Biota is a neo-surrealist book with a double-theme. Neo-surreal, following John Ashbery’s conception of an unconscious and conscious, lower-case and all-inclusive surrealism. Double-themed, with Biota first as an umbrella. Biota from the (poeticised) ecological sciences: the organisms that occupy a place, habitat or time together. Marine, terrestrial, digital, living or dead. Asymmetrical / symmetrical. The second theme of Biota is its surreal translations of shrines that are connected with the traditional religion, folklore and myth of Việt Nam. Shrines are places to leave nourishment for dead souls / so they don’t fall into a deep hunger and die / a second death to be reborn as hungry ghosts– / lost souls of eternal hunger. / Of course, all shrines are pockets / and all pockets are houses. Multi-disciplinary artist and beloved friend, Daniel de Filippo makes his own surreal translations through drawings of the poem translations of the shrines – and between each is a ghost’s ephemeral shimmer. Biota is by turns political, autobiographical, travelogue, sketch book, cross-pollination and of course, an odyssey of the surreal.

Endorsements:

"In the 'liquorice glow / of their neural networks', Joel Ephraims' refreshing surrealist poems will have you 'rolling on the supercollider / speed balls of your knees'”. Toby Fitch

“Joel Ephraims’ poems are constantly in motion, undulating with compound words and massed adjectives, where treehouses are ‘star-yolk treading...horizon-brushing’. His shrines to Australia and Vietnam become surreal fairgrounds, haunted by ghosts, in layered almost pixelating descriptions. Urban life’s ‘phantom chameleons’ jostle beneath fruitbats wrapped in their ‘immanent night heraldry’, and the travails of Covid protocols merge with the time-travelling metamorphoses and louring archetypes of science fiction, ‘shadow into mask / soliloquy into elbow’”. Gig Ryan

Author:

Joel Ephraims is a NSW South-coast poet. In 2011 he won the Overland Judith Wright Prize for new and emerging poets, in 2013 his chapbook of poetry Through the Forest was published with Australian Poetry and Express Media’s New Voices Series and in 2016 he won the Overland NUW Fair Australia prize for poetry. At the time of publication he is in his second year of a PhD at the University of Sydney, working on 15238, a conceptual verse novel. He can be contacted at: ‘jeph3931@uni.sydney.edu.au’.

Illustrator:

Daniel de Filippo, a multi-disciplinary artist hailing from the Illawarra, has exhibited works in galleries that range from wax sculptures to screen-based work. As a director, he won the Newcastle Real Film Festival's best short film with "Thirteen Things To Say When You Are Breaking Up With Someone" (2013). Biota is Daniel's first time published as an illustrator, despite many years practicing underground. He can be contacted at: ‘dandefilippo1@gmail.com’.