Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.corpse.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=739&Itemid=32
All of the poems by Lidija Dimkovska Translated from the Macedonian by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid

http://juked.com/2012/11/nandini-dhar-clandestine.asp
“Clandestine” by Nandini Dhar

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Cadillac Men by Rebecca Schumejda

Rebecca Schumejda’s most recent collection of poems, Cadillac Men, has been published by NYQ Books in 2012. Her other works include Falling Forward from sunnoutside in 2009, and From Seed to Sin by Bottle of Smoke Press in 2011 as well as others, she has received her MA in Poetics and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and her BA in English and Creative Writing from SUNY New Paltz. She currently resides in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family. Rebecca Schumejda’s collection of poems about the trials and tribulations of the pool players in her and her husband’s pool hall are dead pan and gut-wrenching at times. Mrs. Schumejda also includes quotes from the pool players themselves and keeps the momentum of these personable players humming throughout the pages. With cover art by the multi-talented Hosho McCreesh, this book is a must read on a gray and/or rainy day. That’s how I read it, anyway, and it was perfect for the mood. Below I am happy to share a few sample poems:

Rosary Beads and Pool Balls

When the army
couldn’t salvage
Shake’s soul,
his mother’s fingers
kept track of Hail Marys
and Our Fathers
recited over decades
for her wayward son.

But no wooden beads
could save him
from the old ivories,
so she stayed awake
waiting for him,
sometimes for days.
When he came in,
she’d fix him a meal,
ask him when
he was going to find
a good woman
and settle down.

He’d kiss her forehead
and tell her he could
never find a woman
as good as her.
This made everything alright,
until she was waiting again.

After she passed,
Shakes started going
to church religiously.
He hung her rosary beads
from the rearview mirror
of his Cadillac.
Whenever the beads tap
Against the windshield,
it sounds like pool balls
in the distance
calling him home.

This poem paints a sentimental and woeful picture for me. I can picture this man who should have settled down years ago kissing his mother’s forehead, content with life, and then his mother is gone and he must turn somewhere else for comfort: church. The sound of the beads is audible in my mind and I thank the poet for using straightforward imagery to bring such a vivid picture to her poem.



The Pool Table, a Shallow Pond

One night, after hours at the bar
down the road, No That Pocket George
stumbles in to tell me about how
his brother drowned in a shallow pond
when they were playing hide and seek.

His mother never forgave him, so now
he hits the balls harder than he should
and thinks of his mother’s apron,
the one she always wore
even on the day her son
was buried behind the old barn;

the apron she wore
when she screamed
I hate you
into a callous sky because George was hiding
under the porch.

He whacks the cue ball, a white apron,
as hard as he can because
sometimes after he plays too long,
the cloth on the table is algae
masking a shallow pond.
And sometimes he drinks too much
beer foam looks like that film
sitting on a shallow pond.
And when there’s a full apron in the night sky,
he is that little boy hiding under the porch.

This is a tragic story captured in the brevity of a poem and it is gut-wrenching. I wonder if the poet feels a longing to reach out and reassure No That Pocket George while feeling helpless to do so as that is the feeling I am left with. This is when poetry is at its best, striking you in the chest and leaving you with all the emotions to ponder on.



The Table Swallows Wally the Whale

The table swallows Wally like poetry does to me,
Takes us away from the day’s drudgery:
paying the bills, worrying about what will break next,
and where we’ll get the money to fix it.

Fifteen object balls
Spread out across the felt;
twenty-six letter
in the alphabet;
we both dream
of possibilities, combinations, perfect breaks.

He spends afternoons
Practicing how to miss a shot;
while I pick apart words to resurrect.
We both have our own language:
underappreciated
and misunderstood.

We both struggle with rules.
I hold my pen with the same intensity
he does his cue.
Felt and paper
obstacles
we navigate.

It’s when writing swallows me that I understand
his Captain Ahab-ish obsession:
how he sacrificed his wife and children
how the world, so invasive, disappears
when he leans over
to line up a shot.

