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The ocean is a library of skin.
I cross the paper waves and printed sands
To charge a royal copper from your hands,
To stun the groundlings of my London inn.
My master has an pretty tale to spin:
He crowns me painted princeling of my lands,
A manuscript no reader understands.
He lies for me. I take it on the chin
Until I perish. Scholars flay my hide;
They long to read my secret alphabet.
Yet I shall not be bled nor mummified—
Now I decay. My ghost defies them yet:
My ink and flesh are scattered close and wide,
My absence haunts poetic Internet.

 

This poem is inspired by Prince Giolo, aka Jeoly (d. 1692), a Mindanao slave who was exhibited for his tattoos in London, where he died of smallpox. His skin was preserved in Oxford University, but appears to have gone missing.

This poem is a datasonnet, a literary form of the poet's own invention: a strictly metered and rhymed sonnet which readers have the liberty of rearranging in sequence. You are invited to go to the linked document and randomly alter the order of the lines: http://tinyurl.com/princegiolo



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14 Apr 2025

back-legg-ed, puppy shaped and squirmy
the pastor is a woman / with small birds living in the hollows of her eyes.
Strange Horizons
On June 4th, we will be opening for speculative fiction novelette submissions between the word count of 10,000 and 18,000 words. We will cap submissions at 300.
Strange Horizons
On November 3rd, we will be opening for speculative fiction stories written by Indigenous authors. We will be capping submissions at 500.
The formula for how to end the world got published the same day I married the girl who used to bully me in middle school. We found out about it the morning after, on the first day of our honeymoon in Cozumel. I got out of the shower in our small bungalow and Minju was sitting in bed, staring at her laptop.
In this episode of Strange Horizons at 25, editor Kat Kourbeti talks to Charlie Jane Anders about her Strange Horizons publications dating all the way back to 2002, charting her journey as a writer and her experience with the magazine over 20 years, as well as her love for community events and bringing people together.
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