Childhood
Editor's Comments
Welcome to Issue 5! Childhood has been the most popular theme to date with so many strong poems submitted that selecting the very best to be included in this issue was a very tough job. I hope you enjoy reading this great selection of poems.
Sally Long
Poems
Afternoon, 1988
For Jeff
I’ve been meaning to tell you:
That day the crayfish darted backward to their silty
secrets—
when I caught one with pincers too small to nip my small
palms,
when the creek-smell caught in my throat and stuck,
toes squeezing slippery bed-sand,
minnow schools disturbed, winking soft bodies in sunlight,
when I ran across Route 20 and the blue sedan swerved—
I saw your face from the safe side of the road,
but I couldn’t see your chest expand then deflate;
I didn’t understand my weight,
the harsh sounds your voice made, for me.
Rebecca J. Schwab
6 a.m.
and baby T.V.
in eschatological
mood
has switched itself
on,
cartoons
searchlighting lounge
silhouette-full of
lego-rubble,
prams upturned like
tanks,
juice bloodening
carpet,
maimed doll corpses
armless, whingeing,
aglow with
reflected life,
battery-ready for
resurrection
in today’s
Apocalypse
by stirring gods.
Jonathan Taylor
Silver Birch
The extraordinary
tree at the edge of the green
sways her supple,
white and brown body
as if in a wind,
but the leaves are stationary,
green and gold and
filled with autumn.
There’s mist on the
hill from the dank night
but above the sun
has broken clear:
she catches it in
her auburn hair,
asymmetric, light
on her feet.
Up close, the
leaves that blazed in the sun
are honey-yellow
smudging to brown,
pointing like fir
trees upside down.
The poplars raise
dark brooms behind
but the birch just
dances alone in her mind,
enjoying the
spotlight, for this is her time.
Simon Bowden
Peaceful
The far sea softens
my soul,
my bones cling
to a silence.
to a silence.
I have never been
so peaceful -
so peaceful -
I lay with my hands
upwards toward
the moon as
the breeze slices
the moon as
the breeze slices
between
the oak trees.
Dawnell Harrison
Burned House
Breezes moving
through
The eyeless charcoal
skull
Disturb insects
Rustle leaves in
untended trees
(Boys sometimes throw rocks here)
A mattress rusts away
The indentations of
love
(They write crude obscenities)
Silence but for dust
Settling on the
mouse-nibbled wood
(Bulldozers claw at screaming ghosts)
John Bennett
A Dream of
Utopia
The rulers in charge of pleasures sweet which never dry
Promise to provide an endless food supply
For citizens desiring wealth without the sweat.
As droids are gathering crops around a field,
Databases print records of healthy summer yield
Across the many zones secured within a safety net.
A system where the people have the choice to roam
Zones without restriction like another home
Cannot prepare for virus ready to attack.
As city’s key defenses sleep throughout the night,
Ignorance rapidly rises to a greater height
As fiends observe protective data they desire to crack.
Jason Constantine Ford
In Catholic School
In Catholic school
we girls never dared
to hope
for mercy but prayed
instead to escape
the ruler
Sister slapped
down hard
in a rage that turned
her cardinal
against the white
of her wimple
deliberate strokes
each
girl had to count
out loud.
How it frightened us
to witness
a sister sin.
Sarah Brown Weitzman
Chernobyl
“Children born since 1986 are affected
by a 200 percent increase in birth defects and a 250 percent increase in
congenital birth deformities.”
They took only a
few belongings and left
As quickly as a
charm of golden finches,
Wings throbbing
thin like heart beats,
Scraping the blue
of the sky with their bleeding beaks.
They left behind
entire centuries, stored riches, books,
Expensive china and
preserves, knitted socks
For the Steppe’s
biting winters, schoolbags, pillows,
Onions. Some old
folk.
