Starting with the Last Name Grochalski by John Grochalski

Published by Coleridge Street Books, John Grochalski’s collection Starting with the Last Name Grochalski is bared teeth, pull-no-punches honest and at times humorous. From daily observations that hold the poet captive to memories stripped down to their essence, Grochalski takes us on a journey of his life observed in detail. Below I am happy to share a few samples:

the sunbather’s ass

while
she sunbathes

in a rose garden
in brooklyn

her bikini top off

her ass barely covered
in a thong

the young boy
walks by

pointing and smiling
at her

tugging his
embarrassed mother’s
sleeve

feeling a new kind
of want
inside of him

one so deep
that he’ll one day
beg for it

to let him go.

This poem makes me smile because it makes me think “this is how it starts,” when young boys learn to be interested in females. I think every parent has had to deal with this scene in some way, their young child noticing bare flesh and the parent being at a loss for a reaction or what to say other than to be embarrassed. I also love that the poet adds that the young boy will beg for this want inside of him to let go, the beginning of lustful feelings and their powerful hold will be wished away.



that’s what i want

there’s never enough money
in my wallet

never enough money
in the bank account

once when i was younger
my mother broke my piggybank
to buy us milk and bread

she cried when she told me
she’d pay it back

and all those years later i’m still so scared

that there’s never enough money
hiding underneath the soiled couch cushions

never enough money
in this little old world

for me


This poem strikes a chord with me and I’m sure it strikes a chord with many of you. We all struggle with money at some point in our lives and it makes you feel vulnerable no matter how young or how old you are. The line “and all those years later i’m still so scared” is a powerful statement. A memory so deep that years later it still makes the grown version of the boy feel scared about having enough to this day.



dobermans

bobby mueller had these
two doberman pinschers
that he’d sick on us
whenever he walked past his house

you’d hear a whistle from the porch
and then these two salivating beasts
would come tearing across the yard

smacking off the fence
foaming at the mouth
trying to get at you before you knew
what was happening.

no one knew what made bobby do this

he was troubled people said
there were family issues
the kid was just a world class asshole

when he wasn’t sicking the Dobermans on us
bobby would ride around in his old man’s car
and throw his garbage at us

mcdonald’s bags full of half-eaten food
the carton of eggs he’d bought at foodland
or wd40 canisters from his backseat

in the winter he’d throw snowballs at us kids
that were laced with rocks and other things
just to give them an extra sting when they hit
your cold, red face
or he’d toss icicles like they were darts

but nothing was as bad as watching those two
goddamned dogs come charging at you

looking at the mueller’s fence as it shook
the gray foam on the beasts’ jowls

their yellow fangs snapping at air, hoping for flesh

listening to bobby’s laughter on the porch
as he chain smoked winstons
and asked you if you’d pissed your pants yet

knowing that you probably had before you tore off back home

his sick laughter trailing you
the convenience store and baseball cards be damned

when bobby took his own life on new year’s eve
in that devil car with the motor running in the garage

a lot of us kids
were more relieved than saddened
as our parents sat us down to make sense of it

it was like a war had ended
peace had somehow been restored
our trivial civilization saved
from strawberry milkshake Molotov cocktails
snowballs with rusty razors hidden in their core

or the snap and strangle of those Dobermans
who now stayed in the Mueller home most of the time
looking out of darkened windows

or when they were in the yard
paced around the muddy landscape
with thick chains around their necks

while all of us emboldened bastard kids
taunted them like paper tiger tough guys

happy to have the vigor and fight
drained from their murderous bodies

now that their master was gone to heaven
like all of those fat priests had said.

This poem hits me at my own core. Having been through hell as a kid in a variety of ways, this one about bullying I can relate to. I can also relate to feeling relief instead of sympathy or sorrow when the bully falls into tragedy. I could go on for pages but I won’t. I’ll simply say that having been through hell inspires people to either become hell raisers themselves or to become those who champion against bullying. I champion against it.


If you enjoyed Starting with the Last Name Grochalski by John Grochalski, you may purchase a copy for yourself for $9.00 at:
http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Last-Name-Grochalski-John/dp/1499754620

Thanks always for reading, please drop in again soon…

Kristina Marie Darling's The Sun & The Moon

The Suns & The Moon, by Kristina Marie Darling, is a haunting and romantic collection centered around a couple who are surrounded by the supernatural. Darling creates a world that struggles with fire and ice, romance and heartbreak, and ultimately envelopes the reader in an enchanting world of her own making. Below I am happy to share some of her work:

(I)
You began as a small mark on the horizon. Then night & its endless train of ghosts. You led them in, one after the other. They took off their shoes, hung their coats & started looking through the drawers. By then I could hardly speak. I realized the lock on the door must not be working. The floor was covered in ash. There was nothing I could do, so I kept trying to tell you goodnight. You just stood there, your hands in your pockets, that small army behind you. That was when they started polishing the knives.

In this collection these ghosts come to stay and ultimately cause trouble for the couple in their home. The idea of ghosts hanging their coats and then hunting through the drawers is an unusual sight to imagine, as most ghosts have no need to do such things. The polishing of the knives sends the ominous signal that these ghosts may mean more harm than good and are here to stay.



XIV
Even when they became unruly, tearing at the floorboards & our furniture, I never expected the ghosts to drive us apart. The change was slow at first. You started sleeping with your eyes half-closed, watching the window for signs. Then sleep came upon me like a breath of winter air, & I woke to an empty bed, your magnificent suit in pieces on the floor. I realized you weren’t my husband any more than I had been your wife. That same day, I saw you standing in the vestibule, but even the light around your eyes was gone.

A marriage can be tested in ways no one anticipates. Here, Darling has ghosts that literally tear the house apart and ultimately the marriage. Throughout the store there are peculiar events where it is as if the husband is in charge of the ghosts but seems driven away by them after introducing them in the first place. I think it is a testament to Darling’s skill to portray a couple’s complexities in such a phantasmagorical manner.



the key hidden somewhere

the curtains scorched & the floor smudged with
ash.


You
would watch me straighten my dress, my veil &

start those small fires in the vestibule. I
did what I could to keep the house from

the


cold.


The fire grew smaller but


that’s what I loved about you.

As true to her form, Darling deconstructs her prose and creates new meaning and visuals with her work. The fires that burn the house leave their ashes behind in the home but yet the house grows cold, just like the love between husband and wife in this story.

If you enjoyed this sample, please purchase a copy of Kristina Marie Darling’s The Sun & The Moon for $16.00, published by BlazeVox Press:
http://blazevox.org/index.php/Shop/new-releases/the-sun-and-the-moon-by-kristina-marie-darling-386/

Thanks always for reading…

how to be another by Susan Lewis

Susan Lewis’ collection, how to be another, is complex, rich, and decadent. It could easily go over your allotted intake of prose, perhaps go above your head, yet is worth submitting yourself to again and again. Her words take time to sink in, dear Reader, and I urge you to take a closer look after the sample I am happy to share with you below:

The Embrace

And in that ecstatic moment he squeezed her harder than he had ever done before, crushing her rib-cage against his like a sprig of lavender or a wedge of lemon, a bagpipe or an emergency alert, squeezing out her fragrance & her juices & her cries, cracking her hollow bones in order to coat himself in her yielding flesh. He did this because there was no other way to endure the concentrated intensity of attachment deposited by the years, but also because he could no longer do without certain information. So he held on, while his Proteus ran through her repertoire of alternatives: not lion or serpent, tree or torrent—but Lolita & hag, consumptive & shrew. He knew enough not to be surprised that the compression he exerted on her living core would transform her, as sand is transformed to stone by the weight of the world. She might even split in two—in which case, he thought, he would possess her doubly. Or perhaps she might disassemble into an entirely new form. & although he feared for the continuity of her identity, he felt sure he could adjust to anything—anything, short of erasure, or whatever might silence her, because then he would never learn what he needed to know.

When I read this, I think of a man so in love with his woman that he must possess her utterly, sink into her and mold her to his own desires. It is a violent, possessive love for this pair above and it makes me wonder who this couple is and if she wants to be consumed so fully, transformed to his side so completely.


