Issue #24: Industrial Revolution

June 2021

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Whose Side Are You On?
The Industrial Revolution looks very different depending on where you’re standing. As a child going to an American public school in the 1970s, I was taught that the process of mechanizing repetitive tasks was a good and positive thing, not just for America, whose productive capacity now allowed it to become a deciding force in the next two World Wars, but for all of the “civilized world.” We even talk about the world in industrial terms — “developed” countries like the US and much of western Europe versus “undeveloped” or “underdeveloped” countries like India and Mexico.
But if you’re standing in what is now India, you know that your country was a technological and manufacturing powerhouse before the East India Company took control, both politically and militarily. Much of Africa can make similar claims, as can Central and South America.
For many countries, the military, brute force colonization of the European empire-building years made way for a new, more insidious kind of colonization — economic. The comedian Dylan Moran talks about how America inserts its culture into other countries by colonizing them with Starbucks and McDonald’s, and he’s not wrong.
The Industrial Revolution didn’t just make goods easier and cheaper to manufacture, but required that huge amounts of raw materials be taken from one place to be processed into goods in another. Most often, the places the raw materials were taken from ended up the worse for the transaction. Strip mines, monoculture crops, and chemical refineries decimated huge amounts of land, and towns whose populations depended on the companies that ran those enterprises were reduced to poverty overnight once their resources were tapped out, or the factory moved somewhere cheaper, and left poorer not just economically, but in resources and industrial capacity. Some places never recover.
Consumer culture as we know it began with the industrial revolution. Prior to its advances, most economies were still largely agrarian, with industry being done locally and at small scale. “Luxury goods” were most often anything that had to be transported a great distance, so a banana was considered a luxury good in Great Britain before 1920.
Now consumer culture is so ingrained in humanity that most countries use it as a measure of their overall economic health. “Economic growth” is measured by how much people spend, and that number should always be going up.
It’s not sustainable. In a way, the industrial revolution was the beginning of the end. The fossil fuels that powered factories, as well as the byproducts of most manufacturing processes (including the enormous amounts of waste dumped into landfills) have brought our planet to the brink of a crisis that will be decided in our lifetimes.
Many of the pieces in this issue look back at the kind of lives the industrial revolution changed — the jobs people did, the ways they coped. Other pieces look back at the changes industrialization wrought on the world. Yet more look at possible futures that may play out if our current industrially-fuelled consumer culture continues unchecked. Welcome to the revolution.
Lise Quintana

at the end of a billion year regime of natural selection
Jeff is a Filipino poet from Ilocos Sur, Philippines. His works appeared or are forthcoming in 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, here: a poetry journal, Albion Review, and Olit Magazine among others. Find him at jeffwilliamacosta.weebly.com

Capitalism King
Lino is a visual artist whose work has been published and shown internationally. His work focuses on social issues and oftentimes pokes fun at our more absurd social values. He is a college professor and currently lives in Savannah, Georgia.

Steel Beam Empire
Lorelei is a European poet living in Asia. In a past life, she was a political lobbyist. Her recent work can be found and/or is forthcoming in OpenDoor Poetry, Litehouse, Visitant, Quail Bell and The Wondrous Real. She is also on Instagram: @lorelei.bacht.writer

Tool
Guilherme has developed projects with photography and the various narrative possibilities that art offers. He believes in photography as the aesthetic potential and transforming agent of society. Awarded in national and international competitions, Guilherme Bergamini participated in collective exhibitions in 42 countries.

Class Warfare
Tamara was a burned-out performer, activist, and community worker that fled to the woods of Eastern Ontario ten years ago. Tamara has recently completed the manuscript for a full-length book of concepts, ideas, and fragments of distilled thought (also known as poetry).

Radiant
Carina’s work has been in Bitter Distillations: An Anthology of Poisonous Tales, Arterial Bloom, Gorgon: Stories of Emergence, Weird Dream Society, Hath No Fury, and the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V and VI, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Sundress Publications Best of the Net.

By Hand
Karina is the author of Rosetta (Ex Ophidia, 2021), Proof (Codhill Press, 2014), and The Bees Are Waiting (Marick Press, 2011). A French bilingual volume of new and selected works, Tomates de septembre, was published by Cheyne-éditeur in 2020.

Tanka 147
Andrew has published about 125 poems and is seeking to publish two novels. He is also an actor and an insurance agent.

