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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1484753732/poiesis-6-and-footnote-1

F IN by Carol Guess

What started out as a novella transformed itself completely as Carol Guess began removing sentences and individual words creating a new text of poems. F IN is published by Noctuary Press and iIn this collection, what was once a girl narrating a crime story is now a contemporary piece filled with the light spaces between illuminating words. While I may not be able to produce the pages and their text exactly, I will do my best to portray this stunning collection that allows the reader to absorb each word’s importance into their own imagination. No two experiences will be the same and I can only share my own perspective. I am unable to space out the words on the page when I go to post these pieces, just know that the poems are spaced out among the page to reveal the words that have been deleted as well as the words that have been kept. Below, a short sample of the gems inside:

city of alleyways disappearing mountains
winding
roads rockslides ghosts serial killers
guard dogs Minutemen meth labs
city of
clear-cut

identical floor plans

erase

place

As you can see, it is difficult to get the spacing correct but what I love is that an entire novel has been trimmed down to a new essence. In this space, it allows me to picture my own world, and I think of El Paso, TX where I once lived with the winding roads of the mountains and the cookie-cutter houses you could see from the top. The words “erase” and “place” make me wonder if the story’s speaker is trying to erase the location from memory and as a poem I mentally erase the image in my own mind. It’s an interesting take on creating prose or poetry by erasing a much more dense, rich text of a novella.


buried the
creepy guy

‘s key

Of course, it is easy to read this as one sentence all to itself which is at once an extraordinary thing to create after erasing a page of text and also entices the reader to figure out what the rest of the page might have said. The story line also makes me wonder who “the creepy guy” is and I form my own image imagining a young girl getting a hold of a key and burying it, but a key to what? Myself and the reader are left to create their own mystery and I like that this allows me to ignite my own imagination.

As is it difficult to properly portray the text on the page, I implore you to find or buy a copy of F IN by Carol Guess for yourself. If you enjoyed F IN by Carol Guess, you may purchase a copy from Noctuary Press for $14.00 at:
http://noctuarypress.com/catalogue/

Thanks always for reading, please stop by again next week…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/62rhpissue/steve-tomasko
“Knock on Wood” by Steve Tomasko

https://sites.google.com/site/62rhpissue/sara-hughes
“Kiyoko” by Sara Hughes

https://sites.google.com/site/62rhpissue/robin-wyatt-dunn
“March” by Robin Wyatt Dunn

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Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom

Lora Bloom’s collection, Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror, is published by Blood Pudding Press in 2013. Lora Bloom’s words are fragmented images filled with refracting emotions throughout. It is an enticing and uncanny collection that I am happy to share a sample of with you:

Invisible

As I stood between his legs
This man told me he was from another planet
he asked if I wanted to go with him
I looked around, into the mirror
behind the bar
for a moment I was invisible
hiding behind my exposed skin
he smiled mysteriously
I shivered and laughed
I thought he was joking
but his tied and eyes
were very bright

This poem has the surreal experience of wonder in it and I cannot help but be drawn in to this man at the bar just as the poet is. Without revealing much about his appearance, we as readers are all eagerly daydreaming our own version of this man at the bar, wondering just how bright, and perhaps beautiful, those eyes are and if we’d contemplate going with him, too. I love this poem for bringing a flight-of-fancy that can be a rarely found journey in poems.



Clown Girl

I am the clown girl
with the plastic smile
the clone boys
with the plastic eyes
like to kiss my plastic lips
poke their rubber tongues
inside my mouth

they can’t taste the blood
that fills these plastic lips
makes them red
and plump as cherries

for the boys to kiss

underneath the plastic
I can’t feel their kisses
just a dull ache
like someone squeezed
where my cotton heart once was

And I am the pretty clown girl
with the plastic smile

sometimes,
when no one’s hiding near
and I don’t think I’ll mind the sting
sometimes I rip away the plastic
just to feel my lips, bloated
scratched and scarred
flap into breezes
I want to feel the stars
searing my bloodlips

would they laught, these boys
if they knew
behind my plastic smile
the frozen, blistered grimace

if they knew
the blasts of shadow laughter
blowing soft into their kisses

into their silly plastic eyes
that will never
taste the sky

like I do

I feel like this is the “Siren Song” of every female once they have had their heart broken for the first time and seal themselves up afterwards. I love the “Clown Girl” poem as it describes how so many people try to paint on that smile when looking for love yet also protect themselves, the poet uses plastic as the metaphor for closing off those feelings and nerve endings that allow her to fall in love. It’s a beautiful poem that deserves to be re-read as you’ll find more and more with each reading.



