THE DAY AFTER THE UK ELECTION

by Stuart McFarlane

No, this is not Nineteen-ninety-seven,

a new Labour, new dawn, a new Heaven.

We've still not forgotten the stain of Iraq.

For you, Tony Blair, there was no way back!

We are, rightly, sick of all politicians,

we know, only too well, they're not magicians!

We hope there is but minimal disruption,

a growing intolerance of corruption.

Time to govern boldly, to influence our fate,

to shake the wrinkles out of the garment of state;

to pluck the jewel of meritocracy

from the tired, tattered threads of democracy.

Yes, there's jubilation outside Number Ten,

but we, the people, will not be fooled again.

Starmer proclaims 'The economy must grow!'

Tell us something we don't already know!

We're aware your tax plans don't make any sense.

We're all aquainted with pounds, shillings and pence.

We don't celebrate the dawn of a new day,

do not so much cheer, as desperately pray.

You are seeking growth, a spike in GDP?

Then why not start by contemplating the sea?

Europe is still there; a constant underpinning;

panacea, no; but, at least, a beginning.

Stuart McFarlane is now semi-retired. He taught English for many years to asylum seekers in London. He has had poems published in a few online journals.

DISPLACED PERSONS

by George Salamon

“Israel-Hamas war said to have… displaced 70% of [Gaza’s] population in a month.” —CBS News, November 7, 2023

The DPs fleeing Gaza remind me of those I saw in the hall of a Swiss railroad station after the end of World War Two—Jewish survivors of Nazi concentration and extermination camps, slave laborers from German war industries, resistance fighters from occupied countries… all had been waiting in DP camps in Germany, rounded up for "their own good," still not free men and women, still "inmates," still not possessing any rights, legal or human until the Red Cross and other aid organizations could open doors for "repatriation" to their old homelands or transportation to their new ones—their bodies pressed against each other, the faces of the men pale and gaunt, their eyes staring into a middle distance, the women clutching babies, their hair flapping around their heads, the hall reeking of hunger, sickness and yearning. When their eyes met they shuddered, stood there, unable to embrace each other. It is more than bodies that are displaced.

George Salamon did not know he was a refugee or "displaced person" when he, three years old, and his parents escaped one night in the fall of 1938 from Austria to Switzerland. He now lives in St.Louis, MO.

DIASPORA FOOTBALL

by Indran Amirthanayagam

It was a difficult day at the Qatar World Cup. Our American ambassadors, 

Argentina and Brazil, both with attacking teams who strike as lightning 

and sit back as well controlling the ball, dribbling it back and forth, 

 

wearing the patience down of their European opponents—had leads 

vanish with minutes to go, the European powers striking back, 

and in the case of Croatia pulling off the upset, mighty Brazil losing 

 

on penalties. But Argentina survived. Shot its penalties with clinical 

power, and their goalkeeper used his brain to anticipate the directions 

of the Dutch kicks. I am writing this to remember a Friday in December 

 

when honor lay on the field, and glory, and also bitter defeat. This is 

the field of battle, the football field, the field of dreams, the field of 

identities, how if our country loses we shift then to its natural neighbor, 

 

overcoming regional rivalries in the name of a greater continental unity. 

Imagine how Moroccans feel now as they represent their country and all 

of Africa and all migrants too, as many have grown up away from 

 

their kingdom, in exile, when they strap on their boots to play Portugal 

in the next quarterfinal? My documenting pen will dress with them. 

The diaspora team, my friend calls not only Morocco but France, 

 

England and many others. Football is the identity card, 

the passport. Borders are fluid, 2022 composed of a motley crew 

of border crossers, migrant wonders, football envoys.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

QUEEN OF CEYLON

by Indran Amirthanayagam

The Queen is dead. This afternoon

at Balmoral Castle, on the eighth

of September. We mourn her

 

throughout the Commonwealth

and much of the planet. This is

no easy passing, from the world

 

before and the world to come.

When she assumed her brief

India and Ceylon had just won

 

their latest independence. 

When she traveled to Ceylon 

in 1954 to see the fledgling 

 

new nation she charmed 

everyone she met, from mahout 

to rickshaw driver to staff 

 

at the Queen's Hotel

in Kandy. I imagine

she stayed at Galle Face too,

 

and Sir Chittampalam

Gardiner led the royal couple

to their rooms. Dignity

 

is the word. Quiet resolve.

