The Poetry Corner

Helicon invites you to share your favourite poems! To start with, I'd like to post one of my favourite poets, Edgar Allan Poe. If you're a fan of his poetry and you have a sunny summers afternoon to spare, try his short stories too... perhaps Masque of the Red Death.

To One in Paradise

By Edgar allan poe

Thou wast that all to me, love,

   For which my soul did pine—

A green isle in the sea, love,

   A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

   And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

   Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise

But to be overcast!

   A voice from out the Future cries,

“On! on!”—but o’er the Past

   (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me

   The light of Life is o’er!

No more—no more—no more—

   (Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore)

   Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

   And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy grey eye glances,

   And where thy footstep gleams—

In what ethereal dances,

   By what eternal streams.

Deadline for next year's Editor extended!

You now have until this Sunday, 8th May, to apply to be editor of next year's Helicon

The paintbrush: this year’s festival must-have accessory?

Each year it seems that more and more festivals are vying to grab the remains of our student loans by tempting us with impressive line-ups and extra entertainment. However, if you want your 2011 festival experience to be a little less mainstream, why not get creative and head to Austria for the World Bodypainting Festival?! Musical entertainment will still feature but it takes a backseat to allow the weird and wonderful world of body art to take centre stage. 

The Sorry Entertainer Newspaper Anthology

Panel from Chris Fairless' contribution to The Sorry Entertainer: "Human Statue"

Great project here from regular contributor Nick Soucek and fellow Bristol student Simon M. supporting unpublished comic artists from across the globe. The Sorry Entertainer Newspaper Anthology is a collection of original, specially commissioned work that needs your help to see it in print.

Helicon is looking for a new editor!

After an incredibly successful year, Helicon is already looking forward to putting together some more fantastic issues next year. To do this, we need an imaginative, hard working and creative new Editor to head the 2011/12 editorial team. If you wish to apply, just send us an email at helicon.magazine@gmail.com.

The deadline for applications is Sunday 1st May and we hope to hold interviews in the first week back (3rd - 6th May).

If you would like any more information about the position or have general enquiries about Helicon, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Interesting Results with the '8 Week Gallery'

'8 Week Gallery' is a collective aiming to help young artists by putting on 8 exhibitions in 8 weeks. This short Helicon documentary follows two Bristol art students as they create an installation in an ex motorcycle showroom in Stokes Croft.



Film by Tristan Martin.

Mr. Mead's Dark Suits

Antlers Gallery has returned to the streets of Bristol once again with a rather intriguing new show. This time they have teamed up with Tom Mead (featured in the Disguise issue of Helicon) to create a macabre and fantastical gallery of his unique creations.

All of the paintings come together to form a complete deck of cards. Each suit belongs to a certain strain of what his so-called 'Bio-Mechanical Anthropomorphism'. Cats, Foxes and Horned Beasts of various kinds all feature to intriguing effect.

A genuine pleasure to behold as always, this rendition of Antlers Gallery will be open until 23rd April. Don't miss it.

4 Quakers Friars, Cabot Circus Bristol, BS1 3BU


http://www.antlersgallery.com/project/dark-suits/

I Wanna Quit Everything and Become a TRAVEL WRITER!!

Is that how you feel? Then look no further! From the people who brought you Intuition and Erudition, a new platform for student-based travel writing (although non-students are also very welcome to contribute!) is in the making: Exploration.

If you've ever fancied trying your hand at publication, have some interesting stories to share from the other side of the world, or have some amazing travel tips you're just dying to share, and are interested in joining the Exploration writing team, then please contact the relevant editor (and be sure to tell any friends you think might be interested too!):

For general enquiries: Sally Cervenak, sc8187@bristol.ac.uk
Europe: Daisy Alsup, da8818@bristol.ac.uk
North America: Nicola Spencer, ns9311@bristol.ac.uk
Latin America: Leah Eades, le8937@bristol.ac.uk
Africa: Charlotte Drummond-Chew, charlottedc1@googlemail.com
Oceania: Jenny Awford, ja9046@bristol.ac.uk
SE Asia & India: Lucy Rowland, lucy_rowland1991@hotmail.co.uk
Far East: Lexie, acbfrost@gmail.com
Middle East: John Martin- email Sally and she will forward it to him!

