Blog Archives

Extras From a Movie: Massacre at Ywahoo Falls~ By Lenore Weiss

2/26/2015

A boy said
Come find us
in our game of hide and seek
and elbowed his way
to the Jefferson Memorial
before his chums objected

a trip to the Capitol. It was his idea
everyone had been bored
exploring the water table
measuring the exchange rate
between bubbles and oxygen

he might decide to become a fish
there was no law against it
at least none he knew about

walked to the reflecting pool
drawn to water,
the creepy feeling it gave him
each time he touched his face
saw it fall apart
there at Ywahoo Falls
with War Woman Selu-Sa-tah
Cornblossom whose silken tassels
turned Kentucky red
where one hundred children
just like him
were squashed into nits.

He didn't remember details in any order.
Something about falling water.

Author Bio:
Lenore's collections include "Tap Dancing on the Silverado Trail" (Finishing Line Press, 2011), “Sh’ma Yis’rael” (Pudding House Publications, 2007). Her full collections are "Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island" (West End Press, 2012) and "Two Places” (Kelsay Books, 2014). The Society for Technical Communication has recognized her work regarding Technical Literacy in the schools. She currently teaches a memoir class at Ouachita Parish Library in Monroe, Louisiana. Her blog resides at www.lenoreweiss.com.

0 Comments

Sixteen~ By Lian Tolentino

2/25/2015

0 Comments

I hope that when your sixteen-year-old daughter collapses in your arms and confides in you how love has failed her, tell her about me.

Tell her that although I had always been a timid lover, my hand could not deny the warmth of your smile so I introduced myself.

Tell her about how awful our first date was and how while we were eating dinner I tried to eat a french fry, how it hit my tooth and fell to the floor along with all my confidence. Tell her how much you laughed and how that was the night you knew you could love me.

Tell her about our arguments, how I would mimic you and how much that drove you insane.

Tell your sixteen-year-old daughter how I forgot our anniversary and you spent the entire night crying.

Tell her about the night you found out your parents were getting a divorce and I drove across the city to hug you at 2:00 a.m. Although I was forgetful, I never failed to come through when it really counted.

Remind her that sixteen only lasts so long then she’ll be seventeen and then twenty-one and before she knows it she is twenty-five, engaged to her soul mate.

Tell her we had so much faith because we were sixteen.

Tell her we didn’t work out because we were sixteen.

Author Bio:
Lian Tolentino is a nineteen-year-old female based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada currently working towards a B.A. in English and Linguistics. Lian started writing as a hobby and outlet to cope with various life experiences which quickly blossomed into a passion. Her writing still continues to be heavily inspired by her own personal experiences and the experiences of those around her.

0 Comments

Mobile Sleepover Corps~ By David S. Pointer

2/24/2015

1 Comment

Rotating atop the glitter axis spun by fingerless gloves elsewhere
rotating through extended shifts on short-sheeted agenda foreground
alarmingly anchored to their impoverished families scripted bill of sale
alarmingly civil and responsive to club owner’s pizza shop worldview
trinket box-sized whore table hideaway in memory bit rubble
trinket box-sized whore table hideaway in regret chip rummaging
flashlight literature benevolently afloat over weekender debris
flashlight literature may yet ignite future rescue party thinness

Author Bio:
David S. Pointer was the son of a piano playing bank robber who died when David was three-years-old. David later served in the United States Marine Corps military police. He has been publishing social justice poetry for twenty-five years. David serves on the advisory panel at Writing for Peace.

1 Comment

Open Door Policy~ By Kanika Aina Wright

2/23/2015

0 Comments

The soul doesn’t worry
whether the heart is at its best,
or if your ears are dumb to sound
and your lips unwind a crooked smile.

It is the eyes that count--
Look at these sable-laced eyes
and you’ll know if I pump
dead or alive.
Look at my eyes
reflect
your eyes
in blur or sight.
Don’t blink away and
cover those storyteller lids.
Look me
in the eye
and negate the lies
that bleed from your mouth.
Our eyes, our eyes
Be alive
These windows
Be alive

Author Bio:
Kanika Aina Wright (K. A. Wright) has been writing ever since she could talk. She was always the student who wrote two paragraphs instead of the required one. As the only one in her family with a passion for writing, she is the go-to person when someone needs help with writing a cover letter, updating a resume, or revising a paper. Her writing is an inspirational collage of personal experience, nature, and the power of places and names. She daydreams ever so often about winning the lottery and building her dream house on a beautiful beach shore in Bermuda. K. A. Wright earned her BA degree in English Writing and her MFA degree Creative Writing. She’s received an Honorable Mention in the Children’s Fiction Category from Writer’s Digest, interned at W.W. Norton & Co., and has a published article in a one-of-a-kind online magazine for collegiate black women. Besides her constant rendezvous with writing, she enjoys traveling, star gazing, and skydiving.

