General Issue
Editor’s Comments
Issue 8 begins Allegro's second year and contains a wealth of fantastic poetry by poets from around the world. Regular readers will notice a new format: there is no theme and Allegro has migrated to Blogger which has made my job, as editor, so much easier. Poets too, should see that their poems appear with their intended formatting. Issue 9, out in June, will be the first themed issue. Details of how to submit appear on the Submit page. I look forward to reading more wonderful poems.
Sally Long
Poems
Expectations
I.
After the fourth week a student
sneaks in
their grandson so they can see
me. I am
a dragon. I don't exist on their
planet. We share
the same world but until now he
has never seen
anything quite like a version of
him ten years away.
II.
The next year someone brings
their mother. I am a circus
attraction. The only thing here
out of the ordinary to be seen. I
recognize
the mother from the line of
people
in the grocery store days
earlier.
III.
A student says they recognize me.
I bought
my phone from them a year before.
She doesn't remember it, the
faces
come and go like obituaries. She
swears
I look like someone she saw
on a t-shirt her friends wore
once.
IV.
Every staff meeting I become the
moon,
apparently beautiful to look at,
catching
the attention of my coworkers who
sit
away from me. I'm alone. Only the
one professor
who taught me at another
university years before
comes over to my table. “Young,
intelligent, black
and alive” she says. “You know,
from their perspective
it isn't personal. None of them
expected you to be here.
You still look like a student.”
I've found the trapeze
which I walk on. I've discovered
how I'm the phantom
formed from a thousand
headstones. My existence
sparks the imagination, defies
all expectations
like escaping the gravity of my
environment.
Deonte Osayande
How I Learned My Future Wife Liked Jane Austen
We were on our way
to the jazz festival
at the pavilion,
tickets in hand, excited—
our first show together.
But the sky darkened quickly,
and all along Main Street
the wind began to ripple
the vendors' tents.
Musicians on the patio
stopped playing
while couples remained
seated at their café tables,
dabbing mouths and chins,
finishing their coffees,
nervously waiting for checks
under the flap of awnings.
We could hear the thunder
moving closer, looming
in the vague, gray horizon.
We didn't want to wait it out.
So trotting in dress shoes
across the busy street,
big drops beginning to splash
the pavement, her purse
slapping my arm as we ran,
she nudged me sideways
just as the clouds
were about to explode
and said, Before it really
pours
let's duck inside that bookstore.
And so we spent the day.
Robert Fillman
Louis Armstrong in Romania
I’m alone in the bar of the Dacia
reading Langston Hughes
alone in the bar of the Dacia
reading Langston Hughes.
The barman puts a CD on.
First track: Jungle
Blues.
Tim Youngs
Ode To Sigmund Freud¹
My patient, __________, wakes/a
rigid paraly-
sis/air heavy with song/alteration of her whole
personality/birds crepuscular as feral cats de-
signed to survive in deciduous
trees beyond her
window/emotional shocks/or
in deciduous for-
ests in Guanacaste/Breuer's
method of exami-
nation/where jaguarundis chase baby monkeys
fallen from their mothers' fur/ call it the con-
scious mental state and the
other detached
from it/yolks of wrens' eggs squishing in mouths
of other predators sated by an
abundance of
prey./the splitting of
consciousness/He stalks
her on the gravel path from Cañas
to Liberia/
hysteria/toward Santa Rosa/powerful wishful
impulses/where the famed psychiatrist coaxed
Cebus to play with broken toys/can only be
traced back to wishful
fantasies/disorganized
thinking/the more powerfully
it operates/foggy
like a mind after sleeping (or
after coupling)/
defense/hot with fear as she stops running/the
individual's happiness cannot
be erased/know-
ing he will overtake her as she
dreams of a dif-
ferent ending.
Clara B. Jones
¹Sigmund Freud quotes in italics
from: Freud S (1909) Five lectures
on Psychoanalysis. W.W. Norton &
Co., NY.
I wake up in the morning
And the room is all dark
My windows are covered
By a thousand black marks
I want the room to reflect
What I'm feeling within
To let no light out
To let no light in.
