by Steve Hellyard Swartz
My mother fell in the bathroom and because she’d shattered her hip, the best she could do was to crawl back to the couch in the den
I think she probably went back to sleep, on the floor, which is where I found her
This is a story about meat, by the way, real meat, red meat, as in--
The newspapers she liked to read, by the couch which had become her bed, the newspapers red with blood, her blood
The newspapers and little Teddy Bear notepaper, the phone, and her pillow, all wet with blood and urine
She was confused, she didn’t think to call me, it was the middle of the night--
red meat time - the time when old people bleed on the floor, bleed and pee, confused, spent, gone as far as they’re gonna get, hugging the legs of couches and chairs, two o’clock in America, red meat time, real meat time, finger-poppin’, heart-stoppin’ time
Today I read that former Senator Alan Simpson is saying that he can’t wait for
April, when the debt limit comes up for a vote again
“I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. . . . When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now?”
When I came over and found my mother on the floor she asked me: “What have I done?”
Before calling an ambulance I tried to clean up the mess on the floor
I didn’t want strangers in her house before I’d done something
“What have I done?” my mother said, again and again
In the hospital, a Nurse Supervising Case Manager told me that my mother might not qualify for rehab
I asked her if she’s crazy, which she didn’t like
“What’s your plan for her?” I asked, “What’s your fucking plan for an 85 year-old woman with a broken hip?”
“Well, she can just go home,” the Nurse Superannuated Case Manager said, “and be cared for by friends and loved ones.”
Alan Simpson, Nurse Manager to the nation, has a twinkle in his eye when he says:
“We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat,
real meat,” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.
Steve Hellyard Swartz is Poet Laureate of Schenectady, NY. He is a frequent contributor to New Verse News. Swartz is a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee for Poetry. His poems have appeared in The Patterson Review, The Southern Indiana Review, The Kennesaw Review, and online at Best Poem and switched-on gutenberg. He is the winner of a First Place Award given by the Society of Professional Journalists for Excellence in Broadcasting. In 1990, Never Leave Nevada, a movie he wrote and directed, opened at the US Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
_____________________________________________________
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Monday, December 06, 2010
BASIC PEACE PLAN
by David S. Pointer
Burst top banking
erupts not as an
idle volcano, but
as an active friend
oozing collegiality
into woozy lands
brimmed by poverty
coughing the dusty
past days of decaying
centuries frail with
invaders, investors,
and others waving a
vast welcome under
the cool crush of
the ongoing smile
David S. Pointer lives in Murfreesboro, TN. Recent publications include "The Baseball Chronicle," "The American Dissident," and "J Journal: New Writings on Justice." David is a sociologist and has a recent surgical technology diploma.
_____________________________________________________
Burst top banking
erupts not as an
idle volcano, but
as an active friend
oozing collegiality
into woozy lands
brimmed by poverty
coughing the dusty
past days of decaying
centuries frail with
invaders, investors,
and others waving a
vast welcome under
the cool crush of
the ongoing smile
David S. Pointer lives in Murfreesboro, TN. Recent publications include "The Baseball Chronicle," "The American Dissident," and "J Journal: New Writings on Justice." David is a sociologist and has a recent surgical technology diploma.
_____________________________________________________
Sunday, December 05, 2010
THE MOTHER OF ONE OF THE BOYS LOST AT SEA ASKS HIM WHAT THE OCEAN WAS LIKE
by Rasma Haidri
And the boy says:
After 10 days I said to the Ocean,
Tell me your name so I will know where I am, but the Ocean replied,
All water is this water. The ocean is one.
After 20 days I said to the Ocean,
You are trying to kill me, but I will drink the rain, and the Ocean replied,
Rivers return from whence they came. The rain is ocean returning home.
After 30 days a seabird landed and I said to the Ocean,
Is this another one of your jokes? The Ocean replied,
I have many shapes of bird or fish or boy. Did you think I was water?
After 40 days I said to the Ocean,
I will die now and be gone. The Ocean replied,
To the one being born it appears the world is coming to an end.
After 50 days I said to the Ocean,
There is no place where this water does not belong, and the Ocean said,
You will never go out of the ocean that is you.
The boy’s weeping mother holds him close.
