‘These stone steps were at the entrance to the Hiroshima Branch of the Sumitomo Bank. Exposed to the atomic explosion at close range, the person sitting on the steps waiting for the bank to open is thought to have died on the spot with no possibility of escape. The intense heat of the A-bomb turned the steps whitish; the stone under the sitting person remained dark, like a shadow.’
Umbra Sumus – ‘we are shadow’. Variations on this quotation appear frequently on sundials. Historically, shadows are what we have used to ‘read’ time – its passage, its cycles. (So what would it mean to read ‘the times we live in’ and its events by way of shadows?) If there is a shadow, it means there has been light, but also that that light has encountered an obstacle. For there to be a shadow there has to have been both a blaze – a blast – and a witness. We live in an era characterised by the sense of pending catastrophe, of anticipating the blast. By blast we mean explosion – a reaction, an eruption, a moment of immense destruction, an ignition. We might fear the blast, or run from it if we can. Or we might be fascinated by it, even desire it for the total transformation it seems to promise. Or both. Some darker part of us wants the worst to happen, even just so we can see it. The blast shatters what we know, obliterates our control and confirms our fragility, our mortality. To those most dissatisfied with what they can see around them, it might seem to offer some sort of purification. And the blast also – inevitably – illuminates itself. With such illumination comes the casting of shadows in all directions – the mapping of shapes, postures and positions, the writing of history, whether that mark lasts forever or no time at all.
Memories – like photographs – are structures of light and shadow, the illuminated and the left in the dark, the known and the lost. To learn to represent is to become adept at understanding shadow. It’s by way of shadow that we see, but also that we become blind. In psychology, the shadow is our ‘blind spot’, the part of our self we struggle to reconcile with the rest. Our shadow both is us and isn’t us. The double, the uncanny, the darker-side we can’t walk away from. t is normal to be afraid of shadows, even our own. In part, because of how easy to mistake them for something else, how difficult they can be to read. Shadows blend together, lack defining identity. Though they deal in dark and light, shadows often signify ambiguity. In Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale, a fisherman wants to rid himself of his soul so he can live freely and in love in another world under the waves; to get rid of his soul, he must cut off his shadow and send it away. In the William Holman Hunt painting The Shadow of Death, a shadow cast by the figure of a young Jesus anticipates his crucifixion (a foreshadowing). Shadows have long provided us with an image for death – a reminder of our impermanence, and an anticipation of our absence, our anonymity, our becoming nothing but darkness. It’s about control. How much control we have and how much we think we have. Our illusions of control combined with fear are what drive us on and what drive us to persecute others.
Abridged is looking for poetry and art that explores control and the illusions of control, the shadows that accompany and pursue us and our fear and longing of the blast. You may submit up to three poems to abridged@ymail.com which must be in a Word or PDF format. Unusually formatted poems we prefer in an PDF format, material that is more straightforward in Word. Art should be 300dpi or above and in jpeg or similar format. Please note this issue will be A5 landscape-sized/shaped. Please also send a short bio and put your name and address on the email or it might get lost in the Spam folder. We can’t send proofs so please send the final version of your poem. The deadline for submissions is the 29th May 2025.
This issue is funded by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Abridged is funded by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and The Arts Council of Ireland.