Beloved,

I want to thank you for the cage you made. As you know, it fits my narrow outlook to a T, better than the one I made myself. That one, you may recall, replaced my original home. Those were the days! Remember? Back then we were always fed & watered, & could sometimes touch fingers through the bars. Forgive me for wondering why you continue to concern yourself with my well-being. I would have thought, with those instinctively kinetic & incessantly expanding offspring, you’d have your hands full enough with (only the best) locks & bars & other paraphernalia of affection & concern.

I sometimes feel as though I am caged, we all do sometimes. Whether it is by a family member or work or illness, there are a variety of cages we build to either protect ourselves (mentioned in the beginning) or by others who want to control or possess us. I feel there is a complex relationship between the poet and the one she addresses in the prose. While it may not be our privilege to know the story it is a relatable one and I am moved by it.



Kin

You can’t say we didn’t have it coming. You can’t say I didn’t warn you, unless you can. On the bright side, there were breadcrumbs littering the forest floor. Hansel mistook the place for some kind of confection. We haven’t done anything wrong yet, whined Gretel, whipping out her loaves & fishes, whacking her witless brother about the head. Hundreds of years later we’re still lost & wandering, getting by on miracles & the fumes from our self-directed rage. Confusion is our guiding principle. Entropy lights some sort of way, which is the best we can hope to achieve in these dark & scary woods.

I always love twists on classics. While this may be the “familiar” tale of Hansel and Gretel it turns the focus towards the relationship between Hansel and Gretel. While they may still be “lost & wandering” hundreds of years later they have somehow escaped danger at various turns. It makes me wonder about their full history, their full story.


As I said earlier, I urge you to take a closer look at Susan Lewis’ collection, how to be another. To purchase a copy for $17.00 please go to:
http://www.susanlewis.net/books/

Thanks always for reading…

JoAnna Penn Cooper's What Is A Domicile

Joanna Penn Cooper’s What Is A Domicile, published by Noctuary Press, explores reality and memory intertwined from domestic life versus nature, of dreams and reality. It is a complex and beautiful collection, I am happy to share some inviting tidbits with you:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I’m writing to inform you of my qualifications on this sunny day inside wearing silent headphones, a small white feather stuck to one foot. I can hear that tree clearing its throat outside my fifth floor walk-up. I can see all this packing and half unpacking of boxes as a compulsive metaphor for how we’re all of us always moving, always learning it all the freaking time: How to lose how to lose how to lose. How to know the dark leather gloss of July leaves and let them go. How to wear the crown of love and fresh pita for lunch and let it go. My life is not a plastic hamster ball. My life is not that refugee song. Not any more than anyone else’s. I’ve cured myself of being so meta, or else I’ve embraced it. Either way I’m wearing the crown. Either way, we’re all wearing the crown.

--I can picture the poet at her writing desk staring out the window and letting her thoughts flow onto the paper. This makes me contemplate life, too, especially the “losing” and “letting go” of things. How we often have to learn this the hard way, letting things go and moving on. “My life is not a plastic hamster ball”—references the idea that she does not live in a bubble safe from the world’s afflictions. It’s a great poem for freeing our own thoughts on life’s journey.



*
All these dreams: Some interview in a large house and who will take care of it.

Having woken: A kind of yelling back and forth about the work they’re doing out there. Trying to clean the fine grit yesterday’s work left.

In the dream: A movie that isn’t a very good movie in a small round room. The good part is in the water under our feet. A turning whale.

Awake: Dread of small tasks. Resentment. Leaves out dirty windows, seeming to greet your.

Another dream: Staying in your home, an orphan. Staying in your orphan tower.

--What actually grabbed my eye in this poem was “Awake: Dread of small tasks. Resentment…” because it is often when I awake from dreaming that all the small tasks of the day come flooding into my mind and I dread them. So this dream/wakeful state is a wonderful illustration of daily life for many of us. You cling to the memory of the dreams while your brain begins work on the daily tasks. The orphan and orphan tower at the end makes me think that the poet wants to stay in her dreamworld and forget about the waking one.


*
This year
let your eyes focus
then let them go wild

Eat the air

--This poem is just a plain guilty pleasure to share. I want to follow its advice.



If you enjoyed this review, you may purchase a copy of Joanna Penn Cooper’s What Is A Domicile for $14.00 at:
http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780988805118/what-is-a-domicile.aspx

If you’d like to learn more about Joanna Penn Cooper, visit her blog at:
http://joannapenncooper.blogspot.com/

An Interview with Eric Shonkwiler: Above All Men

Earlier this year I featured a review of Shonkwiler’s novel, Above All Men, and had the opportunity to interview him about his novel. Below is his biography and our Q&A:
Eric Shonkwiler has had writing appear in Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, Fiddleblack, [PANK] Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere. He received his MFA in Fiction from University of California–Riverside, where he was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship Award, and is a regional editor for Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as a former reader for [PANK] and former Editor-in-Chief for CRATE: The Literary Journal of UCR. Born and raised in Ohio, Eric has lived and worked in every contiguous U.S. time zone, and finds himself on the road as often as not. He is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel, Above All Men, a 2014 Midwest Connections Pick released in March from MG Press. You can find him at ericshonkwiler.com.

1.) Let’s begin with the landscape that inspires all of the events that take place within the story’s main characters. The future is famine, crops dying from drought, dust storms sweeping through and further hindering the chance of animals and plants to thrive. Why did you decide the future would become a dustbowl?

ERIC SHONKWILER: It seemed like a logical and poetic result of global warming. While I might not get the location of the bowl right (Ohio’s been getting good rains for a few years, for instance, while California’s dry as a bone.), it seems rather likely that the change in climate is going to result in some semi-permanent disasters akin to the Dustbowl of the 1930s.


2.) The main character, David, struggles between family, independence, and revenge for the wrongs done to his friends in the story. Often, his wife complains that he is always leaving them behind. Why did you create a character with such complex wanderlust?

ES: It’s not exactly wanderlust that drives David; it’s a profound desire for service. David has in him a messianic complex that, when combined with his clearly deep war traumas, creates a man who’s ready to perform virtually any sort of self-sacrifice, without realizing that sacrificing himself comes at great cost to his family.


3.) Red comes across as a free-spirited man who served alongside David in the war that brings out David’s darker side. Can you tell me how you created Red’s character? Is he a foil to David’s family-man struggles?

ES: Because David is a closed-off individual, almost anyone who can keep up with him becomes a foil; Red, Helene, and O.H. all take their turns countering or interrupting David’s worldview. Red started as a much simpler idea than that—he was just David’s friend. They fought side by side, and, at a climactic moment, were split apart. These two different paths show that a single event or a single decision can fundamentally change a person, and though it wasn’t my initial intention to illustrate that with their relationship, that is what came of it.


4.) An African-American family moves in—believing a sales pitch in the city they used to live in and hoping to farm the desolate land—and are delivered a dose of reality by David. This seems to be a direct nod to Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Were you inspired to spin a modern version from Steinbeck?

ES: The similarities with The Grapes of Wrath are largely incidental—You’re bound to cover the same sort of territory because the subjects are similar; poor farmers and exploited citizens are shared characters in the two books. There is, however, a bit of a wink to Grapes when Fogel mentions going to California.


5.) Samuel, David’s son, makes friends with the new family’s daughter. The events that transpire afterward send Samuel into a deepening silence. Samuel’s path keeps leading back toward David’s, and his mother, Helene, worries about that path. What is behind Samuel’s character that he follows the man who keeps leaving their family, as opposed to a path like the women in his life who stay loyal and close to their own family?

ES: I think it’s natural for Samuel to gravitate toward David’s path, because from the outside it appears to be one of action and righteous anger. Samuel doesn’t see (and for most of his youth, doesn’t know) that David has and does “leave” the family. Complicating this is the intertwining of David’s path with Red’s, which Samuel finds even more exciting. Ultimately, I think you can’t ask a boy his age, having seen what he’s seen, to understand that the women in his life have been fighting the good fight longer and more consistently than the men he knows and admires. He’s a smart boy, but he is just a boy.