If you enjoyed this brief sample of Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom, you may purchase a copy for $7.00 through Blood Pudding Press’ Etsy Site, just go to:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress

Thanks always for reading, please drop in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound

Regardless of Authority Open Submissions

If you have strong convictions and something to say about them, read all the guidelines and check out the website to ensure your voice is heard by visiting:
http://regardlessofauthority.wordpress.com/submission-guidelines/

Good luck to all who submit, please stop by again next week!

Petrarchan by Kristina Marie Darling

Published by BlazeVox in 2013, Kristina Marie Darling’s collection titled Petrarchan takes its inspiration from Francesco Petrarca, a poet born in Italy in 1304. Inspired by a woman named Laura de Noves, he wrote a collection of love poems and Kristina Marie Darling has taken the chapter titles of her collection from his bibliography and her appendixes are based on found text in Pertrach’s sonnets. Her style is evident here with footnotes, dictionary terms, and glimpses of images that leave the reader to imagine a full text being commented on. As always, Darling’s work is beautiful and inspiring while exposing fragility of human nature and its emotions. In much of Darling’s collections there are references to pale skin, faint music, mysterious rooms, doors, locks, and they all wind their way into this collection in a way that is just as fascinating as all of her other works previously reviewed on Poet Hound. If she ever offers a boxed set, I would urge anyone to spring for it immediately. For now, I am always eager for the next collection and proud to share samples with you, readers:

4. Inaccessible.
1. Something unattainable by ordinary means.
2. Meaning that one seems frigid or unapproachable.
3. Referring to a research station on the North Pole (See also: Pole of Inaccessiblity).
5. The painting renders her conscious mind as a window overlooking a barren field. To an untrained eye, the ice gathering on the ledge seems to herald a lengthy solitude.

From the chapter titled “Guide to the Holy Land:” I am unable to do Darling justice as there are symbols included with 2 and 3 above. However, I like this piece because it makes reference to the idea that what an artist is trying to present versus others interpretation can be two different things when the painting is mentioned. As for the term “inaccessible” I wonder if she is referring to Petrarch’s fixation on Laura de Noves? The reference to the North Pole makes me think of “cold shoulder.” Either way, I like that so much is left to interpretation and allows the reader to make their own story with the use of these footnotes.


1. A seemingly endless blue corridor, which leads to an empty room.
2. She fastened the latch as the light began to fade. That was when she wandered the unlit halls. A heavy fog drifting through all the windows.
3. “Only when alone did I understand this house by the sea, its faultless architecture. And now a pigeon nesting in every rafter.”

This is from the chapter titled “On the Solitary Life.” There are references within the collection of “the house by the sea” and I’m not sure if it refers to Petrarch’s poems or to a subconscious mind frame. The images are haunting and beautiful, the “endless blue corridor” and “heavy fog drifting through all the windows.” You can imagine a figure wandering this corridor, shadowed by fog, hearing the pigeons roosting and the figure trying to discover what is at the end, only to find emptiness, the figure’s voice is captured above, it could be Darling’s or a fictionalized figure. I let my own imagination drift to a drafty house with long hallways, abandoned by the original owners and providing no clues to who used to live there.


1. A cabinet that housed her beloved’s black winter coat.
2. When asked, she would describe his attire as “militant.” Yet his hands seemed fragile, even delicate.
3. “I remember only the struggle between his decorum and my unfailing warmth. Within every drawer I found the most dangerous objects.”