Christian Scott
small
things
their
own story
a
worn trowel
proof
she
loved her
garden
Ayaz
Daryl Nielsen
Speak Less and Say More
The other day I read in a book
That most of us use only prose when we speak;
So what would happen if we preferred verse?
Might things improve or would they get worse?
Would swearing and shouting in public cease,
And those who are cross stop raising their voice?
With what would we start to exercise our voice?
Anglo-Saxon would be tough even with a book
To hand, and all converse might soon cease.
With Middle English we might at least begin to speak,
Learning from Chaucer, for better or worse
(Or use Nevill Coghill's translation of his verse).
Singing too will have to be done in verse:
Radio One in all-harmonic voice
(Some songs I fear, will sound even worse).
Bands will have to write sonnets or book
A lesson on the ways of Metaphysical-speak.
If they do, then wonders will never cease!
We will say ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, and cease
Impersonal address but relish what verse
Can add to our lives as we speak:
Hearken to John Donne's mellifluous voice
On sex and God in his poetry book;
Believe me, for both you could do much worse!
Would it be a burden, (or even worse),
To read Dr Johnson and cease
Prating as we do, his lexicon book
Shaping the scope and pattern of our verse?
Or shall we echo dear old Wordsworth’s voice
Or compose sestinas and never actually speak?
Yes, life would be slower, all that we speak
Demanding courtesy and time; but at worst
We would at least think more, quietening our voice.
Things would be peaceful, fortissimos cease,
Unless everyone started using free verse,
Which usually reads like prose in a book!
To think before we speak, all gabbling must cease;
As noise gets worse, I’ll gladly turn to verse.
Hush, my voice, my nose is in a book!
The other day I read in a book
That most of us use only prose when we speak;
So what would happen if we preferred verse?
Might things improve or would they get worse?
Would swearing and shouting in public cease,
And those who are cross stop raising their voice?
With what would we start to exercise our voice?
Anglo-Saxon would be tough even with a book
To hand, and all converse might soon cease.
With Middle English we might at least begin to speak,
Learning from Chaucer, for better or worse
(Or use Nevill Coghill's translation of his verse).
Singing too will have to be done in verse:
Radio One in all-harmonic voice
(Some songs I fear, will sound even worse).
Bands will have to write sonnets or book
A lesson on the ways of Metaphysical-speak.
If they do, then wonders will never cease!
We will say ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, and cease
Impersonal address but relish what verse
Can add to our lives as we speak:
Hearken to John Donne's mellifluous voice
On sex and God in his poetry book;
Believe me, for both you could do much worse!
Would it be a burden, (or even worse),
To read Dr Johnson and cease
Prating as we do, his lexicon book
Shaping the scope and pattern of our verse?
Or shall we echo dear old Wordsworth’s voice
Or compose sestinas and never actually speak?
Yes, life would be slower, all that we speak
Demanding courtesy and time; but at worst
We would at least think more, quietening our voice.
Things would be peaceful, fortissimos cease,
Unless everyone started using free verse,
Which usually reads like prose in a book!
To think before we speak, all gabbling must cease;
As noise gets worse, I’ll gladly turn to verse.
Hush, my voice, my nose is in a book!
Rod Hacking
Three Days Ago
Nia tells me she has read
Every book in the children’s section.
I believe her. She is six.
Three days ago, a death’s anniversary—
Intestine-pink sunset mocked his memory
As a fly’s existence ended on the kitchen counter.
We walk upstairs to Young Adult Fiction
And Nia reads her way through
All of the lives she will never live.
Three days ago, Nia wanted to know,
“Why are you crying, Mama? Do you miss Dad?”
She knows too much for six.
Sarah
A. O'Brien
Llyn Aled
Come now and then for the spirit of place
with a carload of energy then, race
the kids around the Llyn, a joy, a treat
scatter ourselves like a sower with wheat
parents find peace: recharge: embrace.
Three decades on in a cloud burst, touch base:
his car is soon lost in the mist: such space
to squelch in the marsh that sucks up his feet.
Brought all four from birth, the moors could trace
thanksgiving and loss, together could face
the soggy earth's cure beside water. Eat
sandwich now, digest the stillness. Feel buried.
He and an Eagle keep vigil with grace.
