Posts filed under ‘Poetry’
T. D. Ingram
Photo credit Ally Ingram
T. D. Ingram is a retired advertising writer-producer-director who has been writing haiku, senryu, haibun and tanka since 2002. Born and raised in Southern Illinois, he now resides in Texas. His poems have appeared in Ambrosia, Atlas Poetica, Handful of Stones, Notes From the Gean, River of Stones, Seven by Twenty, Sketchbook, South by Southeast and Tinywords. Find him at tdi.posterous.com or on Twitter as Haikujots.
Books for Upper Rubber Boot:
Contemplative haiku chapbook Hiss of Leaves was released August 2012.
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T. D. Ingram is one of 119 contributors to 140 And Counting.
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2 April 2012
Measured Extravagance
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Employing sonnets and sestinas as well as open forms, Measured Extravagance lyrically documents the messiness of grief and explores the complexity of devotion. Peg Duthie celebrates the conflicting demands of journeys as she travels from a Nashville recording studio to a congested street in Prague to the Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, and introduces us to sharpshooters, scientists, musicians, bakers, the dead and those living on the edges of reality as they romp past boundaries, rage at expectations, and tangle with skepticism and belief. Read this book—and throw jump shots with Shakespeare, play duets with Heisenberg, and find out what relish trays and rifles really have in common.
From Measured Extravagance:
The Sharpshooter Assembles a Relish Tray
Some afternoons, everything she touches
reminds her of how bodies are so soft,
even as she delicately wields
chopsticks, toothpicks, tongs, and teaspoons
to place the artichoke hearts just so
among the starflowers carved from radishes.
Eggs with sesame-seed eyes and carrot-sliver beaks
nest within mounds of curly herbs. Around some people,
she can’t helping wanting to claim that it’s all
for the sake of her daughter, whether “it” is the it
of resolutely drilling fake pigeons and falling plates
to defeat the dreams that insist on plaguing
her nights with paper golems and phantom goons
or the it of donning lipstick and hose and heels
as a gesture not of submission but grace, the uniform
of the Sunday suppers she manages to attend. It
is indeed for her daughter—the being prepared
for both monsters and manners—but it is not all.
It would be a meal of only meat, just as a life
without her partner and child would be merely
a serving of stems. She scoops a spare olive
into her mouth, savoring its slide across her tongue:
salt. flesh. seed. The tray is a passable garden
but in the end, it is but an end—its meaning a matter
of preserves and pretenses, a prelude to sustenance.
Poems from the book available online:
These links all open in a new window.
- At Youtube, from a reading at the Nashville Public Library on 24 March 2012: “Playing Duets with Heisenberg’s Ghost,” “Schrödinger’s Top Hat,” “The Language of Waiting,” “Deep and Crisp and Even” and “Hymn“; watch together in a playlist.
- “By Way of Sorrow,” Strange Horizons, 11 January 2010.
- “Deep and Crisp and Even,” The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, December 2009.
- “Kol Nidre” (text and audio). qarrtsiluni, 28 September 2009.
- “The Language of Waiting” and “Fuel,” The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Summer Sabbatical Issue, July 2009.
- “The Sharpshooter Assembles a Relish Tray” and “A Stack of Cards,” flashquake, Volume 8, Issue 2, Winter 2008/2009.
- “As She’s Dying,” flashquake, Summer 2008.
- “A Particular Truth—1941,” Contemporary Rhyme, Volume 4, Issue 4, Fall 2007.
Reviews:
Contemporary poetry on Jewish religious subjects is rare in America outside the pages of specialized Jewish publications. Thus, Peg Duthie’s delightful new collection Measured Extravagance (Upper Rubber Boot Books) is doubly welcome… Peg is a poet we must hope to hear more from.
— Martin Berman-Gorvine, “A Measured Feast,” InTheMoment, 25 September 2012.
I’m delighted. Extravagant and clever, the poem is a fitting introduction to a collection that spans decades, personages, and cities with ease…
Toward the end of the collection we end up in Chicago, England, and Boston in “Between the Hints.” The speaker muses about “what we can make is what // will do for now. . .” Oh how we humans are forever striving! Duthie cleverly twists that idea into all its permutations within the rhymes of this poem’s form, using iambic pentameter and quatrameter so wickedly that the reader doesn’t even realize how smoothly he/she has been schooled.
In all, Peg Duthie has put together a thoroughly extravagant collection of poems. The reader journeys through locations of the mind as well as those of the earth; I was never quite sure what I’d get as I turned the page, but I was always surprised. As the speaker says in the poem “Extravagance”—”Such a feast.”
— Christine Klocek-Lim, “Three Poetry Reviews for National Poetry Month,” November Sky Poetry, 28 April 2012.
The title appears to be an oxymoron. How can something measured be extravagant? We can ask that question of poetry itself. Taking it to the bard as we shoot hoops, we might ask how it’s possible to seize something as tight and as structured as a sonnet and stuff it full to bursting. The answer… well, the whole book is an answer to that question.
We might just as easily ask the same question of life, with its well-defined form and obvious boundaries. How can we live extravagantly within our measured years? In “As She’s Dying”, we meet a mother intent on not living while she was alive: “she/who regarded my writing as a squandering/of time and ovaries.” And in its companion poem, “A Stack of Cards”, we imagine a quiet moment after the funeral, going through the mother’s things, “this mourning of a life you wouldn’t have lived/even if you’d had the heart for it.” Both poems are 13 lines, not rondeaus, sort of deformed sonnets if you like, a bit clipped like the mother they contemplate.