Memory of how Britain

survived the Blitz, how

 

it let go of its imperial

arrogance to later become

part of Europe, one among

 

equals—how it lost great

comics to homogenization

of the transatlantic

championing of money

above all values. She

saw Monty Python,

 

Dave Allen, the Two 

Ronnies, Peter Sellers,

and other geniuses on stage, 

 

in music, on television,  

leave their wit in history

books of a golden age.

 

She lived through many

and leaves us now to balance 

our nostalgia against 

 

the return of a would-be 

iron lady to Downing Street.

God forbid Truss may

 

just bring out the artists

again, born in suffering,

a new Mersey sound,

 

a Notting Hill dub,

English revolution,

Commonwealth invasion.

Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

PASSED PAWNS

by Dave Day

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "grave mistake" to invade Ukraine may yet foment popular or elite rebellion, Leonid Volkov, chief of staff of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has told Newsweek, as Moscow's offensive stalls and international sanctions bite.

Navalny’s pawn moved forward two,

While Putin scanned the board’s positions.

The Bishops dare not stage a coup,

To grovel slips them fat commissions.

 

The Knights are paid, their horses watered.

They follow oaths to wanton slaughter.

The oligarchs are faithful crooks,

And perfect stand-ins for the Rooks.

 

His Queen? Ukraine ran off with Europe.

Cuckold Putin, cuckold grief,

He Novichok’ed Navalny’s briefs.

But *hush-hush* Putin’s eyes, they welled up.

 

The game’s not lost, Kasparov wrote.

What happens when the Pawns promote?

Dave Day is an attorney from Honolulu, Hawaii, and is a numismatist who focuses on currency from the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Dave has published poetry in The Ekphrastic Review and extremely nonpoetic articles in the Emory International Law Review and the Hawaii Bar Journal.

LOVE THAT CANNOT LIVE LONG ENOUGH

by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis

Fact Check by Reuters, February 25, 2022: Photos of explosions show Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not Ukraine. Social media users have mislabeled images of overnight explosions in urban areas, claiming they are from Ukraine amid the Russian invasion. However, the images show the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip and were taken in 2018 and 2021. One picture (above by MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images) shows Israeli air strikes on Gaza in response to a barrage of rockets fired by the Islamist movement Hamas amid spiraling violence sparked by unrest at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Not long ago,

I was Kosovo,

then became Baghdad

by the river Tigris.

Then I turned into Syria

and Ukraine,

crippled and bled to death.

Only to wake up again,

without any eyes or limbs,

without any heart or soul.

And today, I'm Gaza,

covered in ashes.

 

And Kyiv—

siphoning rockets and bullets.

You can call me hatred

or hope that cannot die.

Or love that cannot live

long enough.

Kalpna Singh-Chitnis is a Pushcart Prize nominated, Indian-American poet, writer, filmmaker, and author of four poetry collections. Her poetry, essays, and translations have appeared World Literature Today, Columbia Journal, California Quarterly, Indian Literature, Silk Routes Project (IWP) at The University of Iowa, and Stanford University's Life in Quarantine. Poems from her award-winning book Bare Soul and poetry film River of Songs included in the "Nova Collection" and the "Polaris Collection" Lunar Codex time capsules are set to go on the moon with NASA's missions" in 2022 and 2023. Forthcoming is her poetry collection Trespassing My Ancestral Lands.

BRITAIN AND I

by Nina Parmenter

Image source: Meijburg & Co

Back, back we go,
Britain and I,
back to those heady days
when we sat in our studies
gruff and moustachioed
and barked at the children.

Out, out we go,
Britain and I,
out to our verandas
in rakish hat-and-slacks combos
to take pot shots at Johnny Foreigner.
Ruff-ruff-huzzah!

Off, off we go
Britain and I,
to shake hands with petty despots
and trade their spice and silks
for gold, favours
and averted eyes.

So goodbye, Gerhardt,
farewell, François,
and so long, bland, borderless tomorrow.
Hand me my hunting stick, Britain,
and let us stride on
to glory.

Nina Parmenter is a mother to two busy boys. In her spare time, she is a marketing manager. Her poetry has appeared in Light and Lighten up Online, and on her blog, itallrhymes.com. She lives in Wiltshire, UK, and is currently working on her first children’s novel.

