The writing gathered here is a mixed approach to print and repetition as well as self directed themes and ideas, from many directions. Some pieces take the theme literally, looking at the printing process, the skill and strain of the printer’s work, and the history of mechanical reproduction. Others use repetition as a way of thinking: as a form of memory, a domestic rhythm, a ritual or a habit that is hard to break. Fiction, poetry, essays and experimental forms sit alongside one another, and their handling of the theme varies widely.

Together they ask what labour leaves behind, how images and ideas travel as they are copied and circulated, and what is gained or lost when the hand is replaced by the machine, the screen or the algorithm. Repetition appears as exhaustion and as endurance, as a record and as a way of surviving.

We Start This Page With Our Accomplished Resident Poet

Peter Devonald

Grief Doesn’t Even Have a Grave

sorrows pass us by

sorrows pass us by sorrows always visit us

sorrows pass us by sorrows always visit us sorrows stay and sigh

sorrows pass us by sorrows always visit us a memory of you

>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<

Artist name - Garima Sachdev Kapoor

Website - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Equanimity-Where-My-Soul-Rests/dp/B0GL9GQR21 https://theghafwahamagazine.substack.com/

Social media accounts - Instagram : @garima_s_k

>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Artist name Julie Dexter

Website www.juliedexterwriter.com

Social media accounts Insta: @Latenightswimmer FB Page: @juliedexterwriter

Brainwashed

We work every day on new rotas—

rotas that can’t be changed.

We don’t ask for change. It’s 1984—

there is no flexible working: we are told

and we do. We don’t step out of line.

We pitch our excuses, pretend

we are not free on Sundays,

when we could have seen you.

we skate past the truth,

pack our consciences

in the trunk

of the car.

We don’t phone to see how you are—

avoidance is easier than admitting

the truth: visits disrupt our routine,

disturb our affair.

Referencing Orwell's 1984, "Brainwashed" explores how repeated workplace rhetoric shapes thought and behaviour. Work becomes both excuse and alibi, concealing avoidance beneath the language of responsibility. Through recurring routines, excuses and acts of self-deception, the poem presents repetition as a form of conditioning that sustains emotional distance and comfortable fictions.

Julie Dexter 2026

>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<

>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<

Artist name Bouge Alexandra

Social media accounts. https://alexandrabouge.tumblr.com/textes
https://www.facebook.com/ruxibull/?locale=fr_FR

Text by Alexandra Bouge translated from French to English

by Robert Atkins

The room is turning into an abyss. I pick up the phone up and give my full

attention to my work; we’ll be here to buy next week, no, the week of the ninth,

to buy your precious metals, we’ll come by in the week, on, how much do you

have? A hundred grams, fifty grams, no.

Or

I pick up the phone.. Hang up! She keeps a record of the money I spend on the

phone, the figures marked on the bills, the minutes I spend talking to my

neighbour. The countdown has begun. Time stands still, the minutes I tear free

(or lose) drain away wildly. My belly is becoming as hard as iron. I record the

dates when they come by. Get out of here, get out of here now.

Or

The room is turning into an abyss. I pick up the phone; we’ll be there, we’ll be

there, next week, no we’ll be there to buy. She keeps a record of the money I

spend. The minutes drain away madly. I don’t understand anything any more.

Or

The room is turning into an abyss. I pick up the phone, we’ll be there to buy, no,

to buy your precious metals. She keeps a record of the money I spend on the

phone. My belly is becoming as hard as iron.

Or

The room is turning into an abyss. I pick up the phone; we’ll be there in the

week of the ninth. She keeps a record. The countdown has begun. The minutes I

tear free drain away wildly.

OrI pick up the phone; we’ll be there next week, non, the week of the ninth, to buy

your precious metals. She keeps a record. The minutes I lose drain away wildly.

Or

I pick up the phone; no, to buy your metals. She keeps a record. The countdown

has begun. The minutes I tear free drain away wildly. Get out of here.

Or

I pick up the phone; we’ll be there to buy, no, how much do you have? The

figures marked on the bills. My belly is becoming as hard as iron.

Or

I pick up the phone; your precious metals, no. She keeps a record.. The minutes

I tear free drain away wildly. I don’t understand anything anymore.

Or

I pick up the phone, no, we’ll be there, no. A hundred grams. She keeps a

record. The minutes I tear free or lose drain away. My belly is becoming as hard

as iron,

Or

I pick up the phone, no, no, we’ll be there. A hundred grams, no. I pick up the

phone. The minutes I tear free or lose drain away. I record the dates when they

come by. Get out of here, get out of here.

Or

The room is turning into an abyss. I pick up the phone, we’ll be there. A

hundred grams She keeps a record. The minutes I tear free, drain away.

>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Artist name Dorinda MacDowell

Connections

That clumsy looking thing in the corner
agent of reaching far beyond the walls of its confines

Its intricacies are thrilling
I can provoke or annihilate a conversation

The plugs, my instruments of power

I am enraptured

In that dizzying power, in a crazy moment,
I can cause an unwary caller to fall into conversation
with an undertakers office or a unsuspecting tree surgeon

That small handle, deftly turned to emit a furious ringing,
caused many a sleepy clerk to awake with a start, and rub his eyes,
and wriggle in his chair as he attempted with speak,
with an unconvincing attempt of consciousness, to his superior

Away with the doldrums of daily toil

My working days are alive with vast possibilities
and boredom is not in my vocabulary

I sit in my wonderful power-house and I marvel
at my new-found knowledge of the switchboard
as we sit together in the corner of the office.

We may never see its like again.

And more’s the pity.

Issue 76 - Writers corner