Robert Shooter
Tao of Indoor Walk
Moving,
reverential pacing, in minimalist sounds, under an
Incense-colored
ceiling, mist like the wind’s inverness. The
Numinous slakes
like water’s lulling murmur. I’m lesser than
Dewdrops on
stones, as I circle barefoot on marble. Here,
Shadows home in
rituals of summer. My heart dwells with
Chirps from
trees older than my grandparents, melodious.
Attuned, I tie
ribbons of my gratefulness to the bonsai
Pruned between
prayer and the moon’s passage,
Each reclaimed
step a hymn to solitude
Jonel Abellanosa
Appledore
Rain and cold shoos us to our green Fiat
I name Verdi striving to make an impression before
I become an obliterated name over a grave
like your ancestors in this Devon churchyard,
the short laboured cadence of their hearts over, gone.
At the pub quiz hosted by our landlord
we describe squatting in long grass before stones
tilting like lunatics near the church of glinting flint.
Its old odour permeated my thoughts until the quiz,
clever foolery expelling the cycle of life and death.
You stow your miniature bottles of spirits we win
in your scuffed backpack leant against the wall
of another B&B, souvenirs of a short adventure.
I drink mine, frittering life away, drunk on success
revising witticisms for proof-of-our-brio postcards.
On our arrival we saw boats stranded in pale harbour mud
but before we leave the tide ripples upriver.
Fishermen hasten to man their flotilla,
making the most of limited time as we head off,
the twisting hedgerowed lane, rain, blindsiding us.
Ian
C Smith
Hightown
More distant, our shadows stretch
apart: closer now to the MOD
warning sign, I read rifle range, keep out.
When the beacon light's red
shells mean something else:
Stop here. Listen.
Keep look for that foreshore ghost
stuck like a thin-man sentinel.
Offshore turbines twirl
like toy windmills, as I upset
the heads of flounders, flies,
terns yarring the word
trespasser.
Then the expanse:
sounds, like airstrip silence
slinking through slack and sand-hills.
As I glance back, you're still,
statuesque, black against the Alt's
edge and estuary, fixed as a gas rig
funnelling its lone star;
conscious of round
which ricochet the headland,
of crosshairs trained on veins.
Your mind struggles
to reconcile the sand lizards
and shrapnel, the scent of asparagus
beds with cadets or hum
of a razor wire fence;
whereas I lament
the lack of a lifeguard
and each step it took
to find ourselves.
More distant, our shadows stretch
apart: closer now to the MOD
warning sign, I read rifle range, keep out.
When the beacon light's red
shells mean something else:
Stop here. Listen.
Keep look for that foreshore ghost
stuck like a thin-man sentinel.
Offshore turbines twirl
like toy windmills, as I upset
the heads of flounders, flies,
terns yarring the word
trespasser.
Then the expanse:
sounds, like airstrip silence
slinking through slack and sand-hills.
As I glance back, you're still,
statuesque, black against the Alt's
edge and estuary, fixed as a gas rig
funnelling its lone star;
conscious of round
which ricochet the headland,
of crosshairs trained on veins.
Your mind struggles
to reconcile the sand lizards
and shrapnel, the scent of asparagus
beds with cadets or hum
of a razor wire fence;
whereas I lament
the lack of a lifeguard
and each step it took
to find ourselves.
Patri Wright
The Rabbits And The Pine Tree
It’s a secret indulgence to feast on the pine
needles of the white pine trees growing on college campus
for both the rabbits and myself. Often we catch each other
in the acts: plump rabbits eating needles and I harvesting
those small green quills from the trees’ bushy branches.
needles of the white pine trees growing on college campus
for both the rabbits and myself. Often we catch each other
in the acts: plump rabbits eating needles and I harvesting
those small green quills from the trees’ bushy branches.
In the afternoon, after a long day of work,
I went out to gather needles for the pine tea I love when
lying there, asleep, nestled in a nest of red pine was a fox,
his belly as round and joyful as Buddha’s.
I went out to gather needles for the pine tea I love when
lying there, asleep, nestled in a nest of red pine was a fox,
his belly as round and joyful as Buddha’s.