A life lived within the measure of its confines is no life at all, but a life lived with extravagance becomes more than the sum of its years.
— David Allan Barker, “Review: Measured Extravagance, by Peg Duthie,” Nouspique, 20 April 2012.
…it’s a sestina, and a good one! I’m not typically a big fan of form poems—with sestinas about half way through the poem I usually feel like, as a reader, that I can see the writer trying too hard to get those end-words in—but Duthie seamlessly blends them in.
— Renee Emerson, “Measured Extravagance by Peg Duthie (a review),” This Quiet Hour, 10 April 2012.
What I admire most about this book is Peg Duthie’s masterful treatment of highly politicized topics (such as the political inclinations of well-known scientists) into a non-politically-correct lattice… Measured Extravagance delivers. What a gorgeous collection!
— Kristine Ong Muslim, “on Peg Duthie’s ‘Marvelous Extravagance’,” 1 April 2012.
I think my favorite, my best delight, in this volume, was ‘Deep and Crisp and Even,’ which title will make those who know me go, well, of course–and it’s got apples and snow and winter, but it’s Peg’s Nashville winter and not my own, parallax again, different views, different angles. I love this. I reread it already. I will reread it again.
And sometimes things find you where you are and you don’t entirely wish to say why, and ‘Hymn’ is like that, and if it finds you where you are, too, you will know. Recommended.
— Marissa Lingen, “Measured Extravagance, by Peg Duthie,” Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway, 21 March 2012.
2 comments 14 March 2012
Peg Duthie
Peg Duthie shares an old house in Nashville, Tennessee, with a tall mechanic, a large dog, and a small piano. She works as an indexer and copyeditor, and there’s more about her at www.nashpanache.com.
Books for Upper Rubber Boot:
Measured Extravagance lyrically documents the messiness of grief and explores the complexity of devotion.
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Peg Duthie is one of 119 contributors to 140 And Counting.
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1 comment 1 February 2012
sweating lemonade
Marissa Lingen has just posted a review of Blueshifting. |
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1 January 2012
Heather Kamins
Photo credit Dimitri LaBarge
Heather Kamins grew up in New York and Massachusetts and has an MFA in creative writing from Mills College. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in various journals including 7×20, Chiron Review, Neon, Autumn Sky Poetry, Alehouse, and 580 Split, and in the anthology 140 And Counting. She lives in Western Massachusetts. Visit her online at www.heatherkamins.com.
Books for Upper Rubber Boot:
| Heather Kamins’ inaugural chapbook of poetry, Blueshifting, reveals a deep curiosity and insight into the repressed and irrepressible energies of our world. | |
Heather Kamins is one of 119 contributors to 140 And Counting.
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11 December 2011
Blueshifting
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A blueshift is a decrease in wavelength caused by the motion of an object towards the observer, most commonly experienced in the Doppler effect.
Clocks and galaxies and streetlights; urns and deadbolts and petroglyphs; sweating lemonade; contrails; the spider strings of memory; rocky winter ground, the great blue heron with its neck tucked up under it like a wish, and the vanishing stars: Heather Kamins‘ inaugural chapbook of poetry reveals a deep curiosity and insight into the repressed and irrepressible energies of our world.
From Blueshifting:
Eggcorns
Those plump, capped kernels that fell
from the branches overhead,
sinking like deep-seeded feelings
to hatch new trees,were good for throwing
in holes, at piles of leaves,
at old gravestones in the mist of history
as snow threatened to descend.The empty caps made good whistles,
shrieking, splitting the air if you shaped
your thumbs into a half-asked Y, pressed,
and blew hard, if you needed helpfiguring out what to say
or how to understand. Even now,
the cognitive dissidence: I still don’t know
the right words to speak to what landson the unsuspecting grass, to bare witness,
to make that mute point,
that I’m scarred half to death,
that I’m internally grateful.
Poems from the book available online:
These links all open in a new window.
- “Eggcorns,” Autumn Sky Poetry, Number 19, October 2010.
- “De Omnibus Dubitandum,” “Entropy” and “Prevailing Winds,” Neon Literary Magazine #27, Summer 2011, pp.23-25.
Reviews:
In “Insomnia,” the poet continues that sense of wonder. Instead of filling the poem with frustration and difficulty (as so many sleepless nights feel), she talks about those delightful sounds that one only hears in the dark: “ceaseless polyphony” or the breathing of a lover. I was delighted with the sense of awe that rose through lines like this one: “wild neurons / weaving the spider strings of memory.” In the end, the speaker asks: “How can I sleep / in a world so full of such things?” The poet makes me wonder the same thing and perhaps the next time I’m lost at 2 am, wakeful and unhappy, I’ll stroll through the dark and remember to look around me with awe instead of dismay.
…As a reader, I wanted more poems, more of Kamins’ beautiful imagery and wonder.
— Christine Klocek-Lim, “Three Poetry Reviews for National Poetry Month,” November Sky Poetry, 28 April 2012.
Kamins’s language is lively and lovely. Take the opening stanza of the title poem, which plays with manifestations of the color blue:
All the children in churches
in itchy indigo dresses,
all the tentative
lovers waiting for the light to change
on corners in the cyan morning,
all the old men playing chess
on pitted slate benchesFirst of all, of course, the reader notices the lushness of all that alliteration: children, churches, itchy, change, chess, benches. (Kamin backs off that heavy sound as the poem progresses, which is probably for the better.) And then that line break “tentative / lovers” that illustrates with the imposed pause the hesitation of these lovers. And, in a poem called “Blueshifting,” you have to notice that these lovers are “waiting for the light to change” — waiting for the hello to become the good-bye.
