

imbalance of bipolarity to push gears in your mind 

and go beyond creative expectations: 

“I talk a lot about first Nations because I just finished 

another deck of tarot, ‘Dots and Feathers Tarot’, honoring 

the people of the Americas, from Mexico all the 

way to Greenland, and back in the day, in the tribes, 

if there was a child with bipolarity or some type of 

autism, the way to treat them was to give the child to 

the healer, so that the healer could take extra care of 

them, listen to them, and guide them, reinterpreting 

their dreams as visions or premonitions that should 

be shared with the rest of the tribe. We honored these 

people. We celebrated them. Then industrialization 

happens and they’re put in cages and lobotomized, 

or given mind-numbing shit. Now we treat the most 

special people like garbage.” 


In connecting the subject of bipolarity to the creation 

of the Black Power Tarot, Khan explains: 

“There is such a wisdom in the Tarot, and specially the 

path of illumination… gender fluidity and all sorts of 

amazing, modern concepts are already in the cards”. 

When asked about upcoming projects, King Khan 

shares that he’s completing a movie called Ratribution 

Now, to be released as an official short firm, 

where his daughter is also a collaborator, as well as 

Joe Coleman, who also narrates the film. 

It is a fictional story about the Musahar people in 

India. Musahar is derived from the words masu (flesh) 

and hera (seeker). H.H. Risley (1891) who studied 

them in some detail, believe that the word relates to 

being rat-eaters as they would smoke or dig rats out 

of their holes in the fields and eat them. They use an 

implement known locally as gahdala for digging and 

hunting. 

“so I am telling the story of this girl, and basically insinuating 

that it was her rape and her revenge on the 

rapists, killing them and dismembering them, that 

made the goddess Kali”. 

To learn more about the incredible King Khan, his music, 

productions and collaborations, visit: 

www.justinsulininitiative.org 

You can listen to his latest work, acquire the William 

S. Burroughs CD Let Me Hang You, or line-up for the 

new edition of the Black Power Tarot, schedule a 

reading and get a coloring book at: 

https://khannibalism.bandcamp.com/ 

To listen to the interview, visit The Red Transmissions 

Podcast on Spotify, iTunes and most podcast 

providers: 

https://reddoormagazine.com/podcast/ 

Listen to the extended version (a half an hour extra 

of our conversation) by joining the Patreon campaign 

created in support of Red Door Magazine, Red Transmissions 

Podcast and the Poetic Phonotheque. The 

funds from your support will go directly to keeping 

this independent publication alive: 

https://www.patreon.com/madamneverstop 

Special thanks to King Khan for the interview, images 

and sparks of pure fire.

FROM NEW YORK, WITNESSING CHANGE 

A prolific photographer, musician, instagram influencer with over 80K followers and avid traveler, 

Oveck’s photographic style is known for its cinematic feel and smooth, dream-like imagery. 

However, the following series is the opposite of that, a contrast that highlights the importance of 

artists taking the steps necessary to protect their/our freedoms, stand for justice, and show their 

support for the current marches and protests, in the United States, and the rest of the world in 

response. 

The current turmoil began during the lockdown in 2020 as a response to the assassination of 

George Floyd by policeman Derek Chauvin in Minnesota, with people of all origins, religions 

and professions coming together to protest the constant injustices and mistreatments, asking 

for restorative justice, diversity, equality and empathy. 


Photojournalism by OVECK REYES 

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is the organized movement leading the online strikes and local marches, 

dedicated to non-violent civil disobedience in protest against alleged incidents of police brutality 

against Afro-American people. But it is not a new movement. It was created In the summer 

of 2013, after George Zimmerman’s acquittal for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. If you too 

would like to be a part of making a difference throughout these times, we suggest donating directly 

to Black Lives Matter, Black Alliance for just immigration, Color of Change, the Movement 

for Black Lives, or any of the organizations listed here: https://blacklivesmatter.com/partners/ 

Red Door Magazine would like to thank Oveck for documenting the marches in our beloved New 

York and for sharing them with us in this issue #23. 

Stay strong, dear international community. RESIST! 


25



27


BLACK LIVES MATTER 


29


Follow Oveck Reyes on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/oveck/ 

Or visit: 

https://www.oveck.us/ 


31

ON SKINSHIP 

BY BRIAN RICHARD BERGSTROM 

Being a translator, I find myself developing 

fondnesses for certain words—and especially types 

of words—that exist in one language and not in another. 

In Japanese, there is a class of words called 

waseigo ( 和製語 ), or “language made in Japan.” 

This refers specifically to words adapted from other 

languages but put to new uses within Japanese. 

One of my favorite pieces of waseigo is the word skinship 

(sukinshippu / スキンシップ). It’s a waseigo that 

seems to fill such an obvious need that it makes the 

language from which it’s derived seem impoverished 

for lacking it. Skinship is the term for the aspect of a 

relation that arises from physical touch – the “ship” 

is from “friendship,” and just as that word refers to 

the various aspects of being friends, skinship indicates 

various roles skin can play, the ways it enriches 

and defines the relations that make up life itself. 

Whenever I think of this term, I think of a story I translated 

(that remains unpublished) called “Naked” by a 

wonderful woman writer named Fumio Yamamoto. 

“Naked” tells the story of a woman who has fallen out 

of the workforce and the marriage system and is in 

a kind of melancholy limbo. Soon, though, she finds 

something to attach to: the body of a man she meets 

one late night at a manga café, a “loser” named Little 

Ken who once worked for her, back in her former life 

as a hard-charging working woman. Little Ken is consistently 

compared to a puppy, and she is bemused 

to find that she takes solace precisely in his losery 

doggishness. The animal self he signifies for her, the 

animal comfort he provides by lying next to her and 

offering his body so guilelessly, both grounds and 

de-centers her. She chastises herself a bit for the ease 

with which she succumbs to her own longing: 

He and I are perfect together, a perfect pair 

of losers, I thought, without a hint of malice 

or contempt. All it took was a bit of 

contact between my naked body and his 

to get me liking some guy I’d never given a 

second thought to before, it seemed – never 

underestimate the power of sheer skinon-skin. 

I struck myself as a bit funny 

at that moment, as well as a bit stupid. 

What I translate as “sheer skin-on-skin” is the waseigo 

“skinship,” a word that seems infinitely more precise, if 

only it actually existed in English. In this instance, skinship 

refers to a sexual closeness (so “skin-on-skin” is 

appropriate), but it can refer to non-sexual instances 

of touch as well, such as between a parent and child 

or between friends. 

Here it refers to something within sex that isn’t reduceable 

to the sexual—the animal being within us 

that needs to feel the animal being of others, that 

communicates feeling that cannot be expressed in 

words, but rather only gestured at, via terms like “skinship.” 

Never underestimate the power of this, Yamamoto 

says here, spelling it out explicitly in a throwaway 

line. 

The relationship of the power of touch to the present 

circumstance during the COVID-19 pandemic is so 

obvious it’s a bit embarrassing to even mention. But 

dwelling on touch is an unavoidable part of the way 

this crisis feels. Think about the people most important 

to you and count how many you can touch, and 

then how many you are waiting to be able to touch 

again, and then count the weeks till when that might 

be for each one. I think of my parents, just turned 70 

and living in rural eastern Washington State in the 

U.S., in a situation where social contact is relatively 

easy to avoid. At the same time, they are lifelong volunteer 

firefighters, a calling that has developed into 

also being volunteer first responders. My mother has 

a condition that compels her to take immunosuppressants, 

so she does not go on calls, but my father is 

still compelled to. Yes, it’s volunteer, but if he doesn’t, 

who will? This is the choice the infrastructure of the 

rural U.S. compels. 

I talk to them on the phone, across a now-closed 

U.S.-Canadian border, hearing how my father is the 

mobile one, his body going to town and sometimes 

going out to try to save his neighbors’ lives, then returning 

home. I worry about contagion coming back 

home with him, his body’s one version of vulnerability 

availing another to my mother’s. 

They both assure me that all necessary precautions 

are being taken, and I am relieved until they tell me 

a story of my father going on a call to the house of a 

woman who has hemorrhaged internally. The hemorrhage 

is fatal, but at the family’s behest, the first 

response team must perform life-saving procedures 

until she is declared officially dead at the hospital. 

This translates into my father performing CPR on her 

for over an hour in the ambulance between her house 

and the hospital, resulting in the internal bleeding 

becoming external, bathing the inside of the ambulance 

and his body with blood from her mouth for the 

length of the trip. Laughingly, my mother recounts 

my father’s return to the house “covered in blood still” 

and bundling him and his equipment into the shower. 

“What about the special precautions?” I ask, to which

I receive the reply, “Oh, there’s not nearly enough 

supplies out here to wear that stuff on every call.” 

I decide not to voice the hundreds of responses that 

rushed to mind after hearing that. 

At the end of “Naked,” the protagonist has broken up 

with Little Ken and lain the groundwork to re-enter the 

workforce, but first she helps her friend’s daughter 

with an art project for school, which is back in session 

the next week. The protagonist becomes somewhat 

infantilized in the process, eventually spending the 

night and having a little slumber party with the daughter. 

The story ends with the protagonist reflecting on 

the prospect of rejoining the workforce, and emotion 

wells up within her: 

I held my friend’s child tight against 

me and began to cry. My initial 

tears begat more and more, until 

my weeping turned into wrenching 

sobs. I could sense that the child had 

woken up, startled by my outburst. 

Mama, mama, she’s crying! The 

child called out in a voice that edged 

into a tearfulness matching mine. I 

listened to the sound of her steps as 

she fled to her mother for rescue. 

Yamamoto’s great purpose throughout her collection 

is less to make a statement about the pressures on 

working women than to capture a particular feeling, 

one of disassociation and detachment that’s also an 

attachment—a clinging to drifting away that’s not 

quite a death drive, but rather an agonized inhabitation 

of a space that’s slowly growing more uninhabitable 

yet seems preferable to the alternatives, at least 

for the moment. 

When my father tells me about being covered in 

blood from a dead woman’s mouth, he’s telling me 

about what it means to be in the world with others. To 

have a body in this world is to be vulnerable, something 

we don’t think about in those terms until we’re 

forced to. It’s a complicated, contradictory set of feelings 

that emerges from bodies and the skinship that 

links them. I think about the vulnerability of the body 

in times of mutual isolation—when bodies are kept 

apart, and also when they are compelled back into 

contact. I think about the loss of touch, of the prospect 

of losing people close to me and realizing that 

the last time I touched them would remain the last 

time I’d touch them. I think about the power of skinship 

and the undertow of the animal self beneath all 

our higher functions and ambitions and compulsions. 