He knows her tears are ocean.
Rasma Haidri is an American writer living on the arctic coast of Norway.
_____________________________________________________
And the boy says:
After 10 days I said to the Ocean,
Tell me your name so I will know where I am, but the Ocean replied,
All water is this water. The ocean is one.
After 20 days I said to the Ocean,
You are trying to kill me, but I will drink the rain, and the Ocean replied,
Rivers return from whence they came. The rain is ocean returning home.
After 30 days a seabird landed and I said to the Ocean,
Is this another one of your jokes? The Ocean replied,
I have many shapes of bird or fish or boy. Did you think I was water?
After 40 days I said to the Ocean,
I will die now and be gone. The Ocean replied,
To the one being born it appears the world is coming to an end.
After 50 days I said to the Ocean,
There is no place where this water does not belong, and the Ocean said,
You will never go out of the ocean that is you.
The boy’s weeping mother holds him close.
He knows her tears are ocean.
Rasma Haidri is an American writer living on the arctic coast of Norway.
_____________________________________________________
Saturday, December 04, 2010
MEA CULPABILITY
Poem by Charles Frederickson; Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote
The UN Climate Change Conference, Cancun, Mexico, 29 November - 10 December 2010.
The UN Climate Change Conference, Cancun, Mexico, 29 November - 10 December 2010.
Spinning globe axis off kilter
Frothy teal glaze veneer chipped
Phantom oblique myth-takes debunked
In-denial bloated varicose veins burst
Sea levels rise coastlines retreat
Overflowing glacial teardrops flooding basins
Spitfire core molten anima meltdown
Crusty Wonder burnt toast scraped
Climate transition jaded green envy
Ex-spurts gushing longi- lati- platitudes
Tropical storms unbuckle equatorial belt
Paunchy gut overhanging rainforest ravage
Wanton destruction of lonesome planet
Skewed credibility drought bi-polar extremes
Diminishing virgin springs depleting reserve
Recycled excuses mainline taproots soiled
Frothy teal glaze veneer chipped
Phantom oblique myth-takes debunked
In-denial bloated varicose veins burst
Sea levels rise coastlines retreat
Overflowing glacial teardrops flooding basins
Spitfire core molten anima meltdown
Crusty Wonder burnt toast scraped
Climate transition jaded green envy
Ex-spurts gushing longi- lati- platitudes
Tropical storms unbuckle equatorial belt
Paunchy gut overhanging rainforest ravage
Wanton destruction of lonesome planet
Skewed credibility drought bi-polar extremes
Diminishing virgin springs depleting reserve
Recycled excuses mainline taproots soiled
No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote together comprise PoeArtry. Flutter Press published Charles’ chapbook fanTHAIsies.
___________________________________________
Friday, December 03, 2010
NOT AT ALL MYSTERIOUS
by Catherine McGuire
As the implacable iceberg of debt
rips industrialization into archipelagoes
of misery, unrelieved by a smidgeon of hope,
the gossamer excuses of the pirates
in charge (colossal rapscallions who can’t be stopped
by exegesis nor exorcism as they hold
steely claws to our carotids), rings
as false as the famed Crystal Skull
of Meso-American fame. They don’t give a banana
for our fate – we are as innocent manatees
amid the blades of their powerboats, as they
endorphin through our savings, our lives.
The ramifications of this? Apprentice yourself
to a smith or weaver – bandanas will have
more value than bonds. Caveat investor.
Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with more than 120 poems published in venues such as The New Verse News, The Cape Rock, Green Fuse, The Quizzical Chair Anthology, The Smoking Poet, Portland Lights Anthology, Folio, Tapjoe and Adagio.
___________________________________________
As the implacable iceberg of debt
rips industrialization into archipelagoes
of misery, unrelieved by a smidgeon of hope,
the gossamer excuses of the pirates
in charge (colossal rapscallions who can’t be stopped
by exegesis nor exorcism as they hold
steely claws to our carotids), rings
as false as the famed Crystal Skull
of Meso-American fame. They don’t give a banana
for our fate – we are as innocent manatees
amid the blades of their powerboats, as they
endorphin through our savings, our lives.