…Much delight in this slender volume. Well worth the $4.99 cost of a download.
— Sherry Chandler, “Exploring the blueshift on the Couplets blog tour,” 24 April 2012.
There is much to ponder in this collection. The recurring scientific imagery is used to make observations about our relationships to each other, the natural world and the universe as a whole. These themes are poetic staples, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing new to say about them. In particular, the scientific theme helps dissolve the artificial divide between science and art.
— Jason Jawando, “Review: ‘Blueshifting’ by Heather Kamins,” Neon: A Literary Magazine, March 2012.
In some ways, the gist of her poetry is reminiscent of the phenomenon of peripheral vision in which you’re positive something has slipped into the perimeter of your consciousness only to vanish before you can fully register what it is. In Kamins’ world, places and happenings may be presented with telling precision but everything is on its way to becoming something very different or at least affecting the narrator in a very different way.
This is, in brief, a cool, intellectual exercise in poetry that I enjoyed much more than I expected to, which is quite an admission from a Byron man.
— Robert Hewitt, “Poetry and life enhancement…,” 11 March 2012.
One twist in the path, which maybe defies scientific analysis even more than love, is humour. Kamins keeps the all-powerful governing metaphor at bay with a gentle sense of humour and genuine wit. Eggcorns, for example, is a funny poem of malapropisms. And Devolution inverts our expectations by sentimentalizing garbage and smog and expressing indignation at the threat of an encroaching nature. And my favourite of the collection — Headspace — lulls us into a saccharine state of mind, sitting next to grandmother, perhaps on a farm, learning how to make jams or preserves the old-fashioned way, until we discover that this is a case of ‘borrowed nostalgia’ and our narrator is, in fact, in a classroom making it all up… projecting the good old days when poetry was a rustic pleasure passed on to us by our grandparents. Maybe this is Kamins poking gentle fun at the whole debate. And with beautifully crafted poems in a tight, cohesive collection like this, we’ll grant her that indulgence.
— David Allan Barker, “Blueshifting, a poetry chapbook by Heather Kamins,” nouspique, 31 January 2012.
These poems, these concepts are aimed at coming towards the reader, bringing things closer, connecting sandwiches and lightwaves and grocery lists… I’m adding Heather Kamins to my list of poets to keep an eye on.
— Marissa Lingen, “Blueshifting, by Heather Kamins,” Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway, 1 January 2012.
3 comments 11 December 2011
140 And Counting
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Plucky underdog online journal Seven by Twenty is an online magazine using Twitter as its publishing platform, for readers at home and on mobile devices, which started publishing weekdaily in July 2009. Seven by Twenty specializes in literary and speculative writing that fits in a tweet – they mostly publish haiku and related forms (like scifaiku and senryu), and cinquains and American sentences, and very, very, very short stories.
140 And Counting is a collection of the best twitter literature from the first two years of the journal’s history, on relationships, nature, work, animals, seasons, science fiction and fantasy, and mortality: 141 clever little allotments of literature by 119 authors in 1 exquisite ebook!
Reviews:
What should appeal to the average reader is that most of the poems will not read like the haiku so many dislike because it seems to say nothing quickly. These poems, for the most part, are well crafted and thoughtful. The best of these caused me to stop and replay them in my mind.
The stories here also work like good poems, jabbing at the senses, the heart, and the mind like a dagger making quick work of our preconceived notions about fiction. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself chuckling one minute and gasping the next.
—Michael Neal Morris, “Bookmarks–140 And Counting,” Monk Notes, 6 June 2012.
As a collection of work from a modern medium, then, i find that this is an excellent work, with much to be appreciated…
—Elsie Wilson, “Another poetry review,” 2 April 2012.
It is a selection of sayings, necessarily short, from Twitter, and very appealing and absorbing. I have been an ardent fan of Twitter for over a year, and a more recent convert to Haiku. Why write a hundred words when ten can express the same thought and capture the same evocative image?
—Elizabeth Spradbery, on French Phrases, 4 March 2012.
Kickstarter Sponsors
Upper Rubber Boot is tremendously grateful for the overwhelming support from:
- Sara Astruc
- Jennifer Brown
- Sue Burke
- Michael Donoghue
- Anne Gregory
- Caroline Halliwell
- Sandy Kamins
- Cee Martinez
- Deborah Merriam
- Christina Nguyen
- Kathy Nguyen
- Carol Raisfeld
- Sue Sartini
- Vickie and Bill Slone
- Helen Tang
- Lawrence van der Meer
8 comments 11 December 2011
140 And Counting Contributors
Seven by Twenty is an online magazine using Twitter as its publishing platform. Here is a collection of the best twitter literature from the first two years of the journal’s history, on relationships, nature and the night, work, animals, seasons, science fiction and fantasy, and mortality, by 119 authors from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Germany, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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Contributors for 140 And Counting:
Carolyn Agee (@AgeeC) is an actress and author living in the Pacific Northwest. Her recent and forthcoming credits include Four & Twenty, Cuento Magazine and The Healing Muse. Find her at www.facebook.com/CarolynAgee.
Francis W. Alexander‘s (@FWAlexander) work can be seen in House of Horror, Night to Dawn, Deadication and Scifaikuest, and he is the author of While Treating My Lady at Zom’s Rib Shack, the Waiter Inquired How I Escaped the Pot.