6.) What influenced your choice of landscape and setting into the future?

ES: I wanted a setting that was quintessentially American, and I’m a Midwesterner, so it seemed easy and iconic to write what I knew about, in that instance. I also wanted the issues that we seem to be facing today to be seen playing (or played) out on the page, and causing real and heavy consequences. This led rather naturally to the future.


7.) What books are you reading currently?

ES: I’m deep into Mario Vargas Llosa’s The War of the End of the World, and for research purposes, I’m leafing through a few books on mining in New Mexico. Next up will probably be either Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist or Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries.



8.) What project(s) are you working on right now that we may be able to look for in the future?

ES: I’m finishing up and shopping around a second novel, with a light noir flavor, titled, Eighth Street Power & Light¸ that I’d love to see on shelves relatively soon. I’m also researching and repeatedly starting and deleting a third novel that has some Western elements to it.

Thank you always for reading. To purchase a copy of Above All Men by Eric Shonkwiler, please go to:
http://midwestgothic.com/2011/01/above-all-men-by-eric-shonkwiler/

For more information about Eric Shonkwiler, please visit his website:
http://www.ericshonkwiler.com/

Please drop in again soon…

Paul David Atkins' Stick Up

Stick Up, published by Blood Pudding Press in 2014, is a story told in poems about a convenience store being robbed by a woman over 50. Paul David Atkins describes the characters involved and creates tension in the scenes throughout. How it ends will have to be a surprise. Below I’m happy to share a few plot-tantalizing poems:

He Gripped the Alarm

after he heard her from the freezer yell,
This is a stick up!
Around his neck
hung a silent alarm button.
He pressed it once or twice

or forty times

in the seven seconds it took
to crack the door and peek.

He saw a woman with a gun aimed
at the other clerk, demanding

a spool of Treasure Chest lotto tickets.

The other clerk glanced his way
and mouthed
Stay there!

He eased the door,
raised his hands,
shouldered the plastic curtains.

In this scene, I’d definitely be pressing that panic button forty times, wouldn’t you? Yet the main character in the poem makes an attempt to ease forward into the scene, would you be brave enough to do that?


She Thought

She thought, Now, what?
Shit! She held
two hostages, clerks the age
of her kids.

The boy squinted at the gun.
She thought he could tell
it’s a Crossman.

The robber wanted to
get him
out of the store,

figured he’d take off
if she ordered him to run
to the truck
and grab her bottle of Jack
in the passenger seat.

He bolted.

She turned to the girl.
You called police,
I know.
Thank God
the boy is gone.
It’s less
complicated now.

The glass door flew open.
The tin bell shot off.
The clerk and the robber wheeled,
thinking,
Cops!

But it was the boy, red-faced, returning
and waving the whiskey bottle
in his clenched fist
like a gold bell.

A twist in the robber’s plan and a twist for the readers: Who would go back inside the scene after being sent out of it? Here our poet creates heightened tension and keeps our eyes locked on the story.


She Discerned

She discerned a siren approach.
She tensed.
Her pistol ammo rattled
like a pack of tic tacs.
No one spoke

until a fire engine lumbered,
red lights rocking past the store toward
some distant farmhouse burning,
calf-filled barn
collapsing on itself.

April Fools,

the girl clerk forced
herself to blurt.
The robber laughed.

Amid the broken
promises of lotto
strewn across the tile,

beneath the scrolling
Powerball jackpot lights,

beside the humming,
ignorant ice cream freezer,
she laughed. They

all laughed.

Here the poet breaks the tension for all of us. We are left wondering whether any cops will ever show but in the meantime we can all laugh with the clever clerk. What happens next? You’ll have to nab a copy for yourself and find out.



If you enjoyed this review please purchase a copy of Paul David Atkins’ Stick Up from Blood Pudding Press for $7.00 at:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/188110107/new-stick-up-by-paul-david-adkins-2014?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product_listing_promoted&utm_campaign=books_and_zines-book-low&gclid=CM3Dyei9msACFa_m7AodWzYAWQ

Thanks always for reading and please drop in again soon…

Amanda Oaks' Hurricane Mouth

Amanda Oaks’ Hurricane Mouth is published by NightBallet Press and is a powerfully emotional collection of poems that describe the impact of words, thoughts, actions on relationships within the poet’s life. They are beautiful and hardscrabble, delicate yet tough in sinew. The poems are honest and brutal and life-affirming. It is another collection where I have “dog-eared” the majority of the pages and had to settle for a select few to share with you, dear readers:

WE’RE ON OUR OWN OUT HERE

Late summer, picking peas
cornfield just feet away,
I would tiptoe with the words
of warning looped ‘round
every strand of my hair.

When wearing pigtails,
all those locks acting together
could be thunderous
but I would plug my ears & run
in any one direction
until my lungs felt like the tires
of that far-off tractor
I overheard many a time
was plotting my death.

Out there though,
I witnessed the wind
unearth harmony.
The way the stalks
would touch,
sliding against one another,
hissing like plastic bags
clothespinned to a wire
& dangling from the mouth
of a paper-winged crow.

I found safety in the squeeze,
stuck between clear-cut emotion.
There’s something in there
that you can’t close your ears to,
like barn rats
or the secrets I found
in the laughter of ghost children
jumping from rock to stone
in the creek bed
behind my house.

Standing still,
before walking in silence
all the way back to the alarm
in my grandmother’s voice,
looking up to the clouds
for a way out—
twenty-seven years later
& I still have yet to find it
outside of these words.

I love the landscape of this poem. I picture the poet as a young girl lost in the cornfields, her grandmother searching for her as the tractor plows on indifferent to a child’s presence. All the sights, sounds, the feelings, they are all captured so well in this poem and reminds me of my own childhood adventures.


IF YOU WERE A CITY
--after Heather Sommer

If you were a city, every day at dusk
I’d fill my pockets with packets of seeds
to pepper the rainwater rivers running
through the cracks of your asphalt
heart.

If you were a city, I’d let your air sweep
over & under & over my hand hanging
from a car window, pedal pressed to 60
on your reckless boulevard.

If you were a city, I’d never drag my feet
on your sidewalks, I’d never love you

any
less

because your light drowns out the stars.

If you were a city, I’d never judge you
by your infrastructure.

I’d never ask you
how well you think we
stack up.

This poem is sweet and tender to me, packets of seeds to grow life into asphalt of the love interest’s heart. The light of the city “drowns out the stars,” making the love interest seem complex and full of life in a way that cannot be captured any other way. I cannot do this poem justice, only that I just love this poem for all that it is.



FROM MY MONOTONE MOUTH

I boil water. I pace the floors.
Cold kitchen tile under feet.
I look out the windows.
I curse the cold. I want to pull
all my teeth out one by one,
seal them in an envelope
with a note to you reading:

For you, dear,
my last true smile.

This poem is eerie and makes me smile anyway. I have had my own moments of “lunacy” where doing something like the above would be appealing. When someone drives you to the brink in your thoughts of them and you want to pull your hair out—or your teeth. Love this poem.