In the end, the skinship between the protagonist of 

“Naked” and her friend’s daughter hasthe power to 

draw forth the grief that’s been suppressed throughout 

the story, the grief over breaking her attachment 

to her detachment, to her distance from the ambitions 

and drive that used to define her. It’s also an 

attachment to her detachment, to her distance from 

the ambitions and drive that used to define her. It’s 

also an attachment to her child self, akin to the animal 

self she allowed herself to share with Little Ken until 

she no longer could, just like she can no longer be a 

child either. And this grief erupts bodily, making her 

vulnerable and also monstrous, scaring the child and 

also herself, an outpouring that stands in for the connection 

that can no longer be made, that separates 

the jagged contours of mourning from the comforts 

of melancholy. The power of skinship is rendered as 

the power of attachment itself, in its beauty and terror. 

The power of attachment, and the terrible power of 

its severance. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Brian Bergstrom is a lecturer in the East Asian Studies 

Department at McGill University in Montréal. His articles 

and translations have appeared in publications 

including Granta, Aperture, Mechademia, positions: 

asia critique, and Japan Forum. His translation of 

We, the Children of Cats by Tomoyuki Hoshino (PM 

Press) was longlisted for the 2013 Best Translated 

Book Award, and his translation of the story “See” by 

Erika Kobayashi won runner-up in Asymptote’s Close 

Approximations translated fiction contest in 2017. 


33

Post-COVID-19 Radio Reconnects: 

Berlin’s community-led streaming radio upstart 

Keith F’eM holds a virtual sesh thru the lockdown 

It’s Thursday afternoon, 4 June 2020. The source 

of the radiocast is KeithFeM.com. John Lennon’s 

“Mother” just played and a kid’s voice is carefully 

reciting the title of another track you just heard: 

“Papa Won’t Leave You Henry by Nick Cave and the 

Bad Seeds,” he reads slowly. Oskar, age five, does 

a weekly show, Fuddle Duddle, with Duncan, his 

father, a Canadian living in Berlin for seven years. 

Duncan started out doing the radio show on his 

own with Oskar spontaneously contributing his 

thoughts on songs and sharing stories. He describes 

the process of bringing Oskar into the show. “He 

started out just doing the news. The news is what 

Oskar calls his improvised stories,” Duncan adds. 

Oskar’s news – a welcome break from the regular 

news this year – reports on things that interest him or 

he’s read about – priorities are given to dinosaur talk 

and the volcano report, as you’d expect – “I don’t plan 

ahead,” he clarifies – but today’s news is that a horse 

and an elephant are living together and sharing food 

even though they don’t like the same things (hay in 

the first case, small trees in the other). He lets listeners 

know it’s “okay to be strange,” then adds, “That’s the 

end, goodbye for now,” as the opening notes to Bob 

Marley’s “No More Trouble” sound. 

With lockdown, Duncan says Oskar’s role in the show 

evolved. Oskar, like many kids around the world, is 

only recently (and only partially) out of lockdown. He 

just returned to his kita (preschool), so for most of the 

past few months, he’s been at home with his parents. 

Duncan, also home, saw this as an opportunity to experiment 

with expanding Oskar’s involvement with 

the show. “We had time and I thought, hey this would 

be a good thing to do together,” Duncan said. “But 

it took a little while to figure out how it would work.” 

They experimented until they struck upon a recording 

process. 

“I talk about it in parts,” Oskar explains. Duncan, a musician, 

records and edits the show himself, at home, 

and is able to upload it to Keith F’eM for broadcast. 

This also allows them to take multiple breaks and record 

an episode over two or three days. Eventually, 

Oskar became more involved in picking and discussing 

the music. Duncan would play the songs for him 

ahead of time to see if he liked them or not. When 

asked what he thinks of the song “Nasty Dan” by 

Johnny Cash, Oskar recalls Cash performing it with 

Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street. “See ya at the 

end of those songs,” he signs off to the bending guitars 

of a Built to Spill classic. 


The source of the signal is Keith F’eM. The “community 

organized internet radio station” went live in May 

2019. Managed by a working group of digital musicians, 

artists, and sound engineers, it streams diverse 

programs created by hosts in Berlin and around the 

world with over 1,000 hours of original archived content. 

Julia Viebranz-Wiatrek and her husband Ken Wiatrek 

were part of the founding members of the NEKJO 

project group, which is also behind the Neukölln project 

space, SP2. SP2’s last exhibition before shutdown 

was “Strong Animal,” a powerful vision of a post-human 

society by Berlin illustrator Ali Fitzgerald. 

Julia, also a teacher and biologist, offers practical, 

philosophical, and growth-oriented perspectives on 

the natural world on “Julia’s Gartenshow.” She often 

compares what they’re doing at NEKJO to nature’s organic, 

evolving network of interrelationships. She first 

explored this approach as part of Clementine Clayonnage 

in Hamburg. She describes the clayonnage as 

“a safe place, open to everyone to experiment with 

and within, embraced by a permeable network. We 

had everything – art shows, theater performances, 

readings, cooking events, a week-long festival.” She 

sees it as all one connected thing: “We are still gaining 

from the threads woven back then.” 

Ken brings up the growth in listenership: “Since the 

lockdowns, our average listener counts per show 

have exploded (~300%) and the highest rated shows 

have seen exponential growth (up to 2000% increases 

over previous averages). Keith F’eM’s livestream 

chats can turn into a party with people jumping into 

the chat from all over the world to catch up and react 

to what’s happening on the air. The types of shows 

being aired have similarly expanded – quizzes, talk 

shows, even spoken word/audio collage stuff. “Everything 

fits in,” Ken explains, “everything finds a home.” 

Keith F’eM is a streaming radio station and a digital 

audio archive, but it’s also a physical thing, an expanding 

rhizomatic root-system of cables, soundboards, 

and studio equipment squatting in the back 

room of a bar closed for the virus from which it takes 

its name: That’s Keith. 

Keith F’eM got started when Station Manager Olly 

Hewitt rigged up a one-button streaming Raspberry 

Pi (a type of single-board computer) for the bar. “After 

10 days of solid coding I got it running. I also made 

the Instructable for it which ended up featured on the 

Instructables homepage.” Explaining his motivation, 

Olly says, “there is a worldwide community of people 

doing what is essentially pirate radio using technology 

that is increasingly, unfortunately, under censorship 

and control.”

BY ERIC JAMES BAIN 

Caprisonne, a soul/funk/whatever show was a 

lifeline for Moana (who also goes by MJ) as well as 

a creative outlet during the worst of the quarantine. 

One of the few times she left home each week was 

to come to the KeithF’Em studio to do her show. As 

a bartender at Keith, she had keys to the recording 

space, so her shows were “live from quarantine!” She 

was also part of an Instagram live broadcast of her 

show, which she describes as “me not looking at the 

camera and speaking directly into the mic. It ended 

up being like a drinking challenge show – it was just 

so much a part of that moment.” Reflecting on her 

motives, Moana says, “I just wanted to do 

something for the people that we 

knew scattered around the city – 

and the world – alone.” She explained, 

“There ended up being so many 

of these little moments where we 

could reconnect with each other.” 

Asked what’s next, Ken explains: “We recently completed 

a Kickstarter campaign to fund a proper studio 

home for KeithF’Em. We hope this encourages new 

people to help expand the scope of what we offer 

and create more access for local communities that 

might feel restricted by the current setup.” 

Duncan allows that he and Oskar might experiment 

with doing a live show once the new studio 

is built. Oskar’s gone back to kita, but they 

still find time for the show. The effect of doing 

Fuddle Duddle on Oskar has been noticeable, 

even to him. “I talk about it like a grownup,” 

Oskar says, “sometimes even better than daddy. 

Duncan says that Oskar is also getting more 

involved in planning the setlists, and is getting 

familiar with recording tech and editing basics. 

It’s the next music break, and Duncan’s turn to announce 

the previous set. “Believe it not,” he intones, 

“that last song was Steely. Dan.” 

Oskar, without missing a beat. “Why’d you say ‘believe 

it or not?’” 

The current schedule, archives, and list of 

contributors can be found on our website at 

KeithFeM.com 

SP2.Berlin 


35

POETRY SELECTION: 

Fundamental Right to Dream 

By Debasish Parashar 

Imagine you are a little weird 

and you dream of yellow rivers 

gathering tea leaves to the tune of ardent Erhu 

music 

in the heart of a Syrian child 

imagine you believe her tears, 

flying samurais, 

can flood rice fields of gold 

transform into maritime Silk-routes 

ancient as hope 

through Silk-routes of tear you sail on a tiny boat 

from Kunming to Mediterranean shores 

kissing continents of solitude 

will you be wrong ? 

no, not at all 

because you have a fundamental right to dream 

a natural right to dream 

Imagine you are listening to a relaxing 

composition of Spanish guitars 

lying on your bed of windows 

lights off and fog outside 

you sleep down the slippery melodies of 

a candle-lit evening from the 90’s 

you feel strongly you could still live that innocence 



because you have a fundamental right to dream 

an inalienable right to dream 

Imagine it’s a stormy night 

and you are sailing through the Silk-routes of tear 

on your tiny boat 

You come across a dream-seller 

carrying fallen leaves 

you ask for a dream and he offers his palms instead 

you hold his hands and cry 



because, without sweat and blood and tears 

there is no right to dream 

as a three-year old 

I used to scream seeing butterflies in my dreams 

I could not tolerate those intense dreams 

I used to wake up in tears, tired and terrified 

I have seen dreams growing to words 

and butterflies shaped into swords 

butterflies with edges of sword can cut you into 

doubles 

my dreams have been weird 

your dream will be different 

no matter what 

you have a fundamental right to dream 

a different dream 

an inalienable and a natural right to dream 

just like your right to breathe 

you have a right to dream. 

Debasish Parashar is a Multilingual Poet, Creative Entrepreneur, Singer/Musician 

and Lyricist based in New Delhi, India. He is an Assistant Professor of English 

literature at the University of Delhi. Parashar is the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of 

Advaitam Speaks Literary journal and is associated with the World Poetry Movement. 