THE VIGILANT

by Alejandro Escudé

From “The Parade,” 1957, from Si Lewen’s Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey (2016) via Literary Hub

Merkel warns of populists’ rise in Europe —AP, May 28, 2019

from the trenches.
they rise,
the easy translucent stride
of ghost-men

in gas masks
run the cobblestone
streets between
the ferrying buses,
old France, old Spain,

dust brown boots
weaponized fences
torched children
shot out of chimneys

"La Marseillaise" sung
backward, the gaze
of the European
upon the hard American

wearing bones
around his neck
a ring of fiery stones

Druid masters
wearing blood-drenched
capes calling for
crusade war
war upon war
gardens of dead

silent proletariat
families marched
by illiterate armies
who never spoke
or learn the proper sound

each word passing
like a market ticker
above them Merkel,
T***p, Putin, Macron

angel of Patton
and Robespierre,
dark angel of Bormann,
warned and warning

electronic horses
galloping over glass churches
shattered idols and guns
replacing each letter
on the keys

and the irreverent typist
culling new plots ending
in plots unmarked,
unedited, whole,
unpublished, divine.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

SHIPWRECK OFF THE COAST OF AFRICA

by Eswer El Cubadi

At least 52 people died after a boat carrying around 180 refugees and migrants sank off the coast of Tunisia on Saturday. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is deeply saddened at this latest tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea and is concerned about the high number of people dying on the Central Mediterranean route with over 700 dead or missing so far in 2018. —UNHCR, June 5, 2018; Meanwhile, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini (in photo) says he will stop migrants trying to reach Europe via Sicily. – EPA pic, June 4, 2018.

            "Can I escape from fell Charybdis and ward Scylla off?"
                        —Homer, Odyssey, Book 12, Lines 115, Odysseus to Circe


At Sfax, the news was horrible—five dozen dead—and more,
near to Kerkennah Island off of north Tunisia's shore.
Increasingly the human traffickers launch people from
Tunisia, now that Libya is tighter than a drum.
The boat was packed with migrants fleeing Africa to be
free from the lives they do not like for hope in Italy.
But, o, alas, the relatives of those who learned the worst,
their souls, like Dido's when Aeneas left her, are accursed.
But further off, up north, Salvini said at Sicily,
"We will no longer be the camp for Europe's refugees."

A SHITTY POET

by Maurine Meleck

Nobody wants to read a poem about shitholes.
I will be called a fake poet, a charlatan,
an impostor trying to imitate real life.
Nevertheless, when nature calls we must
answer its whistle, its plea, its song.
Years ago, backpacking through Europe,
I was able to use the real shitholes
at the youth hostels I frequented,
holes in the ground where one actually
dumps one's shit.  Perhaps that conjures
up foul odors or visions of shit and miss
on your white sneakers.  It looks nothing
like a gold-plated toilet at the Ritz
with a self flushing mechanism or smell
like a stroll through a flowered nature trail.
Never underestimate a true shithole
as it can be hidden beneath a garden of roses,
but all you have to do is kick away the dirt.

Maurine Meleck has published poetry in numerous journals and anthologies including Luna Negra, Calliope, and Oasis.  Her poems appeared in The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume 1, South Carolina.  She authored a chapter of poetry titled "Song of Sweetwater" in the book Revolutionary Grandparents.  She lives in Florida with her autistic grandson, whom she has raised.

A VIEW FROM HOME

by David Chorlton

On March 24, the international tribunal in The Hague delivered the Radovan Karadzic verdict - more than 20 years after he was indicted and eight years after he was finally arrested. By this judgment, like most of those delivered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) judges, nationalistic ideologies were described as the reason behind the killings, tortures, forced detentions, mass rapes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Unfortunately, people from the Balkans, but also in other parts of the world, did not grasp the message hidden behind the legal jargon. Over the years, international tribunals have never put enough effort to make their decisions clearer to average people; and this is often abused by politicians who interpret those decisions however they like. . . . After 23 years of work, the international tribunal in The Hague did not succeed in having a real impact on the people of the region. We did not hear loudly and clearly the judgment against nationalism, even though the judges did issue many. —Nidzara Ahmetasevic, Aljazeera, March 27, 2016. Photo:  A survivor of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica prays by her husband’s grave at a memorial centre in Potocari, on 24 March 2016, the day the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić was found guilty of genocide. Photograph: Elvis Barukcic/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian.

