Dash is a literary project which grants creative space as open-source alternative for experimental poets, writers and artists-as-writers who are working within a concise, clipped textual framework to generate poetic texts typically 30 pages or less. Dash works collected and shared here aim to both explore and rekindle the concept of the traditional poetic chapbook but from a progressive, flexible perspective linking text to design. The project’s title suggests that all contributors consciously navigate in-and-around the space between words and phrases with a contemporary awareness and critical eye. The ‘dash’ (whether it be em- or en- yet not to be confused with the ‘hyphen’) as punctuation mark is a grammatical device which literally instructs the reader to pause or break mid-sentence before moving forward with any idea-as-unit. The ‘dash’ recognizably divides words or phrases into compartmentalized parenthetical statements.The production of each new Dash text should be influenced by or speak to America (i.e., The United States of America) and / or Scandinavia; no specific citizenship status is required. The Dash poetics project is most interested in highlighting self-assured voices who have adopted a specific textual strategy once perceived as hushed or even unheard while also embracing the site-specific parameter of the valeveil curatorial initiative. Dash poetics exist as gratis, downloadable .pdfs.

valeveil is currently accepting submissions for this project.