Touch the Donkey thirty-eight

The latest Touch the Donkey arrived last month. Issue number thirty-eight ("thirty-eight" written with letters, not numbers). Eight poets over 48 pages, with series founder rob mclennan at the helm.

This might be my favourite issue yet. Years ago I might have said most accomplished, but times have changed, and we are only encouraged to speak highly -- and unambiguously -- of what we "like", lest someone take issue with terms rooted in exclusion.

We live in one big room now. No more little rooms to retreat to for contemplation, quiet conversation. You can no longer appear indifferent to difference. It must be celebrated. It is a party you are expected to attend. Too bad if you tire at parties. 

Samuel Amadon gives us "Five Poems", all of them called "Divers". From the third "Divers":

I like the indifferences, like things
With a little twitch in their hip, prayers

From Amanda Earl's Twenty-Six, an expression of "The Nervous Energy":

moving and gyrating jumpy
elevator opens and chaise lounge
a hifi size arcade style ms
and shortbread for breakfast

The first two lines of Miranda Mellis's "Utopia":

Cinemas insinuate a situation
Reciprocal wits serrulate orgone

From the second of seven from R Kolewe:

A compulsion of flowers yet

to be named still

to be seen drawn or

take the world as a model

Also included, two prose blocks from Heather Cadsby; Monty Reid's unfortunately titled The Lockdown Elegies; six object-titled prose blocks from Meghan Kemp-Gee (have our reformatting phones done away with line breaks, our breathing?); and some Kama Sutra-inspired glyph clusters from Michael Betancourt?