Elise Atchison lives in the mountains of Montana. She is currently working on a novel. For more information, please visit eliseatchison.com.
Wendy Babiak (@wendybabiak) lives to wonder. First book of poems: Conspiracy of Leaves. Find her at wbabiak.wordpress.com.
Widely published in poetry and fiction, Richard Baldasty has zine work archived online at Antipodean SF and Twitter verse at escarp.
Bendi Barrett (@Bendied) is a poet living near Chicago. Visit him at bendibarrett.com. “Come in and loosen your tie…” originally appeared in escarp.
Elizabeth Barrette is a writer, editor, reviewer, blogger, crowdfunder, gardener, priestess, and activist. Find her at ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com.
Between her attempts to master the elusive art of poetry, L.K. Below writes adult romance and speculative fiction. Under her full name, Lindsay Below (@LBelowtheauthor), she also pens young adult novels. Visit her at lbelow.net.
Kevin Bishop (@kvnbishop) lives in Kirkland, Washington and writes stories from 140 characters to 80,000 words.
Nathalie Boisard-Beudin (@spacedlaw) is a French lawyer having way too much fun with words, pictures and food. Her published works are listed and linked in the side bar at either wordofthedayfreshfresh.blogspot.com or spacedlaw.blogspot.com.
Robert Borski lives in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. His first collection of poetry, Blood Wallah & Other Poems, is available from Dark Regions Press.
In 2010, Helen Buckingham had four collections published: three solely of her own work (water on the moon and mirrormoon, both Original Plus Press, UK and chapbook christmas city by Othername Press, UK) and her first in collaboration with Angela Leuck (turning fifty, published by Angela in Canada). 2011 saw her second in conjunction with Angela (little purple universes) and her first collection containing both eastern and western genres (Armadillo Basket, Waterloo Press, UK). “siesta” first appeared in Roadrunner VIII:3, August 2008.
Sue Burke lives and writes in Madrid, Spain. More at sue.burke.name.
Timothy Collinson (@timpaa) first encountered haiku in grade school whilst living in Virginia Beach. He likes the way it makes him stop and appreciate nature while the world whizzes past. He also writes haiku under the pseudonym tc. He occasionally contributes to Presence and has had a couple of small exhibitions of his work in Portsmouth on the South Coast of England.
Dawn Corrigan has published poems and prose in a number of print and online journals. She lives in Pensacola, Florida.
Helen E. Davis (@dragonwriter62) is still married and still writing when she isn’t dodging tornadoes. She lives in Ohio with her family and her cats. Find her at www.sff.net/people/dragonwriter.
Vancouverite Michael Donoghue (@mpdonoghue) loves infomercials, people watching and procrastination.
Andrew O. Dugas (@haiku_andy) has been published in LITNIMAGE, Fiction 365, Instant City, Flatmancrooked, and The SOMA Literary Review. More at sleepwalkinginparadise.com and daily haiku at haikuandy.wordpress.com.
| Peg Duthie (@zirconium) sharpens, condenses, herds, and massages words as a copyeditor and indexer. Find her at nashpanache.com. “You can tell which side of the moon…” first appeared in microcosms. Her chapbook Measured Extravagance is forthcoming from Upper Rubber Boot. | |
Norwegian fiction writer Berit Ellingsen (@BeritEllingsen) has had work appear in various online literary journals and print anthologies. Berit’s first novel is The Empty City; see more at emptycitynovel.com.
Neil Ellman lives and writes in New Jersey and has published numerous poems in print and online journals throughout the world, as well as in five chapbooks.
Deborah Finkelstein‘s “locked out…” was originally in 3 Lights Gallery. Find her at DeborahFinkelstein.com.
Kaolin Fire (@kaolinfire) is a conglomeration of ideas, side projects, and experiments. Outside of his primary occupation, he also develops computer games erif.org/code/games/ ; edits gudmagazine.com ; and very occasionally teaches computer science.
Lebanese American Brenda J. Gannam has won a number of awards for her haiku and senryu published in a wide variety of journals and anthologies, in print and online. She has served as coordinator for the Haiku Society of America and the Spring Street Haiku Group in New York.
R. Gatwood is concise. “Were the candles for wax play…” first appeared in Nanoism. “Smooth, perfect snow…” first appeared in Cuento Magazine.
D. Gilson (@dgilson) is an MFA candidate at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, though he’s a Midwest boy, always and forever.
Dennis Y. Ginoza lives on the Kitsap Peninsula of Washington State. He blogs at akopos.net.
Caroline Halliwell (@Caroline_Writer) is a poet, photographer, writer, and blogger. She is a lover of antiquarian books and an information and new media enthusiast. Currently she is editing her mystery novel.
Shawn Hansen (@Shawn_Writes) prefers the dark and frolics with things that go BUMP in the night. Her work lives at scribbledstories.com.
After a lifetime in and around New York City, David M. Harris moved to Middle Tennessee for love. He also started writing poetry. Both projects seem to be working out.
A. Jarrell Hayes (@ajh_books) writes poetry and fiction. He is the author of several novels and poetry collections. Find him at ajhayes.com.
Autumn Hayes (@autumnatic_daze) is a freelance writer, creative writing teacher, and poet who always roots for the middledog.
Evi Hoste (@evihoste) often lives on trains that cross the country. The mystifying results of this are a slightly addled brain and caffeine addiction. Find her at rainofthenight.livejournal.com.