This excerpt is from the chapter “Triumphs.” Here I imagine Petrarch’s love, Laura, being featured, though I could be wrong. The juxtaposition between the man’s hard edges, his “militant” attire and the drawer of “most dangerous objects” against his “hands” that “seemed fragile, even delicate,” brings the characters of this excerpt closer to the reader. You can imagine the woman’s smile and the man’s struggle to maintain a strong, hard-edged façade. You can then imagine translating it into your own interactions in a variety of situations and this makes the excerpts above more life-like and colorful to me.


I can hardly do Darling’s work justice. All I can say is that I love the mystery of the footnotes and the beautiful images, phrases, and how they all tie together when you read the book cover to cover. To purchase a copy of Petrarchan by Kristina Marie Darling for $16.00 go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Petrarchan-Kristina-Marie-Darling/dp/1609641167
or purchase from BlazeVox for $16.00 at:
http://www.blazevox.org/index.php/Shop/new-releases/petrarchan-by-kristina-marie-darling-328/


For more details about Francesco Petrarca, the inspiration behind this collection, go to:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1180

Thanks always for reading, please stop by again Thursday…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/61rhpissue/jeffrey-park
“Future Perfect” By Jeffrey Park

https://sites.google.com/site/61rhpissue/larry-d-thomas
“Bones” by Larry D. Thomas

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Lisa M. Cole's Renegade//Heart

Lisa M. Cole’s Renegade//Heart is published by Blood Pudding Press in 2013 and is a riveting collection of poems about love and life that drill to the bone creating fissures, provoking blood loss, changing the meaning of good and bad luck. I can hardly do her justice, all I can say is it is worth purchasing a copy for yourself because you will read it again and again as I have. Below I am happy to share some sample poems:
2
wait until night & set//your bed on fire, darling//sleep with all the dolls//unhook your rotary phone & watch//the broken chandelier as it swings like a marionette// listen, little dancer://some girls just want to watch the world burn

This poem makes me think of a young girl surrounded by her dolls and her imagination at night. I also think of the poet reflecting back on her childhood days and shaking up the contents of her old bedroom. The imagery of a burning bed with a chandelier swinging overhead like a dangling puppet is scary and seems a defiant act of the girl in the poem, her way of rising against something happening in her life.


3
a story in which I am the damsel, the maiden, a reluctant crowned girl//I slept for days (years)//I woke up confused//& the world was inverted://spoons did not nourish but demolish//voodoo dolls brought good luck//& you loved me again//to swerve & waver (caper)//to want me supine & ready//yes: the most profound shaman is also stranded in burned ruins

I imagine a woman going through heartbreak, sleeping so much that the world seems unfamiliar when she wakes up, something I can relate to as many of us can. When you want the world to be opposite of what it is, to get the love of your life back, which might mean that the universe would have to be topsy turvy with demolishing spoons and lucky voodoo dolls. I like the concept, that in order to have love back, other items would have to reverse their original nature.


16
do you see?//we//are almost old//we are almost amber//I stare into your ferris wheel eye//as the summer cicadas whirr & stammer in my bones//dear sage//every time I want to write to you, I am going to write a line instead

I love this poem because I can relate to this one, too. Your emotions are so strong that you want to write a letter to the person you feel so strongly about and instead you write lines, poems. How many of us struggle to put into words our feelings for others? How often can we actually address them directly? Lovely poem.


If you enjoyed this sample of Lisa M. Cole’s Renegade//Heart you may purchase a copy for yourself for $7.00 at:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/119192462/renegadeheart-by-lisa-mcole-new-2013

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound

The Galway Review Open Submissions

It would be best to look around the website and get a feel for what kinds of work they feature. Make sure poems are the kind those in other languages will understand, so straightforward is recommended. You may e-mail your poems to: thegalwayreview@gmail.com

For further details and to explore their site go to:
http://thegalwayreview.com/contact/

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.blossombones.com/winter_spring2012/henney_ws2012.html
“Blueprint” by Theodosia Henney

http://www.coconutpoetry.org/torresg1.html
“The Turkey’s Nest Part 1” by Gabriella Torres

Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Juliet Cook’s Poisonous Beautyskull Lollipop