I like that the poet relates to the player through her writing. I enjoy seeing writers talk about how they feel about their craft because I relate to it, too. For anyone who has a passion they sacrifice many things for it and often family, friends, and outsiders have a hard time understanding. Poems like this validate people’s passions and I appreciate that.


If you enjoyed this brief sample you may purchase a copy of Cadillac Men, length of 156 pages, for $16.95 at:
http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Men-Rebecca-Schumejda/dp/1935520687/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&keywords=9781935520689&linkCode=ur2&qid=1350461689&sr=8-1&tag=poetscraftcom-20

If you would like to learn more about Rebecca Schumejda whose work has appeared in sunnyoutside and Bottle of Smoke Press, among others, please visit her web-site at:
http://www.rebeccaschumejda.com/
and
http://www.nyqbooks.org/author/rebeccaschumejda


Thanks always for reading and please click in tomorrow…

Noctuary Press

One of my favorite poets, Kristina Marie Darling, is starting her own press and I am very excited about it. You should check it out, too, as innovative and engaging forms of literary worlds will converge here:
http://noctuarypress.com/

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Dos Gatos Press Open Submissions

Once you go to the submissions page you will submit your poems on-line without any identifying marks such as name, address, etc. on the individual poems submitted. Depending on the style of poem you are submitting such as haiku, senryu, haiga, or free verse, you will want to read the guidelines for each type. There are several options for choosing which publication at Dos Gatos Press to submit to so please read the guidelines for each one, the submissions are open into January/February.
Please make sure you use Times New Roman font with size 12 when entering your poems. Get all the true details using the link below:
http://dosgatospress.org/how-to-submit

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Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/57rhpissue/jeff-dutko
“Poetry” by Jeff Dutko

https://sites.google.com/site/57rhpissue/obrien4
“Shores of Japan: Snag #10” by M.N. O’Brien

https://sites.google.com/site/57rhpissue/daniel3
“Prelude” by Daniel Hales

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Forgotten Bookmarks

This is exactly what it sounds like and very interesting, too. A dealer in used and rare books posts finds between the pages and also hosts give-aways of his wonderful finds, it’s too good to pass up! Check it out at:
http://www.forgottenbookmarks.com/

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Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://issuu.com/yespoetry/docs/september
“Your Last Rooster” by Tina Barry

https://sites.google.com/site/righthandpointingjeanietomasko/dear-lord-the-wren
“Dear Lord, the wren” by Jeanie Tomasko

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Poor Rude Lines

John Field invited me to check out his blog, Poor Rude Lines, and I urge you to check it out, too. Poetry reviews with links and pictures abound, you can read up on some great poetry collections and writers at:
http://johnfield.org/

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Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/56rhpissue/howie-good
“Magnetic Disturbance” by Howie Good

https://sites.google.com/site/56rhpissue/bev-harp
“Entomology” by Bev Harp

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Planchette by Juliet Cook

Published by Blood Pudding Press in 2008, Planchette is a haunting collection of ten poems about young girls amidst their dolls and their life at home. Planchette refers to a “heart shaped board from which messages are written under supposed spirit guidance” according to dictionary.com. The book itself is bound in beautiful textured paper with textured edges and is bound by knitting yarn. Each poem is a spine-tingling pleasure to read and I am happy to share a couple of sample poems below:

Planchette
Something is wrong with me

I can’t make things happen

I’m trapped inside a little glass bunny.
I quiver inexplicably,
but never move smoothly across.
All I do is quiver and then I

swerve madly.

My progress is not reasonable.
My progress is not measurable.
My progress is not memorable

until I am so wildly
erratic that I blur
towards the erotic
(kinky).

I’m trapped inside a glass eye.
Red-rimmed. Red-painted.

(You want to lick me.
You want to put me all the way inside
your mouth. Clean me up. Stop me rolling.)