C.E. Hyun (@ce_hyun) is a law student. Her short stories have appeared in The Red Penny Papers, Nanoism, and the British Fantasy Society’s BFS Journal. Her website is www.cehyun.com.
T. D. Ingram (@haikujots) has had poems in Ambrosia, Atlas Poetica, Handful of Stones, Notes From the Gean, River of Stones, Sketchbook, South by Southeast and Tinywords. “midnight swim…” was in SxSE Vol. 14 #1, and “branches scratch…” was in SxSE Vol. 17 #2. Find him at tdi.posterous.com.
Born to a young couple living in a basement in an urban slum, Judy B. Jacobs now lives and writes the occasional poem in the rural splendor of Middle Tennessee. She lives with her spouse, child, and numerous members of other species, both domestic and uninvited. “shiny and rolling …” was originally published at the now-vanished haikuninjas.com.
Jax lives in Plymouth, UK, and has had quite a few short stories, poems and articles accepted for publication.
J. A. Johnson (@j_a_johnson) lives in Minneapolis with his wife and twin sons. Find him at jxjohnson.tumblr.com.
Alexander B. Joy (@Lexcelsior) is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at UMass Amherst.
Jim Kacian is the founder of The Haiku Foundation, and owner of Red Moon Press. “the river…” first appeared in his Six Directions (La Alameda Press, 1997) and “the cold night…” first appeared in Modern Haiku.
| Heather Kamins (@shakieranthem) writes poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry, 580 Split, Alehouse, and the Rat’s Ass Review, and her chapbook Blueshifting is available from Upper Rubber Boot. |  |
Beth Katte (@bethblackbird) can be found at http://www.bethkatte.com.
S. Kay is some type of @blueberrio. Her stories have appeared in the anthology On A Narrow Windowsill and numerous Twitter zines.
Julie Bloss Kelsey (@MamaJoules) enjoys writing short form poetry. Find her at starsinmysugarbowl.blogspot.com.
Simon Kewin (@SimonKewin) writes fiction, poetry and software. He blogs about writing at spellmaking.blogspot.com. He likes his coffee black and strong.
Past President of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Deborah P. Kolodji is editor of Amaze. “lemon blossoms…” was originally in tinywords.
David Kopaska-Merkel (@DavidKM) describes rocks for the State of Alabama. He won the Rhysling award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association for best long poem (2006) for a collaboration with Kendall Evans, and edits Dreams & Nightmares (dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.com). He became President of the Science Fiction Poetry Association on July 1, 2011.
Richard Kriheli edits @splitquarterly, designs @liquidboylabs & works a day job @rga. He’s husband to @malathip and papa to Zion.
Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, CA. Two of his short stories are MWA Notables, and his novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Playwright and director Jeremy Lewit (@jeremylewit) blogs daily poetry at jeremylewit.blogspot.com. He has also been published by escarp.
Freelance writer Chen-ou Liu (@ericcoliu)’s haiku and tanka have been honored with 24 awards. Find him at chenouliu.blogspot.com. “the cooing…” was first published in Concise Delight, #2, Winter 2009.
Ken Liu (@kyliu99) has been published in F&SF, Clarkesworld, and Asimov’s, among other places. An earlier version of his story appeared in Thaumatrope. Find him at kenliu.name.
Lisa Tang Liu (@pigmentia) lives with her husband (Ken Liu, who also has a piece in this anthology), daughter, and cat. An earlier version of “Concrete Steps” appeared on OneFortyFiction.com. Her website is LisaTangLiu.com.
Tess Almendarez Lojacono‘s first novel, Milagros, is available from Laughing Cactus Press: http://www.laughingcactuspress.com/milagros.html. Read excerpts from her new book at thebookofzane.com.
Aurelio Rico Lopez III (@ThirdyLopez) hails from the Philippines. He’s an avid fan of all things weird.
Maya Malhar (@small_veracity) is a dreamer and masquerades as a poet and writer.
C. Martinez is a cheerful tea addict who hails from a Colorado suburb. Find the weird in the mundane says she. Find her at http://ceemartinez.blogspot.com.
An Mayou (@perlygates) is a writer of things, a lover of wisdom, even if it’s not true. Her cloud-self loves drifting through words.
Editor of Psychic Meatloaf, George McKim has had poetry in multiple periodicals including REM Magazine, Symmetry Pebbles, The Dirty Napkin, Blaze Vox, pigeon bike and Carcinogenic Poetry. His artwork has been exhibited in group gallery and museum shows and has been accepted for publication in Drunken Boat, Muzzle Magazine, Monarch Review, Otoliths, Portland Review Online, Viral Cat and Breadcrumb Scabs Poetry Journal.
Rob McKnight lives with his family in Northern Virginia. His Twitter fiction sometimes appears at @ramfic and has been republished in Seven By Twenty, Folded Word and Thaumatrope.
Fiction writer and poet Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz (@gwjomi) currently writes from the desert but is headed toward snow before the year’s end.
Dave Moore (@daveontheradio) is a radio personality for Philly’s B101. He’s a regular in Philadelphia Poets Journal.
Jason Everett Morris (@jasonevermorr) writes speculative oddities in a bonbon encrusted house dress. In answer to Hemingway — For sale: infant’s casket. Never used.
Christina Murphy‘s writing appears in a number of journals including ABJECTIVE, MiPOesias, PANK, and POOL: A Journal of Poetry. Her work has received Special Mention for a Pushcart Prize.