When their children
started to run high fevers
Or to grow teeth in
awkward places,
They kneeled down
and begged the Lord
To show mercy. They
sold their golden teeth fixtures
To pay doctors and
witches, and they waited,
Restless like water
drops on a hot plate.
Their children
cried late into the night.
627.70 miles away,
my mother locked us in our room.
Touching the grass
would poison us to death, she told us.
We read stories and
counted beads on our abacuses
For an entire year.
We cried. We ate well.
We slept and woke
up.
Roxana Cazan
Émigré
Dripped through its
funnel like paraffin
above the sleeping
estuary, where it ruffles and wrinkles
swirled in slow rush of
backtides through its waters
dusk leaches into greys
of peat and heather
the drowsing turnstone
and godwit
this almost siren music of the pipes
refractions of air on
the damp stones
as your gown darkens on
dark wet cobbles
air through heating
groans to join up
with its comrade
photons of the sky
remembers a hint of
heather offered
by the crofters’ shawl
wrapped hands:
ghosts whisper their
wordless duotones
what you have lost here,
white on green and purple
where the heart’s ease
cased its ribbed glen
among crushed heather
and broken bracken
unbidden plantains
progress from wind-curled valleys
where the wind sleeps.
Colin Honnor
The Psychedelic Kid
After a day at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art
I often marvel
at my early paintings, the zigzag
of my
brushstrokes. No wonder. My parents say
I looked like the
apocalypse when I was born.
Taffy-burgundy,
ankles crossed, I blew steamy
Bible verses into the
air, my pungent cheeks
puffing with stories
to be told. Mark December
17th,
Sagittarius. I was a fast starter. After 8:45
a.m., I was
already doodling with my tiny, crooked
finger, an
eager crayon. My ego popped out
first, I
guess. But I wasn't wrapped in threads of
silk, but laid on
a drawing pad. I did quick wrist
flicks, left a sheet
of Eden's apples for High Mass,
a "magnum
opus" of elegance and order. An uncle
called
me "The Psychedelic Kid," placed a tiny beret
splashed
with colors on my head. Forever, my
drawings were said to
be original, always beautiful--
like my chinaberry
trees, thunderclaps (I loved
the sky), melodious
jars teeming with eyeballs
or dark secrets.
Nobody could count how many
cubist breasts were
hidden in any picture. Of
course I was a
mockingbird at the finest art schools.
Tipped my Pork-Pie
hat in New York City where
I set up easels
under skies bursting with refracted
light (crowning me).
But today, it's another story.
Often I go
breathless if someone asks, "Were you
an artist?" Or
adds, "Didn't I know you when?"
Never do I say that
I once smacked colors on like
any Renaissance (or
Met) master. I don't dare.
I doubt that there's
more than a few of my old
canvases in the
attic. And I wouldn't crawl into
that dark crawlspace
to look at, or display to
anyone, what's
under every dust-sheeted quilt--
paintings
with earthy effects, love and passion,
my self-portrait (the
one where I left off one ear).
Isaac Black
Carolyn, the Apple
of Avenue F
A childhood so consumed
with painful shyness
she told everyone to
call her Nancy. Even on vacation
her parents called her
that, glancing sideways at each other,
shrugging their
shoulders. Now blossomed and respected
as the one who gets
things done she is reborn.
Her lover, skilled at
making her know beauty and fixing
plumbing, has endeared
her to her tenants. She puts on soup,
he fixes the sink in
2B, they make love and feast
like peasants.
Innocent flirting has the gardener
water the walks and
plant flowers for all seasons
out of gratitude for
her sweetness and his visibility
to someone besides his
children. She welcomes
the “hello’s”,
loves chatting with the mailman
and baking cakes for
birthdays and celebrations.
She speaks gently to
the little girl in 4C, petrified
and chubby, forced into
pink tights, black leotard
and ballet by a mother
who cannot accept her baby
as anything but
perfect. Graceful and grown, she tells
the girl when the time
is right to be seen it will happen.
Don’t bake the sweets
until you’re ready to be thanked.