Old Bailey Sat and Mourned
Obinna is a Nigerian poet. His poems have been published in Journals and anthologies both in his country, Nigeria and abroad. His collection of poems Songs of a Stranger at the Smiling Coast was published by Kraft Books Limited and Calligramme by Emotion Press.

american can
Anthony has poems published by Riza Press, The Healing Muse, and Lucky Jefferson. He has also had ironwork displayed at the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, TN., and has two commissioned sundials installed in public spaces.

Nomads
Kamil’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Multiplicity Commons, Detour Ahead, Coffin Bell Journal, The Scriblerus, FLARE: The Flagler Review, Apricity Magazine and BEATIFIC Magazine, amongst others.

A Parable of Sand
Marco lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His writing has been featured by reviews and journals in Canada, The UK, and the USA. When he is not writing he is traveling and writing simultaneously. His author website is: https://www.marcoetheridgefiction.com/

Ways to Enter an Abandoned Mill
Alexis holds an MFA from Western CT State University and a Master of Public Health degree from Yale University. Twitter: @ObjetAutre Instagram: @curious___cricket

How the Children Came Home to Roost
Melissa belongs to no one place in particular. She’s a renegade with hippie tendencies. You can find her work in South Broadway Ghost Society’s anthology Thought for Food, Turnsol editions anthology Florilegium, and her debut chapbook Birthing Pains.

Some of Us Were Eloi, But...
Amelia lives in Eureka, California where she loves to explore tidepools and redwood forests with her dogs and foster dogs. Her first chapbook, Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota is forthcoming from Interstellar Flight Press in 2021.

Blackthorn Blooms in the Fiery Fields
Hannah is a writer from Shropshire, UK. She currently works for Ledbury Poetry Festival and has been published in Bristol Poetry Anthology, The Cardiff Review and Helicon Magazine.

Bridge Elephant
Ilya lives with his friend, two cats and a loose coterie of stray dogs, in the back shed of a farmer’s house in a village on the city outskirts of Shanghai, and is a student of philosophy.

Riveting the Turn of Centuries
Angelita is a writer, visual artist, activist, sister, and daughter. Her undergraduate studies in Psychology and African American Studies at Earlham College and graduate studies at The Ohio State University, along with her time living abroad in Mexico, deeply inform her creative work.

Men to Machines
Joseph is a student of Usman Danfodio University. His works are either forthcoming or already published in Reckoning Press, Evening Street Press, New Verse News, Praxis Magazine, Gemini Spice Magazine, Spillwords, SprinNG, Writers Space Africa, Nthanda Magazine, and many more.

Seven Years Gone
Dorian’s work has appeared in various journals, including Poet Lore, Salamander, Slipstream, Main Street Rag, Third Wednesday, Belletrist, The Ekphrastic Review, and Smartish Pace. When not writing poetry, Dorian works as a technical writing manager in the healthcare industry.

The Millstone
Christy has won the Katherine Paterson Prize in two categories, the Eldin Prize, and the 2020 Seamus Heaney Prize. Her work has been published in Hunger Mountain VCFA Journal for the Arts and Barzakh international magazine.

Look on a Love
Jeanne has written books for adults and children as well as articles for print and online publications. She fills her home with original artwork, including Look on a Love. When not at her computer, she can typically be found on a bicycle or in a garden.

poppy seeds
Isabella (she/her) is the vice president of her school’s writing club, “The Writer’s Circle”, and has been acknowledged by Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, The Weight Journal, Same Faces Collective, The Raindrop Magazine, Ice Lolly Review, and others.

Across the Canal
Dan is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, and earned a B.A. in English and a Letter of Specialization in Creative Writing. He has been published in The Green Light and 50 Word Short Stories. She has also won the Class of 1940 Prize for Literature.

Loom
Ruth finds time to write early in the mornings, while it’s still dark. In addition to poetry she also writes folk-style songs and, prior to the pandemic, performed with her duo Moss & Jones in venues around the North West of England.

Springs Eternal

J. has been fortunate enough to have two previous pieces published in NonBinary Review: a short horror story, "First Night's Always Free," in issue #19, and a flash fiction piece, “Far Too Short a Day," in issue #21. All his work can be accessed through his website, https://www.jnelsonjr.com.

