About us

foam:e is a web-based poetry journal that releases a new issue annually on March 1st, or thereabouts.

History

foam:e grew out of the poetryespresso email discussion group, established in 2001 by Cassie Lewis, as an open forum for poets to discuss poetry and poetics (amongst other topics) with their peers in a friendly and supportive, that is to say ‘creative’, environment. It is styled on the early coffee houses of The Enlightenment that provided a space for creative thinkers and encouraged the open discussion of ideas.

Poetry speaks for itself.

And anyway its shape-shifting makes it difficult to say what it is or what it does – if it does anything at all. The joy of an editor is discovering the poems that work best, that lay out something simple – a sound, a visual structure or an observation – clean and uncluttered, sometimes working with the grain of words, sometimes against. Poems use words – words that contain the possibility of ideas, of conversation, of humiliation and difficulty, of memory.

The web has brought new opportunities for poetry to again be a visible force within society. The nature of this global communication medium, its immediacy and openness, has meant that a sense of community can be enjoyed by people in disparate places, societies and time zones.

The name foam:e was nominated by Michael Farrell. We wanted to build on the success of the chapbooks and throw out an invitation to other poets. foam:e aims to showcase immediate, strong work being produced now and, thanks to the internet, to make it easily accessible. The web is a fitting place for it – ever changing, without borders. 

The format for foam:e, was for the journal to allow the poems to be themselves, to speak for themselves. foam:e imagines itself as providing the private, interior (virtual) space of the open book.

These poems often require a reader to work – but lightly – to bring something of themselves to the reading for them to be fully executed. But that something also seems to change – shape-shifting with the poem, with the reading, with the reader. It seems akin to being, to not catching fish, to a day decorating the front room while listening to the cricket, the use of a knife. There are also many other things it does not appear to resemble, but appearances may be deceptive.

People

foam:e’s founding editor is Angela Gardner, an award-winning poet and artist who, until 2021 was based in Brisbane. 

Over the years, foam:e has had a number of guest and co-editors. These include Louise Waller, Jonathan Hadwen, and Laurie Duggan.

In 2017, Carmen Leigh Keates joined Angela as the co-editor. In 2021, Kerry Kilner former Director of AustLit (www.austlit.edu.au), joined foam:e as co-editor.

foam:e is published by light trap press.