About The Author
JP Seabright is an Activist Archivist residing in the U-Shíyī District of Lúndūn, an area previously known as East London in the former United Kingdom (pre-Sino division and outside the security perimeter). They have dedicated their life to uncovering cultural records of the prelapsarian era, specializing in unpublished proletarian poetry. This is their first anthology.
INTRODUCTION
The texts contained within this collection date from the last throes of the Anthropocene era, around the time known to current historians as The Fall. Some are believed to originate from just before this global occurrence and some immediately succeeding. It is difficult to provide accurate dates for a period commonly known as the New Dark Ages.
Only four of the texts here are considered complete: the first, entitled Fragments from Before the Fall, is believed to have been pieced together contemporaneously making it a particularly thrilling find; the short pieces Hunting and Weather are also considered complete, as is the artifact entitled CLAP. This text, which some scholars claim originated from a diary entry posted onto the International Network, has the appearance of poetry but, like most of the pieces in this collection, one cannot be certain of the author’s intentions. For this reason, it is hard to determine the original meaning or syntax, but the text presented here is considered more authentic than in previous collections.
The subject matter of CLAP, like many of the other texts contained within this collection, reference the first of several worldwide viral pandemics during the early 21st Century (B.F.). Other texts refer to similar contemporaneous events such as the first stages of global environmental collapse, the series of seismic shifts which heralded the post-Anthropocene era, known colloquially as ‘The Fall’. This anthology presents a fascinating insight into humanity’s reaction and response to these catastrophic events and provides an illuminating lesson for current readers interested not only in the history but culture of those times…
Short Blurbs – For Reference
“In spare, vivid, and visceral language, JP Seabright imagines the potential consequences of continuing to ignore the current and ongoing climate crisis. By framing Fragments from Before the Fall as an anthology of found texts and fragments pieced together contemporaneously by survivors, Seabright allows readers to see from a distance and up close, in medias res, and has juxtaposed apocalyptic horror with tenderness and intimacies.”
Amanda Earl; fallen angel of AngelHousePress and kindred misfit.
“This post-Anthropocene artefact is a post post art fact in which the poet editor of this collection is the archivist of a crisis who has travelled back to meet us from deep within the irretrievable realm of a climate-change-post-place. The Fall is collected and re-presented here in its surviving fragments.”
Cat Chong; Poet, Publisher, Author of Plain Air: An Apology in Transit
“In Fragments from before the Fall Seabright takes on the role of a curator, taking the reader on a tour of an archive of our contemporary ecological moment through the lens of a speculative future. The work offers a pause button, shaking the reader awake to the reality of climate change and our ability to potentially mitigate some of the damage so we don’t all become fragments in a post Anthropocene museum.”
E.P. Jenkins; Editor, Coven Poetry, Author, Rituals and Rewilding: An Ecopoetic Anthology
Beir Bua Press 