Shrinking Growth
Grace is a student of Art History at the University of St Andrews, passionate about writing poetry and thinking creatively. She has been amateurly writing poetry since a very young age. She uses poetry as a means of expressing an amalgamation of both personal and impersonal experiences.

Cycladic Cyborg Births Post-Human Infant
Giorgia’s work has appeared in venues such as Clockwise Cat, City, From the Ashes Womxn’s Anthology, New Urge Editions, Witchcraft Mag, Revue de la poésie in Toto, Puerto del Sol and Entropy. She’s an editor of surrealist magazines SULΦUR and The Room.

expression is the only brilliance...
Angelic [t(he)y] has been published in Frontier Poetry and SAD Mag among other journals. They are on the editorial board of the Room Magazine. They are proud to currently be the Poet in Residence at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre.

Gradual
Natasha is the author of three books of poems, a book of literary criticism and a memoir-in-essays, Terroir: Love, Out of Place, just out from Trinity UP. She teaches at Westminster College in Salt Lake City and in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program.

In the Luck Factory
Lorraine is a New York writer. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, and Little Blue Marble, and in the anthology Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. Her book The Futurist’s Mistress is available from Mayapple Press.

Oman
Stephen holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. His fiction has been featured in Cosmonauts Avenue, pacificREVIEW, Fiction International, decomP magazinE, Le Scat Noir, and Portland Review. He lives in San Diego, California where he works as a copywriter.

Spray Paints
Bupinder is a teacher by profession but a writer by passion from Kashmir, India. He teaches English Literature. He has been published in The Big Roundtable, The Week, The-Criterion Journal, Eccolinguists, The Universe Journal etc among other magazines and international journals.

The City and the Slum
Maheshwar’s paintings are shown in Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Dubai, South Korea, Austria, London and Venice. Artworks are widely published in the country and overseas’ literary-art journals. He writes stories, novels and articles in Hindi and English.

Insulators
George is a writer and photographer in the New Jersey/New York metropolitan area with interest in urban and rural decay, architectural, street, and more generally, art photography and digital manipulation.

Hooked on Necropolis
Josh is an artist, musician, writer, and professor. Trained in calligraphy, graphic design, and color work, he brings Pop art, Tattoo flash and lining techniques, and Abstract Surrealism and Expressionism to the extreme edge where graphic design and calligraphy meet the Platonic theory of forms.

There is Power in the Yabba Dabba Union
Stevie is a genderqueer poet and singer-songwriter. They are a former cohost of the Boston Poetry Slam. Their poems have been published in places like NAILED, FreezeRay, and Neon, and their latest EP Nightstands is available on Bandcamp now. www.steviesubrizi.com

Forward March
Edward has had artwork and poems published in the US and other countries. Both sides of his family worked in the coalmines and steel mills of Appalachia.

Analytic Application
Winston has been published by decomp, EcoTheo Review, The Lit Pub, The Waking (Ruminate’s online publication), Papeachu Press, and elsewhere. His published work has been translated into Spanish, and has appeared in journals across three continents.

Self-Hypnosis Machine
Michael is an artist living in Chicago and during the pandemic he’s worked on collage, sculptures and fake postage stamps.

The Industrial Revolution: A Precis
D.S. served in the Peace Corps in India and taught English in Iran. After returning to India to complete a research fellowship, he pursued a career in university administration. Retired, Twells lives in St. Louis, writes, and occasionally teaches.

To be determined
Jennifer is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist who utilizes a wide range of media to convey her ideas. Much of her work touches on themes of beauty, identity, memory & forgetting, and institutional critique. Weigel’s art has been exhibited nationally and has won numerous awards.

Phoenix
Estlack studied theater in the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq. After working in theater for 18 years in California, he moved to Pennsylvania to focus on writing.

discovery (cover), wheels
Amanda is a collage artist and a writer of many genres. She lives on the 10-year flood plain of the Russian River, where she teaches writing from her online schoolhouse.

Walking the Steel
Andrena’s third poetry collection is Landings. Her poems have received accolades for free verse, form, lyricism, spirituality, and social concern. She is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com and founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon.

Sewing on the Edge of Time
Keltie has an extensive background writing about freedom of speech legal cases, but now prefers to explore our relationships with each other and with technology in her short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in literary publications in Canada, the U.S. and internationally.

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