The ramifications of this? Apprentice yourself
to a smith or weaver – bandanas will have
more value than bonds. Caveat investor.
Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with more than 120 poems published in venues such as The New Verse News, The Cape Rock, Green Fuse, The Quizzical Chair Anthology, The Smoking Poet, Portland Lights Anthology, Folio, Tapjoe and Adagio.
___________________________________________
Thursday, December 02, 2010
ODE TO A GILA MONSTER Part 2
by Rochelle Owens
In front of a
carved wood sculpture
in the violet light
Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene
In the violet light
there goes a Gila monster
a Gila monster
majestically formed
a monster of gorgeous color
her body an astrological plan
studded with yellow and black
beadlike tubercules
like atoms locked into a pattern
vibrating particles
dabs of orange blue and green
forming an image in
the violet light
light rays entering the eyes
of a Gila monster
her body sovereign of
stems branches roots plants
of bones flesh blood vessels
sovereign of the wood sculpture
of the long slender limbs
delicately modeled hands
and feet carved with a chisel
Mary Magdalene cut from cut
from a single length of poplar
her hair highlighted with gold leaf
strands of her hair blowing
blowing across the lidless eyes
eyes of a Gila monster
Rochelle Owens is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State. This section of "Ode to a Gila Monster" is Rochelle Owens' sixteenth New Verse News poem.
_____________________________________________________
In front of a
carved wood sculpture
in the violet light
Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene
In the violet light
there goes a Gila monster
a Gila monster
majestically formed
a monster of gorgeous color
her body an astrological plan
studded with yellow and black
beadlike tubercules
like atoms locked into a pattern
vibrating particles
dabs of orange blue and green
forming an image in
the violet light
light rays entering the eyes
of a Gila monster
her body sovereign of
stems branches roots plants
of bones flesh blood vessels
sovereign of the wood sculpture
of the long slender limbs
delicately modeled hands
and feet carved with a chisel
Mary Magdalene cut from cut
from a single length of poplar
her hair highlighted with gold leaf
strands of her hair blowing
blowing across the lidless eyes
eyes of a Gila monster
Rochelle Owens is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State. This section of "Ode to a Gila Monster" is Rochelle Owens' sixteenth New Verse News poem.
_____________________________________________________
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
ARCHIPELAGO
by James Gage
Torture is a word
with more than four letters
but of course there are worse,
words like earlobe or gulag or
Bagram Air Base, places you hoped
your concealment might keep you from seeing.
*
It has been two years since Aleksandr
returned to the taiga,
two years since he left us for dusk
and the world is the same now but
different, the appeals have grown louder.
The court has drawn down
its heavyweight robes and
butterflies are trapped in its vestments.
The bailiff keeps checking his watch.
Still the old man in the back
stares stalwartly on,
beard spilling from his eyes
like silver tailings from a mine,
he is quiet, there is too much to say
and he’s already said it, bellowed
from the hemlocks and his solitary cells
against the fear and the hate
for the hope and the love
without raising his voice,
without raising his hand.
*
Through ribboning birch
the snow hums down like an iron
branding on skin. A voice rings out
and then fades, swallowed by
a silence that spreads like an inkblot.
James Gage is a freelance writer and editor who has published poems in Main Street Rag, Inkwell, Mountain Gazette, Powhatan Review, The Iconoclast, and Out of Line. A native Vermonter, he is increasingly interested in the Vermont Independence movement.
_____________________________________________________
"To do evil a human being must first believe that what he is doing is good.”
--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Torture is a word
with more than four letters
but of course there are worse,
words like earlobe or gulag or
Bagram Air Base, places you hoped
your concealment might keep you from seeing.
*
It has been two years since Aleksandr
returned to the taiga,
two years since he left us for dusk
and the world is the same now but
different, the appeals have grown louder.
The court has drawn down
its heavyweight robes and
butterflies are trapped in its vestments.
The bailiff keeps checking his watch.
Still the old man in the back
stares stalwartly on,
beard spilling from his eyes
like silver tailings from a mine,
he is quiet, there is too much to say
and he’s already said it, bellowed
from the hemlocks and his solitary cells
against the fear and the hate
for the hope and the love
without raising his voice,
without raising his hand.