Tobi Alfier
Ethical Issues in
Child Rearing #137
Can it be quite fair of us
(And should it need the pair of us)
To make them eat asparagus?
Steve Broidy
Ceremony
The pregnant woman
comes to
the wedding
reception.
The bride
feels
the stomach of the
guest
after the
ceremony
and ritual toasts
by best man
and father of the
bride.
She feels movement
under the skin,
ripples of pasture
as in
an earthquake
and thinks
of foreshadowing.
Howard Winn
On the Deck
The sound of someone
scrubbing:
a loving sound, a
fibrous rhythm.
A robin weaves twigs
into moss,
breast-shaped cup
blooming.
The small birds tweet
everything:
chickadee, wren, like
soft popcorn.
The robin flits away
to reload,
to bring back a
grassy beakful.
Someone has stopped
scrubbing.
All the surfaces are
clean.
Diane Tucker
Winter Poem
The deer watch me as
I feed the birds.
They are waiting for
me to leave.
They are waiting to
come down to the feeders.
They want to eat the
black oil sunflower seeds that spill on the snow.
I wonder what I have
no right to wonder:
Do the deer wish they
were birds now?
Do they wish they
could fill their empty stomachs on seeds?
A second time I
wonder what I have no right to wonder:
Are these juncos,
finches, sparrows, glad they are not deer now?
I shake my
head to clear it of such nonsense.
The deer watch me as
I feed the birds.
J.R. Solonche
Crock Pot Cooking in Terza Rima
The unhinged lid is
dancing once again –
its measured steps a
metronome for thyme,
potatoes, carrots,
onions, free-range hen,
green peppers,
garlic, waltzing in white wine.
Who said, If
you can read, you are a cook,
was right – but only
in three-quarters time.
They prophesy their
meals will make me look
as skilled as Julia
Child or Rachel Ray.
But what they do not
spill within their books
are strategies when
tragedies delay
the chopping up or
cooling down. The call
that screams, Your
child upchucked three times today.
The keys that laugh
inside my trunk; the fall
that sends me to my
knees before the gods
of saucery and
gravy-splatted walls.
The Flavor
Bible’s geniuses will prod
my insecurity when I
cannot
decipher formulas for
blackened scrod
or callaloo or Philly
pepper
pot.
I am not intimate
with tapenades
or okra. What is
tripe? I prefer … Stop!
the timer chimes
above The Blue Danube,
announcing my
luscious chicken debut.
Carolyn Martin
The Louvre
Some people say
don’t miss the Mona Lisa.
Others say you’ll
need all day there
deciphering her
smile
but I say
beyond those walls
children are
waiting for a breath of wind
to launch their
tiny boats.
Harriot West
Playing House
Plastic forks and
knives
Cups and dishes with
no content
Stuffed children sit
around a small table.
The make believe was
simple.
Birthing is both
painful and beautiful
Holding a still
beating heart of my own creation.
Long ago I played the
role
Not understanding
what it all meant.
Now it’s clear
Now it’s the real
thing.
Mike Freveletti
Nonno
That’s what he calls me
Italian for grandfather
And each time he does
It grabs me deep down
Makes me want to cry
Till his smile breaks out
As I sweep him up
Safe from all danger
It’s an age ago
But I can’t forget
His gentle wisdom
In work overalls
Or best Sunday suit
Eyes twinkling with joy
And arms outstretched
As I flung myself
Towards him
Nonno.
David Subacchi
Memories of the
Circus
I My father
Was a circus strongman who could
bend
An iron bar as if it were
liquorice,
I still see him in his candy
striped leotard
And walrus moustache
Caught in the spotlight in the
sawdust
Twisting bar after bar together
Until they formed an intricate
structure
Somewhat akin to the swirls of a
copperplate letter,
Or a trebleclef's hoops and
curls.