Internet 

by Taylor Walters 

Trapped in a world of filters – 

Double tap or swipe right to show interests 

What’s Pinterest? A site of inspiration… 

creation. 

We live in a sphere that is trying to define the term 

“perfection” 

The idea that there is an ideal image of life 

and happiness. 

So, tell me this…. does the amount of likes you receive 

give you bliss…? When you miss out on 

human connections and affection? 

Is it possible to obtain this gain over a screen? 

A touch. A feel. 

A kiss is all missed when your head is down 

and facing the ground. 

Lift up your thoughts and let it be said that there is 

more to life than a screen…it’s ruining your dreams. 

Taylor Walters is a teenage writer studying film/television and 

theatre design/scenography at Aberystwyth University. She 

grew up in foster care and has been writing using her story as 

inspiration. 

Voyage 

Like a pendulum 

I am stereo rushing from ear to ear, 

languages merge, 

Left, Right, 

across the ocean 

I hear your voice 

sharp; fresh, as is wit, 

I am your love 

by Patrick Williamson 

Patrick Williamson is a writer who is alo active in filmpoems 

(Afterword, with Mauro Coceano) and 

other multimedia or text-object projects, often in association 

with Transignum in France. Editor and 

translator of The Parley Tree, Poets from 

French-speaking Africa and the Arab World, Arc 

Publications, 2012. Notably, three poetry collections 

published by Samuele Editore from Pordenone, 

in English-Italian and translated by Guido Cupani: 

Traversi (2018), Beneficato (2015), and Nel 

Santuario. Founding member of transnational literary 

agency Linguafranca. 

crossing oceans 

& we transgress, transcend. 

Je frappe. Ouvrez la porte, c’est moi; 

this city is the venus of the nprth 

this, the torrid summer cyclone; 

this city state is ours 

Melia, Melba, 

polis and cosmos combined. 


37

BY VLAD PRYAKHIN - Translated from Russian by Nina Kossman 

It is dark in the Rome of the brain 

November comes to the forum 

its strong cold heels shod in sandals 

a shadow of a hungry wolf runs 

through winding hills 

to feed the brothers - 

a thought woven in two 

two brothers are merged in it by their desire 

to change the world 

I repeat to you 

baby Caesar of our future 

here war matures 

like a fruit on a tarry wilding 

under the sun of unkind speeches 

and arrowheads grow on branch tips 

poles turn into spears 

while enemies tread on us from the depths 

of our dark our memory 

always remember this 

little Caesar of our future 

our children dream of battering rams 

to break walls 

here love gets conquered 

a beloved is taken by storm 

seduced 

in a deceitful maneuver 

encircled 

everything we have here is for a war 

even a grain of wheat 

knows while hardening 

that it goes straight into defense stock 

that’s why we grow forests 

to make barriers from 

that’s why our rivers are wide 

so that the enemy won’t ford them 

that’s why our thoughts are insane 

and our desires are vague 

so a scout 

that penetrated the Rome of our brain 

would be lost forever 

so he would fall with it 

в Риме мозга темно 

там ноябрь наступает на форум 

всей обутой в сандалии крепкой холодной 

пятой 

тень голодной волчицы бежит 

по извилин холмам 

чтобы выкормить братьев - 

сплетенную двоякую мысль 

в ней два брата в желании мир переделать 

слились 

повторяю тебе 

будущий маленький цезарь 

здесь война вызревает 

как плод на смолистом дичке 

под солнцем недобрых речей 

а на концах веток растут наконечники стрел 

жерди превращаются в копья 

пока враги наступают на нас из глубин 

нашей памяти темной 

помни об этом всегда 

будущий маленький цезарь 

нашим детям снятся машины 

для пробивания стен 

здесь любовь завоевывают 

идут на любимого штурмом 

соблазняют 

обманным маневром 

берут в кольцо 

все у нас для войны 

даже зерно пшеницы 

знает, отвердевая 

что идет прямиком в оборонный запас 

потому у нас лес вырастает 

чтобы было нам из чего делать завалы 

потому широки наши реки 

чтобы враг не форсировал их 

потому наши мысли безумны 

желания смутны 

чтоб лазутчик, 

в Рим нашего мозга проникший 

навсегда заблудился 

и жертвою пал вместе с ним 

Vlad Pryakhin is a Russian poet. Born in 1957 in Tula, he lived in Tula, the Baltic states, 

the Smolensk region, and in Moscow. In the 1980s he published The Idealist, a samizdat 

journal of poetry and prose. Since 1992, his poems and short articles have been 

published in literary magazines in Russia, as well as Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. He 

is the author of ten books of poetry. In 2012 he became the editor and publisher of The 

Environment, an international literary almanac. A winner of several literary awards, he 

participated in free verse festivals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. 


HOW MY GRANDMA WAS KILLED 

How was my grandma killed? 

My grandma was killed like this. 

One morning a tank stopped 

near the building of the state bank. 

One hundred and fifty Jews of our town, 

lightweight, 

after a year of hunger, 

pale from the grief of death, 

came there, carrying their bundles. 

Young Germans and polizei 

cheerfully pushed old women and old men 

and then, to the clankety-clank of their messtins, 

led them far out of town. 

And my grandma, so small, 

like an atom, 

my seventy-year-old grandma 

cursed at the Germans, yapped obscenities at 

them, 

shouted at them about where I was. 

She shouted: 

- My grandson 

is at the front! 

You just dare 

you just dare touch me! 

You hear that shooting - 

that’s my people coming close! 

Grandma cried and shouted 

and walked on. 

And then again she would 

shout. 

And from every window 

Ivanovnys and Andreevnys shouted to her, 

Sidorovnas and Petrovnas* cried: 

- Hold on, Polina Matveevna! 

Yell at them! Walk with a straight back! 

They shouted: 

- Oй, що робыть 

З отым нимцем, нашим ворогом! ** 

Therefore, it was decided that my grandma 

would be killed 

while they were still passing through the town. 

The bullet shook her hair, 

her gray braid shot up. 

And grandma fell to the ground. 

That’s how she was killed. 

_______ 

* Ivanovnys and Andreevnys shouted to her, 

Sidorovnas and Petrovnas* 

- patronymics of ethnic Russian 

and Ukrainian women 

** Ой, що робыть 

З отым нимцем, нашим ворогом! 

-- Oy, what can we do / with 

these Germans, our enemies? 

BY BORIS SLUTSKY 

Translated by Nina Kossman 

Борис Слуцкий 

КАК УБИВАЛИ МОЮ БАБКУ 

Как убивали мою бабку? 

Мою бабку убивали так: 

Утром к зданию горбанка 

Подошел танк. 

Сто пятьдесят евреев города 

Легкие 

От годовалого голода, 

Бледные от предсмертной тоски, 

Пришли туда, неся узелки. 

Юные немцы и полицаи 

Бодро теснили старух, стариков 

И повели, котелками бряцая, 

За город повели, далеко. 

А бабка, маленькая, 

словно атом, 

Семидесятилетняя бабка моя, 

Крыла немцев, ругала матом, 

Кричала немцам о том, где я. 

Она кричала: 

- Мой внук 

на фронте, 

Вы только посмейте, 

Только троньте! 

Слышите, 

наша пальба слышна! 

Бабка плакала и кричала, 

И шла. 

Опять начинала сначала 

Кричать. 

Из каждого окна 

Шумели Ивановны и Андреевны, 

Плакали Сидоровны и Петровны: 

- Держись, Полина Матвеевна! 

Кричи на них! Иди ровно! 

Они шумели: 

- Ой, що робыть 

З отым нимцем, нашим ворогом! 

Поэтому бабку решили убить, 

Пока еще проходили городом. 

Пуля взметнула волоса. 

Выпала седенькая коса. 

И бабка наземь упала. 

Так она и пропала. 

* * * 

Boris Slutsky (1919 - 1986) was a Soviet poet of Russian-Jewish origin. He was 

born in the Ukraine in 1919 and died in Tula (a city near Moscow) in 1986. During 

World War II he served in the Red Army; his war experiences color much of his 

poetry. He is considered the most important representative of the War generation 

of Russian poets. His poetry is deliberately coarse and jagged, prosaic and 

conversational. He translated poems from the Yiddish into Russian and edited 

the first Soviet anthology of Israeli poetry in the 1960s.

* * * 

over the bedspread of ash, growing cold on top of 

roots 

A broken toy clear-eyed plush nose 

can’t warm you on my chest 

can’t satiate your thirst 

no green hope will rise here 

now only sepia and black and gray in wires of bushes 

drifts of ash between charred stumps 

exuding golden lava from cracks to the roots 

oozing sweet glowing plasma 

like salamanders 

climbing to the grottoes of fire serpents 

scorched carcasses on burnt ground 

lying in red dust along the asphalt 

clean white bones in the recesses of the trail 

ashes do not retain shapes of bodies of a last embrace 

prostrate arms paws wings 

mouths screaming open 

graciously untold and unheard stories 

blinding memory of a scarlet hot wave 

hugging the body in blue-yarn in gray stones in 

fresh moss 

ghosts of rainbow parrots above grevillea flowers 

spirals in the dance of twice shed skin 

refugees not capable of either flight or fleeing 

trying to escape the fire to salvation 

leaning on each other’s shoulders in vain 

fire is drawn to warm soft flesh 

flesh is drawn to the fire 

a wave of fire carried to the dead earth 

to the top of the hill the charred skeleton of the ark 

scratching on a thorny grid the leaden sky scrambles 

up tree branches 

feathers dance dry small tremors in these mute 

forests 

empty dotted lines of bird tracks on a heavy gray 

pillow 

BY TATIANA BONCH - Translated by Nina Kossman 

над покрывалом золы стынущая над корнями 

поломанная игрушка ясноглазая плюшевый нос 

не отогреть на груди не укачать ненаглядную 

не отпоить 

зеленой надежде не взойти здесь 

теперь только сепия черный и серый в проволоке 

кустов 

сугробы золы меж обгорелых пней 

источавших лаву из трещин к корням 

сочившихся сладкой пылающей плазмой 

саламандры золотую 

карабкающиеся к гротам огненных змей 

опаленные туши на сожженной земле 

в рыжей пыли вдоль асфальта 

чистые белые кости в углублениях тропы 

пепел не сохранил очертания тел последних 

объятий 

распростертых в защите лап крыльев рук 

распахнутых в крике пастей 

милостиво нерассказанные неуслышанные 

истории 

подслеповатое воспоминание об алой жаркой 

волне 

обнимавшей тело в синемахровой пряже в сизых 

камнях в свежем мху 

призраки радужных попугаев над цветами 

гревиллеи 

спирали в танце дважды сброшенной кожи 

беженцы не способные ни к полету ни к бегу 

пытавшие путь к выходу из пожара к спасению 

друг к другу плечом напрасно 

притяжение огня в теплую мягкую плоть 

притяжение плоти к огню 

огненная волна вынесла на омертвелую землю 

на вершину холма обгорелый остов ковчега 

царапаясь о решетку колючек свинцовое небо 

карабкается по ветвям 

бывшие перья танцуют сухую мелкую дрожь в 

этих немых лесах 

опустелые пунктиры птичьих следов по тяжелой 

сизой подушке 


Tatiana Bonch was born in Simferopol in 1963. A novelist and 

a poet, she has authored twelve books in Russian, including 

Introduction to the Literature of Formal Restrictions and Labyrinths 

of Combinatorial Literature, and has co-edited the anthology, 

Freedom of Restriction. She co-hosted GolosA (Voices) 

Festival of Combinatorial Poetry, and Festival Symmetry 

Literary Session. She co-edits Artikulyatsia, a journal of avant 

garde Russian writing.