An internationally published poet and short story writer from Cyprus, Nora Nadjarian (@NoraNadj) has had work recently in the anthologies Best European Fiction 2011 (Dalkey Archive Press) and Being Human (Bloodaxe Books). Her new book of short stories, Girl, Wolf, Bones, is available from Folded Word (USA) at foldedword.bigcartel.com/product/girl-wolf-bones and her microfiction book Twenty Days in Torino is available from twenty20 Publishing. Find her at bettyboopinspired.blogspot.com.
Elena Naskova was born and raised in Macedonia, and lives in Seattle. She writes mostly haiku and plays. “one more step to the top…” was originally in tinywords.
Peter Newton (@ThePeterNewton) is a poet and stained glass artist living in rural Massachusetts. A member of the editorial team at Tinywords.com, his work has appeared in a variety of print and online journals. Peter’s collection of haiku, What We Find, is a letterpress book published in November 2011.
Freeman Ng has been posting one new haiku every day to www.HaikuDiem.com since July 2010.
Christina Nguyen (@TinaNguyen) is a MN writer & poet whose recent work appeared in American Tanka, Frogpond, Gusts, Moonbathing, red lights, tinywords and other journals. “the banana sticker…” was originally published in Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu & Kyoka (Issue 5: Winter 2011).
Vietnamese-American poet and post-baccalaureate nursing student Kathy Nguyen (@alotus_poetry) has had work in various publications including Pay Attention: A River of Stones, Catzilla!, Spiraling Thrice, All Things Girl E-zine, Four and Twenty, Seven by Twenty, Cats with Thumbs, and Physiognomy in Letters. Find her at alotus-poetry.livejournal.com.
Three years ago, Shelley Ontis (@skayontis) couldn’t have imagined she’d ever say “Hey, I just tweeted!” without giggling and blushing.
Jessica Otto (@skyllairae) lives in Arkansas with her husband and many cats. Her poetry has been featured in The Camel Saloon, a handful of stones, 50 to 1 and 7×20. She edits trapeze magazine (@trapezemag), a twitter based magazine of surreal and speculative fiction and poetry. Her e-chapbook Wormwood was published by Ten Pages Press in April 2011 and her poem of the same title was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011.
Casey Parry (@caseyparry) lives alliteratively with family, felines, fish, and fowl in a Fenland university town. Her work has appeared in Discovering a Comet and More Micro-Fiction (Leaf Books, 2008) as well as in Thaumatrope, Tweet the Meat, and others. Find her at caseyparry.wordpress.com.
Vaidehi Patil (@cerulean_green) works and lives in Pune, India. She is a graphic designer who loves to write, and collect old maps and interesting trivia. Find her at vaidehipatil.wordpress.com.
An MFA student at UNC Greensboro, Julia Patt (@chidorme) has recently had work in The Medulla Review and Bards & Sages Quarterly. She loves Twitter.
Rebecca J. Payne (@rebeccajpayne) is a science fiction and fantasy author from Cambridge, England. Her work has appeared in Interzone and Ethereal Tales.
Jimmy the Peach (@JimmythePeach), Peach to his friends, lives in New Maine and is a published poet, author and songwriter. His haiku can be seen every day at HaikuToday.net.
A North Georgia accountant and business student by day, Cheryl Phipps writes music reviews, poetry and songs and watches sports in every other waking moment. Sometimes she dabbles with paint or colored pencils.
Stella Pierides (@stellapierides) was born in Greece and now divides her time between London and Munich. Her poetry, short stories and non-fiction have been included in anthologies, in print and online magazines, and in books. Find her at stellapierides.com.
Jonathan Pinnock (@jonpinnock) is. For the moment, at any rate.
Carol Raisfeld (@carol_red) has had poetry, art and photography appear worldwide in print, online journals, and anthologies. Find her at Haikubuds.com.
Meredith Ralston is just another soulless ginger, wreaking havoc and scattering pink oleander blossoms in her wake as she drives.
Doug Robertson (@Brevity24) is a real lawyer—at least he managed to convince the people at the bar.
Ana Cristina Rodrigues (@anacrisrod) is a Brazilian historian/writer/translator. “The alchemist burned…” originally appeared in Thaumatrope.
Matt S (@mswriting) is from a small town in Atlantic Canada. He is currently living overseas.
Founder and director the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College, Miriam Sagan is the author of over twenty books, including Map of the Lost (UNM Press). Find her at miriamswell.wordpress.com.
Steven Saus (@uriel1998) injects people with radioactive stuff, writes, teaches, and publishes. Find him at stevesaus.com.
Ray Scanlon (@oldmanscanlon) lives in Massachusetts. He has grandchildren and other good luck. He’s at read.oldmanscanlon.com.
Australian poet Nicola Scholes is currently researching a PhD on representations of the maternal in Allen Ginsberg’s poetry at the University of Queensland. Her first book of poems is Dear Rose (Small Change Press, 2009).
Alexa Selph is a native of Atlanta, GA, where she works as a freelance book editor. For the past ten years she has taught classes in poetry in the adult education program at Emory University. “full moon…” originally appeared in tinywords.
John Sheirer (@JohnSheirer) is a teacher and the author of several books. He can be found at johnsheirer.com.
David G. Shrock (@dracotorre) lives in the Pacific Northwest where he works as a software developer and writes science-fantasy fiction.
Marge Simon writes poetry and edits Star*Line and stuff. That’s about all there is to say.