New theme: NONSENSE

Hello all, and thanks to those of you who made it to the launch party for our WILD issue last Tuesday. It well and truly lived up to its name (photos here), and celebrated one of our finest issues yet. For those of you who couldn't make it, it's going to be distributed around the university in the next few days, so make sure you grab a copy then. Or if you're simply too lazy (or busy!) to leave the house, it can be browsed online here.

Now onto more pressing matters: Helicon is delighted to announce our third and final theme of this year: NONSENSE. Make sense of it if you can (as loosely or literally as you like) and email your art, photography, poetry, prose and features submissions with your name and medium as the subject (eg. Lewis Carroll Prose) to helicon.magazine@gmail.com before the deadline of May 1st. All submissions will be lovingly recieved and provided with full feedback by our friendly editorial team.

We're also running a competition for our NONSENSE issue: best made-up word. As sensical or nonsensical as you like, please submit yours to helicon.magazine@gmail.com with a short definition to help explain it (or not). The top ten entries will be published in the nonsense issue, and the top three will even be given the honour of illustration by our prestigious illustrator's network!

Please don't hesitate to drop us an email if you have any questions. We look forward to receiving your submissions and competition entries!

TB.

SEE: ArtOfficial Illumination Exhibition in the Crypt of St. John the Baptist Church

Despite the amazing sunshine, if you're stuck for ideas of what to do this weekend pay a visit to the spectacular medieval Crypt of St. John the Baptist Church, currently home to an array of student artwork.

Some of the strongest works on show are portraits, particularly an oil painting of an old man by Kathy Cox, an atmospheric depiction of a gentleman with a shadow enveloping his face. His leathery hands, appearing unusually almost as flesh gloves, further convey the years and life he has endured.

All donations go straight to the Bristol Refugee Rights Hardship Fund and the exhibition runs all weekend between 11:00 and 18:00. Take the opportunity to explore this unique building and artwork!

IH

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=200558853289911&index=1

Helicon Presents: Mary Spender

Tomorrow night will be our official Launch Party and we'll be proud to present to you the extremely talented Mary Spender. Check out her music on itunes or spotify, or follow her on facebook. With original songs and one hell of a voice, we can expect big things from her.

See you at the launch!

'WILD' Launch Party

15 March · 8:30
Papaji's House of Teas
109 Whiteladies Rd
Bristol, United Kingdom

Get ready to go absolutely WILD at the Helicon Launch Party (click here to attend the facebook event) for our brand new 'wild' issue! All are more than welcome: whether you're a contributor; appreciative reader of the magazine or blog; or just interested in finding out a bit more and meeting some like-minded folks.

As anyone who attended our last launch party will know, we are planning an amazing evening for you all. Papaji's is a brilliant, quirky venue (tea cocktail, anyone?), and we'll be displaying fantastic artwork and photography throughout. And don't forget live music, a typewritten story to unfold over the course of the evening (with a little help from you of course), facepainting... and our lovely new magazine for you to flick through with a drink in hand and take home too.

So come! Bring your friends, bring your neighbours, bring your cat! Bring anyone who you think might have an interest in anything creative.

We look forward to meeting you all!

Get your Harry On..

...with a HARRY POTTER READATHON!

To raise money for this year's Bristol University Arts Ball the English society Falstaff will be fundraising in true nerdy literary style... with a HARRY POTTER READATHON!

From 9am-9pm they will be commandeering the Humanities Common Room on Woodland Road. Different people will be reading aloud in fifteen minute slots (with special guest readers tbc!) and they will be taking bets on just how far through the series they can make it in 12 hours.

Harry Potter themed cakes will also be on sale! So come by, grab a cake, make a bet and maybe even volunteer to do a little reading yourself!

Embrace your love of all things Harry! And there may just be an after party... watch this space!

Dramsoc presents: Playhouse Creatures

PLAYHOUSE CREATURES 

By April De Angelis

This week Bristol University is staging 'Playhouse Creatures', which insiders claim is set to be one of Dramsoc's most compelling performances of the year. It is the latest project of the University's acclaimed director Holly Roughan, who advertises the play as an 'earthy' and 'gritty' drama; one that intriguingly seeks to discover 'if sex really does sell'?