Spencer Sheehan-Kalina
lovers and husbands
the day was very hot
the night no relief
David’s only recourse
was the roof
the city slept
night was peaceful
he sat in the dark
ruminating on his problems
a lighted roof nearby
a woman bathing
a gorgeous female
his dilemmas melted
he sent an aide to invite
this vision of loveliness
she was flattered
so prestigious a man sought her
his passion was contagious
soon they were lovers
a difficulty arose
her husband was his aide
away on his business
he was in love
she was unique
and aides are replaceable
Milt Montague
The Visit
We gather shears, narrow baskets,
and in our sandals and cotton sundresses
walk out, dampened by dew
as we force our way through the fields
to the old churchyard and the daffodils and poppies
that grow wild beyond its cultivated beds.
The sun rinses our shoulders with light,
grass-fresh and dappled, blue-tinted in the early morning,
and we clip stem after stem, lay them in the shallow cradles.
We can just glimpse the churchyard, the cemetery,
and the mill beyond. Mother is there among the poplars
in a low-lying corner with our grandparents, great-grandparents.
We walk back through the thickets, the longer route
but cooler now the sun is high. The farmhouse
breathes the scent of yeast-fed bread, bacon,
and hot, milky coffee, briefly muffling
the honeyed perfume of poppies.
We gather shears, narrow baskets,
and in our sandals and cotton sundresses
walk out, dampened by dew
as we force our way through the fields
to the old churchyard and the daffodils and poppies
that grow wild beyond its cultivated beds.
The sun rinses our shoulders with light,
grass-fresh and dappled, blue-tinted in the early morning,
and we clip stem after stem, lay them in the shallow cradles.
We can just glimpse the churchyard, the cemetery,
and the mill beyond. Mother is there among the poplars
in a low-lying corner with our grandparents, great-grandparents.
We walk back through the thickets, the longer route
but cooler now the sun is high. The farmhouse
breathes the scent of yeast-fed bread, bacon,
and hot, milky coffee, briefly muffling
the honeyed perfume of poppies.
L. K. McRae
Plumed Party
While the whole
of London
swirls above or
under the ground,
madly rushing,
running after
concrete
objects, forms and images,
witless,
crumb-less
a foolish
foreigner,
I crash the
morning party
with only an
apology to offer
the inquiring
gander,
whose attention
gets luckily diverted
to uninvited,
alien birds that swoop down,
cackling their
warnings,
making the
Serpentine their home
for a few
moments, before disappearing
into the blue,
sensing their unwelcome
by the silenced
chirping,
leading
indirectly to my silent acceptance,
as pigeons come
to roost under my feet
since I had
been there longer,
but two noisy
birds land,
arguing,
without really fighting,
driving the
pigeons away from the water,
as all the
other party guests wonder
what’s bugging
them…
a line of six
ducks
cross the path
with solemn majesty,
unmindful of
stopping the pedestrian traffic,
who respect
their right of way,
as they march
with
worm-minded purposefulness
towards the
green,
while the
dispersed party guests
slowly return
to explore
the fresh
buffet
very much alive
and crawling.
Sultana Raza
Monet’s Garden
The gate to Monet’s Japanese garden’s open,
beckoning, and green as Giverny’s winter wheat,
but there’s no time to glimpse the pond’s lilies within.
Monet’s Rose Cottage-locked to all but the wrens-
though curved trellises invite, and a path entreats;
the gate to Monet’s Japanese garden is open,
but the tour bus’s door closes, we can’t go inside.
Deep within submerged, asleep, in their frosted retreat
but there’s no time to glimpse the pond’s lilies within.
Black skies sully the palette, a torrent begins
all hope lost in the thunder’s accompanying beat.
The gateway to Monet’s Japanese garden is open;
with a glance, we leave; we can say that we’ve been?
A dream sought, not found, Normandy’s gem incomplete.
but there’s no time to glimpse the pond’s lilies within.
Accustomed to beauty, the plump driver’s chagrined;
yet, he’s kept to schedule; we’ve stayed in our seats.
The gate to Monet’s Japanese garden is open,
but there’s no time to glimpse the pond’s lilies within.
Deborah Guzzi
Choices
He mentioned a baby again this morning,
And close behind, the echo soft and
insistent
That it’s too late, too soon,
The wrong season, the wrong year.