The scene today is tranquil
at the window where
a verdin flies between the roses
and the bougainvillea
unaware that glass is all
that keeps it safe from cats
alert to its every movement.
Outside, the afternoon’s
long shadows alternate
with glowing pavement
and winter’s dormant grass
begins to green. By the hour
news breaks in: the morning radio,
analysis at noon, and television
with its reruns of the panic
after Tuesday’s attack, translated
from French and Flemish now
and who knows which language
next. Interviewing experts
brings no more comfort
than the speeches made
by candidates campaigning.
The sparrows are chattering
in the bushes, and mockingbirds
pursue the last, late insects.
The battle for Mosul
won’t be over soon, Boko Haram
sends young girls out
to become stars for a moment
before being dead forever,
and every holiday in Europe
begins with armed guards
on patrol. Home is a good place
to be, watching lovebirds
in the sumac, listening to the news
that Radovan Karadžić
has been found guilty, guilty, guilty,
of killing on a scale
others only dream of, yet he still
finds a word for innocent
that applies to him alone.

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications on- and off-line, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His most recent book, A Field Guide to Fire, was his contribution to the Fires of Change exhibition shown in Flagstaff and Tucson in Arizona.

SHARED GRIEVING

by F.I. Goldhaber

Haidar Mustafa, who was wounded in Thursday's twin suicide bombings, sleeps on a bed at the Rasoul Aazam Hospital in Burj al-Barajneh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. Haidar's parents Hussein and Leila were killed in the blast as they were parking their car when one of two suicide attackers blew himself up in a southern Beirut suburb near their vehicle. —BILAL HUSSEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS, The WorldPost, Nov. 16, 2015

Every day people of color die.
Bombs in Yemen, shootings in Lebanon
Suicide explosions in Syria.
No one shouts out on Twitter, changes their
photo on Facebook, creates a hashtag.

But when terrorists kill white people in
European countries, you rally round
their flag, change your profile picture, add
a ribbon to show how you much care. But,
only if the victims look/believe like you.


As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.  Her newest book of poetry Subversive Verse collects poems about corporate cruelty, gender grievances, supreme shambles, political perversion, and race relations. 

SORRY

by Janice D. Soderling

On Aug. 26 in Idomeni, Greece, a cousin of Ahmad's, Nisrine Majid, looked out of the train that would carry the refugees through Macedonia, to its border with Serbia. SERGEY PONOMAREV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

When war comes to your country,
it will not just come to other towns than your town.
It will not just come to people you don't like anyway.
Sorry.

When war comes to your country,
the milk you buy at your corner grocery store
will not be there for the buying.
It will never be on your breakfast table again.
Sorry. No breakfast table.

When war comes to your country,
your children will be crying on live television.
Sorry. Life isn't always fair.

When war comes to your country,
it will bring you new knowledge.
Words which you never fully understood
will gain a deeper significance. Chlorine gas.
Barbed wire. Tear gas. Batons. Bread.
Sorry.

When war comes to your country,
when you flee with your family,
what should you take, what leave behind?
Family photos? Your new espresso machine?
No, be smart. Take bottled water,
a pan to cook in, soap, a towel,
band-aids for minor cuts and scratches.

When war comes to your country,
take sturdy walking shoes, woolen blankets.
Be prepared for a long wait. The borders are defended.

Sorry about any inconvenience.



Janice D. Soderling has previously contributed to TheNewVerse.News. She is featured poet at the October Quill and Parchment  and has forthcoming fiction at Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine and Wasafiri.

LEAVING SYRIA

by Marilyn Peretti

“On the Way,” by Lorenzo Mattotti.

She folds a light blanket, knowing
her child likes softness by her cheek,
stuffs it into plastic, leaving
the half bombed-out apartment,
the long dreaded task.

Father carries two-year-old Amira
and the bag of belongings.
Mother carries a bag of dry clothes,
walking beside their son, Mahdi, five.

After eleven miles
shoes feel tight, blisters swell.
Garbage bag ponchos keep out
only part of the rain.

Under a plastic sheet at night
baby touches the soft blanket.
Her eyes flutter shut as mother
hums. Just 80 km to go.

What to find ahead?
How to be received?
The hell they left forces them on.
They only need water, bread

soap and socks. Train doors
slam shut before them;
now to walk to the next point
where it’s colder. Amira
is swaddled in the damp blanket.


Marilyn Peretti still lives near Chicago, and still loves it that concise words of poetry can express the egregious events in nations' interactions. She has been published in various journals, Pushcart nominated, and published several poetry books at blurb.com/bookstore.