*
Through ribboning birch
the snow hums down like an iron
branding on skin. A voice rings out
and then fades, swallowed by
a silence that spreads like an inkblot.
James Gage is a freelance writer and editor who has published poems in Main Street Rag, Inkwell, Mountain Gazette, Powhatan Review, The Iconoclast, and Out of Line. A native Vermonter, he is increasingly interested in the Vermont Independence movement.
_____________________________________________________
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
SALVATION RINGS ON FIFTH
by Roxanne Hoffman
Roxanne Hoffman worked on Wall Street, now answers a patient hotline for a New York home healthcare provider. Her words can be found on and off the net in such journals as Amaze: The Cinquain Journal, Clockwise Cat, Danse Macabre, The Fib Review, Hospital Drive, Lucid Rhythms, Mobius: The Poetry Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, and Shaking Like A Mountain; the indie flick Love And The Vampire; and the anthologies The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and their Affiliates (Soft Skull Press), Love After 70 (Wising Up Press), and It All Changed In An Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure (Harper Perennial). She and her husband own the small press, Poets Wear Prada.
_____________________________________________________
Roxanne Hoffman worked on Wall Street, now answers a patient hotline for a New York home healthcare provider. Her words can be found on and off the net in such journals as Amaze: The Cinquain Journal, Clockwise Cat, Danse Macabre, The Fib Review, Hospital Drive, Lucid Rhythms, Mobius: The Poetry Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, and Shaking Like A Mountain; the indie flick Love And The Vampire; and the anthologies The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and their Affiliates (Soft Skull Press), Love After 70 (Wising Up Press), and It All Changed In An Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure (Harper Perennial). She and her husband own the small press, Poets Wear Prada.
_____________________________________________________
Monday, November 29, 2010
TERZANELLE: CHOLERA COLLIDES WITH VOTERS IN HAITI
by Bonnie Naradzay
This is a story of heaped-up corpses, bagged in sacks.
Masked workers spray everything with a bleach solution.
Bodies, marked with cardboard tags, are piled up in stacks.
A bulldozer covers them, make a mounded earth cushion.
In Port au Prince, candidates woo voters with music and floats.
Masked workers spray everything with a bleach solution.
The streets throng with supporters singing jingles for votes
Political rallies may end with gunfire, voodoo and fights.
In Port au Prince, candidates woo voters with music and floats.
Cholera patrols the streets at night under sporadic electric lights.
Death accompanies earthquakes, cholera, and torrential rain.
Political rallies may end with gunfire, voodoo and fights.
UN troops patrol in trucks, their half-hearted greetings in vain.
Half-naked men from the slums wade into sewage to clean it.
Death accompanies earthquakes, cholera, and torrential rain.
Candidates dance, shout jingles, collide near mounded graves.
This is a story of heaped-up corpses, bagged in sacks.
Half-naked men from the slums wade into sewage to clean it.
Bodies, marked with cardboard tags, are piled up in stacks.
Bonnie Naradzay lives in the Washington DC area, earned her MFA in poetry from Stonecoast, University of Southern Maine, and has published in many print and online journals.
_____________________________________________________
This is a story of heaped-up corpses, bagged in sacks.
Masked workers spray everything with a bleach solution.
Bodies, marked with cardboard tags, are piled up in stacks.
A bulldozer covers them, make a mounded earth cushion.
In Port au Prince, candidates woo voters with music and floats.
Masked workers spray everything with a bleach solution.
The streets throng with supporters singing jingles for votes
Political rallies may end with gunfire, voodoo and fights.
In Port au Prince, candidates woo voters with music and floats.
Cholera patrols the streets at night under sporadic electric lights.
Death accompanies earthquakes, cholera, and torrential rain.
Political rallies may end with gunfire, voodoo and fights.
UN troops patrol in trucks, their half-hearted greetings in vain.
Half-naked men from the slums wade into sewage to clean it.
Death accompanies earthquakes, cholera, and torrential rain.
Candidates dance, shout jingles, collide near mounded graves.
This is a story of heaped-up corpses, bagged in sacks.
Half-naked men from the slums wade into sewage to clean it.
Bodies, marked with cardboard tags, are piled up in stacks.