If you enjoyed this review you may purchase a copy of Amanda Oaks’ Hurricane Mouth for $8.00 here:
http://www.amazon.com/Hurricane-Mouth-Amanda-Oaks/dp/1940996562

To learn more about Amanda Oaks, (writer, Kindness Advocate and female extraordinaire) please visit at:
http://www.amandaoaks.com/p/books.html


Thanks always for reading, please drop in again soon…

black hands of a morning calm by Ayshia Stephenson

black hands of a morning calm by Ayshia Stephenson is published by imaginaryfriendpress (who doesn’t LOVE the name of this press?) and follows our poet’s experiences overseas where her skin color stands out more than she’s ever imagined. In South Korea she begins to feel uncomfortable even around her fellow Americans who reside in this country with her, longing to feel enveloped by the color black amidst the sea of night lights and South Koreans who stream past her. The collection is beautiful in the poet’s expression of her sense of self outside of her native country of America and of her ethnic background in relation to South Korea. I feel I cannot do her justice, nevertheless I am happy to share some of her poems with you:

i cough at the cafeteria table
when the kin-chi is too hot

i wonder too much at night
and think
when i don’t understand

in the morning
i force myself
to go outside
to become someone
else

that foreigner
who should follow
the rules walk
straight and avoid
the eyes
of other westerners

that foreigner
that american blocking
the penetration
of han-guk sa-ram stares
pushing through
the subway masses
bumping into those
who try to brush off
the black

Stephenson captures the loneliness of meal time even among fellow westerners in this poem. Despite her loneliness she sees herself as a physical obstacle to those surrounding her, “bumping into those/who try to brush off/the black” and I picture the flow of people who brush against her then brushing against walls or other people to “brush off the black” and wonder if this is what she witnessed or if she simply felt out of place in the scene.



in the first snow storm
i walk
with the foreigners
where the foreigners live
and i see her
i see her black skin in the falling flakes

and i want to

kiss her
hug her
closer
but she
keeps her
head
straight walks
past me

she is african
but i am american
so we are
different and we are
not the same

Even when there is the potential for familiarity and comfort the feeling of rejection and of being ignored is brought heartbreakingly to the forefront by her fellow dark-skinned traveler when she looks straight ahead and doesn’t make eye contact. I have had similar experiences and the feeling is vast and empty. Here she captures it well, they may have the same skin, but they are of different countries and this prevents connection yet again.


foreigner
let the sweat drip
down your face
i smile with my americans
in our
i-tae-won night clubs
we turn torsos into waves
because beats
belong to everybody
because music
doesn’t belong to skin

This poem frankly raises an “Amen!” out of me. It is one reason I love dance so much in general, no matter what country you are from, there is the ability to communicate through body language and through dance most of all. Love this poem, it’s a personal pleasure to share.



If you enjoyed this review as much as I enjoyed reading her collection, you may purchase a copy of Ayshia Stephenson’s black hands of a morning calm for $15.00 here:
http://www.imaginaryfriendpress.com/2014/02/black-hands-of-morning-calm-by-ayshia.html

Thanks always for reading, please drop in again soon…

Eric Shonkwiler's Above All Men

Above All Men by Eric Shonkwiler, published by MG Press, is set in the future where drought has devastated the country. Cities empty out as people flee to the country in hopes to farm their way out. Existing farms face the hardships of running out of fuel for their equipment and are forced to grow what little they can by hand. Dust storms sweep across the landscape filling homes and barns with sand.

The main character, David Parrish, does his best to help his neighbors and a gullible family duped into believing they can turn their luck around after leaving Atlanta. David’s son, Samuel, befriends the new family’s little girl, Mel, while David attempts to teach the family how to farm only to end up helping to build a rudimentary house on his own property for the family when those attempts fail.

David’s past as a War Veteran haunt him throughout, including a visit from his fellow veteran and best friend Red, instilling flashbacks that spur David to wander away from his family time and time again as he tries to reconcile tragic events that befall the characters of this story. When Sam’s friend Mel is murdered the turn of events rock David and his family to their core. David’s wife begs for him to stay home as she watches Sam slide further into himself, David leaves and begins hunting for clues on his own since the local law enforcement failed to turn up leads.

There are layers of daily life that all collide towards the end, from a mining boss who keeps trying to convince David to join his company and give up farming, to David’s neighbor who keeps an eye on the family when David is away. There is also the Sherriff’s Deputy who is keen on David’s wife and finds ways to visit the farm while David tries to find Mel’s killer.

The novel is engrossing and frightening in its potential realities. The children in the novel have never experienced the internet and when the adults make the mistake of mentioning such technology they quickly retreat and change the subject as though it would be too painful to mention when people around the world were more connected. Cars no longer exist on the road; horses that run free are sought after, any animals that offer sustenance are highly prized. This novel seems to be a nod toward’s Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath but with a futuristic twist with a murder mystery combined.

This book kept me up nights and I imagine it will do the same for you. If you’d like to obtain a copy of Eric Shokwiler’s Above All Men for yourself, you may purchase a copy for $13.21 at Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/Above-All-Men-Eric-Shonkwiler/dp/0988201321/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393295983&sr=8-1&keywords=above+all+men

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Music for another life. A Collaborative text by Kristina Marie Darling and Max Avi Kaplan

Max Avi Kaplan’s photography capture a glamorous 1950’s high-style woman who is spun into a wife who reveals the unglamorous side of domestic bliss under Kristina Marie Darling’s skilled hands. I am not able to share the photos that pair with each poem, so please sneak a peek any way you can and/or purchase a copy for yourself, the photos truly set the scene for each piece. A woman named Adelle, who longs for domestic bliss and finds none, she is one who abandons the notion only to reveal the complexities of having been part of married life and then no longer being part of the world so highly touted by conventional society. The balance of being married and no longer being married tilts back and forth in the pages as Adele’s thoughts melt into readers’ minds as Darling challenge the “conventional norm.” Darling and Kaplan bring forth the all too familiar diatribe of women who “snag a man” only to become invisible to them as they keep the house clean while also trying to strap on their high heels and dresses only to find their once devoted lover glued to the television screen or worse, running off to be with another woman who has distracted them away from home. Below I am happy to reveal a few samples:

ADELLE BURIES HERSELF FOR A WEEK

I always wondered what it would be like to live alone. Back then I thought I might still acquire friends, hobbies, or pets. I knew I’d keep the tea kettle warm, real daisies blooming outside the window. What I didn’t imagine back then was the stillness. Every room seems like an ocean. I tried buying myself new things: a television, some dishes, a new bed set. Now my pillow is soft but the stone walls are firm. No one ever wants to come in for tea or cocoa. Every time I close my eyes I hear the kettle shriek.

I love this piece because it hits home for me in a different way. Whenever I lived completely alone I found myself very happy yet noticed that the social life dropped off in a dramatic way just as Darling indicates above. I especially love the line “Every room seems like an ocean,” because I know exactly what she means. Each room’s emptiness vast and expanding when you are all alone. When you go to bed alone, you imagine sounds that are not there because there is no one else to distract you from yourself. Here Adelle is adjusting to life on her own and finding the balance of trying to make herself happy in this new state of being alone while thinking about all that she wishes for such as friends dropping in or pets greeting her at the door.



ARE YOU A MAGNIFICENT BIRD OR A SMALL CHILD

By the time I turned twenty I knew I’d never stay married. Not to a man. Not to a copywriter in a charcoal suit. And not to a god or a marble statue in a church. I knew I’d never stay married because I didn’t want to be married. What I did want, though, was a party with croissants and fresh strawberries. I began inviting friends to celebrate my freedom, my unattachedness. I sent crisp little cards in cream-coloured envelopes. Until finally the day arrived and my doorbell rang. When I opened the door, there was no one there.

It is heartening to read of a woman who doesn’t want the conventional lifestyle. That there are alternative ways of existing in the world. I love that she will not even marry God, as nuns do, and belongs only to herself. I wonder about the ending when the “day arrived and my doorbell rang. When I opened the door, there was no one there.” It sounds as though there was supposed to be a suitor at her doorstep and yet the suitor turns out to be invisible and perhaps signifies her resolve to remain unattached. The mysterious suitor may simply be Freedom.



THE BRIDE OF

Your new wife checks her makeup, holds a pink plastic mirror in her perfect hand. I suppose it’s easy to hurt someone when you know exactly what you want. She’d been Hollywood-bound, a minor film star. But you stopped her on the bridge to California. You stopped her with one look, a quick flash of your black leather checkbook. While the two of you talk about groceries, I sneak back into our old house. Our marriage bed creaks on broken springs. Who even lives here anymore? No one would sleep under these moth-eaten sheets. I’m sick of cooking meals that don’t get eaten.

