Publishing
Trap Unfolds Me Greedily by Misha Honcharenko
Ukrainian artist and poet Misha Honcharenko’s life has been irrevocably altered by the brutal onslaught of the Russian invasion upon his homeland. A refugee compelled to flee the ravages of war, Honcharenko finds himself grappling with unimaginable burdens. As the primary caregiver for his gravely ill mother, hospitalised amidst the chaos, he shoulders a responsibility that would be overwhelming under any circumstances. Yet, as a young queer man, he also navigates a perilous path of self-discovery, his journey compounded by the abject horrors of displacement and persecution.
Honcharenko’s prose in Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is a raw and unflinching testament to the human spirit tested to its limits. With a relentless intensity, he confronts the atrocities he has witnessed, refusing to offer his readers the solace of easy resolutions. His writing is imbued with a profound intelligence and a fierce determination to comprehend the darkest corners of human experience.
As Misha grapples with the complexities of the immigration system, the weight of his mother’s declining health, and the profound sorrow of loss, he simultaneously explores the depths of his queer identity. The text becomes a harrowing chronicle of survival, a desperate attempt to find meaning amidst the wreckage of his world. Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is not merely a record of suffering; it is an invitation to witness the birth of a powerful new voice, one that dares to confront the unendurable and to question the very nature of existence in the aftermath of catastrophe.
‘Hot on the heels of his poetry debut, Skin of Nocturnal Apple, Misha Honcharenko returns with Trap Unfolds Me Greedily. The book is a floating, poetically-inclined anti-novel about the terror of living, the way the past holds us hostage, and the fear of death–or at least its abruptness. Dread suffuses the thoughts of our narrator as his strange and estranging syntax leaves us bewitched and unnerved. The book doesn’t let up, cedes no corner, and leaves a mark. What more can we ask for?’
— Nate Lippens, author of RIPCORD and My Dead Book
‘Misha Honcharenko’s new novel is a surreal adventure into language. There’s a visceral horror to the text, but the sentences have a wild abandon that brings to mind the queer freedom of the poems of John Ashbery. We are taken through a fairground mirrored world of bodies, childhood, the past, war, violence and moments of engulfing silence. Honcharenko’s voice and style are fresh and a pleasure to read. Given some of the personal circumstances that the book was written under, the fact that Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is here at all is nothing short of extraordinary. I urge you to get behind this project and support a great book from a brilliant young writer.’
— Thomas Moore, author of Your Dreams
‘Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is tender, urgent, transcendent work. Like poetry, you don’t know where it’s going to go next, but every line promises it will be somewhere delicate and chaotic and true.’
— Lauren Elkin, author of Art Monsters
‘Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is a novel—or something like a novel—that abandons the established laws of language in favour of creating, with the violent and elliptical strangeness of its sentences, a new kind of grammar: one whose effect on the reader is not merely intellectual, but psychically overwhelming. It is a book designed to be felt as much as read. War is hell; here is a record of its heat.’
— Philippa Snow, author of Which as You Know Means Violence
— Nate Lippens, author of RIPCORD and My Dead Book
‘Misha Honcharenko’s new novel is a surreal adventure into language. There’s a visceral horror to the text, but the sentences have a wild abandon that brings to mind the queer freedom of the poems of John Ashbery. We are taken through a fairground mirrored world of bodies, childhood, the past, war, violence and moments of engulfing silence. Honcharenko’s voice and style are fresh and a pleasure to read. Given some of the personal circumstances that the book was written under, the fact that Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is here at all is nothing short of extraordinary. I urge you to get behind this project and support a great book from a brilliant young writer.’
— Thomas Moore, author of Your Dreams
‘Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is tender, urgent, transcendent work. Like poetry, you don’t know where it’s going to go next, but every line promises it will be somewhere delicate and chaotic and true.’
— Lauren Elkin, author of Art Monsters
‘Trap Unfolds Me Greedily is a novel—or something like a novel—that abandons the established laws of language in favour of creating, with the violent and elliptical strangeness of its sentences, a new kind of grammar: one whose effect on the reader is not merely intellectual, but psychically overwhelming. It is a book designed to be felt as much as read. War is hell; here is a record of its heat.’
— Philippa Snow, author of Which as You Know Means Violence
KNOTS: A Personal Analysis of Sexual Violence and Transmisogyny by Fi Kube
SISSY ANARCHY is poised to redefine the boundaries of confessional literature with a groundbreaking new journal series. Prepare to be confronted with a raw and unflinching exploration of the human psyche as genre-defying writers delve deep into the corners of their personal experiences.