Grzegorz Sionkowski lives in Torun, Poland. He writes haiku in English and translates haiku from Japanese to Polish.
Lucas Stensland (@HaikuCowboy1) is co-author of the poetry collection my favorite thing (2011, bottle rockets): bottlerocketspress.com/booksbroadsides/myfavoritething.html. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Townes Van Zandt.
John Stevenson is Managing Editor of The Heron’s Nest. “May sun…” originally appeared at in The Heron’s Nest in 2004.
Richard Stevenson‘s most recent books are a juvenile novel, The Haunting of Amos Manor (Palimpsest Press/ Magpie Books imprint, 2011) and a collection of haiku and senryu for teens Casting Out Nines (Ekstasis Editions, 2011).
John Stone is a musician who writes things down. Sometimes they are published, sometimes not. Either way, he’s cool with it. “midday moon” originally appeared in tinywords.
If Ennio Morricone had a miracle baby with the ghost of Basil Poledouris, that baby would be the soundtrack to Kevin Wolf Stone.
Japan Times award-winning writer Alan Summers founded With Words, a UK-based provider of literature, education and literacy projects, often based around the Japanese genres, which will be publishing his pamphlet The Sneeze of a One-eyed Dog in 2012. “a small death…” has appeared in Mosaic Anthology (Bath Spa University 2009); Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Vol. 3 (MET Press 2010); and The Strand Book Of International Poets 2010 (Strand Publishing 2010) and “sometimes…” in Blithe Spirit (vol. 20 no. 3 2010, British Haiku Society).
Simon Sylvester‘s collection 140 Characters is an ebook available through @cargopublishing. He writes new stories daily as @simonasylvester.
James Tanner lives in Texas. “Hurt Metropolis” previously appeared in monkeybicycle.net.
Liverpool-based Andrew Taylor (@dradny) is online at andrewtaylorpoetry.com. His book The Sound of Light Aircraft is available from Knives forks and Spoons Press.
Brian Trent is a freelance writer and screenwriter with work in numerous magazines. Find him at briantrent.com.
A retired editor for Encyclopaedia Britannica, Charles Trumbull has written haiku and been active in haiku organizations and publications since 1991. “real estate sales pitch…” originally appeared in tinywords.
Chuck Von Nordheim lives in Dayton, OH, but spends his summers in Lawrence, KS, taking workshops at the Center for the Study of Science Fiction. His poetry has also appeared in Scifaikuest and Sorcerous Signals.
Alex von Vaupel (@alexvonvaupel) lives in Utrecht, Netherlands, with his many dictionaries and a balcony veg garden. His tanka have appeared in Atlas Poetica, Concise Delight and Prune Juice. “at night the hospice…” appeared in Atlas Poetica 9 (Summer 2011), and “too drunk to tell’ appeared in Take Five, Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol 3. Two of his tanka won a Tanka Splendor Award in 2009. Find him at alexvonvaupel.com.
Deborah Walker (@deboree) lives in London with her partner, Chris, and her two young children. Find her in the British Museum trawling the past for future inspiration.
Bill Waters posts haiku, senryu, and tanka on Twitter as @Bill312. His haiku “I put down my book” has appeared there and in 7×20. Bill and his wife, Nancy, live in Pennington, N.J., with their two amazing cats.
Canadian Darusha Wehm (@darusha) lives and sails on her sailboat. She’s currently in the South Pacific, where she writes short stories and novels.
Ben White writes @midnightstories and edits @nanoism, both ongoing collections of ultra-brief fiction on Twitter.
Celia White is a poet and librarian in Buffalo, New York. She has published several chapbooks and a book, Letter.
Neal Whitman has published more than 300 poems. In 2011 he won White Buffalo’s Chief’s Choice Award and was a finalist in the Common Ground Review Contest. “awake? if so joy” first appeared in Eat Your Words. “stop to tie my shoe” originally appeared in Ambrosia. His chapbook Blyth’s Spirit is available from Haiku Pix (www.haikupix.com).
A poet from Yorkshire, England, Liam Wilkinson (@ldwilkinson) is the editor of the popular micropoetry journal Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu & Kyoka.
Alison Williams (@tadpole99) lives on the south coast of England and is a fan of all that is concise, pithy and succinct.
Kath Abela Wilson leads Poets on Site in Pasadena, CA. “museum exhibit…” was published in the 2007 Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology.
One of the winners of the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s (SFPA) 2011 Dwarf Stars Award, Stephen M. Wilson edits @microcosms and San Joaquin Delta College’s literary journal Artifact.
Sabra Wineteer grew up in Moss Bluff, Louisiana. She has since lived in England, New Zealand, Germany, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and currently lives in rural Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in TWINS Magazine, storySouth, and The Rumpus. She is the 2012 recipient of the Joyce Horton Johnson Fiction Award.
Steven Wolfe (@soporific) lives at stevenrwolfe.net, or houston.tx in meatspace. His nanowork has appeared in 7×20, Opium, Exquisite Corpse, and elsewhere.
140 And Counting is edited by Joanne Merriam (@joannemerriam), who is also the editor of Seven by Twenty. Her poetry and fiction has appeared in dozens of magazines and journals, including Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Per Contra and Strange Horizons. She lives in Nashville with her husband, three angry rabbits and one happy one. Find her at www.joannemerriam.com.