There is another piece about the new wife that I like also, but this one strikes me most because Adelle sneaks back into her former home and tests the bed and the sheets. Adelle doesn’t really say her regrets or whether she is thankful, we only know part of the story above and it is up to us to decide from our own experiences with love and loss. For me, it would be a mix of bittersweet regret and relief of things not turning out as they should. The line “Who even lives here anymore?” shows that she can see how much has changed in her absence, that the signs of her now ex-husband have changed enough that she doesn’t recognize him in his new role with his new wife.



If you enjoyed this sample of Kristina Marie Darling’s and Max Avi Kaplan’s Music for another life as much as I do, you may purchase a copy for $18.00 at:
http://www.blazevox.org/index.php/Shop/new-releases/music-for-another-life-by-kristina-marie-darling-and-max-avi-kaplan-359/

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Susan Yount's House On Fire

Susan Yount’s House On Fire is published by Blood Pudding Press and carries with it the weight of overcoming childhood’s complexities and rising above the ashes. Her poems are raw and beautiful, provocative and daring. I am happy to share a sample below:


Sissy

holds the bloated baby goat.
Tongue licks death. He bawls
recoiling neck and I cannot stop this.
Evident Baby is sick beyond kilter,
straw sticks to his teeth. Yet I
still pretend to call the vet
and help support Baby’s neck.

Sissy looks at me and blue eyes
balloon behind saline. Life whiffs
in her hands while the phone rants
off hook. She drops to her knees
opening frothy shriveled goat lips.

Breathes into him
as hard as she can.

To me, this poem illustrates how tough you have to be in the everyday life of farm work. Yount knows the goat is doomed and tries to revive him anyway. Often we don’t think of animals receiving CPR, we think of it only as a caring act for humans. The tenderness and terror make this a remarkable poem.



The Oracle

I have read your cards
today, you beautiful,
moonstruck moth—
stay away from the light.
Later tonight,
when you take that hit,
ask yourself, why do I want it?
Why be depressed all the time?
You will find there is no
good reason and trip
into the hotel hot tub.
Stop drinking.
Stop writing
about your father.

Forget
the folding house is
folding faster. Of course,
every time you take a hit,
it changes you. Next time,
you might not be as beautiful.
Next time, you might not
come back. Be grateful
with your life. For I have
seen you die at the Flaming Lips
concert. I have seen you
come back again. I have
seen you naked and noted
your tattoo. I have not seen

your cyst but I have been
your chiropractor,
your gallbladder.
Your antihistamine
just so you can breathe.
Focus now—
remember the house
where you practiced
your death. Shadows
of apple trees in the back—
the folding house
folding you. The place
you practiced your
life, sleep. I have seen
the band-aid on your pinky
shredding zucchini in 2009.

Be careful
where you are now.
You could be drinking beer
at your computer. The paintings
your baby made—melting.
You could be Elizabeth Bishop
burning in a house.
You could be a ghost fish
and you were already dead

at the Indigo Girls concert in 1995.
Everyone thought you were a saint.
Wear your hair in pigtails again
and they will cry at your feet.
You die several times—

your solo car wreck.
This time. You change
listening to the immunization
officer. He will let you register
as long as you only take
one class. Often. There is life outside tetanus shots.
Life outside the fold.
Next time—

You are drunk.

And that helps.
You are folding snow;
close now.
You are barely alive.
You are just a dollar

away from that Indigo Girls song
so that you can remember—
the folding house, the balcony.

Life below you.
The stories of you
falling. Headed
out a window.
Your pink infected
at 9:49 pm. This is 2009.
You haven’t asked to see
the future—

you remember it.
Fugitive. Hammer.
Nail. Just another hit.
They won’t stop
coming and crying.

In this poem, Yount is referring to a Tarot card reader predicting her life along with her own predictions from learning to read Tarot cards under his tutelage. Yount was kind enough to give me insight into this poem as I found it difficult to determine who the Oracle is. It is a fantastical and dark world that is told by the cards.



Almost Dark

I hear his truck throw gravel
so I go hide in the woods.
He looks for me, thinking I am
somewhere between the rabbit cages
and the goat pen but I am not.
I watch him from the creek.
He doesn’t think to look there
and yells my name—
as if I would come.

Maple leaves gargle his throat-call
and I squat thinking of ways
to kill him. He hasn’t quit looking
for me yet and scans the tree line.
I bet he is angry now,
his face turned beer-cooler red.
He knows I’m hiding.

I see him
walk back to his truck
and grab another High Life.
I go deeper into the woods
and pick up that heavy shovel I left
when I buried the litter of Flemish Giants
dogs ate on. He’ll stumble
through here soon enough.

This poem is terrifying. The implications are loaded as we read on to find out what happens to the poet and her father. If you read the other poems in this collection you will learn why she is hiding in the woods and the hunt will leave your heart pounding for her. While we wonder about the true ending we know the poet survives to tell the tale.



I cannot do these poems the justice they deserve, they will tug at your core self. If you enjoyed this review, you may purchase a copy of Susan Yount’s House On Fire from Blood Pudding Press for $7.00 at:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/177826146/new-house-on-fire-by-susan-yount-2014?ref=shop_home_feat_1

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Rebecca Schumejda's Waiting at the Dead End Diner

Rebecca Schumejda’s collection, Waiting At The Dead End Diner, is published by Bottom Dog Press and is a very entertaining read. From budding romance to scandalous relationships both in and outside of the Diner alone with tragedies of losing a loved one to illness or to ideology, it is all here. Characters that melt your heart, make you grimace, or make you grin, you will not be able to forget the names inside these pages any time soon. Morals good, bad, and ambiguous all play out in Schumejda’s skillful hands. I have dog-eared many pages to share but will pare them down to just a few poems and I urge you to purchase this collection for yourself. You will also have renewed, or perhaps new, sympathy and appreciation for any and all who work in the restaurant industry. You will also find yourself driving to your nearest Diner and listen closely to the stories of the lives of the workers around you. Here are a few poems to whet your appetite:

The Weed Whacker

In the weeds, during a breakfast shift
with Lillian, I go into the kitchen with a
bouquet of orders that wilt instantly
under Tommy’s insults.

Back on the floor, while I dash around
in search of refills, condiments,
missing sides for the nine tables
in my section, Lillian, who is more than
three times my age, glides gracefully
around her seventeen tables
like a figure skater, poised enough
to ask each person how so-and-so’s doing,
if they got that promotion they were up for
or what place their child came in at the
science fair. I can’t even remember who
asked for the hot sauce that just came uncapped
in my apron and is running down my leg.

But Lillian knows and places another
bottle of hot sauce in front of Frank,
who’s fuming because he’s already eaten
half his eggs dry. Lillian smiles and says,
This should cool you down, and he cracks
a smile and begins chit-chatting about
the men down at the firehouse
about how big Al’s son just had a baby girl.

If you are a regular at any restaurant or diner where you live then you know there’s always that one server or employee that you look forward to seeing there. You know you’ll be taken care of and they do have that magic way of remembering you and your family. I grew up that way with my parents at a local Cracker Barrel in El Paso, Texas. I always wonder what happened to the waitress that always brought out a bowl of whipped cream for my little sister and if she still works there. Who do you look forward to seeing when you go to your dining place of choice?



Cold Soup and Overdone Steak

A woman at one of Jolene’s tables
grabs Carlos by the wrist and scolds him:
I don’t know how they serve soup in
your country, but in this country,
they serve it hot—bring this back now.

Carlos apologizes, takes the soup
and tells Jolene. Later after the woman
cuts into her steak, she snaps her fingers
and screams across the diner,
Hey you, soup boy. She adds
incessant finger snapping.

When Carlos gets to her, she puts
her plate to his face and says,
Would you look at this? Does this
look rare to you? I said I wanted it
to moo. Carlos says he’ll get Jolene,
but she says No, bring it back now!

Expressionless, Carlos does what
he is told. Tonight is the one night
a week he calls home to El Salvador
to talk with his kids on the phone.
He goes into the kitchen, gives
the steak back to Rick then opens
his wallet and takes out their picture.
He looks at his family,
ignoring Rick who mumbles,
I’ll make this cow moo for the bitch.