I zoom across a black board with white letters
like one possessed. I fervently spell out
the same word again and again and then I
get stuck

on your tongue
inside my own head
somewhere small and dark

and so crowded…

This poem makes me envision one of the haunted girls disappearing into a little glass bunny as she is attempting to use the planchette/Ouija board and becomes part of the board itself picking out letters. I wonder who is in the room when the lines “You want to lick me./You want to put me all the way inside/your mouth” comes up, I envision a gentleman caller visiting and having no idea how to get her out of the glass bunny. The girl’s world is curious and surreal in this poem and captures my imagination.



Parlor Tricks

Our eyes were fake blueberries.
We made synthetically sweet fruit
perfume fill the parlor, almost an ooze,
almost oily waves.

Our fancy dessert plates burst
with lurid peonies, so swollen,
bruise-colored, almost lewd,
but already wilting at the edges.

Now they’re flaccid, faded, flat.
Out of tune piano keys’
wan background music. Warped wallpaper.
Failing glue. Scraps of yellowed newspaper

Lodged in our throats. We can’t read
the fine print, but feel the gray lilt of it
blurring out tongues into listless
little clappers of broken bells.

Oh this ringing in our ears we can’t expel.
We shuffle shiny flashcards.
We coiffed each other’s hair.
We played musical chairs

until we were all stuck to musty loveseats.
Instead of another chair disappearing, a girl did.
Something swallowed her, right after she swallowed the key.
The china cabinet trembled, cracked the handles off

our floral teacups, vomited bent spoons.

I imagine a group of girls sitting in the parlor playing with the object around them: fake blueberries in a bowl, faded yellow newspaper, flashcards their mother hoped would educate their young minds. Then one of the little girls picks up a key and swallows it and disappears herself, the forces acting on her shake the cabinet and the spoons explode out of the teacups. It’s a frightening thought if you really think about it, playing with siblings or childhood friends and such an inexplicable event occurs. We are left without an ending, we have no idea what happened to the girl who swallowed the key, or what happens to the girls who are there to face her absence and explain it to others. This poem makes my spine tingle.


If you enjoyed this sample, you may purchase a copy of Planchette by Juliet Cook for $7.00 through Blood Pudding Press’ Etsy Shop at:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/111834513/halloween-treat-planchette-by-juliet

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Arsenic Lobster Open Submissions

The poetry editor is Lissa Kiernan and there are other editors if you look at the “About Us” tab in order to help you address your e-mail appropriately for your submission(s). You may send 3-5 poems in the body of your e-mail as well as your contact information and “a lively bio.” Please check out the details of what the editors are looking for in the kinds of writing they publish. In the subject line of your e-mail include your first initial, last name, date, and what you are submitting. Example: P Cary 10-18-12 Poetry
Please limit your submissions to one per issue, deadline for all issues is April 30th. Please send your e-mail to: lobsterATmagereDOTcom

To learn all the details on how to submit, go to:
http://arseniclobster.magere.com/1submission.html

Good luck to all who submit, please drop in again next week…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/100s/issue139tantrum.html
“Tantrum” by Kevin Ridgeway

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/291301.html
“Search Party” by Connie Post

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The Moon & Other Inventions by Kristina Marie Darling

Kristina Marie Darling’s work has appeared on Poet Hound before with her collection titled The Body is a Little Gilded Cage: A Story in Letters and Fragments and I am pleased to share with you her latest collection published in 2012 by BlazeVOX books titled The Moon & Other Inventions: Poems After Joseph Cornell. The collection is as dreamy as the last one featured on Poet Hound. This series of poems, divided up into chapters, are a series of footnotes for her various chapters on A History of Inventions, Ornithology, Cartography, and more. The pages are mostly blank space as though the text of the chapters are missing while the footnotes were inextricably left behind. I looked up Joseph Cornell and he was an artist most known for his collages and I imagine these collages are the inspiration behind the footnotes Ms. Darling has created after him. Ms. Darling’s footnote poems are beautiful and release the imagination into the reader’s minds. As you read the footnotes of each chapter you begin to find words that tie in to each other from chapter to chapter creating a pleasant connection that allows you to feel as though you are reading a beautifully imaginative textbook in which the content is somehow all related. Below I am happy to share some with you:


From A History of Inventions:

5. A late eighteenth-century stage play, in which a woman crawls into the hollow shaft of a telescope. The stage directions call for “faint music.” Also the sound of “silk rustling” and “a tiny door coming unhinged.”
6. Nights like this she flipped a little golden switch. That was when the rooms would open up before her.
7. Her ruined correspondence indicates exactly where she would have gathered these dead lilies and perfume bottles.

These footnote poems make me think of Alice in Wonderland with the idea of a woman being small enough to crawl into a telescope and the sound of “a tiny door coming unhinged.” There is magic in these lines, the golden switch that make rooms open up, the ruined correspondence that allude to dead lilies and perfume bottles of which we have no idea what their meaning is or where they come from but strike us in our imagination nonetheless. Since this comes from a chapter about inventions you wonder if the main character in these footnotes created the golden switch and the rooms, the more mystery the more imagination and it is lovely.


From: Horology

4. Oscillate.
1. To swing back and forth with a steady rhythm.
2. To waver, as between conflicting opinions.
3. To vary between extremes, especially within a fixed period of time.

5. During these years, she felt as though she would be faced with a decision. The clock within the cathedral recorded the movements of minor stars. But from its interior a series of unfamiliar notes emerged, that ominous ringing.

6. A late sixteenth-century church record, in which the simple machine turned against the monks. The illustration depicts their attempt to gather water and extinguish the great fire.

This poem creates the image, to me, of a large grandfather clock that is tied more to the celestial than the earthy terrain which it inhabits, its chimes relate to the stars and mark time at a pace that does not coincide with the inhabitants of that church, such as the monks. Whether this is the case I have no earthly idea but the footnotes capture images for the reader to determine the words’ meaning and I love the open-ended invitation to imagine alongside the poet what might be going on.


From Ornithology

4. Overwrought.
1. Extremely distressed or agitated
2. Overly complex or ornate.
3. Wearied or exhausted by overwork.

5. The documentary depicts their efforts to develop a machine. This invention was inspired by her experience embalming butterflies. Their mother found the device shattered among various feathers and antennae fragments.

I selfishly picked this one from the words “overwrought” and “overwork” as lately I have been feeling both. To juxtapose the words that relate to overwork with the delicate work that would require unimaginable patience with “embalming butterflies” took me by surprise and I re-read this page several times in delight. It sounds like the creator of the invention was too much for its creator and that is why the creator’s mother finds this delicate machine in pieces along with the butterflies and birds in pieces. Delicate, dangerous, and again, lovely.


If you enjoyed this sample, and I can tell you I cannot do this book justice, it is simply wonderful, you may order a copy of The Moon & Other Inventions: Poems After Joseph Cornell for $12.00 from Amazon.com at:
http://www.amazon.com/Other-Inventions-Kristina-Marie-Darling/dp/1609641043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347471466&sr=8-1&keywords=9781609641047


To learn more about Kristina Marie Darling and her work, visit her website at:
http://kristinamariedarling.com/about/

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow…

Button Magazine

They’ve been around for a decade and I didn’t even know it! Sample poems and you can have a lifetime subscription for a mere $25.00! Check it out at:
http://www.moonsigns.net/Button-frame.htm

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Horse Less Press Open Submissions

The deadline is the 15th, so be sure to submit quickly! There is an on-line entry form you can go to and send 5-10 pages of poetry or hybrid-genre writing as a single attachment for Issue #13. Make sure you include your name, address, contact information and check out their website which is also linked on the submissions page. You may use the link below:

http://horselesspress.submittable.com/submit


Good luck to all who submit! Please drop by again next week…