THE VIEW FROM SAMARIA

by Matt Quinn

On the top of the photo it says:
Would you help Jesus up?
and beneath the fallen Nazerene:
TYPE ‘YES’

and it looks like 107,000 people
have done just that,
and I think:
well, yes,

now that you know who he is,
but take away that cross
and the crown of thorns
and all you’ve got

is some middle-eastern looking guy
with a head wound –
except this one
looks rather like 

a white man
with a tan,
but let’s pretend.
He could very easily be

a terrorist
or a refugee,
or more likely
an economic migrant

faking it:
those wounds on his head
are only scratches after all

and probably self-inflicted.

And besides

he doesn't look at all
like a Christian.
Would you help him up?

Type 'yes'.

Matt Quinn lives in Brighton, England and hopes to one day have a sufficiently impressive list of poetry publications to justify a bio.

ONE MORE

by Ann Malaspina

Graphic by Imad Abu Shtayyah.

Off the island of Kos
you crawl through the sea
coughing salt
flailing arms—
while all around,
fishermen scoop babies,
haul grown men,
rescue women
from sunken boats
and slippery rocks
all day and night
for weeks
and months
until there is no
room on the beach
for even one more.

Still you splash to shore,
eyes stinging, skin raw
from terror nights and hunger days,
from lost husband,
lost roof,
lost country.
You swallow sea.
You fight the wind.
It is no use.
It is all there is.
It is.

When suddenly a wave
lifts you high and clean--
the same wave
that drove Odysseus
so far away
and home again.
Frothy warm and curled
like your mother's arms,
the wave lifts you,
carries you,
tumbles you
onto earthly sand
of despair and hope,
breathless,
breathing,
alive,
and the people make room.


A poet and a children's author living in New Jersey, Ann Malaspina has published two poems at TheNewVerse.News.

INVISIBLE

by Michelle Marie

Source: NY Daily News

nothing is fixed
not the broken boat on the water
not the broken lives fleeing the forces of war
not the broken system that dehumanizes and deports

nothing stands
between those on board and
the breaking of the waves
not the luck that never holds out
not the promises that never pan out
not the border patrol that refuses to look out

for a ship lost at sea
in waters that never deceive:

only when your image is no
longer reflected in the water
do you begin to see yourself
the way the world sees you


Michelle Marie has written for Infita7 and Bluestockings Magazine.

MEMO FROM BUSHEHR

by Paul Smith

(Reuters, February 7, 2015) - Iran's foreign minister has warned the United States that failure to agree a nuclear deal would likely herald the political demise of pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, Iranian officials said, raising the stakes as the decade-old stand-off nears its end-game. 

The card game here
Was rigged, they said
But all paid to get in
And ante up for the small blind
Or the big one
It was the Jakarta Kid
Who said
‘Watch out for whoever’s not here’
When the turbaned gentleman
Dealt the only hand
It was aces and eights
The gents in smocks guffawed
The Jakarta Kid haw-hawed
The Brussels Sprouts all shouted
But it was the turbaned gent
Who just stared
At the two pairs
In front of him
Dealt by someone behind
Who wasn’t there
There were no winners
They all went to play
Another game somewhere
Save the turbaned gentleman
Who vanished in thin air


Paul Smith lives near Chicago.  He writes fiction & poetry.  He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo.  He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

UKRAINE: NOTES, 2014

by Kathleen Sousa Capps

@anadoluimages: A piano painted the colours of Ukrainian national flag at Independence Square in the capital Kiev.
Image source: Veooz 360

If I knew how to play
I’d set up a grand piano
In Kiev
In Independence
Square
Right now
While it’s winter
Though each note hang on the air
Like an icicle suspended
From the frame of a burnt out bus
It would still be carried with passion
Wrung from the heart of a nightingale
I’d play every Handel and Mozart Requiem,
Every song that blows out a candle
Every thought that says THIS IS NOT A COUP
This is a cry for human rights, to let us out of this
Dictatorship, this collaboration with fascism
To deny freedom of choice, to deny free trade,
Intellect, spirit, Ukraine and Europe.
Right now
While Kiev is burning
In flames
And riot police claim lives
And protestors toss Molotov cocktails
If I could I’d sit in front of a grand piano
And each moment would pray for peace


Kathleen Sousa Capps holds a PhD in English from University of Oregon (1998).  Publications in literary and academic journals, including Paideuma.   Dissertation topic: Image Trouble: Pound’s People-Making as Visual Discourse.  Trying to find an agent/publisher for her novel, Blackberry Woman.  Because Kathleen is hearing impaired and blind, her father forbade her to learn to play the piano; he said it was a waste of time.  And college is no place for women.  (That’s what he said.)