My blood boils for Carlos and the restaurant in general. Having worked in customer service (as a secretary) I can relate to rude customers who treat people the way this one does. I wish I knew if Rick spit in this woman’s food, too.



The Things We Bring

George decides to close the diner
from 6pm to 6am on Christmas Eve.
Edna invites us over to her house
and because I didn’t want to drive to
my parents’ house, I go over with a bag of chips,
a 16 oz. container of French onion dip,
a bottle of white table wine with a twist-off cap,
and a pair of flowered gardening gloves
folded into white tissue paper for Edna.

Maggie comes with her daughter,
brings a casserole, a bottle of vodka,
and two boxes wrapped in shiny red paper.
Rick carries a case of beer
with a potted red poinsettia balanced
precariously on top.
Jolen comes with her boyfriend
from the bowling alley, two twelve-packs,
and scratch off lottery tickets for everyone.
Rochelle brings a painting for Edna
and a loaf of golden Challah bread.
Carrie brings statues of the three wise men
and Danny, who carries her coat and pocketbook.

Tommy wears a Santa hat,
brings a large pan containing a cooked
spiral ham, green beans in a cream sauce
decorated with slivers of almonds,
a box of chocolates and a red envelope
for Edna. Then George enters
with a pan of baklava and a
bouquet of two dozen red roses.
Everyone is relieved his nail tapping
wife made other plans. Asif brings
a cheesecake and two small boxes.
He hands one to Edna and the other to me.
Even Hakim stops by for a minute
to drop off the clay owl he made for Edna.

We sit around two rickety card tables
pushed together and covered with
a beige laced table cloth laughing
about how Edna is running around
waiting on us on her day off. Sit down,
Tommy orders, and all the men
take over, waiting on us.

Later as Asif sits down beside me and
rests his hand gently on my leg,
I imagine what is inside each of the gifts
under Edna’s tree. Gifts, Maggie says,
Edna brings out every year.
They are the ones she bought for
her husband, son and grandson
the year fate stole them from her.

This poem brings my heart to my mouth. If you read this collection this poem touches you more deeply because you have gotten to know every single individual named in the poem above by now. The kindness of the gathering of coworkers as family and the tragedy of the ending stanza brings the complex feelings of most holiday gatherings into a bright and uncomfortable light.


There are countless poems I want to share with you but you will have to read this collection for yourself and it is definitely a worthwhile read. If you enjoyed this review you may purchase a copy of Rebecca Schumejda’s Waiting At The Dead End Diner from Bottom Dog Press for $17.00 at:
http://smithdocs.net/recent_bottom_dog_press_titles

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Vow by Kristina Marie Darling

Kristina Marie Darling’s collection, Vow, published by BlazeVox press, explores the fictional tale of a bride and groom whose world is being consumed by fire. Using the effects of white space as she often does, Darling allows our imaginations to dictate the couple’s interactions in our minds. Darling creates enigmatic imagery of keys and locks, the feeling of helpless acceptance of being consumed by fire, being burned perhaps by each other. The word vow is taken to the extreme and played out amongst the flames and I am happy to share some of her work with you:

Our house burns with light. He is a shattered window overlooking the desert. I am smoldering in a field of dead poppies.
The fire is tearing at floorboards, the rooms, us. It’s the second night, and already we realize the danger of bringing children into a barren landscape.
So we bury our vows one by one. We are pieces of an altar collapsing from the inside.

I picture a couple who realize exactly what they are truly in for once they have gotten past that first wedding night, having that heart to heart talk that sets their initial dreams and expectations on fire. Hence why the fire tears at them and they realize the danger of children, the vows being buried, and the proverbial altar collapsing.



I dream another me exists in the burning home, reading aloud from what I have written. Broken glass. A sad film. The awkward silence.
I had always thought night would feel like: an electric current, the most startling numbness in every fingertip. Throughout the landscape, a small fire would still be blazing.
But somehow in the dream I’ve grown wings. Tell me, does this change everything--?
I want to use them so badly, but I don’t know how—

In this the bride wants a different version of herself in the life she finds herself, along with wings. I assume she either wants to soar above her problems or fly away altogether. Either way, the disappointment of the moments in her life permeate the words above and we feel her pain with her.



The house was vast, but so much of it seemed inaccessible: locked rooms, an iron gate, and the envelopes with their dark red seals.

This is a short piece but powerful nonetheless. I imagine the house being an expression of marriage, the secrets that are kept under lock and key, the wax seals beckoning to be opened to reveal secrets that come out after vows have been exchanged at the altar.


If you enjoyed this sample you can obtain a copy for yourself. To purchase a copy of Vow, by Kristina Marie Darling, please visit the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/Vow-Kristina-Marie-Darling/dp/1609641604/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386243579&sr=1-10&keywords=kristina+marie+darling

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Ally Malinenko's The Wanting Bone

Ally Malinenko’s work has appeard in HeART, Mad Poet’s Review, and more, she also has published a children’s book titled Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb. Her collection, The Wanting Bone, is published by Six Gallery Press and is a collection of poems that get at the raw and tender meat of living and dying, from a father going through chemo to witnessing missing fingers, from finding a voice in tragedy to losing that voice in tragedy, it is all here. I have marked too many pages to share, I am happy to share a sample of Malinenko’s incredible work below:

In His Image

I’m holding out for a real bible class.
Something with stomping and hollering,
fat hands coming together
like the venom they got on the bathwater banks of the south.
The juice that makes you all itchy under the knees.

I’m waiting on Jesus
to pry his sore body off that swampy cross
yell hallelujah, give us a little meaty saving to clamp down on.
Show us he’s still working to keep the lonely coming back.
Do a little soft shoe right there on the altar,
a little Sammy Davis Jr. style miracle.

Until then,
until the proof is a pearly white smile from the maker himself,
I’m fine right here, guarding and stockpiling
my list of grievances and possible suggestions for the next go-round.
Like, a little less sorrow would be nice.

Regardless of what those stiff white-collared
missionaries say, we all go un-forgiven.
You can see it, floating in the milky cataract of their blue eyes.
They are just collecting anguish and guilt
like loose change in a beggar’s tin cup.
I know spirits, slippery devils. I hear the quick
whisper of my name under the subway cars.

I’ve seen ghosts and a handful of goblins.
I’m waiting on the big man himself.
I want to check for flesh under those silk robes
pad him down, like a criminal.
Rub my hand against his cheek,
tug at the bristly stubbly skin,
and feel the proof that we are blood.
I want to kiss him full on the mouth
tell him we are even now.

For any of us that have struggles with Faith or questioned it, this is a poem that speaks to such feelings. I love the stanza about missionaries “collecting anguish and guilt/like loose change in a beggar’s tin cup,” being raised Catholic I can relate to such an idea. We all want proof of a higher being in existence and I love Malinenko’s take on it, including the “bristly stubbly skin” which I had never pictured until her poem. It’s a great poem about the questioning of faith and relationship with Christianity.



9 Months After You Died

Leaning against the window
my thick heart pumping blue.
I press my skin to the glass
and wish I had apricot
tea from Thailand.
Watching the leaves fall
I close my eyes thinking
of gypsy women
long braided Thai tassels
all that sun kissed skin.
A country with a different season.
I think of the clock pressing forward.
Here, I think of turning to talk to the dead.
I have a thick tongue begging for ancient
tea dropped and steeped in wisdom and
respect for ghosts
tapping the other side of the windowpane.

I love how personal this poem is, I wonder what happened in Thailand with the loved one who has gone on and our poet. The ghosts of memories flooding up to the poet’s memory is shared beautifully here and I can picture her leaning her forehead against a cool windowpane. It makes me long for more of the story behind the poem.