0 Comments

Peeling Pantoum~ By Magdalene Kennedy

2/19/2015

0 Comments

Chipping, crooked spines--
Peeling paint has never seemed
So weathered; a shallow shatter,
Stained by dark ink

Peeling paint has never seemed
So fragile to my hands and heart,
Stained by dark ink
And those corrosive fingerprints

So fragile to my hands and heart,
This dance on the edge of a wine glass
And those corrosive fingerprints,
On its crystal bowl

This dance on the edge of a wine glass--
We will never slip or stumble
On its crystal bowl.
Eyes bright, smiles sharp

We will never slip or stumble
Though our skin wears and tears
Eyes dull, smiles dull,
Chipping, crooked spines--
Curled, rest in red wine

Author Bio:
Magdalene Kennedy is a writer and visual artist from Nashville, TN.

0 Comments

She Remembers~ By Nassima Ouaaz

2/18/2015

1 Comment

She used to know how his eyes looked
but now all she knows is how a frown feels
on
naked breasts
because she is no longer his

He unravels his truth
bared in his grin
of a man
living in sin
of demise and cold shoulders

For no apparent reason
does he
let go
of something so pure
and gentle to his touch

But the man of sin
wouldn't let her in
for he was afraid
of losing his beguiling security

And then he lost her
slowly giving in
to more sin

The sin was all him
consumed in it
left alone in a bare grin

And when she looks back
she remembers
how his eyes looked like
trapped in a frown
with no bare breasts
for comfort to be found

Author Bio:
Nassima Ouaaz's coffee stained lips and determined attitude for ambition keeps her staying alive since her immigration from Algiers, Algeria at six-months-old. With her warrior ways for freedom, she uses creative expression like writing, dancing, singing, acting, and cooking as forms of catharsis. Discovering her natural style for prose poetry, Nassima educates others to analyze their perception for inner peace. Her goal-oriented mindset will help her finish her last year at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In hopes of working on various publications, she travels for life's adventure and remembers that there is no sleep till Brooklyn.

1 Comment

Engagement~ By Katie Elizabeth Holiday

2/17/2015

5 Comments

I was engaged twice when I was fifteen – three times before I was nineteen. The first two times were to the same man, four years older than me. I was a sophomore in high school; he had graduated the year before. He lived in his parents’ basement and told me which clothes to wear and which kids to know. He kept trying to plan our wedding.

“Let’s fly to Antigua,” he said.

“My parents can’t afford it,” I replied.

“That’s the idea,” he said.

He settled for local, but then I wouldn’t sit at the computer to type out the names of people to invite; I refused to pick colors, bridesmaids, menus, and the place and date remained undecided. Some people will say of me that I do not know how to say no. I do; for me it just takes many more words and much more time.

When I was nineteen and engaged to another man, time ran out before I got through saying no. Everyone kept asking if I was sure, and I wasn’t, but I kept saying yes. I really meant no. I know this was confusing for all involved, but it was finally straightened out eight months after I married him – when I kicked him out.

Author Bio:
Katie Elizabeth Holiday is interested in how nonlinear stories work. She writes craft essays, short stories, and memoir. Having growing up in a whirlwind, Katie is writing a nonlinear memoir about loyalty, instability, and isolating, alienating love. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College and a BA in English from Wellesley College.

5 Comments

Untitled~ By Molly Barger

2/16/2015

0 Comments

“Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in its unfinishedness” (Villanueva, 2011, p.4).

Hurried, blurried, and far too worried
This needs to be on paper and not in my head
Deadlines, headlines, and fast-appearing wrinkle lines
What I think I’ve got down is really just begun
Tears, fears, my brink is near
Editors and teachers are discouraging
Friends lend, but I feel like I might have the bends
From the stress that keeps piling on
Red marks, grammar check barks, I’m about to jump a shark
I just need someone to say okay, let’s look at the good things.
It’s never enough. Not good enough.
And if my writing reflects me, what does that mean?

Author Bio:
Molly is a misplaced Southerner living in Buffalo NY with her dog while she earns her Ph.D. in English Ed. As a class assignment, we were asked to respond to a quote that caught our attention from the course's readings.