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1 comment 11 December 2011
The Glaze from Breaking
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The dreadlocks of polar bears; the atomized droplets of an underground waterfall; oranges as an offering to the dead; a purple hippopotamus wading pool in a strip club; hoar frost and aurora borealis and bail bondsmen and road kill: Joanne Merriam‘s inaugural collection of poetry catalogues morsels of experience. The Glaze from Breaking overflows with lovely, vivid poems about the aftermath of a breakup, and the redemptive power of travel, nature and love. Her language charged with verbal energy, Merriam has crafted a moving portrait of a woman who is saved by her close observation of the everyday wonders of the world.
The Glaze from Breaking was originally published by the now-defunct UK small press Stride Books in 2005. December 2011.
Poems from the book available online:
These links all open in a new window.
- “Auto Biographies.” Winner of the Goodreads Poetry Contest, July 2012.
- “Bodies Make Poor Lenses.” Astropoetica, Volume 6.2, Spring 2008. ISSN 1559-6052.
- “Cunt” and “Guest Room” (with other poems not in this collection). Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, 1 February 2009.
- “Footprints Drying on the Stairs.” New Hampshire Poet Showcase, From NH Poet Laureate, Pat Fargnoli.
- “Glorybower,” “The Ghost Road” and “Long Weekend.” Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, September 1, 2007.
- “Re Member Ies.” flashquake: an online journal of flash literature, Fall 2005.
Reviews of the 2005 edition:
The poetry is ripe with sensuality, whether it is kissing or watching birds flutter or polar bears fight.
— Jacqueline Karp, New Hope International Review Online, September 2005.
She reminded me a lot of the early work of Boris Pasternak where the poet does not so much observe the natural world as fuse with it breaking down the boundaries between speaker and landscape… She also does clever things with sound… [and] has the odd image that manages to be both unusual and just right.
— Belinda Cooke, “Belinda Cooke reviews six new volumes from Stride,” Shearsman 63/4, April 2005.
…a secondary level of suggestiveness on which the overall themes of this collection become clear. This is characteristic of the way in which the best of the poems and sequences in The Glaze from Breaking succeed: the implications of particular images shift and are clarified in time. The first sentence in the book tells us that ‘Theories of self can be demolished’, and the poems proceed to show subjective language rewriting itself, as where the word ‘breaking’ in the book’s title comes to inhabit many of its different senses at once…
— Matthew Sperling, “Matthew Sperling reviews three new collections from Stride,” Tower Poetry, June 2005.
Her language is fabulous… I think that folks who don’t need a line-break-fix and who are comfortable with their decentered selves (the last of which I don’t mean negatively and the former of which I mean only a little) will be thrilled by the poetry here.
— Mary Alexandra Agner, online review, May 13, 2005.
Merriam, a Canadian poet now living in the United States, published her book through a British publisher, and its distribution in North America is limited to overseas orders. But readers of contemporary poetry – especially those intrigued by the possibilities of the prose-poem form – will find this small yet deeply felt collection well worth seeking out for its elegant exploration of love and loss, recovery and redemption, eroticism and the echoes of the heart.
— Kate Washington, “Beautifully Formed: A Review of Joanne Merriam’s The Glaze From Breaking,” chicklit, March 30, 2005.
Merriam’s entire collection uses silence to give her work an eerie feel of helplessness. Silence is a kidnapper of communication, and Merriam suffocates us in the inability to express, as though ‘[m]outh sealed in nectar, silence lies dormant on my tongue.’… Her images are sharp and vivid…
— Alicia Higginbotham, “The Glaze From Breaking by Joanne Merriam,” Verse, March 5, 2005.
Joanne Merriam saves herself by travelling, remembering, and by long lines and prose poems well-suited to Stride’s new square format books.
— Jane Routh, “Fireside Reading,” Stride Magazine, January 2005.
Memory, tenderness, and its flip side ‘estrangement’ – these are key themes in Joanne Merriam’s exquisite poems. With an accomplished lyric ear and eye, Merriam’s images soar through her verses and prose poems like plants flinging their spores. The city is always in the frame yet, out of the window, lies the natural world; a beautifully rendered amphitheatre in which the poet explores personal relationships and the relation in which we stand to the world. Merriam’s emotional honesty, combined with her convincing, startling images, will transport you.
— Andy Brown (back cover blurb)
1 comment 10 December 2011
Joanne Merriam
Photo by Peter Merriam
Joanne Merriam is the owner and publisher of Upper Rubber Boot Books. She was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and lived thereabouts for her first three decades. In 2001, she quit her job as the Executive Assistant of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia to travel Canada by train, and then parts of the Northeastern and Southern United States. Her first book of poetry, The Glaze from Breaking, was written, in part, about those travels. In 2004, she immigrated to the USA, where she has lived in Kentucky and New Hampshire, and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee.
Joanne Merriam’s poetry and fiction has appeared in dozens of magazines and journals, including The Antigonish Review, Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Fiddlehead, The Furnace Review, Grain, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, The Mainichi Daily News, Per Contra, Riddle Fence, Room of One’s Own, Strange Horizons and Vallum Contemporary Poetry, as well as in the anthologies Ice: new writing on hockey, To Find Us: Words and Images of Halifax and The Allotment: New Lyric Poets. She most recently edited How to Live on Other Planets: A Handbook for Aspiring Aliens, and Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up To No Good (with H. L. Nelson).
Visit her at www.joannemerriam.com.
Books for Upper Rubber Boot:
| The Glaze from Breaking was originally published by the now-defunct UK small press Stride Books in 2005. | |
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10 December 2011