Bonnie Naradzay lives in the Washington DC area, earned her MFA in poetry from Stonecoast, University of Southern Maine, and has published in many print and online journals.
_____________________________________________________
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
SCANNING
by Judith Terzi
Give me a place to stand, Archimedes said...
The x-ray tango begins. We all stand,
lift our arms to Lords of the shadow standard.
They call out, "Show more." It's a one-night stand.
Anaphores of poets are unveiled to standing ovations,
jealousies notwithstanding. And cellulite of pundits,
scars from rebuilt parts withstand the invention.
The nipple rings of history stand out in the gaze.
Sartre stood for "L'enfer, c'est les autres."
Will shadows spot the misunderstood, or know
who has stood with philosophers at Café de Flore,
who has inhaled Gauloises, exhaled upstanding isms?
Stand-in starlets, their implants revealed, cry,
and children stand who have tried and failed to fly.
Judith Terzi is the author of two chapbooks, The Road to Oxnard (Pudding House contest finalist, 2010) and Sharing Tabouli (Finishing Line, 2011). Her poetry has appeared widely in print and online and has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best of the Web anthologies. She taught high school French for many years in Pasadena, CA where she currently lives and writes.
_____________________________________________________
––starting with a line by Jean de Sponde
Give me a place to stand, Archimedes said...
The x-ray tango begins. We all stand,
lift our arms to Lords of the shadow standard.
They call out, "Show more." It's a one-night stand.
Anaphores of poets are unveiled to standing ovations,
jealousies notwithstanding. And cellulite of pundits,
scars from rebuilt parts withstand the invention.
The nipple rings of history stand out in the gaze.
Sartre stood for "L'enfer, c'est les autres."
Will shadows spot the misunderstood, or know
who has stood with philosophers at Café de Flore,
who has inhaled Gauloises, exhaled upstanding isms?
Stand-in starlets, their implants revealed, cry,
and children stand who have tried and failed to fly.
Judith Terzi is the author of two chapbooks, The Road to Oxnard (Pudding House contest finalist, 2010) and Sharing Tabouli (Finishing Line, 2011). Her poetry has appeared widely in print and online and has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best of the Web anthologies. She taught high school French for many years in Pasadena, CA where she currently lives and writes.
_____________________________________________________
Friday, November 26, 2010
NEW GUIDELINES FOR AIRPORT SECURITY!
by Iris Litt
They think my boobs are booby-trapped!
The metal-detector thinks I should be zapped.
They say I should not wear my underwire.
True, each of mine could hide a good-size bomb.
A 38D bomb!
My clothes are regulation sleek, my hair appropriately matted down
but if I defy this new one, I’ll get patted down.
I refuse to apologize for their size
but I’ll comply. I need to fly.
I’ll convince the screener of their purity.
I’ll wear my wireless bra,
at least until I’m through security.
Iris Litt’s most recent book of poetry is What I Wanted to Say from Shivastan Publishing. An earlier book of poetry, Word Love, was published by Cosmic Trend Publications. She has had poems in many literary magazines including Onthebus, Confrontation, Hiram Poetry Review, The New Renaissance, Asphodel, Poetry Now, Central Park, Icarus, The Rambunctious Review, Pearl, The Ledge, Earth's Daughters, Poet Lore, Scholastic, and Atlantic Monthly (special college edition). She has had short stories in Travellers Tales, Prima Materia, Out Of The Catskills, and The Second Word Thursdays Anthology; and articles in Pacific Coast Journal, Writer's Digest, and The Writer. She teaches writing workshops in Woodstock, NY, and has taught creative writing at Bard College, SUNY/Ulster, Arts Society of Kingston, Writers in the Mountains, Educational Alliance, New York Public Library, and Marble Collegiate Church. She lives in Woodstock and in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
_____________________________________________________
“That little wire in some bra cups might…set off security buzzers.”
They think my boobs are booby-trapped!
The metal-detector thinks I should be zapped.
They say I should not wear my underwire.
True, each of mine could hide a good-size bomb.
A 38D bomb!
My clothes are regulation sleek, my hair appropriately matted down
but if I defy this new one, I’ll get patted down.
I refuse to apologize for their size
but I’ll comply. I need to fly.
I’ll convince the screener of their purity.
