Between June 1592 and May 1594, an extended outbreak of the plague meant London’s playhouses were ordered to close for much of the time. This forced young dramatists to look for other sources of income, and saw some moving to publish long-form epic poems. William Shakespeare was among those who made the switch, starting with the mildly erotic Venus and Adonis (1593), followed by the more sombre The Rape of Lucrece (1594). Interestingly, it was arguably these poems (seldom braved by readers today) that established Shakespeare’s early reputation. Indeed, for fellow poet Richard Barnfield writing in 1598, it was Venus and Lucrece that earned Shakespeare a place in “fame’s immortall Booke” rather than any of his approximately fifteen previously produced plays. Meanwhile, antiquarian John Weever in his paean to Shakespeare in 1599 was happy to talk about Shakespeare’s “Rose-cheeked Adonis” and “fire-hot Venus” yet seemed much vaguer on his plays; “Romeo Richard; more whose names I know not”.

I begin with this tale of literary history because we at Chasing Cow Productions CIC – an arts collective based in West Dorset who have so far focused mainly on film projects – have decided, in light of our own contemporary pandemic, to also move our attentions to the printed word and are proud to present the first issue of Matter Out of Place, our new zine. Really, as a new collective, we probably should have been doing this all along. After all, publishing a zine is a much easier (and cheaper) way of communicating creative ideas than filmmaking, and doesn’t involve weeks slogging through pre-production, risk assessments, and insurance only to then get soaked on location before then realising that all the footage is unusable because of a continuity error...

Anyway, though we are very keen to get back to filmmaking and bemusing the residents of Bridport with our tripods, hi-vis vests, and inability to fold up a reflector board, producing this zine has been a great experience, providing us with a space to share some fictional pieces, as well being a good excuse for some of us to pursue academic interests, something we always wanted to be a consistent feature of the group. The contributions have come both from Chasing Cow members who have been there from the start, and newer collaborators we’ve met since formalising. Inevitably, some pieces are the product of the current social and political moment including one piece deconstructing the militarised rhetoric of the pandemic, and another trying to get to grips with the much publicised, yet rarely analysed, Alt-Right. However, it’s also nice to have some pieces that aren’t so rooted to the ‘here and now’ – a piece delving into the local folklore that influenced our film Brink by Brink (see p.8 for details of our online première on Saturday 22 August); an essay exploring what Digital Humanities means (which is much more interesting than it sounds, no offence to the author); and a fascinating revisit of the ever-perplexing Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). We also have Part One of Autonomy, a short story set in a post-apocalyptic, post-human (yet not post-vacuum cleaner) future, and an excerpt of one of our member’s own epic poems, She Speaks. We now hope to continue Matter Out of Place beyond this lockdown and make it a quarterly publication. Who knows, maybe like Shakespeare we’ll end up being more well known for this than all our other projects combined.

Finally, a renaissance epic poem would usually open with a dedication to a wealthy courtier who might be flattered enough to patronise the humble author, though the more enterprising ones were known to sneakily produce copies with different dedications in the hope of attracting multiple patrons. Seeing as I don’t think there’s much hope of sponsorship from any of the courtiers currently in government (especially after they read ‘Viral Militarisation’), if you can and wish to support us financially please go to chasingcow.co.uk where you can donate through PayPal which will help fund further issues and other Chasing Cow projects. But the most important thing is just that you have a read and see what you think (and write back to us with any responses) because at the moment it seems that sustained thinking, while contrary to all the urging to ‘get back to normal’, is exactly what is needed. Enjoy!

1 Credit to James Shapiro’s 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare for the views of Shakespeare’s contemporaries.