Juliet Cooks’ collection, Poisonous Beautyskull Lollipop, has been published by Grey Book Press as of 2013 and it is a riveting, stark collection that becomes “curiouser and curiouser” as I envision Alice in Wonderland saying if she read it, too. It is a journey that opens your skull and allows your own mind to dance and tangle with her poems. The cover is also very eye-catching. I love Juliet Cook’s work, I wish I were as able to write as freely as she does when the menagerie in the mind is bled onto paper and I am happy to share some of her poems below:

Female Infestation

cutting girls out of catalogs, holding child-sized scissor blades deep
inside

scissoring images of women, categorizing them into portals

making flashcards out of some of them, gluing them onto squares

a hole series comprised of busty ladies, in the back

subject subconscious mind to skimpy assets

make fun of little girls’ matchbox cars and transformers

rap their knuckles, retail their brain into bikini zone palettes

slash me into desirable womanly creature over under

conjure up my broken doll legs, sink me inside my odd doll factory

mounted on a strange vase, I am a poisonous beautyskull lollipop.

This poem lets my mind flow freely with the images, and as you can see, the title of the collection is borne of this poem. What I like about it is the idea of cutting out images of women as so many of us remember or are still making collages throughout our lives and the images of women available are often of “busty ladies” and “skimpy assets.” The line “make fun of little girls’ matchbox cars and transformers” just solidifies the idea that women are supposed to fit the role of being beautiful and to do certain things society continues to prescribe females. The idea of “making flashcards” makes it sound as if our poet is studying to be more “feminine” while keeping in check the “masculine” parts of herself. It is something all women struggle with, and men, too, for that matter. Boys who are discouraged from playing with dolls with their sisters, for instance. Gender roles and how we fit in among them, how the poet feels as though she is “mounted on a strange vase, I am a poisonous beautyskull lollipop.” Poisonous because she cannot live up to the strict feminine guidelines I wonder?



The Ugly Duckling

One half doll swath, the other half unruly. This is my dirty-feathered fate. Birthed of the black swan lace, a high-pitched soprano solo of my past, but my present is loose gravel, is groveling. No longer can I make my diaphragm work that way—that heave that smoothes into sweet syllabics. My new rhythm spurts and gags.

Throughout her poems Juliet Cook speaks of birds, bloody, dirty, struggling. In this poem, I imagine the poet is trying to feel beautiful again, trying to find her “rhythm” from before a tragedy that she has overcome. Her present is “loose gravel” and I picture a delicate creature trying to gain footing and that the poet uses this image to describe a place in her own life. I think it is a wonderful poem about trying to get back to “normal.”



Venus Tree

I planted my oranges with teeth.
I offered my crush a piece of spiked fruit.
Next thing I knew, he was missing an arm.

Could this be transcendence in a new-fangled way,
or were we just consuming each other? How do we
move past our mutilation into our desired sweet bite?

Forbidden to talk about hunger, we suffer
involuntary movements of the tongue—
weevils, vowels, forking out.

My tongue flicking, my limbs twitching
like orange-splotched salamander tails.
I wanted to chew and swallow, but I spewed it—

a bloody spume of glitter dripping down.

This poem makes me think of the poet trying to communicate with someone she loves and what comes out of her self-expression is something quite different. Hence the tongue bearing “weevils, vowels, forking out” and “bloody spume of glitter dripping down.” The imagery is vivid, I can picture a woman trying to speak and what comes out is colored glitter, and her body gestures strange—like “salamander tails.” How often have we tried desperately to express ourselves only for everything to come out all wrong? That’s the impression I get from the poem. For better or worse, the poet is not able to express what she wants to in a way that can be understood.



If you enjoyed this sample, you may purchase a copy of Poisonous Beautyskull Lollipop by Juliet Cook for $5.00 at:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/121462468/poisonous-beautyskull-lollipop-by-juliet?