*** 

in the morning the choking windstorm will calm 

down 

blinding light will burst through its tired eyelids 

like a cruel lover waking you from fading dreams 

from cooler memories of a dance of pyramids poplars 

about the pranks of fresh wind 

about a bush of roses filled with gentle smiles 

in the morning no dew no tears appear on the reddish 

fabric 

an angel has already swallowed a copper pipe and 

its tongue 

flaps of his wings do not sweep away pain from 

burnt bodies 

the angel wipes rusty sweat from his forehead 

shakes the bowl nervously 

dry sour herbs and specks of mimosa 

acacia branches in a ghostly burnt forest 

the angel lays a wreath of thorny branches on the 

skull 

the blood well-boiled for a great holiday 

all flesh eaten away by coals 

in years ahead when winter returns 

it will rain cold snow will pour in 

you may pick blackberries 

from thorny shrubs 

под утро удушливая метель успокоится 

ослепительный свет рвется сквозь усталые веки 

так жестокий любовник будит от выцветающих 

снов 

от прохладных воспоминаний о танце пирамид 

тополей 

о шалостях свежего ветра 

о кусте роз исполненном нежных улыбок 

утром не роса не слезы выступают на рыжей 

ткани 

ангел уже проглотил медную трубу и язык 

махи крыльев не сметают боль с обгорелых тел 

ангел вытирает заржавленный пот со лба 

нервно качает чашу 

сухие кислые травы и пылинки мимозы 

каждение ветвями акации в призрачном горелом 

лесу 

ангел возлагает венок колючих ветвей на череп 

на великий праздник вскипела выпита кровь 

вся съедена в угли плоть 

когда через годы вернется зима 

пойдет дождь холодный просыплется снег 

с колючих кустов собери 

ягоды ежевики 

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: NINA KOSSMAN 

Nina Kossman is a bilingual writer, poet, translator of Russian poetry, and playwright. Her English 

short stories and poems have been published in US, Canadian and British journals. Among her published 

works are two books of poems in Russian and English, two volumes of translations of Marina 

Tsvetaeva’s poems, two collections of short stories, an anthology (Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems 

on Classical Myths) published by Oxford University Press, and a novel. Her work has been translated 

into Greek, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. She received a UNESCO/PEN Short Story Award, an 

NEA translation fellowship, and grants from Foundation for Hellenic Culture, the Onassis Public 

Benefit Foundation, and Fundacion Valparaiso. She lives in New York. 


41

BY MARIA GALINA - Translated by Nina Kossman 

A Fictitious Biography of a Woman 

Look, here is a woman who is 79 years old 

she will never grow old and will never die 

of her 200 lovers only one was a poet, 

but she preferred a pilot 

of a shiny spaceship that flew to the moon, 

he still 

looks at her from the Sea of Rains, 

from a broken module, crumpled metal, 

molten into moon ice 

into the moonlight 

when he looks down at the earth - he sees only 

her, 

only her of all the people ... 

And the one who is a poet, naturally, he still 

sings 

about her, sings that she will never die, 

not at seventy nine, not at one hundred seventy 

nine, 

because 

he made her immortal – even her fingernails, 

painted with bright varnish, 

every joint, her delicate skin, 

glowing in the dark 

oh how beautiful you are, my love 

how beautiful you are, not a single flaw 

while she 

doesn’t listen to a damn thing he says 

all she does is look up, there, at the moon rising 

crimson, pockmarked, scary 

in its terrible nakedness. 

Фантастическая биография женщины 

Погляди, вот женщина, которой 79 лет, 

она никогда не состарится и никогда не умрёт, 

у неё было 200 любовников, но только один – 

поэт, 

но ей был милей пилот 

блестящего космического корабля, улетевшего 

на луну, 

он до сих пор 

глядит на неё из Моря Дождей, 

из разбитого модуля, покорёженного металла, 

вплавленный в лунный лёд, 

в лунный свет, 

глядит на землю – но видит её одну, 

единственную из людей... 

А тот, который поэт, естественно, тот поёт 

до сих пор, о том, что она никогда не умрёт, 

ни в семьдесят девять, ни в сто семьдесят девять 

лет, 

потому что он 

сделал её бессмертной – каждый её ноготок, 

крашенный ярким лаком, 

каждый сустав, нежную кожу её, 

светящуюся в темноте, 

о как ты прекрасна, возлюбленная моя, 

как ты прекрасна, и нет на тебе пятна, 

а она 

не слушает ни хрена, 

всё смотрит вверх, туда, где встаёт луна, 

багрова, ряба, страшна 

в ужасной своей наготе. 


Maria Galina was born in Kalinin (now the city of Tver) in 1958. 

She started publishing fiction in the 1990s under the pen 

name Maxim Golitsyn. She has since published novels under 

her own name as well. Two of her novels, Little Boondock 

and Mole-Crickets, were nominated for the Big Book Award in 

2009 and 2012. She is also a prize-winning poet and literary 

critic, writing regular columns for the literary journal Novyi Mir.

BRICK - By Ted Stenson - Calgary, Alberta, Canada 

(for Angus) 

VETKOEK VOETE - by Harry Owen. 

A late summer banquet is spread 

and the bats know it. From nowhere 

they are here again in their hordes, 

filling the warm gloom of our fig tree 

with squabbles, squeals, squeaks, and gorging 

on the fruit. Then in dawn light 

those same vast branches welcome 

a sudden applause of whirring 

green doves and hosts of quieter 

things that scatter figs like shrapnel to the 

ground. 

Nearby, stirring gently below, 

swelling imperceptibly through jade 

to ultimate red, the bessies 

of cotoneaster prepare 

their white-eyed feast, and wait and watch, 

while on the stoep a little boy, 

indulged, indulging, in a might 

of love he’ll measure all his days by, 

laughs, clambers, pads on vetkoek voete 

deep into the world’s lavish morning. 

Originally from Liverpool, Harry Owen moved to South 

Africa from UK in 2008, where he had 

been appointed the inaugural Poet Laureate for 

Cheshire in 2003. 

Outspoken in his commitment to the natural world 

and a passionate advocate of poetry, he is the 

author of eight collections, the three most recent 

being Small Stones for Bromley (Lapwing 

Publications, Belfast, 2014); The Cull: new and resurrected 

poems (The Poets Printery, East 

London, 2017); and All Weathers (theInkSword, Grahamstown, 

2019). 

He has edited three anthologies – I Write Who I Am: 

an anthology of Upstart poetry (2011), 

featuring the work of nineteen young poets from local 

township schools; For Rhino in a 

Shrinking World: an international anthology (2013), 

supporting efforts to save the gravely 

threatened rhino from extinction; and Coming Home: 

poems of the Grahamstown diaspora 

(2019). 

Harry hosts the popular monthly open floor event 

called Reddits Poetry in Grahamstown, in 

South Africa’s Eastern Cape, where he lives. 


43

BY ALI SADKI AZAYKU - Translated by El Habib Louai & Lahoucine Dassagi 

LANGUAGE 

My language is Amazigh. 

No one knows it. 

It encompasses multitudes. 

Who won’t dare to dance and sing in it? 

I am the only one who worries 

that my language is hanged, 

ropes around its neck. 

My tongue is worthless. 

Though it speaks 

among the deaf, it does wear out. 

The word thirst must surely 

quench the thirst. 


Nobody wants it. 

Some said it is a dream 

& abandoned me. 

They added: 

“Beware! Nothing of what has been said 

will ever be known. 

Your language remembers a lot 

& people refuse 

to feel the same pain as you do.” 


It will shatter 

the age of silence 

and set the hearts on fire 

and become stars, 

then meet 

in our skies… 

Ali Sadki Azayku 

was born in 1942 in Igran n-twinkhet, a small Amazigh 

village in the High Atlas mountains. He began 

his elementary education near his native village 

in Tafingoulte and finished it in Marrakech, where 

he went to a secondary school before joining the 

National School for Teacher Trainees. He obtained 

a degree in history from Mohammed V University 

in Rabat and a Teacher’s Diploma from the Moroccan 

Ecole Normale Superieure which allowed 

him to teach history at the Institute of the Greater 

Maghreb. From 1969 to 1970 , he participated with 

Ahmed Boukous and Brahim Akhiat in particular 

in a voluntary educational support program for 

Berber-speaking students, but these courses were 

quickly banned. In 1970, he moved to Paris and 

attended the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes 

(EPHE) and the Amazigh courses of Lionel Galand 

at INALCO, and began to prepare his doctoral thesis 

under the supervision of Jacques Berque. In 1967, 

Ali Sdiki Azaykou participated in the creation of the 

first Amazigh association in Morocco, the Moroccan 

Association for Research and Cultural Exchange 

(AMREC) 5. In 1972, he obtained his doctorate from 

the Sorbonne and joined Mohammed V University 

to work as a researcher and professor of Moroccan 

history. In 1979, he founded the Amazigh association 

with Mohamed Chafik and Abdelhamid Zemmouri. 