I’ll wear my wireless bra,
at least until I’m through security.
Iris Litt’s most recent book of poetry is What I Wanted to Say from Shivastan Publishing. An earlier book of poetry, Word Love, was published by Cosmic Trend Publications. She has had poems in many literary magazines including Onthebus, Confrontation, Hiram Poetry Review, The New Renaissance, Asphodel, Poetry Now, Central Park, Icarus, The Rambunctious Review, Pearl, The Ledge, Earth's Daughters, Poet Lore, Scholastic, and Atlantic Monthly (special college edition). She has had short stories in Travellers Tales, Prima Materia, Out Of The Catskills, and The Second Word Thursdays Anthology; and articles in Pacific Coast Journal, Writer's Digest, and The Writer. She teaches writing workshops in Woodstock, NY, and has taught creative writing at Bard College, SUNY/Ulster, Arts Society of Kingston, Writers in the Mountains, Educational Alliance, New York Public Library, and Marble Collegiate Church. She lives in Woodstock and in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
_____________________________________________________
GIVING THANKS
by Earl J. Wilcox
Maker of all things, we thank you
For free balloons and cookies at the supermarket
For good pitchers who win the Cy Young award
For the Mormon Tabernacle choir
For leaf blowers replacing rakes
For pecan and pumpkin pies
For apples green and red
For write-in candidates
For Chevrolet trucks
For pinot grigio
For poetry.
Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
_____________________________________________________
Maker of all things, we thank you
For free balloons and cookies at the supermarket
For good pitchers who win the Cy Young award
For the Mormon Tabernacle choir
For leaf blowers replacing rakes
For pecan and pumpkin pies
For apples green and red
For write-in candidates
For Chevrolet trucks
For pinot grigio
For poetry.
Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
_____________________________________________________
Thursday, November 25, 2010
THANKS GIVING
With deep appreciation and regard for the hundreds of poets whose work has appeared here this year, The New Verse News is proud to announce that it has nominated the following poems from its pages:
1. For the Sundress Publications Best of the Net 2010 Awards:
RUBBLE DREAM by Mary Krane Derr
JIHADJANE by Anne Harding Woodworth
STICKS AND STONES WILL MAKE A WAR. . . by Rasma Haidri
FIFTY FOOT OAK by Laura Rodley
2. For the Dzanc Books Best of the Web 2011 Awards:
PETER KINLOCH TO HIS FIANCÉE by Molly Meacham
TRACKING THE HURRICANE by W.F. Lantry
ABRACADABRA by James Penha
3. For The Pushcart Prize 2011:
DIEGO RIVERA’S DEEP WATER HORIZON by Alan Catlin
SOMETHING FOR HARVEY by Jen Hinton
BREAKING OF BREAD: ANDREI VOZNESENSKY by Richard Ilnicki
LABOR DAY 2010 by Lillian Baker Kennedy
RESCUE FROM THE DEPTHS by J. D. Mackenzie
LEEWARD by Elizabeth Swados
_____________________________________________________
1. For the Sundress Publications Best of the Net 2010 Awards:
RUBBLE DREAM by Mary Krane Derr
JIHADJANE by Anne Harding Woodworth
STICKS AND STONES WILL MAKE A WAR. . . by Rasma Haidri
FIFTY FOOT OAK by Laura Rodley
2. For the Dzanc Books Best of the Web 2011 Awards:
PETER KINLOCH TO HIS FIANCÉE by Molly Meacham
TRACKING THE HURRICANE by W.F. Lantry
ABRACADABRA by James Penha
3. For The Pushcart Prize 2011:
DIEGO RIVERA’S DEEP WATER HORIZON by Alan Catlin
SOMETHING FOR HARVEY by Jen Hinton
BREAKING OF BREAD: ANDREI VOZNESENSKY by Richard Ilnicki
LABOR DAY 2010 by Lillian Baker Kennedy
RESCUE FROM THE DEPTHS by J. D. Mackenzie
LEEWARD by Elizabeth Swados
_____________________________________________________
Editor's Note: Mary K. Derr hopes her nominated poem will encourage readers to remember that Haitians still need help. She suggests donations to Food for the Poor and Médecins Sans Frontières.
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