The way his muscles rippled under
the cotton
Made him quite a hit with the
girls
But he only had eyes for my
mother
As she balanced on the high wire
Holding her balancing pole,
It seemed that her hands held
ever so gently
The filaments of his soul,
As everyone watched her,
magnetised,
She would skip and prance
In time with the drumroll shrieks
and applause
Death her partner in the dance.
So it was strange to see them one
night
Stood in a dark space between the
caravans
Just a silhouette of a man
Holding her lightly as a
champagne flute
In one of his massive hands
her head tilted back for a kiss,
his mouth
Light as a humming bird, hovering
Just for a second, then heading
south.
II The Flying Komarnitski Brothers
Had performed for the crowned
heads of Europe
Before rumours of a tragic love
affair
Led to them joining our troupe,
And touring round towns in the
middle of nowhere,
They were a trapeze act but also sang
and played guitar,
Songs sung for centuries among
Birches and steppe grass and each
ancient tavern,
They sang of rivers, moonlight
and a swan
Donning their spangled red and
gold leotards
Your eyes dark as blackthorn,
Shimmying up the ladder
Supple as lizards barely seeming
human.
I watched them release trapezes
and fly
Spiralling towards each other’s
hands,
To hang briefly under a canvas
sky
Balancing at the edge of death
and chance.
One day when we were leaving town
I went to the river bank
I never liked to see the big top
come down
The mermaid's drained tank,
And found Kolya smoking by the
water on his own
Perhaps watching the waves
Or gazing at his reflection,
Ruptured by sunlight and the
shadows of the leaves.
He pointed to a bronze shape that
flashed
At the surface only to flit
Back into darkness and unfurl,
With one flick of his tail the
curl of a Tadjik carpet .
Steve Komarnyckyj
Jesus H. Christ
He was more of an invisible smoking
buddy
to my father than a divine companion
whose assistance
might occasionally be worth calling
upon.
Someone who could appreciate the
parade of clowns
cluttering the narrow streets of my
father’s life --
the bozos who rode his ass down the
highway,
the neighbors who cut their grass on
Sunday evening,
everyone who had anything to do with
the drill
whose trigger broke the first time he
used it.
Bosses. Hippies. Jeeesus
H. Christ.
The name rolled out of his mouth like
a wave,
the long sound of the first syllable
crashing into the rocky shore of the
last.
One of the great mysteries of my
childhood
was what the “H” stood for. My
best friend
was Catholic, and he didn’t
know. I sure as hell
wasn’t going to ask my father.
Jeff Coomer
God's
Finger
Light, so much light,
Light, so much light,
Like the gateway to
Heaven,
Or Hell as the cold
hits
And the first
breath
Rips out a whimper.
Shadows and blurs
Circle the world,
Rumbles and squeaks
Sending thrills and
shivers
With gentle
whispers.
A warm hand holds
me,
Cradles me to the
Earth,
The soft hills
soothing
As I'm given to
God,
And her stroking
finger.
MV Blake
djembe
I open my hands
for the goat skin
stretched taut
over the goblet
shaped hollow
of the hand carved
wood
I’m striking the drum,
entering
the duun guun of
the bass
the pa ta of
the slap
the go do of
the tone
shamans claim to fly
with such sounds,
riding them
like horses over new
plains
the drum is a
vessel
I place my childhood
inside
along with my dreams
and notions and fears
everything I am
enters the drum
I close my eyes and
witness
black and white
images
finding color
I open my hands
Michael Spring
Regression (y = a + bx)
‘...truths are illusions
which we have forgotten are illusions...’ (Nietzsche)
Square one
or one squared:
the brain has
exactly four corners,
which means any
creative movement
of molecular
furniture
will confound
domestic design
causing significant
derangement.
All I feel, however,
is I am eight
again,
clutching the
banister,
listening for two
specific numbers,
different every
time,
which prove the
predictive fit of x,
but not this wet
about my eyes.
