by Lucy Thorneycroft

I first came across this literary publication at a poetry reading called ‘Fire & Dust’ in Coventry’s Big Comfy Bookshop. The magazine has a number of graduates from the University of Warwick’s creative writing programme who work to create a magazine on issues of equality, government, politics, human nature, as well as many other themes.

The most recent publication of the magazine is The Brutal Issue, which takes an at times jocular tone to the theme whilst other pieces confront tragedy in Aleppo and the savagery of everyday existence. Adam Lock’s The Shadow Play of Animal Coupling confronts issues of abortion and unplanned pregnancy through a raw interior view punctuated by the savagery of nature and procreation. Lock’s piece is a painful episode that explores the animal savagery of sex in conjunction with love as a background for a couple’s life that is centred on illusions and the doubleness of experience that comes with relationships. For other writers, such as Sharon Black, the everyday becomes a central subject with the reality of drug abuse in her poem Imposter, or Marc Brightsides’ confrontation of domestic abuse in Hold the Line which details the sense of being a helpless bystander as the violence unfolds.

The opening mood of the magazine is jocular, with Samuel Smith’s piece chronicling a brief history of how Dr. Pepper came to reform the medical industry and a description of The Great Train Robbers who stole thousands of bridal trains during wedding ceremonies. Though an amusing piece to begin with, it does give the reader certain tonal expectations that remain unfulfilled as the issue changes to serious pieces for the rest of the magazine, giving the publication a rather eclectic and mismatched feeling. The opening undermines more serious pieces such as Jessica Mehta’s poem on the nature of eating disorders or Belinda Rimmer’s piece on loneliness. Perhaps with a different placement of pieces the jocular tone of Smith’s piece would enhance rather than undermine other pieces. However, as it is the tonal shifts themselves can be rather brutal on the reader.

Dandu AlexanDru’s artwork, Portrait with Landscape, for the issue deals with the brutality of the individual subject placed against an urban scene in an Impressionistic piece that focuses on the cacophonic chaos of modern life. The bold palette utilises primary colours which materialise into a sharper image in the centre, before fading into more indistinguishable ideas at the edges. This creates a visually brutal piece of art which places the question of modernity and of brutality at its core, complimenting both the preceding piece of writing and that which comes after it.

Here Comes Everyone involves a series of art pieces throughout the issue, with different artists interpreting the theme in a variety of movements and styles. Hagen Klennert’s piece, Chant of a Warpimp, uses a pen and ink style to create a visually chaotic scene with a larger subject about to hit a smaller figure. The art sits in the middle of a piece about the everyday and frankly mundane brutality of death and empathy by WalBurga Appleseed. The lack of colour in the drawing illustrates the obsession with the red motif in Appleseed’s piece, and highlights the lack of colour once the artistic subject in the short story dies leaving behind a world devoid of colour. It gives the piece of writing urgency and immediacy as the figure stands posed to strike the other down.

Stephen Grob’s piece also makes the brutality of the everyday a central subject through a collagestyle of workers pushing their hands into the neck of a large, central figure. The individual’s lack of agency and tendency to be used up by others is placed in focus as the art sits on the page next to a poem by Micheal Schecher about the hard reality and unromantic nature of life, which is viewed as ‘a gloomful living,/on an isle of crap’. Throughout the issue, the art is carefully picked and placed so that the variety of styles and interpretations not only illustrate the written pieces but stand alone as powerful depictions of brutality in all senses of the word.

Here Comes Everyone is a literary publication that does not shy away from difficult topics of contemporary and personal importance. The magazine has great quality writers both in print and on the website to read through, and is open to themed submissions from anyone and has dealt with a wide range of themes in past issues ranging from politics in East & West to pop cultural interests in The Toys & Games edition. The magazine runs both digital and print copies, and is a great source of local works by writers and artists alike.

You can buy a copy of Here Comes Everyone online here.