In 1981, the Amazigh magazine published an 

article in which he defended the importance of the 

Amazigh fact in the history of Morocco, becoming 

the first intellectual to question official Moroccan historiography. 

In 1982, he was arrested and sentenced 

for “undermining the security of the state” and spent 

a year at Rabat penitentiary. After his release, he 

resumed his research at the university and obtained 

in 1988 his (DEA) diploma in history with honors. He 

then wrote many poems in Tamazight (“Amazigh”) 

transcribed in Arabic which he gathered in a collection 

in 1988 titled Timitar (“Signs”), and in 1995 under 

Izmulen (“Scars”), and published books notably 

on the Amazigh identity in the history and culture 

of North Africa. He has also published numerous 

scientific articles in specialized national and international 

journals. In 2003, he became a member of the 

Administrative Council of IRCAM and Professor at 

the Center for Historical and Environmental Studies. 

Ali Sidqi Azaykou died on September 10, 2004 in 

Rabat following a long illness. His remains are buried in 

his native village of Igran. 

-El Habib Louai is a Moroccan Amazigh poet, translator, musician and teacher. His translations of Beat poets have 

been published internationallly. He has two collections of poetry: Mrs. Jones Will Now Know: Poems of a desperate 

Rebel, and Rotten Wounds Embalmed With Tar. 

-Lahoucine Dassagi was born in Agadir in 1980, studied language and literature at the University of Ibn Zohr in 

Agadir, Morocco. He holds an INBA diploma in arts and is currently a teacher in Morocco. 


BAR - by David Davies, New Zealand / Denmark 

BAR 

BAR 

Soy un buen cristiano, dijo el camarero, 

enrolando un cigarrillo, 

”este tabaco es organico, estoy salvando el planeta” 

Es de Texas, usa botas de piel de serpiente, 

el lugar se llegaría y yo me perdería luego 

en la melosa corriente de conversaciones entrelazadas 

que se elevan y caen 

espiralean y giran 

en un gran guiso de caos harmonioso 

cuido a una pinta de cerveza 

contemplo la naturaleza de la belleza 

en la luz de nicotina 

estoy adentro, pero no estoy dentro 

y seguro, estoy borracho 

pero quién quiere ver las cosas tan claramente 

un pájaro, pero borroso 

es amor en un ala 

no oraciones para los no creyentes 

pero sueños de 10 por un centavo 

son la moneda acá 

Demonios! 

Acá todos son millonarios. 

“I’m a good christian” 

the barman said 

rolling a cigarette, 

“this tobaccos’s organic 

I’m savin’ the planet”. 

He’s from Texas, 

wears snakeskin boots. 

Then the place filled up and I got lost 

in the honeyed currents of interlocking 

conversations 

that rose and fell, eddied and swirled 

in a great stew of harmonic chaos. 

I nurse a pint, 

contemplate the nature of beauty 

in nicotine light 

I’m inside, but not on the inside. 

And sure I’m drunk. 

But who wants to see things too clearly, 

a bird bit blurred is love on a wing. 

And no prayers for non believers 

but ten a penny dreams 

are currency here. 

Hell! 

Everyone’s a millionaire. 

Translation by Elizabeth Torres, for a performance 

by The Poet Bastards at Islands Brygge Bibliotek. 

New Zealand born David Davies now lives in Copenhagen 

where he drinks, reads and stops to smell the roses. 

(He’s also the vocalist and lead of The Poet Bastards). 


45

FEATURED ARTIST: 

SERENA SAUNDERS 


An explosion of vivid colors and 

eyes that look back at you with depth 

and strength. 

Nature, blooming carelessly through 

every edge of the canvas. 

Art that speaks to us of our human 

condition, of women, men and children 

from the communities currently 

making headlines in the United 

States due to the social injustices 

faced again and again. 

It is those same eyes that look back 

at us and question, that invite us to 

a moment of reflection, which made 

me contact Serena Saunders, and 

invite her to be the featured artist of 

Red Door Magazine #23. 

Boldly saying it, her large-scale compositions 

that contain layers of narrative 

and visual poetry, her intricate 

prints and color palette and vivid visual 

narratives, the fact that she is a 

Black female artist not just painting 

but documenting the truth around 

her and the struggle of her people 

and her environment… all of these 

are the reasons which make her an 

incredibly relevant artist whose work 

should be followed, exhibited, 

collected, and widely promoted as 

both the backdrop and front cover of 

many our publications and projects 

talking about inclusivity, diversity and 

contemporary talent. 

Originally from and still residing in 

Philadelphia, Serena combines imagery 

from our current reality with 

visions of what the future could look 

like. 

Three of her pieces are exhibited on 

this issue of Red Door Magazine as full 

page features, including the cover image, 

an art piece called “Push Back” 

which I thought carries a strong energy 

worthy as the feature image for an 

issue of this magazine that highlights 

the current Black Lives Matter’ protests 

in New York, as well as King Khan 

& Michael Eaton’s Black Power Tarot 

and the work of activist Malik Rahim 

for his community in Lousiana. 

The other two pieces of the same series, 

“Push Power” seen on the next 

page and “Push Through Queen” 

are equally as strong and powerful 

but also carry a maybe more hopeful, 

dreamy outlook and imagery. All 

three equally splendid and vibrant 

creations by Serena. 



47

On her instagram account, which has 

gained a following of over 13,000 followers 

worldwide, she shares about the 

PUSH series: 

“Push is about pushing back, 

through and up. This one 

(Push Back, the cover image) 

in particular is of my son. 

When I paint in general it 

comes from a very spiritual 

place. Here I wanted to, in a 

way, speak over my son’s life. 

Black men lives, Blackboy 

lives, that they could go from 

‘hands up, don’t shoot’, to 

pushing back... and not necessarily 

with a fist. You know, 

that’s the story.” 

Continuing the conversation about the 

piece “Push Back”, she adds: 

Let’s talk about painting history, and 

painting our people into history. Telling 

our stories and sharing our experiences. 

Also, permanently placing each other in 

the view pointof future generations. In 

this painting, which has spoken to the 

drive and determination of many, my 

son is captured. His tattoo is in honor 

of my father, his grandfather and best 

friend. So, my father’s spirit is definitely 

present there. (...) There’s so many layers 

of documention. A truth is, all of this, 

all of the storytelling, will likely mean 

much more to my son’s children than it 

does to him and so forth. 

That’s what we are out here trying to do. 

We are trying to record history. This print 

holds my son, my father and his courage, 

my friend and his talent, it holds 

HIV, it holds equality, it holds -fight for 

what is right- it holds a piece of me. 

My dear artists, keep writing history. 

Not content with simply using huge 

canvases and filling them with explosions 

of colors and imagery, her art 

sometimes also bursts out of that format 

and into the frames where she continues 

her compositions, as you can 

see on the piece to the right, where a 

shirtless, empowered woman leans 

against an almost fluorecent brick wall, 

as if coming out of the equally colorful 

frame that, surprise, is also the brich 

wall but now filled with candid roses 

and colors. 

Pulling from her Fashion Design background, 

Serena is known for also wardrobing 

her muses with clothing she has 

designed to support the story being 

told. 

Heavy, painful, on-point, pertinent conversations 

of race and social conflict 

among other injustices are juxtaposed 

with colors and images that represent 

hope and serve as an invitation to keep 

the good fight going. Her admiration 

for the youth and community was nurtured 

during the decades Serena spent 

teaching art and poetry at more than a 

dozen schools and non-profit organizations 

throughout Philadelphia and 

neighboring states. 



49

Serena has shown in spaces such as 

Galleries and International art fairs, most 

recently, Scope Miami as part of Art Basel, 

as well as local shops and cafes in 

Philadelphia. Serena is also often found 

in her neighborhood’s sidewalks doing 

artistic collaborations, hosting free art 

classes and even servind as Creative 

Ambassador of the City of Philadelphia. 

Follow Serena’s work and creative 

process on instagram, learn 

more about her art, acquire some 

of her work or learn her story, visit: 

instagram.com/mspassionart 

or visit her website: 

www.mspassionart.com 

Her goal is to contribute to what art is in 

her hometown for women of color. 

The artwork to the right is titled “Planted”, 

and the piece on the contents section 

of the magazine is a fragment of a 

piece titled “Flawless”. 

All art photos and photography 

provided by Serena Saunders. 



51

LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY 

OLENA JENNINGS 

Why do I write in Ukrainian, being born there? 

Why do I write about the war? And how did I come up with the idea 

to write in Ukrainian about the war? Being born there? 

Lyuba Yakimchuk 

Not long ago, I wrote my first short story 

in a foreign language. I wrote it in Ukrainian. 

Though I heard my grandparents speaking 

Ukrainian and spoke it myself as I was growing 

up, it never felt like a native language. It was never 

the language that I thought in or the language 

that sounded in my dreams. Instead, it was the 

language I heard when I ventured up to my 

grandparents’ upstairs apartment. It was a language 

full of simple household words. Eventually, 

I became fluent enough to write a story. The 

language permeated my thoughts long enough 

to write in it. I wondered how other writers felt 

when writing in a language that is not their own. 

And knowing more than one language, how 

did they choose which language to write in? 

Something was different about prose. It was 

more direct in that I didn’t necessarily need the 

Ukrainian sensibility because my main purpose 

was to tell a story and the story could still be told 

in a language that I wasn’t absolutely fluent in. 

I always enjoyed speaking Ukrainian because of 

the shift I experienced in my identity. I felt like a different 

person. As I experimented with my knowledge 

of Ukrainian, I became more outgoing and 

confident. I didn’t feel like the same shy girl I was 

then when I was speaking a different language. 

Long before I attempted to write in Ukrainian, 

I translated poetry from Ukrainian to English. 

The first poems I translated were from books 

that a friend in Ukraine had sent to me and I did 

the translations to build my vocabulary. When 

I translated poems by a poet I greatly admired, 

Natalka Bilotserkivets. I translated her whole collection 

Allergy one poem after another. During 

this process, I realized the importance of my relationship 

to the target language. Understanding 

was important, but most important was feeling 

connected to the target language. 

It is important to understand what a poem is in 

English in order to translate it from Ukrainian to 

English, to understand the emotion and rhythm 

that goes into writing a poem. I find that as I 

learn more about American poetry I learn more 

about Ukrainian poetry as well. The feelings and 

rhythms in a poem seem to transcend language. 