And yet, your body thrills at it,
wanting
To open in sweetness, a pink flower
tilting
Towards the silk at its center,
A container to hold the tender growth—
The language women have known forever.
Besides, you aren’t young anymore
You stopped praying for blood years ago
And each month with its familiar quiet
Brings you one step closer to that
final quiet,
Life yawning like a tulip about to
scatter petals
Worn out with the weight of staying so
always open.
Meghan Sterling
Nycticorax nycticorax
Though it’s seldom seen in daylight,
its croak will fill a moonless valley –
a rough stone dropped down a well
to gauge, give shape and voice
to the dark night's emptiness.
In those small hours, its graceless call
may seem a part of yourself –
solitary, sounding that vacancy
without ceasing, until at last we hear
the first faint notes of daybreak in reply,
and the night heron shuts its ruby eyes,
crest curled like a question mark,
and bows its
head, silent upon its roost.
Kevin Casey
Outcast Winter
The fall of snow
sings notes of silence
to purify the world’s
gray remnants.
This is how I take comfort
in the unravel of time.
The twilight is done
restlessly shifting
its vagrant
painting of heaven.
This is where I stand
in my gray remnant.
A day’s biography has
vanished in the darkening
of what fades from white
into the next life.
This is why I wait the quiet
on this quickening street.
David Anthony Sam
River
Algae, soft plastic, a smear of oil
---fabric of things fluid,
dream-thick, laps, divine gravity.
It inks. The past can mean nothing
unless it is ruefully yours.
In my coat pocket there hid
a copy of psalms. I try to remember
why I come----ash-heap letters, a burnt-out fire.
Something in me weeps. I have no idea the river is so brittle.
Algae, soft plastic, a smear of oil
---fabric of things fluid,
dream-thick, laps, divine gravity.
It inks. The past can mean nothing
unless it is ruefully yours.
In my coat pocket there hid
a copy of psalms. I try to remember
why I come----ash-heap letters, a burnt-out fire.
Something in me weeps. I have no idea the river is so brittle.
Pui Ying Wong
Yesterday
I stroked the heavy
paint across the concrete sill
spider webs in
triangle shapes sat in corners.
Black paint glimmered
like fresh tarmac.
I pushed the strands
into air holes
and wear and tear
knocks.
I was him, painting
the steps, sills, gates,
and outside pipework.
Every other year
'Mind the step'
or 'Wet Paint' signs,
lay as letters on a floor;
I was never asked to
help or shown how to
do it, but as I've
got older a fermenting
has taken place
inside somewhere deep.
Now I check verticals
and horizontals
frames, hinges and
doors.
painting my own life,
my own home for the
years ahead.
Gareth Culshore
The Refugee
This is not my country,
These are not my people,
I don’t recognise a soul
amongst these beaten hunks of meat.
My history unwritten,
Culture exploded,
I’m rendered meaningless,
My kin scattered on the wind.
Spluttering back the Mediterranean
I could reach you by boxcar,
I don’t care how I get there
if I know where you are.
This is not my country,
These are not my people,
I don’t recognise a heart
amongst these beating hunks of meat.
My nation expunged,
Civilisation erased,
I’m rendered meaningless,
My kith scattered to the wind.
I could reach you a stowaway
clutching the wheel of an A340,
I don’t care how I get there
if anywhere will have me.
Ask not what you can do for your
country,
Ask what you can do for your planet,
Ask what you can do for your species,
Ask what you can do for one fellow
human being.
Ben Slade
(for she died) Genesis
35:18
we are told
that they traveled from Bethel
while she was in labor
that it became hard
that her soul was departing
as she named the boy
son of my sorrow
the boy’s father
Jacob son of Isaac son of Abraham
quickly renamed the boy
Benjamin
meaning of my right hand
he grew to manhood
he was awarded a portion
of the earthly kingdom
we are told nothing further
of his mother
Rachael
who was at one time said to be
the woman of Jacob’s greatest favor
what greater want could
a woman have
Bobby Steve Baker
Light in the fog
happiness is fleeting
moments scattered throughout our history
you cannot make me happy
but still you love me
I’m having an affair with sadness
somehow you understand this
I play with the dense energy of melancholy
twisting it around in my fingers as if it were clay
you are the lighthouse in the fog of my making
when I come to you and I always do
with defeat in my eyes because I think love is war
and losing is letting you in
moments scattered throughout our history
you cannot make me happy
but still you love me
I’m having an affair with sadness
somehow you understand this
I play with the dense energy of melancholy
twisting it around in my fingers as if it were clay
you are the lighthouse in the fog of my making
when I come to you and I always do
with defeat in my eyes because I think love is war
and losing is letting you in
you open your arms as if to show me you have no weapons
I surrender
I surrender
Michelle Watters
Sex Talk
We talked about it briefly
over dinner
at California Pizza Kitchen.