Uncanny Views from Bristol's nomadic gallery

Those of you who follow the artistic happenings of our fine city may be aware of the roving gallery that goes by the name of Antlers. In its previous incarnation it housed a choice selection of grotesques just off Whiteladies Road. That installation done with, it has relocated to Park Street to present an impressive and varied array of landscapes. 

ALT . . . young people promoting young artists

So it's been a while, but there is something I've wanted to blog about for a while.
It seems that young artists are desperate to get their work out there but are usually too broke to be able to afford a spot in the huge exhibitions which allow them to showcase their work, enter ALT, a completely new way of conceiving artistic promotion.  Recent graduates Alice and Lucy decided it was time to give everyone a space in which to exhibit and perform.



Firstly, why ALT?

-"We wanted people to have another look at things, to broaden the idea of what art is and what it can be so we came up with ALT, short for alternative as well as being german for stop.  It kind of tries to make you look twice."

What decided you to put together ALT?

-"Well, we know a lot of talented people who have a lot of trouble getting their work out there and it's a shame that many artists feel that they have no way of starting up."
-"This way you get to meet the artists, we even have some of them creating on the spot, painting or drawing so that others can ask about the creative process.  We're trying to make art more interactive, a social event rather than just something to look at, that's why musicians perform whilst others paint and you can wander, have a drink, chat, dance, ask . . . it's a different kind of night out."

Is that why you chose a pub venue?

-"Yea definitely, it also helps to popularise the event, you don't have to be a regular museum goer to come along, you can also just enjoy the music and drinks."

David Russel, an undergraduate in graphic design said:
"It's a great chance to exhibit and quite frankly I love doing this kind of stuff.  Most graphic artists take on jobs in order to save the cash to pay for an exhibit of their own work, but that takes years to be able to do.  This allows me to just jump in."

So what's in store for the future?

-"We're not sure to be honest, it rather depends on how it goes."
-"I mean if we get in enough artists and customers we could even look into trying to make an under-18s event but it's all just ideas for now."

Another event is currently being planned for mid-April in London, so if you're around and fancy spending one evening with culture as well as booze make sure you keep an eye out.

MM

Who Dares Writes: Lost & Found

When: 7.30pm, 11-12th February 2011

Where: MR5C, Bristol Student Union

What: This year's showcase of Bristol Uni's new writing, directing and acting talent opened last night with 2011's Who Dares Writes- and it's bloody funny! With ten ten-minute pieces of drama, all based around a "lost and found" theme and written by students,  it's well worth a watch for theatre-lovers everywhere. We promise you an evening's entertainment of angry teddy bears, stationary zealots, pre-teen romances and pepper seeds...

How Much: £2

Wild Sex

That's right - the Natural History Museum's new exhibition, 'Sexual Nature', explores the sex lives of animals in the Wild. Did you know, female orangutans like to use tree bark for pleasure? And ring-tailed lemurs see off sexual rivals with stink fights? For more fascinating facts, check out the exhibition. It runs from 11 February - 2 October 2011.

BBC News

E.D.

Save the World, No Effort Required!

I've been meaning to write a blog about Avaaz for a while now. Avaaz is a HUGE online campaign community that has been raising its voice since 2007, and now has (at the time of writing) over 7 million members. That's a lot of people power!

Basically Avaaz utilizes technology to create huge responses to global events and injustices; by signing up to their mailing list you will be sent details about each new campaign, and can sign epetitions with a click of a button. Small actions, but big results.I won't go into the many success stories they have to show for themselves, but if you're interested then the website makes inspiring reading.

It literally requires no time or effort on your part. Cash donations, though appreciated, are optional. Just follow this link and type your email address in under "Join now", and add your voice to the international movement.

There's no excuse not to!


LE.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra & Portico Quartet.

Calling all hard-core obscure electronic Jazz fans; Penguin Cafe (of Napolean Dynamite OST fame) coupled with the Mercury nominated Portico Quartet are coming to our very doorsteps later this month, playing the Colston on 15th Feb.




A wonderfully eccentric (and oh so slightly late) Valentine's experience - ethereal clatters and rhythmic Sax aplenty!

Tickets - http://www.colstonhall.org/whatson/Event1948