I spoke to the poets Boris Khersonsky, from 

Ukraine, and Valzhyna Mort, from Belarus, about 

what it is like to write in two languages. What 

is a native language? According to Khersonsky, 

it is the language that controls you. You 

don’t control it. For Khersonsky, this language 

is Russian. Though Russian is his native language, 

he states that he also writes in Ukrainian, 

a language that he has loved since childhood. 

A new stage of writing in Ukrainian took place not 

long ago for him. First, he translated poetry from 

Ukrainian and then into Ukrainian, including his 

own poems. He doesn’t call them translations 

though. Instead, they are Ukrainian versions. 

The first poem in Valzhyna Mort’s collection Factory 

of Tears is titled “Belarusian.” She writes, 

“when our eyes were poked out we talked 

with our hands/ when our hands were cut 

off we conversed with our toes.” 

This shows that language can go beyond our 

usual perception. She goes back and forth between 

languages, Belarusian and English, as 

she writes. “I consider it “translation” only as far 

as any act of creative writing is an act of translation. 

It’s a process that is intimate and idiosyncratic,” 

she told me. 

Can translation be part of identity as much as 

writing? What if the translator is working with 

a literal translation and thus, doesn’t speak the 

language from which she is translating? Can the 

foreign language still be part of her identity? 


Wanda Phipps is a poet who translates Ukrainian 

poetry together with Yara Arts Group director 

Virlana Tkacz: 

“As an African-American writer I feel an affinity 

with the poetry of people who have been 

in any way oppressed or marginalized. But 

Ukrainian poetry also speaks to me because 

of its often lyrical nature, its musicality, its 

rich imagery and the insight it provides into 

the hearts of its people.” 

The choice of language is personal and it can influence 

the identity. 

As I continue to translate from Ukrainian to English, 

I feel myself growing closer to the Ukrainian 

and at the same time, letting my English language 

fall under the influence of a foreign language. 

I write poems with the melodic nature of 

Ukrainian. I also long to translate from other languages 

and become close to them. 

Writers who speak more than one language 

have the choice as to what language 

they write in. It is possible to feel close to a language 

that is not one’s own. In this way, the writers 

build new identities for themselves. It is also 

possible to become close to a language through 

the process of translation. Whether the translator 

speaks the language fluently or not, the translator 

still becomes intertwined with its essence. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

OLENA JENNINGS is the author of Songs from an 

Apartment (Underground Books, 2017) and Memory 

Project (Underground Books, 2018). Her translation 

from Ukrainian of Iryna Shuvalova’s poetry collection, 

Pray to the Empty Wells, in collaboration with 

the author, was released in 2019 by Lost Horse Press. 

Her translation with Oksana Lushyshyna of Artem 

Chekh’s Absolute Zero is forthcoming from Glagoslav. 

She is the founder and curator of the Poets of 

Queens reading series. 

“when our eyes 

were poked out 

we talked with our 

hands/ when our 

hands were cut 

off we conversed 

with our toes.” 

-Valzhyna Mort. 


53

THE NEON REBEL: 

The things we say today are the 

things our children will inherit ... 

Where does racism live? 

BY MELAINE KNIGHT 

In the way we think + feel about people when we look at them who are of a different race + skin colour to us? 

In the way we think + feel about people who have a different culture to us? 

In the way we think + feel about others that are different to us as lesser or not as worthy, or their life is not as valuable? 

In the way we think + feel that others ideas, how they think + feel are not as important or valid as ours? 

In how we are thinking + then subsequently feeling, lives an ideology called Racism. 

Rotten at its core. 

An ideology that stems from the Tree of Oppression. Of which all of its fruit it bears, is rotten. 

At the heart of understanding the global movement happening, 

we find Oppression. The Black Lives Matter movement 

is part of a much bigger more complex affliction of the 

human race, of which we are all a part of, that needs to be 

examined if the movement itself is to be understood + be 

allowed to usher in a new way of living through a shift in 

consciousness. 

That said, I want to be very clear that understanding a bigger 

picture does not in any way erase the plights of the 

movement happening in the USA right now with African 

Americans or any experiences people are going through, 

nor the plights of those afflicted across the planet. And 

there are many. 

The BLM Movement has opened up conversations about 

our own black deaths in custody + our neighbours, all living 

under oppression. 

So with this Neon Rebellion I wanted to share voices from 

this part of the world for our international readership who 

may not understand what is happening here in Australia or 

with our close neighbours in Papua New Guinea, & indeed, 

most white Australians don’t know or understand what’s 

happening. 

Im hoping that by looking at the bigger picture we see how 

all things are related + connected as different branches on 

the tree of oppression. 

Oppression Tree via Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement 

Ottawa. 

https://ipsmo.wordpress.com 

Firstly, in order to start to unpack this massive conversation, 

it might be necessary to break down Oppression. 

I acknowledge and respect the traditional 

owners of the land on which I 

live, Arakwal Country 

part of the great Bundjalung 

Nation. 


What is Racial Oppression? 

Definition: “ ...burdening a specific race with unjust or 

cruel restraints or impositions... It maybe social, systemic, 

institutionalised or internalised. 

Social forms include exploitation + mistreatment that is 

socially supported.” 

The Black Lives Matter Movement protests in the USA 

sparked ally protests in Australia + a call to Government 

to answer why these deaths are still continuing + why 

the number of Aboriginal people incarcerated is 15 

times higher than non-indigenous people + 26 times 

higher for juveniles. 

Historically there are 5 primary forms of racial oppression. 

1. Genocide + geographical displacement 

2. Slavery 

3. Second Class Citizenship 

4. Non Citizen Labour 

5. Diffuse Discrimination 

The USA, Australia + Papua New Guinea were built on 

genocide + geographical displacement and slavery. 

Second class citizenship, non citizen labour + diffuse 

discrimination are still very active currently. 

Immigrants are still exploited as cheap labour with no 

citizen rights or incarcerated in detention centres with 

sub standard living conditions seeking political asylum. 

Diffuse discrimination is found buried in everyday language 

when people refer to people of colour in a way 

that is derogatory, erasing, as a joke, seemingly less intelligent 

or subhuman in their capacity to feel & live... 

And by arguing that opportunities are given to people 

of colour + that if those statistics are met then racism 

does not exist + it is somehow their fault if they cannot 

respond to the “opportunities” as the white dominant 

culture deems acceptable. 

And in blaming marginalised groups for the behaviours 

that are results of poverty, lack of education, support 

+ a long history of intergenerational trauma inflicted 

upon them by the very system that oppressed them + 

muted their voices. 

BLM Movement in Australia echoes the protests in the U.S. 

https://youtu.be/SBCbsW926N4 

In PNG, Amnesty International has recorded there 

have been over 100000 West Papuan deaths since the 

1960s + are on the rise again as renewed activism in 

the area continues between separatists + civilian militia 

clashes with the Indonesian Govt. security forces. 

Raising the West Papuan flag of independence carries 

a charge of treason with jail terms from 5 years to life. 

This was so very evident with George Floyd. 

Police officers killed this man in public, FACT, which led 

to the global explosion of the Black Lives Matter Movement 

+ a public outcry about racism + police brutality. 

Many stories circulated the media in the wake of his 

death saying he was a criminal, trying to discredit his 

innocence. 

The implicit bias + racism is implying that somehow he 

deserved this mistreatment + is diluting + even excusing 

the behaviour of the white officers. 

This kind of vitriol oozes the poison that produces the 

rotten fruit. 

Here in Australia (between 1991-2020) there have been 

at least 437 recorded Indigenous Australian deaths in 

custody + not a single police or prison officer has been 

charged. 

Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths In 

Custody in 1991, the percentage of deaths has gone 

up 150%. 

Inside West Papua/ NGAIIRE IGTV 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBhpwkinlrs/ 


55

When looking at the Oppression Tree we find 

Colonialism, Capitalism, Patriarchy + White Supremacy 

to be the common root causes of the non-white person’s 

struggles everywhere. 

I want to acknowledge Native Americans + First Nations 

peoples everywhere who might consider themselves 

red or yellow peoples, they share shade beneath 

the tree of oppression. 

I spoke to my pals hip hop artist /rapper Philly MC, a 

Wemba Wemba man from country in Mildura, Victoria 

about about black fella perspectives + singer NGAIIRE, 

about what’s happening next door in PNG. 

“Australia’s racism is interesting” says Philly. 

“It doesn’t think it is. 

People don’t believe they are racist + the myth that 

‘this is a multicultural country, so how can we be racist?’ 

“It’s like saying, ‘how can I be racist, I have a black 

friend?’ ...” 

NGAIIRE says also “people don’t even know they’re being 

racist.” 

She didn’t even know what racism was until she came 

to Australia. 

“... I had a concept of what injustice felt like & what it 

feels like to be put in the corner, so I figured it out pretty 

quickly. The racism Ive experienced has been in this 

society.” 

All western orientated countries, colonised by white 

settlers are built on racist attitudes. FACT. 

Those colonial attitudes have dictated the history retaught 

to children over generations + perpetuated the 

racism through a system rotten from the get go. 

NGAIIRE refers to the colonialism in PNG when talking 

about school there ... 

“ I didn’t learn about PNG history at all ...it was all to do 

with Australian history... you learn about your own history 

within your family” 

Philly echoes how this happens in Australia ... “The 

schooling system doesn’t accurately support or show 

our young people how to thrive. These spaces weren’t 

set up for black or brown kids.” 

The foundations of the system that needs to be dismantled 

starts with eduction + awareness. 

Teach the true history. 


Representation 

NGAIIRE talks about the racism she experienced here 

in Australia when starting her music career. 

“There were no other faces like mine, doing what I do...” 

She found herself having to listen to record executives, 

radio + festival programmers say they didn’t know 

where to categorise her or “put her.” 

These days NGAIIRE has a platform + is a likely role 

model for young singers + musicians who want to cross 

genres + expectations. 

She is also very vocal about whats going on in PNG 

through her own social media. The Indonesian Govt. 

has suppressed news + foreign media reporting + has 

internet blackouts. 

“Media is banned in West Papua so there’s no info getting 

out... 

Such violent images that do get out of people injured + 

killed. Its horrific. 

Its a huge thing. Its racism basically. They call them 

monkeys. The recent protests erupted.” 