My father and I
shared a large cheese
the summer
before I left for college
and he explained
with a tone
normally reserved
for current events
the importance
of Waiting. Clearly
my mother and father's
Catholic upbringing
had rendered them
ill-prepared
to raise two millennials
and I never heard a word
from my mother,
not before or after
the dinner date,
except one morning
months earlier
when I came crying
into her room--I was
heart-broken over a boy
whose name
she hadn't heard before.
She said oh kara,
did you have sex
with him? And I cried
into the pillow
mom no! but of course
I was lying.
Kara Daly
Bloom
Our cat in fleas, fleas in our house,
house of skin. We itch.
Four means of rid, riddance needs
money, time, forward
progress. Miss one tiny egg, intact
the cycle. We pitch.
Begin vacuum, whip cord. Push endless
Vs. Suck every stitch
of nap. Pull deep. Summon the vortex.
Loft larvae skyward.
Our cat in fleas, fleas in our house,
house of skin. We itch.
We wash. Rubber gloves to our elbows,
latex armor. Flinch
not for blood droppings, siphon
mouthparts, spiral larval horde.
No progress. We miss one egg. Intact
the cycle. We pitch.
We tire. Crawls our scalp. Spider
fingers clench. We pinch
black freckles from fur face. Shakes
no the head. Shakes hard.
Poor cat, in fleas; poor house, in
fleas, poor skin. We itch.
Laundering linens lay percussion,
beat of toil. Measures inch.
Opens cabinets, tenders poisons,
soils baseboard.
No progress if one egg missed. We
intact the cycle. We pitch.
Flea jumps our leg. Invisible
sometimes flea. We scratch,
angry skin: welt house. Round again.
We untoward.
Our cat keeps fleas, fleas keep
house, house of skin. We itch
without progress. We always miss
something, cycle intact. We pitch.
Lindsay Doukopoulos
Expedition to
Syracuse
It wasn't what the general wanted --
the horses falling back in disarray,
men chasing them, disconsolate as thieves.
After a generation the war seems old
and intractable as a drunk uncle.
But it goes on because it means so much
to everyone who gave and took so much:
mothers, crippled veterans, profiteers,
and the general himself for this rank,
which sets him above all other mortals,
and makes him better dressed and longer lived.
Yet all things end, except the fact of ending:
the smoking ruins of the defeated,
the victor's poverty and loss, the arts
remembered but forsaken by the dead.
M.
A. Schaffner
Ravishing Mother Earth
She does not scream
or put up a fight
when
we
strip off her top,
snatch her beautiful
black coal, startle wildlife,
shake and split house
foundations,
bulldoze trees.
Not a word she says
when we spill oil
onto
the
oceans, penetrating
the plumage of birds,
the fur of mammals,
killing the fish,
sullying
the beaches.
When we spew chemicals,
particulates and
biologic matter
into
her firmament causing
discomfort, disease
and
death to human beings
and other living
things,
she
tenderly receives it.
No matter what we do
to mess her up she
accepts
the
indignity and keeps us
alive to abuse her
again,
and again,
and again,
and
again.
Martin H. Levinson
Whiteout
Sharp black lines of trees
sketch a hatch work
against the mountain’s snow.
No birds break the cold quiet,
no tracks stipple the snow
but mine.
Nothing
moves
until the tree tops waver
as the flat gray sky exhales
a distant sigh that grows
into a roar through bare
branches. A shapelessness
swallows the mountain,
pellets of snow sting
my face as distant trees
disappear, then closer ones,
the world shrinking quickly
- sky, tree, branch, rock -
into the howling blankness
of my insignificance.