Our inaugural journal, KNOTS by Fi Kube, is a searing auto-essay that unfurls the knots of personal trauma. With unflinching honesty, Kube confronts the complex and intersecting issues of trans misogyny, child sexual abuse, and sexual and gendered violence. This unflinching exploration invites readers into a realm of profound vulnerability and resilience.
SISSY ANARCHY #2
I understand my departure from holy conceptions as something to subvert into other revelations. As you will see here, beneath each word, photograph, activism, and vision, there exists a gesture of movement in creating a trans queer (angelic) anarchism. Each contributor gives up their environment, their daily encoded stances, to define with me here — in what has become such a tender edition of SISSY ANARCHY — a world where boundaries are stretched and obliterated. This issue invites you to collude with their thoughts on the A1 graph, where all contributors share a phrase, thought, or tool which they believe is essential to a trans queer anarchism. Please use the space left blank for you to include something vulgar, acutely alien, or completely unfathomable yet essential in the stance of ending imposed violence, marginalisation, and turmoil. Once you have filled in your section, please scan or photograph your poster and send a copy to me. All issues of this edition will be different by the marks made by its readers. Be bold, slut.
SISSY ANARCHY #2 is nothing without the contributions of: JEAN CLEVERLEY, JOEL DIXON, DONNA MARCUS DUKE, BENJAMIN FREDRICKSON, JORDAN HEARNS, MISHA HONCHARENKO, IAN IVEY, HESSE K., MAYAH MONET LOVELL, SAM MOORE, D MORTIMER, BARNEY PAU, L SCULLY, PISSED OFF TRANNIES, AILO VILLAN, LEE RAE WALSH.
SISSY ANARCHY #1
I’ve been a bit worried about writing this letter in this way, perhaps it makes me look naive or narcissistic, beginning something to answer my own questions, including people here that were called to contribute, revealing the flaws already in my system of outreach; you’ll see how far my network connects, how I have focused on a few rather than many, intentionally making a mistake of being in confined quarters of knowledge, that I hope with this–in SISSY ANARCHY–over time extends beyond myself and becomes entwined with all, everything and everyone, representing progressive potential, reaching into the domestic communal and realising these spaces as the public political, weaving anarchist-socialist-communist thinking so that it might become an attentive attack on the capitalist economy through organising and sharing alternative models of care. But, whether deemed a facile attempt, it’s an honest one that focuses on the experiences of those inscribed here; what has happened to them, how they have come to understand the world(s) around them. They all give voice to something I can only come to understand through their voice and what I’ve learned most is that everything around us doesn’t have one voice but many; revealing intersectional activism(s) that coincide together in correspondence with one another.
Moving beyond points of philosophical reasoning, I’ve given away my autonomy by following their visions, writings, essays, poems, activisms, photographs, and all else here, to be witness–with you–on what converges and creates a radical politics against racism, transicide, femicide, and ecocide through abolishing the state and defunding militarisation, incarceration institutions, and the police; beginning with a call to question on manifesto. Considering, what needs to be included (as an imperative) into a manifesto for queer archaism, socialism, and communism. Questioning, where does queer theory and artistic practice intersect with grassroots activism? How do you contribute to and build a manifesto to something in a decentralised way that is in the process of forming? Do we need cohesion and certainty in manifesto or can we contradict and overlap concepts, intertwining historic activism with contemporary organisation and theory?
All of these are things that matter to me, maybe they will to you too or they might not, either way I don’t give a fuck because it’s out there and it’s important and that’s what counts. Anyone can do this–and this is by no means the best example–but this is an attempt to start, and I hope to see it continue as it is unequivocally–in my opinion–of equal and shattering importance as the other things you flip through or fill your mind-space, bookshelves, archives and libraries with; all of which I nod toward as the forefounders in the creation and navigation of what SISSY ANARCHY is for and against.
I will no longer be suffocated by the conservative, tortuous and mediocre, apathetic scum; and so I present you with those that are chic, slutty, and cunty on a quest for similar salvation. Without you this isn’t possible: LEE RAE WALSH, DONNA MARCUS DUKE, SAM MOORE, AILO RIBAS, SWEATMOTHER, L SCULLY, MAGGIE VON SACHER, MISHA HONCHARENKO, MAUD ACHEAMPONG, MAYAH MONET LOVELL, BARNEY PAU, YOUTH SELF DEFENCE GROUP, JOEL DIXON.