The protests saw thousands of West Papuans, mainly 

students calling for an end to racism + to grant independence. 

Indonesian security forces open fired onto 

protesters. Video of these actions + many human rights 

abuses that the Indonesian Govt. denies are continually 

squashed through. 

media blackout. 

This came off the back of protests that arose against 

the Trans-Papuan Highway. 

“West Papuans fear the road will aid the Indonesian 

military + open up their resource rich lands to exploitation 

by outside business interests, at the expense of the 

local people.” (Foreign Correspondent, ABC May 2020) 

Philly also sees with his platform there is an obligation 

“to share what’s happening within our communities + 

with my people, the issues that we face everyday... 

As black fellas, we’re always thinking about the future... 

Anything we do now is always for the next generation.”

We talk about the importance of role models + the 

strong visual sense that indigenous kids learn by. Seeing 

a face you can identify with achieving with a proud 

voice, helps to build confidence. 

On the other side of representation there is currently no 

indigenous representation in Federal Parliament + less 

than 3% of the Commonwealth public sector has employees 

of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders. 

However within the criminal justice system, housing + 

children in care services, the numbers are huge. 

Philly references this over - representation “ Our children 

are still being removed from their family’s care at 

higher rates than ever before by government agency.” 

Self Determination 

A way forward... 

Self determination gives peoples the right to determine 

their own political status and pursue their own economic, 

social + cultural status. 

For the last 50 years West Papuans have been fighting 

for Independence + the debate for self governance has 

been topical for Aboriginal + Torres Straight Islander 

communities in Australia. 

From the 1970s to 1990s, there was a push from the 

Australian government to support aboriginal groups 

moving from large settlements in remote areas back to 

outstation communities in formerly traditional lands. 

Aboriginal communities began running their own 

health services, legal services, and housing cooperatives. 

Self determination encompasses both Aboriginal land 

rights & self governance. 

Constant changes of Governments + policy meant that 

most commissions + committees that were supposed 

to support Aboriginal self determination had been 

abolished or shut down, often through allegations of 

corruption. 

In 2017, The Uluru Statement From The Heart was a call 

for a First Nations’ Voice to discuss conflict resolution, 

peacemaking + justice within constitutional change. 

It was rejected by the Turnbull Government. 

Now in 2020, Philly says “the problems are still 

systemic. 

Our prison rates are the highest in the world. Our suicide 

rates also... its not ok... People say this system is 

broken... its not broken its set up to do exactly what 

its doing... its gonna take real sacrifice to bring real 

change.” 

In PNG in 2019, a petition with over 1.8 million West 

Papuan signatures was handed to The United Nations 

High Commissioner of Human Rights calling for the 

United Nations to “put West Papua back on the Decolonisation 

Committee agenda and ensure our right to 

self-determination...” 

Empathy 

The thing we find missing from peoples’ moral conscience 

+ what is fertiliser for the tree of oppression is 

an inability or refusal to look inside oneself + reflect on 

the conditions another is living by. 

Philly stated clearly “There is always a lack of empathy 

in this world to things that comes from people being 

willingly ignorant + also from privilege. That comes 

from not having to deal with the things that black + 

brown people have to. 

When it come to people of colour (for the most part) we 

are able to empathise with other people. Like when a 

brother from The States is being killed+ dying, we feel 

that pain as well all the way over here... Its the same 

fight.” 

That self reflection is key to empathy + awareness. 

NGAIIRE shared... 

“Ive been forced to face + deconstruct my own 

blackness. In ways I don’t think I intentionally 

wanted to do it... It was the way I was feeling... 

I was questioning why am I getting so 

emotional? 

Why do I feel confused? 

Why do I feel so angry?” 


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White Fragility 

I’ve been hearing a deafening noise in the silence of 

the white collective ... 

Talking about racism makes white people uncomfortable. 

It triggers defensive actions, feelings + behaviours 

such as anger, fear + silence. 

Professor + author Robin D’Angelo calls this defensiveness 

when white people are challenged to break 

their silence, White Fragility. (see her book of the same 

name.) 

And im not talking about the white voices that are making 

themselves the centre of the narrative. White Saviours 

+ Virtue Signallers might think they mean well but 

if you are at the centre of your conversation or action 

then its still behaviours rooted in privilege, bias + cultural 

hereditary. 

By not speaking up + sharing the responsibility of the 

issue it puts the burden on people of colour + discounts 

what they have to say. 

“It’s no longer on us to change things, 

it’s on the majority. It’s up to non-Indigenous 

Australians to want to take 

up that labour. I can’t make you do 

it.” Actor Miranda Tapsell. 

Wa tch Professor Robin D’Angelo here ... 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CB540aDo3Ue/ 

It’s so important now that the white voice speaks, as it is 

the white voice that will dismantle the system. 

It is that privileged voice that can extend their platform 

+ share their spaces + resources + create opportunity 

for people + amplify issues in ways people of colour 

have not been given the opportunity to. 

Actor Miranda Tapsell and writer and actor Nakkiah Lui on the Black 

Lives Matter movement. 

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBfKEzIAQ8h/?igshid=wtbe958qrre4 


“Dear White People,” 

How will you start this process of dismantling the system 

that grows the Tree of Oppression? 

How will you pluck out the rotten seeds that keep bearing 

the poisonous fruit? 

What will you tell the children + future generations so 

they can have a world without oppression? 

And no matter how “woke” you think you are, socially 

conscious or anti-racist its good to check in with yourself 

for stereotypes, biases, prejudice + discrimination. 

These 4 steps will take you on the path... 

AWARENESS 

EDUCATION 

SELF INTERROGATION 

COMMUNITY ACTION 

And when you still don’t know how to respond keep 

reading, keep listening. 

How To Respond To Common Racist Statements... 

by @wastefreemarie 


59


Microaggressions 

“Subtle & often automatic + 

non verbal exchanges which are derogatory 

and discriminating for People of Color (POC).” 


61

Whilst these microaggressions are based on American 

culture they are identical in mainstream Australian 

culture. 

These are where we find racist attitudes buried deep in 

the language that has become normalised behaviour 

within the dominant white culture. 

My first encounter with racism was around 8 years old. 

This is the age that many black people opt for having 

the talk with their child about what it means to be black 

skinned. 

They tell them ‘some people won’t like you because of 

the colour of your skin.’ 

Major props to my sister gal NGAIIIRE + brother boy 

Philly MC who took the time to talk with me. Their music 

is amazing... plug in xxx 

You can find NGAIIRE here... 

https://www.instagram.com/ngaiire/ 

https://youtu.be/fR394MSR7lo 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8zkHxBBNd9/ 

Im sorry. What? 

‘If white police officers stop you, be very polite. 

Do not argue with them or talk back. 

Do not look them in the eye. 

Tell them you are unarmed.’ 

Mehcad Brooks talks about it in his fantastic podcast 

with Duncan Trussell (the creator of The Midnight Gospel... 

listen to his most poignant words here ... 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8zkHxBBNd9/ 

This is the reality for 8 year olds worldwide if you are 

not white!!! 

THINK ABOUT IT!!!! 

The movement is a sign there is a shift in consciousness. 

A change is coming. 

When we trade the Tree of Oppression for the Tree of 

Life ...what a beautiful place it will be! 

You can find Philly MC here... 

https://www.instagram.com/phillytheaboriginal/ 

https://youtu.be/noc4VKQqiXs 

https://youtu.be/0kAgCBZi5Ag 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBLZujVhePm/ 


Some great reading resources: 

Me And White Supremacy by Layla Saad 

White Fragility by Robin Diangelo 

How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi 

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People 

About Race by Reni Eddo Lodge 

They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery 

The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke 

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya 

Angelou 

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma 

Oluo 

Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia - edited 

byAnita Heiss 

Follow on instagram 

https://www.instagram.com/mojojujumusic/ 

https://www.instagram.com/senatorbriggs/ 

https://www.instagram.com/emeleugavule/ 

https://www.instagram.com/talanoa_/ 

https://www.instagram.com/mehcadbrooks/ 

https://www.instagram.com/laylafsaad/ 

https://www.instagram.com/rachel.cargle/ 

https://www.instagram.com/ckyourprivilege/ 

https://www.instagram.com/iamrachelricketts/ 

https://www.instagram.com/renieddolodge/ 

https://www.instagram.com/ibramxk/ 


63


...A FOUR CARD 

SPREAD: 

BY @ohmymajo 


65

THE MAN IN CAMO: 

AN INTERVIEW WITH ETHAN MINSKER 

RED TRANSMISSIONS PODCAST 

There are people on this planet whose main 

ambition is to “motivate, inspire, and use their 

expertise to push others forward”. It can be a 

well intended thing, but more often than not, 

it comes with a high pricetag. I know this because 

in a previous life in the US, I rubbed 

elbows with wealthy entrepreneurs and selfhelp 

authors, among others who felt they provided 

a public service by telling people how to 

make more money. The reason why I left that 

crowd is precisely that - it was all about selling 

the idea of money. There was no substance. 

In the current times, many of these people call 

themselves experts and launch masterclasses 

online, often at steep prices, to get others to be 

like them. 

But then there are others who bring balance to 

the equation simply by existing. I don’t mean 

by walking on earth as if some holy presence, 

but fully existing, armed with their creativity, 

their ideas, their beliefs and their absolute 

need to create, to document the world around 

them, and by doing so they pull those around 

them upwards with them, always aiming towards 

the highest starts. These are the people 

that Red Transmissions Podcast aims to document, 

in the format of a talk show where artists 

share their background, story, process, inspirations 

and objectives, in hopes that these 

conversations resonate with like-minded individuals. 

When I say armed with creativity, I don’t precisely 

imagine artists wearing uniforms, but 

since there’s an exception to every rule, today 

I want to talk to you about The Man in Camo. 

His name is Ethan Minsker and he self describes 

as an artist entrepreneur, zine publisher, 

author and film maker, currently promoting 

a new self-created, self-produced and independently 

released biographical film under 

the very true name: Man in Camo. 


Ethan resides in the Lower East Side of New 

York, city which has been under lockdown 

for several months due to you-know-what, 

but his brain is the type that best functions 

under stress and pandemics by making the 

best of his time and creating, which is what 

he has been endlessly doing. His latest project, 

“New York, I love you but you are bringing 

me down” is an intricate collection of 

handmade objects, from subway trains to 

water tanks, post boxes and other New York 

“paraphernelia”,including the graphitti and 

current street art documenting the times, 

which he makes out of cardboard boxes 

and other recycled or upcycled materials 

sourced from his and his family’s personal 

consumption. 