Eric Chiles
Contributors
Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the
Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Anglican Theological Review, The
McNeese Review, Pedestal and Bangalore
Review. He has a
chapbook, Pictures of the
Floating World (Kind of a
Hurricane Press). He’s working on two collections, Multiverse and 100 Acrostic Poems.
Bobby Steve Baker lives in Lexington Kentucky. He has
poetry in Camroc Press Review, Bop Dead City, Linnet’s Wings, and
others. He has two Chapbooks, Numbered
Bones and The Taste of Summer
Lightning. His latest book of poetry and art is This Crazy Urge to Live by Linnet’s Wings.
Kevin Casey has contributed poems to recent editions of Green Hills Literary Lantern, Hartskill
Review, Rust+Moth, San Pedro River
Review, and other publications. His new chapbook The wind considers everything -- was recently published by Flutter Press, and another from Red Dashboard is due out later this
year.
Eric Chiles is an adjunct professor of Journalism and
English at a number of colleges and universities in eastern Pennsylvania who
labored in print journalism until the diaspora of the web. In 2014 he
finished a 10-year section hike of the Appalachian Trail.
Gareth Culshore lives in North Wales and
hopes to achieve something special with the pen.
Kara Daly is an American poet and
singer/songwriter currently living in Colorado. Find out more at www.karadalypoetry.wordpress.com.
Robert Fillman is a Ph.D. candidate at Lehigh University,
where he teaches English and edits the university's creative writing journal, Amaranth. His poems have
appeared or are forthcoming in the
Aurorean, Plain Spoke,The
Chaffin Journal, the
Meadow, Straylight, Third Wednesday, among other
journals.
Deborah Guzzi’s poetry appears in: here/there: poetry-UK, Existere - Canada , Tincture- Australia, Cha: Asian Review-China, Eunoia-Singapore, Latchkey Tales - New Zealand, Vine Leaves Literary Journal - Greece, RedLeaf Poetry- India and Ribbons : Tanka Society of
America, Sounding Review, The
Aurorean, Crack the Spine, Liquid Imagination, and others in the USA.
Rod Hacking is a former priest who now reads and
writes poetry of all kinds - for joy.
Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently
practicing poetry in Asheville, NC. As a woman of color, she writes about
identity and power. Erbacce, CHEST, Ofi
Literary Magazine, Transnational, Quail Bell, Bluestem,
and 34th Parallel are among the venues her
poems have appeared or are forthcoming in, and she is author of the
weblog, Ferguson and Other Satirical Poems About Race (2015).
In the 1970s, Clara studied with Adrienne Rich and has studied recently with
the poets Meghan Sterling and Eric Steineger.
Martin H. Levinson is a member of the Authors Guild,
National Book Critics Circle, and the book review editor for ETC: A
Review of General Semantics. He has published nine books and
numerous articles and poems in various publications. He holds a PhD from
NYU and lives in Forest Hills, New York.
L. K. McRae is a teacher in Ontario, Canada where
she lives and writes. She holds a Master’s degree in Medieval Studies from the
University of Toronto. Her work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, PIF Magazine, Northwind Magazine, and Room Magazine.
Milt Montague first fell in love with poetry at 85. Now at 90
plus, 50 of his poems have been published, in thirteen different magazines, in
less than 2 1/2 years, so far…
Ayaz
Daryl Nielsen is an x-hospice nurse and roughneck (oil rigs), editor of bear creek
haiku (26+ years/127+ issues) and an award-winning poet with hundreds of poems
published worldwide. His ‘haiku tumbleweeds still tumbling’ is at Amazon.com, and online - bear creek haiku poetry,
poems and info
Sarah A. O’Brien earned her Bachelor’s degree in Creative
Writing from Providence College in May 2015. Sarah’s work has previously
appeared in The Alembic, Every Writer’s Every Day
Poems, The Screech Owl, Snapping Twig, and Ampersand
Literary, and is forthcoming in Unbroken Journal and Third
Point Press. Follow her adventures: @fluent_SARAcasm.