You explain the
turning of the tap,
but never how that
equals fact,
never why
any model of mine
just illustrates
the textbook scraping
sound of desks and
chairs wrenched
across a classroom.
Ela Meyer
Monopoly
The summer we were
twelve
Monopoly called
like a stranger
with candy,
sent us stampeding
toward Hal’s front
porch,
blossoming tycoons,
magnates,
wheeler-dealers.
Chance card
an injunction,
Community Chest
a reprieve, we
hoarded
yellow, pink and
blue monies,
crowed when someone
landed on
Boardwalk—
holding two hotels.
Always five or six
played,
two or three on
stand-by
should someone’s
mother call.
That summer, skins
didn’t tan.
Hair did not sun
streak.
Shorts wore thin in
the seat.
We rushed through
chores,
ignored ice cream
truck’s
tinny Turkey
in the Straw—
would not have
noticed
if the sky turned
chartreuse,
fish sprouted
wings, or aliens
walked among us. We
gathered
in a tight little
circle,
passed GO and
collected $200,
got out of jail
free. Legs crossed,
we sang with the
radio: Elvis,
Roy Orbison, Carl
Perkins.
We shook dice,
spilled them,
stuck houses on
every empty lot
like suburban
developers:
unscrupulous,
money-hungry,
cut throat, leaving
our mark,
prepared to take on
the world.
Ann Howells
Milk Line
It’s five o’ dawn.
My grandfather taps
my shoulder,
caresses my hair,
kisses me on my
forehead
and whispers gently
“Wake up my child.
It’s time for milk”
I feel the cold air
of his kiss
that has been out
since 2 o’ night
and get up to see
the stars
while waiting to
buy
one more bottle of
milk
for this family of
nine.
He has polished my
shoes
and warmed my coat
on the tubes of the
wood stove,
gives me my
mittens,
my favorite scarf
and holds my hand
in the hopeful
dark.
Even communists buy
milk
this early in the
morning
they believe the
cows
are producing more
than ever
so they share this
joyful news
right there in the
milk line
where darkness
stays put.
My grandfather
remembers prison
but doesn’t mention
it to me
a brick covered in
plastic in front of our line
is an ear for those
who love
to convert families
into refugees
and sincere
subjects into spies.
He’s told me once
and I never forgot
walls can hear what
a mind can’t stop.
We bought milk and
thanked the party
for allowing me to
sleep until five
for teaching me
that life is beautiful
even when
everything is dark.
Aida
Bode
On the Day I Was Born
They tell me it was
the end of a long and miserable summer.
My mother, full of
me, sat in a rocker in front of the sturdy box
fan that whirred
its double blades, morning & night, in the window
facing Ontario’s
stillness. Nothing was moving, except for
my mother’s heel
stomping against the blue linoleum floor, calling
for another
glassful crushed ice before she expired from the constant
heat that pressed
down upon the crown of her head. My siblings came
when she called
& were just as anxious as she was to get this over with.
I’m not sure
how I felt, but I was patient, waiting until suppertime.
M.J.Iuppa
Old Cars
How I longed,
at ten years old,
for the low-slung glamour
of a 1966 fishtailed Cadillac
My neighbors’ driveways
filled with latest models –
sleek convertibles,
turquoise or red
instead of our
‘52 3-hole Buick,
with black body
bee-round and fat.
I spent my childhood
riding in back seats
of cars older than me,
great hulks of steel
from smoke-filled
Detroit assembly lines
parked in front of our house
for every one to see.
Other fathers played
baseball or grilled hamburgers.
But my father spent Sundays
grease-covered, struggling
to keep those old cars
running one paycheck longer,
and when I waited
in the grocery parking lot
for my mother’s return,
I hunkered down in the dust
of those rusty floor boards.
I prayed that no one could see me,
I prayed for a different road
to travel down.
at ten years old,
for the low-slung glamour
of a 1966 fishtailed Cadillac
My neighbors’ driveways
filled with latest models –
sleek convertibles,
turquoise or red
instead of our
‘52 3-hole Buick,
with black body
bee-round and fat.