Shipwrecked

Oh my early morning walks
I watch the cracked sidewalk blocks
slide away from me
thinking that they might just come apart completely
or that
if I keep walking eventually they will turn into
the Brooklyn Bridge’s pine slats
arching over those waves like a woman’s spine
and I’ll be able to peak through the planks,
on my hands and knees
and catch my breath
as the massive tugboats appear, like iron Triton
and then slide by.
I think of those people that wave goodbye
and gently slip from here
smacking down hard against water
so fluid that all their molecules break apart and
become their own tiny canal

or
the sidewalk could just turn from concrete right into saltwater
soaking through the stitching of my boots.
So much of me has always been liquid anyway
and there are already tiny cracks in my delicate skull.
Fissures like tributaries to the set of choices I didn’t make.
I think it would be like going home
water-logged and bloated.

It seems as though it’s taking forever to get
where I am trying to go
and my wandering has become aimless
over the years.
But I keep finding these rivers, black oil water
cold and ceaseless
wearing things down, carving slices
into the granite of this land
into the trunks of my legs
and through the center of my palms
until I have come undone
and all that is left is my shipwrecked heart
still pumping water.

This poem speaks to me because I love solitary long walks and let my mind wander just as Malinenko’s does. She has a beautiful way of capturing her thoughts, feelings, and the scene before her—I love the Brooklyn Bridge being compared to the arch of a woman’s spine—sensual and eloquent all at once. The feeling of water carving through her and leaving behind just her “shipwrecked heart/still pumping water” reveals the depth of her emotions and makes me want to reach out to her. It’s a beautiful poem that tugs at my heart.


If you enjoyed this review as much as I enjoyed the collection, please purchase a copy of Ally Malinenko’s The Wanting Bone it is available for $9.00 at Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Wanting-Bone-Ally-Malinenko/dp/0978296265


To learn more about Ally Malinenko, please visit her website at:

http://allymalinenko.com/

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Petals and Blood, Stories, Dharma & Poems of Ecstasy, Awakening & Annihilation by Gavin Harrison

Gavin Harrison’s collection Petals and Blood is published by Pau Press and contains beautiful photographs that accompany and make up the background of stories and poems about spiritual enlightenment and growth through the writer’s pain of abuse, the discovery of being diagnosed with HIV AIDS, and the joy of living. Gavin Harrison is also the recipient of the Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award presented by the Dalai Lama for “kindness and quiet dedication to others.” I will say that you must find some quiet space in yourself in order to fully absorb his words, he is inspired by Rumi and Hafiz and his poems require quiet contemplation and in an age of technology and constant balancing acts it is worth it to take a moment for yourself and read these poems. I read them at night before bed and found them very refreshing, his stories also are inspiring. I will say his collection has arrived at a time in my own life where I feel that every moment is spoken for and that I have struggled to find balance of work, family, friends, and finding that precious and nurturing quiet time that most of us forget that we need more often than we realize. Harrison not only learns to heal himself but reaches out to those who are often abandoned by society, such as prisoners, and discovers the beauty of humanity inside of each individual he encounters. Below I am happy to share some samples, which will be difficult since I have book-marked so many poems and stories to share, so I do urge you to pick up a copy for yourself because I cannot possibly do Harrison justice:

Carnival

Is your life a frantic dash
from what has been
to the to-do list
of what may yet be in store for you?

Spinning in circles?

Dizzy?

Disconnected?

Have you joined
the carnival of insanity
sweeping the land?

Time available, never enough?

Are you moving at the speed of light?

And is this the light you long for?

There is nothing courageous
or valiant about such frenzy.

Rushing from fire to fire is no fun,
and not without consequence.

Stop before you are stopped
by the reverberations
of speeding and acceleration.

Move more slowly,
without apology or justification.

You may wish to also disdain the
exhausting spiritual merry-go-round
of cultivation,
self-improvement and purification.

Stop seeking!

You are already all that you yearn for,
and so much more.

Decry the voices of poverty and lack.

If there’s a problem
it’s one of momentum, not deficit.

Freefall from small-time
into the depths of time.

Rest within The Web
from which you cannot fall, ever.

Encounter all who have been,
are,
and will be,
within the Timeless Immediate.

Future and past are present here.

Nothing to flee, nowhere to go.

Fall to your knees.

Drink the sacrament of Deep Time.

Recognize yourself within
The Great Interconnectedness
as every jewel,
everything,
everyone,
everywhere.

Be dazzled by the realm of reflection
and refraction.

Move from stillness, like The Tao.

Upon the Great Way
you will find balance,
harmony,
rest
and infinite evolution,
without rushing.

Live with deep eyes.

The Tao is not hurtling
towards its own conclusions or agenda.

Neither need you.

Stop as the Buddha did,
under the Bhodi tree.

Set the sails of your weary heart
to the eye of the storm
where the weather is calm.

Sense the Still Ground
of Limitless Silence
that is always there,
into which all weather conditions
come and go.

Be The Stillness
which you are.

Move as Love moves,
dancing all the way Home,
for Home
is the only real happiness
and
true rest there is.

While this poem speaks to me I am also sure that it speaks to you, readers. Is there one person out there in the world these days that does not have difficulty keeping up with the frantic pace of today’s society and technology? This poem lays it out in black and white the importance of recognizing that pace, knowing that this pace is not mandatory and reminds us to s-l-o-w down and enjoy peace and silence and to seek it in order to revive ourselves. I honestly urge you to do your best to shut out the outside world and read this poem again slowly and take those slow deep breaths that help remind us that the pace of the outside world does not dictate our own. Whenever I feel frazzled at night, I return to this poem.


There is a wonderful personal story titled “Love,” and Harrison speaks of growing up in Africa and returning to Africa only to learn that there was a vast difference in the schools he went to and the village schools. Harrison offered to teach which outraged his father who was convinced that these villages were dangerous. Harrison reached out to the “white schools, churches and municipalities,” and made them aware of the village’s shortages and conditions and received a flood of support and supplies. Harrison’s father eventually came around, in a secretive way, and donated books of his own, built shelves in the school library and eventually became friends with the headmaster and eventually invited the headmaster and his wife to dinner—“the first time my parents had shared a meal with a black person.” When Harrison’s father died, the village school’s students came to honor him and Harrison’s mother asked for donations to the school in lieu of flowers. As Harrison says, “In the end, Love prevailed.” I think we take for granted the racial divide lessening in America but then we are reminded of divisions in other countries and continents as well through this story. While we strive to erase those divides it is a great reminder to recognize that biases are still there in our own community and in the greater world and that these biases can continually be overcome through Love and understanding.



It’s Just As Well

It’s just as well I did not know
how much You wanted me,
My Beloved.

For I would have fled,
panic stricken,
before the prospect of that intimacy.

It is just as well I did not know
how unforgiving Your demand
for self-honesty would be.

For the fire of that injunction
would have been way too hot
for me to handle.

It is just as well I did not know
how many lines
You would have me cross.

For I would have gripped
my prison bars more tightly
in terror
than ever before.

It is just as well I did not know
how absolute Your need
for all my humanity would be.

For the thought of inhabiting
every part of my humanness
would have catapulted me
deeper than ever
into contraction and hiding.

It is just as well I did not know
how seamless
my fidelity to You
would turn out to be.

For I would have exited,
howling and screaming,
before the magnitude
of that commitment.

It is just as well I did not know
how much Love
You would pour into this life.

For I would have drowned
within the intimations
of all that Glory and Vulnerability.

And it is just as well I did not know
how simple and ordinary
this that I Am
would turn out to be.

For
the specialness and grandiosity
that once lived here
would have had nothing to do
with The Quietude and Emptiness
that is here now.

And so,
My Beloved,
it is just as well.

This poem brings me comfort in that we often wish we knew what the future would bring but then when we look into the past we realize that had we known what was coming we would often go into hiding. Harrison refers to “My Beloved” in the way that Hafiz and Rumi do, the idea of a higher spiritual being who is there demanding our full attention and love. Whether you are religious or not I believe many of us can relate to this poem, we have encountered someone or something in our life that had we known was coming we would have been kicking and screaming to avoid but once we have gone through the experience are eternally grateful for the encounter and the enlightenment that comes from it. Another beautiful poem to be savored.



