Issue 6: RUB-A-DUB-DUB

Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub…Those of us who grew up in Anglophile cultures know this rhyme well though we may not get the original story behind it. The nonsense rhyme is the ghostly residue of an old English tale the details of which no longer matter. Likewise the musical artform Dub engages us with intriguing echoes, ripples of sound, “shattered songs” (as Michael Veal calls them in his magisterial study Dub), and languid, resonant fragments of the original.

In this issue of PREE, we solicited work raw and lyrical, textured and playful. Work that is stripped down to the basics of rhythm and then rebuilt; transformed with freedom and spirit, embracing all the tools at your disposal. Following is the call we put out:

Rub-a-dub-dub explores origins, and new futures of craft, weaving the traditional and the playful until it becomes something of its very own, reborn into perturbations and undulations that can barely be contained. We invite you to explore improvisation and play, lyricism and chat, transformation and the hybrid.

Send us your work; lyrical, rhythmic and stylish, stretching structure and form, mashing up traditional and digital, transforming and becoming. We seek speculative & realist fiction, creative nonfiction, memoire, poetry, graphic fiction, artworks, video essays, art writing, film scripts and any other form you feel impelled to write. Let your writing reverberate in the sixth issue of PREE.

Anchor image by Ania Freer: Signpainter Kemel Leeford Rankine with his sign that headlined the 2019 NLS exhibition ‘All That Don’t Leave’, curated by Ania Freer.