Deonte Osayande is a writer from Detroit, Mi. His poems
and essays have been published in over a dozen publications and garnered him a
nomination for a Pushcart Prize. He has been a member of the Detroit Poetry
Slam Team multiple times. He teaches English at Wayne County Community College,
and through the Inside Out Detroit Literary Arts Program.
Sultana Raza’s writings have appeared in Ancient Heart
Magazine (Australia), India Currents (USA), London
Grip (UK), Literary Gazette (USA), Caduceus (Ed.
Yale University, USA), Beyond Bree, (an American MENSA
newsletter), the Peter Roe Series, (Tolkien Society UK), The Whirlwind
Review (USA), Silver Leaves Journal #5 (Canada), and The
New Verse News.
David Anthony Sam is the grandson of Polish and Syrian
immigrants. He has written poetry for over 40 years and has two collections,
including Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves (2014). He lives in Virginia USA
with his wife and life partner, Linda, and currently serves as president of
Germanna Community College.
M. A. Schaffner has had poems published in Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Agni, and elsewhere -- most
recently in Hermes, Modern Poetry
Review, and Pennsylvania Review. Long-ago-published
books include the poetry collection The
Good Opinion of Squirrels and
the novel War Boys.
Schaffner spends most days in Arlington, Virginia juggling a Toshiba laptop and
a Gillott 404.
Christian Scott is a U.S. native. She attended the Art
Institute of Atlanta where she studied Advertising. She has been published in
the Best Poets of 2015 by Eber and Wein Publishing. She has been writing poetry
since she 13, but took it more seriously when she won a high school poetry
contest in the 11th grade. She has always had an interest in the art and hopes
to find a career in it someday.
Spencer Sheehan-Kalina is a Vancouver Island based writer
currently pursuing graduate studies at Vancouver Island University. He is the
founder of lowkeypress, has had poetry published in a number of digital and
print literary magazines, and recently published a children’s book titled
Nootka Sound’s Paddle Song.
Robert Shooter was born in 1944 in Worksop, north
Nottinghamshire and remembers bombs landing in the garden that were meant for
industrial Sheffield nearby. His children were born in north Wales. He's done
creative writing as long as he can remember and an MA in Writing Studies at
Edge Hill University.
Ben Slade is thirty seven years old and lives in Bristol. In 2013 his poem
‘The Right of Reply’ was posted on the Snakeskin Poetry webzine. Ben has BA
English from University College Carmarthen, the town he originally hails from.
He currently works with vulnerable adults in Bristol.
Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in , Australian Poetry Journal, New Contrast, Poetry Salzburg
Review, Rabbit Journal,
Two-Thirds North, The Weekend Australian,& Westerly. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy,
Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He
lives in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, Australia.
Meghan Sterling is a writer and teacher living in
Asheville, NC with her husband and cat. Her work has been featured in
Clementine Poetry Journal, the Chronogram, Stone Highway Review and Freshwater.
She will be the featured poet in the upcoming December, 2015 issue of Western
North Carolina Women’s Magazine.
Michelle Watters poetry has appeared in The Lake, Vending Machine Press, Red Paint Hill and elsewhere. She
has poems forthcoming in Yellow Chair
Review and Three Drops from a
Cauldron. Michelle is a assistant poetry editor for Mud Season Review. She lives in Shelburne, Vermont with her husband
and daughter.
Pui Ying Wong was born in Hong Kong. She is the
author of a poetry book Yellow Plum Season (New York Quarterly Books) and two
chapbooks, Mementos and Sonnet for a New Country. Her poems have appeared in
Prairie Schooner, The Southampton Review and Valparaiso Poetry Review among
others. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband, the poet Tim Suermondt.
Patri Wright is a writer and academic from
Manchester. His poetry has been described as ‘sophisticated writing with
impressive risk-taking and aplomb’ (Vona Groarke). His poems have been
published in several magazines and journals, most recentlyAgenda, and
often focus on psychodrama within the domestic space.
Tim Youngs teaches at Nottingham Trent University.
His poems have been published or are forthcoming in, among other
places, The Harlequin, Hinterland, The Interpreter’s House, Lighthouse, Message in
a Bottle, The Nightwatchman: The Wisden Cricket Quarterly; Prole, Staple, The Stare’s Nest,
and Ink, Sweat and Tears.