“I do a lot of work with a gallery 

called The Hell Happening, I show 

a lot of films there, and we were 

talking about doing a solo show 

there in a few years. The director, 

Ted Riederer, came up with the 

concept of me building a city, and 

when you walk into the gallery you 

would be surrounded by it. I do a 

lot of projects where I make multiples 

of things out of paper-mache, 

objects using recycled materials. 

I cut it up, build it into this sculptural 

building, some of the buildings 

can be 6-7 feet tall, or 8 feet long, 

with multiple levels, like a subway 

platform all the way to street level 

and above (...) It’s based on an LCD 

Soundsystem song titled NY I love 

you but you are bringing me down”, 

inspired on the idealized dream of 

what New York City is. It’s my interpretation 

of the old NY”. 

Realizing that the lockdown was also an opportunity 

to reach out to his audience online 

and communicate and promote the work 

and messages of artists all over the world, 

Ethan began a project titled “Isolation TV”, 

where he interviews other artists about their 

process, projects and what inspires them. It 

was due to this project that we connected on 

Social Media, and I had the fortune of being 

one of this show’s guests, me from Copenhagen, 

him from his home studio in New York, 

which is bursting with beautiful masks, paintings, 

drawings, sculptures and other objects 

created by him. 

He jokes that his wife isn’t too wild about the 

creative mess, but there is one character in his 

life who is definitely profiting from his example 

and influence: 

His daughter Blu, whom he credits as his assistant 

and manager, and who sometimes innocently 

interrupts the interviews to give her 

opinion on what is being discussed or show 

some of her own creations. An environment as 

colorful and interesting for a child, with such 

varied conversations and characters, is probably 

one of the healthiest places to be for a developing 

brain, and their dynamic is adorable. 


67


But back to The Man in Camo. On Episode 

#14 of the Red Transmissions Podcast, I 

asked Ethan to take us all the way back to 

the beginning of his career as an artist and 

to explain how he evolved into the style and 

independent creator methods that he uses. 

Ethan grew up in Washington DC during 

the 70’s and 80’s, when violence was escalating, 

and his dyslexia learning disability 

led him to be picked on and lean on the 

punk rock scene and the creative community 

to cope with this, where by doing small 

fanzines he could find his own space. He 

moved to NY to go to the school of Visual 

Arts where he studied Fine Arts and Film, 

and afterwards worked in various jobs, such 

as bartending, doing film production, art 

handling, and most recently, working as an 

editor for cable broadcast television. 

“You move to NYC and you have these 

hopes and dreams of making art but 

then you realized you are enslaved to 

your work to pay rent. (...) I felt that 

there was an overwhelming need for 

other artists to be able to create without 

the limitations of the monetary 

things connected to the Art Market 

of the city, so I banded with other 

creative types and seeked out venues 

and locations that would be donated 

to us to put on art events”. 

This is how the Antagonist Art Movement 

was created, which featured over 3000 artists, 

many of them who moved up through 

the art world. Ethan says this was a great 

way to service a community, it gave him the 

network to work on his projects, but then 

later created an international network of artists 

where shows resulted in Berlin, Australia, 

Portugal and other projects, including 8 

feature films based on group collaborative 

projects. Although the group officially ended 

in 11, additional projects have been created 

by Ethan Minsker, who names Francis 

Bacon as a compeller to make art, Lakes 

McNeil and Bukowski as some of his writing 

influences, and the combining of writing 

workshops with film and exhibitions in 

those events as very influential to his work. 

“When you are creative, I feel you 

should exercise those creative muscles 

every day. When you do that over the 

course of many years, you build a huge 

body of work. Currently I have a feature 

film I am working on, a fanzine, a 

script, the NY I love you, and little dog 

heads I have been making out of paper-mache, 

as well as Isolation TV”. 

Ethan Minsker says that he has a psychological 

compulsion to express his emotions and 

feelings creatively, from September 11 to the 

current times, art serves as a therapy to help 

him move forward. 

You can listen to the whole episode of Red 

Transmissions Podcast by subscribing on 

Spotify, iTunes and most podcast providers as 

well as on the magazine’s website, and follow 

Ethan Minsker’s work via the instagram link 

below or by googling his name. His current 

film, “A Man In Camo”(find it on amazon) a story 

of his crusade to make art, is a must-see for 

those seeking to be inspired and in need of a 

fresh source of ideas and true, gritty, colorful 

motivation, of the type that actually gets you, 

gets to you, and gets you out of the darkness. 

Follow Ethan Minsker: 

https://www.instagram.com/ethanminsker/ 


69


SUPPORTERS: 

A heart-felt thank you to the following people for subscribing and 

giving their support via the new Patreon campaign, which directly 

covers the expenses of this magazine’s creation, edition, hosting 

and maintenance, its website, podcast, and promotion. 

It is because of your support that each of these issues continues to 

exist, documenting the work of our creators and activists and 

covering the subjects that are truly relevant to our communities. 

This magazine was released thanks to the following Patreon 

supporters: 

David S. Miller, Laura Arena, Anders Hansen, Ulla Hansen, Jaider 

Torres, Tamar Tkabladze, Valentina Upegui, Camila Upegui, Judith 

Schaecther, David H. Rambo, Mikkel Vinther, Juana M. Ramos, 

Melanie Perry, Zoila Forss, Dominique Storm, Myre Knudsen, 

Sam Perkins, Valeria Schapira, Dharma Agustina, 

Vale Yonderboy, Melissa Albers, Crox Pow and Uffe Lorenzen.

RED DOOR MAGAZINE is an independent publication 

with no private sponsors nor public grants, which aims 

to maintain transparency and promote freedom of 

expression and freedom of the press, especially at 

times like this, when the truth matters so much. 

The magazine is created in Copenhagen by Madam 

Neverstop (Elizabeth Torres) with the continuous collaboration 

of the organizations listed at the beginning 

of this issue and the Red Door correspondents. Content 

is sourced publically and submissions are always 

welcome via email or through the website of the magazine. 

Although this is a free online publication, the expenses 

for its maintencance and for the production of each issue 

aren’t free. For this reason, a Patreon campaign has 

been created, to provide access to exclusive materials, 

art prints, digital publications, music and other goodies, 

in exchange for your monthly support. Patreon takes a 

percentage, but the rest of the income received, which 

starts at 3usd, directly goes to this project, the Red 

Transmission Podcasts, and other activities connected 

with Red Door in Copenhagen, meant to promote the 

work of artists, creators and activists in our communities. 

Please consider joining this platform and giving 

our support: 

https://www.patreon.com/madamneverstop 

MADAMNEVERSTOP 


71

The Red Transmissions podcast aims to document 

the work, behind-the-scenes moments and creative 

process of the incredibly interesting characters iN 

our network, be it in 

Copenhagen, New York, or around the world where 

our correspondents find themselves or our poetic 

adventures take us. (And yes, due to the new normal, 

virtual conversations are absolutely possible, so you 

can share your story wherever in the world you are). 

Find out why artists, activists and worldthreaders 

do what they do, how they do it, and hear about the 

inner workings of their projects. 

Contemporary happenings and conversations on 

culture, music, art, film, poetry, environment and 

independent happenings around the planet. 

WE EXIST! 

Want to share your story with us? 

Write to: theredtransmissions@gmail.com 



73


MAGAZINE: 

WHY WE ARE HERE: 

The initiative was created in New York in 2009 as an independent door to connect the community 

and to serve as a space for free expression in any field. To allow each and everyone of you 

to become the protagonists and the creators of opportunities, threading waters between New 

York and the world, in a timeless manner. Our goal? Rebuilding present. Leaving a footprint in 

the city and causing reactions. 

Ten years later, this goal remains as relevant as ever, and our reach extends to various continents, 

with correspondents in Australia, Latin America, the US and Europe, with Copenhagen 

as the new base of Red Door Magazine, Red Door Gallery, the Poetic Phonotheque and the Red 

Transmissions Podcast, all projects by the same network of creators and led by Madam Neverstop. 

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR? 

Reaffirm your origins, be proud of your culture, of your talent, of your fears, doubts, and emotions. 

Share them. Urban intervention, poetry in everything we see and do, no dress code. The 

proposal of Red Door was created as an approach of interaction and continues to be precisely 

that: a network of like-minded individuals and the possibility of new collaborations together. 

Information and rebirth through culture and technology, in each page, in each segment. Take 

this space as an invitation to step out of the box, break the format and the royal run around, 

and be part of the action. Show us what you’re made of, how your life is changing others, give 

everyone a chance to come in and be a part of your projects, your dreams, your story. 

HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED? 

Give us raw, fresh, clean, simple truth. Question identity. Intrepid Self Expression. Reinvention. 

Rebellion. Recklessness. Conscience. Visual Eloquence. (and all that good stuff). 

We welcome poetry, visual art, essays, and documentation of other multimedia and culture 

projects making a difference or leaving a mark in the community you are a part of. If what you 

read here resonates with what you do, then let us know about your projects and work. 

All we ask for is to finally see art frolicking with reality. We exist. 

Find us on instagram as @reddoorkdk 

Podcast: @red_transmissions 

Everything else at: @madamneverstop 


R 

E 

Red Door Magazine releases digital 

issues quarterly with an emphasis 

on visual art. 

As you can see on this and every issue 

before it, we aim to be an inclusive platform, 

where we welcome art and poetry, LGBTQ & 

other activism content, thoughtful essays, 

photography, adventure stories & 

media articles, + occasional interviews by established 

and emerging artists. 

D 

D 

O 

We’re here to give you a handful of 

essential pieces you can digest in one 

sitting. 

O 

The magazine also includes a calendar for 

events happening in our gallery, and we 

sometimes mention collaborations with 

other projects, organizations or events 

happening elsewhere worth noting. 

R 

We’re currently seeking visual art, 

music, film, travel and media articles, 

environment & sustainability articles, poetry, 

fiction, and creative nonfiction. Simultaneous 

submissions are always ok, but if you have a 

piece accepted elsewhere, please let us know 

by adding a note to your submission. 

Please send your content to 

submit@reddoorkbh.dk 


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ISSUE # 23 

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Red Door Magazine 23

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