I spent my childhood
riding in back seats
of cars older than me,
great hulks of steel
from smoke-filled
Detroit assembly lines
parked in front of our house
for every one to see.
Other fathers played
baseball or grilled hamburgers.
But my father spent Sundays
grease-covered, struggling
to keep those old cars
running one paycheck longer,
and when I waited
in the grocery parking lot
for my mother’s return,
I hunkered down in the dust
of those rusty floor boards.
I prayed that no one could see me,
I prayed for a different road
to travel down.
Lisa Rizzo
Contributors
Tobi Alfier is a five-time Pushcart nominee and a
Best of the Net nominee. Her seventh chapbook is “The Coincidence of
Castles” from Glass Lyre Press. Her collaborative full-length collection, “The
Color of Forgiveness”, is available from Mojave River Press. She is the
co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com).
John Bennett is a retired
ambulance EMT. He studied Comparative Literature at New York University.
Isaac Black, an MFA graduate of Vermont College,
has published in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, San Pedro River
Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. A Pushcart and Best of the Net
nominee, he's also been a recipient of
poetry fellowships from the New York State Creative Artists Service Program (CAPS) and New
York Foundation of the Arts.
MV Blake is an avid writer and blogger,
penning poems and short stories for his own peace of mind. He's forced to
work as a teacher for a living, but suspects he's in the wrong job.
Aida Bode is a writer, poet and
translator. She was born in Korca, Albania. Her writings have been published in
the Albanian media as well as by The River Muse, Dr. Hurley's Snake Oil Cure,
Vayavya and Oddball magazine. She’s the author of David and Bathsheba, a novel
based on the Biblical story of King David and Bathsheba, the poetic collection
True Cheese, and of A Commuter's Eye View, collection of quotes born during
Aida's commuting hours to and from work. They bring a unique perspective on
life’s fleeting moments. Aida Bode is a graduate of Berkeley College, NY.
Simon Bowden is a retired BBC journalist. He has
published a book of poems by the late Mary Skinner and is active in writers’
groups in the St Albans area, winning occasional prizes for poems and short
stories. He is press officer of Ver Poets and runs their workshops.
Steve Broidy is a professor at Wittenberg University,
in Springfield, Ohio. His poetry has been published in The Midwest Quarterly, Dark Matter Journal, and The Resurrectionist, among
other publications; and he has received an award from the Missouri Arts Council
Writers' Biennial.
Sarah Brown Weitzman, a Pushcart nominee, has been widely
published in numerous journals such as America,
Art Times, The North American Review, Rattle,
The Mid-American Review, The Windless Orchard, Poet Lore, Potomac Review,
Poet & Critic, etc. Sarah
received a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her latest book, a departure from
poetry is a children’s novel, Herman And
The Ice Witch, published by Main Street Rag. www.sarahbrownweitzman.com
Roxana Cazan is a Visiting Assistant Professor of
English at St. Francis University, PA. Her poetry appeared in Sojourn, The
Portland Review, The
Madison Review, Barnwood International, and Harpur Palate.
Jason Constantine Ford is from Perth in Australia. He works at
a book shop and writes poetry for the love of writing. He has been developing
his style of writing for over a decade since his early teens. His main
influences for poetry are Edgar Allan Poe and William Blake.
Jeff Coomer is a recovering overachiever who once
had a career as a technology executive for a global Fortune 500 company.
He now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he writes poetry, serves on
the board of two nonprofit organizations, and volunteers his time as a
certified tree steward.
Mike Freveletti is a writer from Chicago. He
surrounds himself with creative people and enjoys a good a story, no matter the
form.
Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 200 magazines
and journals. She has had five books of poetry published including
Voyager, The maverick posse, The fire behind my eyes, The love death, and The
color red does not sleep. Also, she possess a BA
from The University of Washington.