0 Comments

Speaking with My Second Mouth~ By Angela S. Patane

2/12/2015

1 Comment

"Work by a male writer is often spoken of by critics admiring it as having 'balls;' ever hear anyone speak admiringly of work by a woman as having 'tits'?" – Margaret Atwood

She’s got to have some tits to write something like that, and I mean some real low swingers. She went breasts to the wall, opened her mouth and a firing squad came out. She showed those twatless dicks her ovaries of steel when she set the men straight about what she is and what she isn’t. No one could ever call her cock kept. Her ego’s pussy diesel. Had they shot back, tried to raise a fist, a fight, she’d have went clit-out crazy. She fights like a woman with brass breasts. And you’d be lucky as a bitch with two clits to be in her presence. If she wants you gone, her approach is eggsy, never cocks out. Trust me, you’d be stones up.

Author Bio:
Angela S. Patane grew up the only girl child born to Italian immigrant parents. Living in the US, but conditioned by old-world Italian norms, Angela spent most of her adolescence rebelling from her parents, school, and mainstream culture. In her teens, she discovered feminism, and became its student immediately. In undergraduate and graduate school, Angela made writing and feminism the focus of her study. Now, she is seeking publication for her poetry collection, "Speaking with My Second Mouth," which candidly examines Angela's coming of age. Angela currently lives and works in Southwest Florida with her lovely partner and their 3 cats. When she is not writing, she is working as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player for the Young Dead.

1 Comment

Tulsa~ By Nanette Rayman

2/11/2015

0 Comments

On the flat road up from the Marriott a woman paroxysms on
conceit like some updated parched Saturday Night
Live church lady inhaling self-righteous snake-oil.
Trees fenced off from the sidewalk, impotent
to give shade left late into autumn yield to their cages.
Lavender lace sweater tied around my waist, caliente October.
Antediluvian air made of uneasy transplanted woman walking, a thing
people do--pink communist flowers all the same to you,
ditto flowers gone floppy and brittle as calcium-
deficient fingernails. I needed too much from this air of dead
flowers--that they hold out promise or have the decency
to pretend and just pose. Sweetheart lady in the dull blue car, I

would never go against the right of way, but you see, you saw
me, you see-only-me as you ram and I gasp and you ram harder and I fly
like a ballerina in adagio, a song crumpled out into the sun to scatter.
Darling cop, I pull my ear, sounds, gauche in their landing, break my drum.
What did you say? Oh, you don’t want my statement? My heart droops
on the rammer kept at bay. Days later, I spastically push the thin blue
line, baby steps, giant footprints way beyond the sound.
The only hand that can cease my mouth smokes, please stop, sweet hand.
The rotten Tulsa PD, foreign as chicken-fried steak, sings to me, Bitch!
No report. False report. Civic Center melee, a song that calls for me,
spasms while the thirsty blue-car lady is eating
through me. Listen to the nusach of the dying
unharnessed every night, lonely overdue hospital
bills spilling over my muscled lace arms.

Let me abscond now.
If I knew Tulsa would be this dismal, I would have gone sooner.
Unassigned land crawls through sinkholes they tell me drain rainwater.
I have no song for I came after the land-runs. Like flying
off the hood of a dull blue car, I have no more doubts about water
or Tulsa when early autumn sinks to late December, when the prison
wall gall stinks like dirty cops, when manure & forlorn sound erases
sight to the invisible world where scrims are the scene
and curtains of flight await.

Author Bio:
Nanette Rayman is the first winner of the Glass Woman Prize for writing. She has two poetry books published: Shana Linda, Pretty Pretty and Project: Butterflies from Foothills Publishing. Nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, she has published in The Worcester Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, gargoyle, Pedestal, magnolia, Oranges & Sardines, up the staircase featured writer, Arsenic Lobster, Red Ochre Literature, Stirring’s Steamiest Six, carte blanche, Wilderness House Literary Review, deComp, grasslilmb, Arsenic Lobster, Prick of the Spindle, Carousel and Sugar House Review where her poem, One Potato, Two, was mentioned in Newpages.com. A story was included in DZANC Books Best of the Web 2010 and a poem, “Shoes” was included in Best of the Net Anthology 2007. Her poem, “hope” was nominated for Best of the Net Anthology by Glass Journal. A portion of a one act play she wrote was performed for her in Israel in 2013. She attended Circle in the Square Theatre School and the New School. She has performed in many off off Broadway shows.

0 Comments

<<Previous

Poet Search

Archives