If you enjoyed this review (and as I’ve said I cannot do it justice, the photography that accompanies these poems are just stunning and the words help the reader center themselves in the present) then you may purchase a hardcover copy of Petals and Blood by Gavin Harrison for $49.95 at here:
http://petalsandblood.com/order/


Thanks always for reading, please drop in again soon…

Read a Good Book Friday: regina’s closet finding my grandmother’s secret journal by Diana M. Raab

Diana M. Raab is a writer who teaches at University of California, her novel regina’s closet finding my grandmother’s secret journal hit a cord with me and I asked her if I could read it in addition to the poetry collection she has recently published (and which will appear at a later date on Poet Hound). I’ve always been fascinated by journals and my own grandmother writes off and on in hers and I write off and on in mine. Diana M. Raab’s grandmother committed suicide while Diana was young and the discovery of the journal provided vital clues to her grandmother’s life journey that finally took a tragic turn. Her story has won many awards including 2009 Allbooks Review Editor’s Choice Award and 2008 National Best Books Award for Memoir/Autobiography sponsored by USA Book News.

This memoir’s direct excerpts from the journal are insightful and at times heart wrenching. Her grandmother, Regina, lived in Vienna, Austria during the time that Hitler’s forces were bearing down upon them. Horrors were witnessed, uncertainty became daily life, and the loss of immediate family members through illness and mental illness consumed Regina’s world. Regina pulled herself and her sister to safety after losing their mother and finding that their father could not cope emotionally with the loss. What stuns me is that Regina and her sister had to live in an orphanage because their brother would not take them in because of his wife. She describes the search for a decent apartment first, then is shocked when a woman spits in her face out of disgust for so many seeking refuge in Vienna, then finally the rejection from her own family that leads her to the orphanage. Family dynamics come to play a vital role in shaping Regina’s resilient character and as she grows older she begins to cling more to her immediate family (her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter) as her body is riddled with pain from the events of her life along with her unhappy marriage. As Diana grows older her grandmother Regina becomes more depressed and eventually Diana discovers her grandmother’s body on a morning that her grandmother was supposed to be baby-sitting. Diana knew her grandmother as warm, loving, and caring and had no clues at her young age of ten to understand why her grandmother had done this. Diana calls her mother upon the discovery and the family comes home along with emergency personnel and closure is at hand when Diana finds her grandmother’s journal years later. Diana then goes through the painful and emotional turmoil of cancer and finds solace in her grandmother’s words and decides that it is time to share her grandmother’s story with the world as she wades through pain of her own. Diana carefully interviews relatives and searches for supporting documentation of events during the life and times of her grandmother and brings her memoir fully to life. It is a gripping read and one you will never forget.

If you enjoyed this review, you may purchase a copy of regina’s closet finding my grandmother’s secret journal by Diana M. Raab for $9.99/Kindle or $17.96 hardcover at:
http://www.amazon.com/Reginas-Closet-Finding-Grandmothers-Journal/dp/0825305756

Thanks always for reading, please drop in again soon…

Tzynya L. Pinchback's How to Make Pink Confetti

Tzynya Pinchback’s chapbook collection, How to Make Pink Confetti, published by Dancing Girl Press in 2012, is a visceral and glistening collection of poems that are sensual and hard-hitting for our senses. Tzynya Pinchback happened to explain how to pronounce her name on Facebook the other day and her first name is pronounced “Tuh-zin-yuh.” Below I am happy to share a few samples:


The Stick Figure’s Lullaby

Here, in the Thursday House
I know my worth:
A dime bag is a fair trade for a little girl.
Broken smiles are a kind of pretty, Mister Curtis says.

I know my worth:
A daughter is her mother’s best currency.
(Broken smiles are a kind of pretty) Mister Curtis says
Junkies will pick you clean – to bone.

A daughter is her mother’s best currency.
See my dancing skeleton, scribbled in chalk?
Junkies will pick you clean. TO BONE!
I shimmy under the weight of this flesh.

My dancing skeleton, scribbled in chalk
Frames a hand-me-down map of the world.
I shimmy under the weight; this flesh
Sings a ramshackle serenade.

Four corners of a hand-me-down map of the world:
A dime bag is fair trade. A little girl
Sings a ramshackle serenade.
Here. In the Thursday House.

I think of this as a sinister poem, a girl given away by her mother to a character named Mr. Curtis and the girl withers away to skin and bone under his watch. It makes me wonder what kind of home she is in and what kind of broken smile is intimated here.



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Start with a fear of bats. brown moths. and anything capable of flutter or flight. and chitterlings. and prank phone calls. and men’s sheer striped socks like those mated to the cuff of well-dressed fellows. and premature ejaculation. and being alone. and the book of revelation. and thoughts grinding behind the eyes of children who do not smile. and marriage. and technology. and applause. and twisters that push sinewy maple tree limbs through attic windows where girls sleep dreaming of sunflowers and ponies. and sickle moons. and fat. and networking. and sunburn. and joy! and the coil of alzheimer’s snaking its way through dead daddy’s brain. and confederate flags. and God. and white sugars. and black sighs. and ultrasound image of fetal debris in jewel box sandwiched between 18-gauge hanger wire and red satin lining. and armpit hair. and blue crab mustard. and cartoon characters that cackle and peck though anvils fall onto them. and family curse. and lizards in the popcorn ceiling camouflage. and cocaine. and cherubs. and elevators. and georgia belching me from its genteel belly like yellow bile and freedom. and the sabbath. and spit on the lopsided hat holding together my head. and pop rocks. and the book repository. and sloughed-off skin. chicken wings. and fame. and pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder. TELEVISION. and menopause. and goddammit! and good poetry. and my bare feet sliding on cicada carcass. and the indelible power of pussy. and the ventriloquist’s dummy. and the dark. and metal wind chimes suspended from the eaves. and death. and anything constructed by the united states army corps of engineers. the tariff on tampons and petrol. and africanized killer bees. and good hair. and bunions. and okra-harboring red soup. and chicken wings. and not being like those niggers over there/and not being like those niggers over there. Femiwomanism (insert wave #___). and middle class angst. and scorpions falling from air vents. and Sapphic pining for norma jean baker. and the dank crawlspace behind bra strap where every occurrence of being sold gathers moss. and lip stain. and faith. and your mother (that bitch). and split ends. and lead paint underneath the navy blue wall paper in the kitchen. and being irrelevant. and daily sodium intake. and fucking to music with misogynistic lyrics over a tight beat. and you. and suffocation. and titties that ride low. and the promise of free credit reports. and global positioning tracking. and love. and the penning of these words caked under my fingernail like skin from lover’s scowl.

I love the free-form flow of thoughts here and so many different images all thrown together and yet it all works. The poet telling about herself in waves and I wonder about the memories she is revealing to us, the reference to Alzheimer’s, cicada carcasses, scorpions, wallpaper, it is all brief snippets that are tantalizing and leaves us full of questions. The ending line is my favorite, a comparison that is clever and daring just like the rest of the piece above.



And suddenly

I imagined you floating
twelve weeks: limbs, skin, a rapid pulse, swimming
in tiny sac clear like cellophane,
not falling or being torn from me, but raging desire
to run, breathe, touch bread (wine, someday),
sun to lips. And suddenly we were bone
splintered in two, edge pushed through flesh –
a wound. And I imagined you a fairy
in tiny sac clear like cellophane
a swathe of copper and iron confetti,
wings glittering, folded beneath your feet,
standing on the branch of a boab tree
jutting from the lean of my umbilicus.

A dreamscape poem about poet and her child, I love that Ms. Pinchback speaks of the splintering of herself and her baby and the idea of this child being so incredible as to have glittering wings. It is a romantic and heart-splintering poem.


If you enjoyed this sample as much as I enjoy this collection, you may purchase a copy of Tzynya L. Pinchback’s How to Make Pink Confetti for $7.00 from Dancing Girl Press’ shop:
http://dulcetshop.ecrater.com/p/15360935/pink-confetti

Thanks always for reading, please drop in again soon…