Colin Honnor is widely published in magazines
in print and online, including: Bitterzoet, The Screech Owl, Eunoia Review,
Crack the Spine, Poetry Bay, The Missing Slate, The Hour of Lead, Sentinel
Journal, Message in aBottle, Ataraxia, Miracle, Ink Sweat and Tears,
A New Ulster, The New Shetlander, Hark, Angle, Awen and Inclement.
He formerly edited Poetry and Audience, is a literary scholar,
translator of modern European poetry and runs a fine arts press in the
Cotswolds.
Ann Howells’s work appears in Crannog, Little Patuxent Review, and Spillway among others. She has edited Illya’s Honey for fifteen years, recently taking
it digital: www.IllyasHoney.com. Her chapbooks: Black
Crow in Flight (Main Street
Rag, 2007) & the
Rosebud Diaries (Willet,
2012). She has four Pushcart nominations.
Steve Komarnyckyj's last collection of translated poetry, A Flight Over the Black Sea,
which was published by Waterloo Press in 2014, won an English PEN award. He has
published two translated novels and runs Kalyna
Language Press with his partner Susie and three domestic cats.
Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR,
where she gardens, writes and plays with creative friends. Her poems have
appeared in a variety of publications both in the USA and the UK. Her second
collection, The Way a Woman Knows, was released in February 2015 by
the Poetry Box.
Ela Meyer is a British-German writer living in
the North East of England. Her work has appeared in, amongst other things, Cadaverine Magazine.
Lisa Rizzo is the author of In the Poem an Ocean (Big Table Publishing, 2011).
Her work has appeared in such journals as 13thMoon, Earth’s Daughters, RiverLit and Calyx Journal. Two poems
received the 2011 BAPC poetry prize. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Rebecca J. Schwab
serves as acquisitions editor for Leapfrog Press, teaches creative writing at
SUNY Fredonia, and contributes regularly to the Observer. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Slipstream, Drafthorse, and elsewhere. It is forthcoming
in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review.
J.R. Solonche, four-time Pushcart and Best of the Net
nominee, has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the
early 70s. He is co-author of Peach Girl:
Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books).
Michael Spring’s poems have recently appeared in Absinthe,
Flyway, Gargoyle, Hermes, Neo, and Spillway. His recent chapbook, blue wolf,
won the 2013 Turtle Island Poetry Award (Turtle Island Quarterly).
David Subacchi studed at the University of Liverpool. He was
born in Wales of Italian roots and writes in English, Welsh and Italian. Cestrian
Press has published two collections of his poems. ‘First Cut’ (2012) and
‘Hiding in Shadows’ (2014).
Jonathan Taylor's books include the novels Entertaining
Strangers (Salt,
2012), and Melissa (Salt,
forthcoming late 2015), and the poetry collection Musicolepsy (Shoestring, 2013). His memoir
is Take Me Home: Parkinson's,
My Father, Myself (Granta,
2007). He is Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, and
co-director of arts organisation and small publisher Crystal Clear Creators.
His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk.
Diane Tucker, Canadian poet has published three
poetry books (God on His Haunches, Nightwood Editions, 1996; Bright Scarves of Hours,
Palimpsest Press, 2007; Bonsai
Love, Harbour Publishing, 2014) and a YA novel (His Sweet Favour,
Thistledown Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared in anthologies and in more
than sixty literary journals.
Harriot West writes poetry as an antidote to
academic writing. Her work has been published in various journals including Modern Haiku, Ekphrasis and Contemporary
Haibun. Her collection of
haibun and haiku, Into the Light has
recently been published by Mountains and Rivers Press. http://mountainsandriverspress.org/Home.aspx
Howard Winn's poetry and fiction has been published recently in Dalhousie
Review, Galway Review, Taj Mahal Review, Descant (Canada), Antigonish Review,
Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, and Blueline. He has a B. A. from Vassar College
and an M. A. from the Stanford University Writing Program.
