FINALLY

by Jenna Le

Ke Huy Quan
waited long.
Michelle Yeoh
was told no.
Then, this year,
a path cleared:
we were blessed
with yes, yes.

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011);  A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2017), a Second Place winner in the Elgin Awards; and Manatee Lagoon (Acre Books, 2022).

THE OSCAR

by Margaret D. Stetz

…for the “Best Adapted
Life”
goes to the women of
my generation
we make up most
of the Academy
and won
though no one else would
vote for us
but learned at last
to write our own names
on the ballot
then turn up with a speech
for the acceptance
that we’ve never felt
of course the host
has withering jokes 
at our expense
but we don’t
slap him
we’ve always swallowed more
at work at home in bed
than pride
when all our names 
are called
we will not miss 
this moment
although our bladders fill like
Thanksgiving Day Parade
balloons
the trailing hems of gowns
catch heels and trip us
on the way to reach
the stage
where music has already 
played us off before
we even speak
the microphones the cameras
shutting down
we shout our thanks
for one another’s 
help and strength
into the emptying auditorium.
Our afterparty invitations
are for a future day
we don’t know when
but meanwhile
stand 
just stand
and keep our grip on something
golden.

Margaret D. Stetz, a lifelong feminist and a poet, is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware.

KOAN AT THE OSCARS

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and edits the verse quarterly Lighten Up Online. His work has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web publications such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Asses of Parnassus, Better Than Starbucks, The Hypertexts, Light, The New Verse News, and Snakeskin.

SMALL TALK

by Gil Hoy





What breed of turmoil
and woe are we seeing, when

casual conversation
about favorite movies
can seem uncaring,

tacit silence
in the face of
so many lies.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet, semi-retired trial lawyer, and progressive, political activist who is studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Ariel Chart, The Potomac, The Penmen Review and elsewhere.

WHAT THE OSCARS TAUGHT ME

by Devon Balwit

Frances McDormand at the microphone and other women nominated for Oscars standing in the audience. Credit Patrick T. Fallon for The New York Times.

The woman crackled when handed
the mic, her anger having traveled
a long distance, gathering momentum.
She glared at the panel on literary activism.
Shame, she said, on you. They hadn’t spoken
badly as far as I could tell, so I awaited
her verdict. It was their ratio that rankled—
three men to a single woman. Her finger quivered
as she counted. I feel like a woman inside,
one man quipped, discomfited. No smiles.
Now I know what each of the four
should have demanded, an inclusion rider,
all chairs left empty until equitably filled.


Author’s Note: Inclusion riders! How I needed this concept two weeks ago when I attended a writers' conference in Mexico. It would have saved me some puzzlement.

Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Rattle, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.

TO A YOUNGER FRIEND PREFERRING BOYHOOD OVER BIRDMAN

by Rick Mullin

 

Of course you can relate.  After all,

you were a boy once too. And you might
marry and put one through the system yourself.

I hardly recommend it. But despite

having raised three girls and never having beaten
my wife, I can tell you that Linklater got it right.

He gave us life… to a point.

On technical concept, let’s call it a draw.

But as for my favorite of the two, allow me

to share my experience in movie-going:

Detesting all inside-theater baseball,

I checked out in the early scenes, allowing
confusion to hold sway over narrative.
 

I sought entertainment in light and color,

haircuts, tits and ass in wardrobe, repartee,

until I saw myself, POW!, who was once a boy

and survived all that. Who was loved but wonders now.
Who has exited the stage door, boarded planes,

attended conferences in underpants or worse,
a recurring dream of dashing to a suitcase
or a car in which my legs are iffy
and the voices in my head surmount facetious,

glib, forgotten or remembered joke.

You didn’t like the ending? Well, I would say

[no spoiler] that the bird was captured by the day.

I will honor your opinion, friend.

But when you are old, and your future is behind you,
watch these films again! Especially if your future
was comprised of bogus costume heroics and
one or two memorable spots on Letterman.

Rick Mullin's poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies. His most recent book, Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle was published in December by Dos Madres Press, Loveland, Ohio.

MAMMARY GUY

by Chris O’Carroll

Charlize Theron heard the boob.

We saw the boob.
We saw the boob.
We saw him singing on the tube.  We saw the boob.

Even guys who groove on breasts
Think that Seth’s a noxious pest.
We saw the boob.

We heard him mention many a famous nude scene,
Drooling like an adolescent twit.
His tiny mind’s a theatre with a lewd screen
On which he’s starring as a sack of rhymes with tit.

We saw the boob.
We saw the boob.

Chris O’Carroll is a writer and an actor.  In addition to his previous appearances in New Verse News, he has published poems in Antiphon, Bumbershoot, Light Quarterly, Measure, Per Contra, and other print and online journals