The elixir of life is a rumour, whispered across myriad mythologies. Something edible with miraculous properties. Something that can grant eternal youth or unending bodily life through the fundamental process of swallowing, absorbing. A bridge between the human and the divine, the mortal and the immortal, crossed by way of the mouth, understood via the structure of hunger and satiation.
A beacon in the grasped for in the churn of darkness – its emptiness, its uncertainty, its blending – Elixir is a promise of perpetuity, the continuation of what we know and are comfortable with. In real alchemical pursuits, proposed discoveries were often toxic, a confusion between precious metals and nourishment. Like gold, the promise of Elixir draws out our selfishness, distorts our perspective. The object of quests and the decision to risk your own life for more, whatever that may mean – usually at the expense of others. We have imagined it as sweet, like sugar, like milk. An echo of the infant’s blind pursuit of survival, Elixir draws out our selfishness. At the heart of the dream of elixir is the doubled notion that what we consume can transform us, or, indeed, protect us from the changes we fear.
For this issue Abridged invites submissions that speak to the various and multiplying quests for longevity playing out at different levels of contemporary culture – wide-spread and elite, biological and digital – and (as ever) what these suggest about the fears and desires that drive us. You can send up to three poems to abridged@ymail.com in Word (or similar), or if unusually formatted, in PDF format. Please also send a short bio. Don’t send anything via Google Drive. Put your name etc on the email otherwise it may end up in the Spam folder and we might not see it. Deadline for submissions is 01st March 2026.
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.