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Opera in Bianco/Contemporary Poetry

Frederico Federici clued me in to some wonderful English translations on his blog of poems that you should all check out at:
http://leserpent.wordpress.com/category/english/

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Lisa M. Cole's tinder//heart

Lisa M. Cole’s chapbook, tinder//heart, published by Dancing Girl Press in 2012, is beautiful and riveting. There is pain, tenderness, beauty and scars among the pages, all exquisitely revealed by Lisa M. Cole’s mastery of prose poetry. Her words appear as free flowing thought corralled into order. It is difficult to share only a few poems so I urge you to pick up a copy for yourself after reading these samples:

that you didn’t love me//knocked flat//love greater than fear//no walls/tear down & conquer do it//not enough love//thinking//quell love//quell it//drawing the eye//clover eyes, pig eyes, frog eyes, zombie eyes//brick house dreams//digging with a short-handed hoe//remember when we talked of wedding dresses & white cake//my mother cradling my face//don’t quit soldier//don’t quit//biding time//driving, driving/she is a white zombie//no voice box//no chords//ships need anchors

This poem reminds me of free-flow thinking and writing your thoughts as they naturally occur before breaking them up into the fragments that they appeared in. I imagine the poet thinking about a recent lover and trying to stifle the overwhelming tide of emotion, hence the italicized words to emphasize the intensity of the emotions throughout the poem. I love the imagery, the different kinds of eyes she names, perhaps the way her eyes look during the ups and downs of the emotions, and the “brick house dreams” where so many of us picture that perfect house to live in with that perfect someone. Her mother “cradling my face” is endearing and heart breaking all at once and then followed by “don’t quit soldier” and you hope the Mom is encouraging the poet through this heartache to come out whole on the other side of the grief. It’s a beautiful poem. I’ve read it over and over again and just find more and more that I love about it.


touching his skin soft like a pear//memory opens like so many tattered maps//empty perfume bottles shattered//teeth marks on all the books//drinking bloody marys till dawn and scheming like chemists//butter cookies in the backseat of the car after sleeping with the horses in the grass//spill ink on your arm//remember the palm trees & the balmy nights//the letters to too many lovers written in long-hand//all the theatres in your mind fall down & then you see it//what you breathe against//a heart full of tinders

I love the images of each line framed by the //. I envision the poet thinking of a man who she loved dearly but has gone on with his own life and she sees the small moments in freeze frames. I love “teeth marks on all the books” and wonder whose teeth made those marks and how does someone end up putting book in their teeth? What sort of pair sleeps in the grass with horses and then either eats or finds butter cookies in the backseat of the car? I love the idea of “the theatres in your mind fall down & then you see it” all the dramatic spins that reminiscing can impose of true memory and then to strip the memory back down to its true nature. Everything about it makes me long to learn more about this pair in the poem, to dig down further into their history.


when grace asks, give her rusted pennies//the lament of the lungs//that we can never breathe enough//give enough//live enough//when grace allows//love an Irishman with a red beard//bruise your Achilles’ heel dancing drunk in your stockings smoking Camel cigarettes//call the horse & chariot that holds your desire//& runrunrun

I love the idea of “when grace asks…” That state of grace which can be so difficult to achieve, and in the poem is the sense that we are never good enough to achieve grace. So when grace allows it, why not allow yourself to love, to dance, to drink, to smoke, to run? That’s what I imagine the poem’s message to be. I’d love to know how this poem came to Lisa M Cole’s mind and what her intentions are for its meaning.

If you enjoyed this review and these wonderful samples, you may purchase a copy of tinder//heart by Lisa Cole for $7.00 from Dancing Girl Press at:
http://dulcetshop.ecrater.com/p/14991457/tinder-heart-lisa-m-cole

Thanks always for reading, please drop in again next week...

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://juked.com/2013/01/meg-thompson-new-companions-coming-soon.asp
“New Companions Coming Soon” by Meg Thompson

http://www.poolpoetry.com/poetthree.html
“o! hello araby, again” by Kristin Hatch

Thanks again, please drop in again next week…

Aleathia Drehmer's Site

I’m a fan of Aleathia Drehmer’s work and editorial skills. Now she has her website devoted to showcasing all her skills and dreams and things-in-the-works so check it out at:
http://aleathiadrehmer.wordpress.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow…