The Commonline Journal

SADNESS By Dennis Wilken

2011-12-31T09:29:00.004-08:00

Snapshots so pathetic,
How did it come to this?
Everyone in the frame,
Grannies, uncles, cousins,
Not to mention Dad,
Dead
Except for me;
But the beautiful blonde boy I was
Unrecognizable
In the sliver-bearded man who remains,
One tear in each tired eye,
Staring at old photos
Of folks once loved long gone.

Dennis Wilken is veteran journalist and writer. He lives in Seattle Washington.

OUTCOMES by Dennis Wilken

2011-11-24T18:34:00.000-08:00

Never say never
Never say, I’ll never
Be too withdrawn
And alone
Like my poor bachelor
Uncle Bill;

Presto, fifty years pass,
Some very hard years,
Breaking boundaries
Inside your head
And now, you sit,

Often alone,
Reading travel books,
Maybe some of the same ones
Old Bill dreamed over
As he waited to die;

We often become
What we fear,
Or loathe,
At least as often as we become
Who we always wished to be
And sometimes, all too briefly,
Were.

_
Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot and Madswirl. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

MINIMUM WAGERS Micro Fiction by Dennis Wilken

2011-10-02T12:04:00.004-07:00

I. The Queen

In the land of the obese only Gargantua can be queen. She was a big white woman, not quite thirty. Her features were swallowed up by flesh, even her nose. She believed devoutly in Jesus Christ, Sunday-school edition, and George W. Bush. She had six babies by six men and had lost custody of all but the youngest, the unluckiest. She said many men told her she had a beautiful face.

II. No Justice, No Mercy

She limped and her mouth was twisted into a perpetual grimace, since birth, some twenty-five years earlier. She loved her job and carried a little satchel onto the bus like many of her coworkers. Her satchel contained a peanut putter sandwich and a romance novel.

One afternoon she climbed onto the bus. Pasty white, she’d’ braided her usually stringy red hair into cornrows. She blushed and her misshapen mouth bent into a twisted but genuine smile when a co-worker complimented her head.

Within a moment of arriving at work crying could be heard. The cornrowed girl was sobbing and Gargantua was comforting her as she wept. They had told her she was too hard to understand on the phones and for this she was fired. Her sobbing became unbearably loud. It was very easy to understand how she was feeling.

III. American Buddhist

She believed she was a true Buddhist, but she never stopped chanting for things like a new car. In her religion there was no renunciation. It was all about turning Buddha into an Asian Jesus you could beg for stuff.

She once asked a co-worker she was interested in if he had teleported into her apartment the night before. After nineteen years she got a flesh and blood boyfriend who was as big and fat as she was. Not long after, she was heard on the telephone saying, “You act like that because you are mentally ill, Marvin.”

Soon after becoming homeless she was fired. She took to standing outside the office with a sign telling passing motorists that Gilgamesh Research had violated her. That was her word, “violated,” spelled correctly. She was arrested at the company’s request. The president later denied that fact.

IV. The Director

He was a roly-poly little man who could never manage to zip up his zipper. The crotch of his cords was always wet and you kept hoping against hope that his business would stay inside his pants. He had a girlfriend who’d graduated from a local college, proving, I guess, the old adage that there is someone for every damn one. She was by no means beautiful, but didn’t look like she belonged with him.

He made very low budget documentary films about UFOs and child molestation. When asked about the oddness of those two interests, coupled in film, he seemed to think the question itself was odd. “Those are my two subjects,” he said in a tone even Godard would have appreciated.

V. Big K

He talked to his food while licking it off his plate. Once he was eating so fast some of his beans and rice came back up. He glanced around the lunchroom and then ate it again. He loved Robert Altman’s films and claimed to have a girlfriend. At least twice he was employee of the month.

-
Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot and Madswirl. His editorials can be found in Pacific Publishing publications. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

STENCH By Rod Tipton

2011-09-25T12:23:00.016-07:00

The Adams Hotel is on Atlantic in the waterfront district of San Pedro. A two story frame building slapped together sometime in the mid-1930s. It has no romantic past, only a lay-over for transients, merchant marines, prostitutes and the generally down and out. I was a broke student tired of couch surfing.

It was late and I was riding my Yamaha back to the hotel. The muffles were blown and its scream echoed up the deserted streets. This greasy motorcycle had all but ended my dating life. However, living in LA and getting to all the places I need to go for a few bucks a week made a sense I couldn’t avoid.

Kitty-cornered from the hotel a seven-story “residence home for the aged” was going-up. The cranes that lifted the building materials seemed twice that tall. Everyday but Sunday work began at 6 in the morning. After that, a high mounted loudspeaker blasted announcements every few minutes. The speaker could be heard all the way to the water and made it impossible to sleep.

The only night you could party without a concern for the loudspeaker was Saturday. This was the end of Saturday night. My trip home was tinge with a psychedelic cartoon quality. The bike’s handling seemed rubbery and I was holding back a beer-pee.

I was close to ‘home’. When I got there I pushed the kickstand down, switched-off and swung my leg onto the street. Just in front of me a girl about my age led a man much older than either of us up the stairs of the Adams. He blended with the shadows and old walls – invisible with some success.

Out of respect for their legally delicate relationship I didn’t follow them up. I instead used the bathroom downstairs. There were three working girls on the second floor. Her door was next to mine but she would never make eye contact or acknowledge me in anyway. To her I did not exist. I flushed the urinal and felt the world go woozy under my feet. My night was over.

I got my boots off before I passed out in bed. The sun wasn’t up yet and I was dreaming. The dream was dim and unimportant until a smell worked itself into my mindscape with painful clarity. My eyes came open. It was confusing to have part of a dream persist into consciousness. A heavy stench filled my room. My head swam and I felt like gagging.

I turned the light on. It was August so the windows were up. I opened my door and looked into the hallway. Half the second floor was awake out. Across the hall Anthony’s door came open. Anthony was a good guy. He drank Mickey’s Big Mouths and could talk sense about most anything.

He shook his head and pointed south. “They steam-clean the tuna packing plant across the way once a month.” I imagined four-week-old fish guts blowing out into the harbor. God.

It was then that I heard my neighbor’s door open behind me. Her eyes were as dark as I had thought. Her skin was pale olive. There was a question in face and for the first time she looked directly at me. Eye to eye. I watched as I appeared before her, suddenly stepping out from the background noise of her life. I had my chance. I nodded toward the window. “The tuna factory”, I said. I tried to make my smile sympathetic. I felt her adding me up, calculating and making her judgment. As fast as I had come into being, I was annulled. She pulled her head back, closed her door.

“Shit” I said. Anthony shrugged. “Hell, man she already lives where it stinks. She wants somebody to take her away, not be company in the middle of it.” I wanted to argue but couldn’t . “Don’t worry man, this shit only lasts a while. We’ll be okay.” I lay back on my bed as the smell faded. Absurd to think of myself as anyone’s salvation, but I still rolled around with the idea while I waited for sleep.

Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.

Lisa Marie Basile Talks Patasola Press

2011-08-22T14:48:00.002-07:00

CLJ Selected Works 2007-2011

2011-08-11T17:35:00.025-07:00

Discourse | A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winner Stephen Dunn,
Without Words: An Interview with Tim Gaze &
An Interview with Radical Hip-Hop Artist & Activist Immortal Technique

Essay | Blasting the Canon: Hip-Hop Poetics, Race & the Ivory Tower by Michael Cirelli

Micro-Fiction | 'THE RIVER' by Charles Watts & 'LEAP' by Jennifer Hurley
___________________________

Selected Poetry |

'ODE TO THE GOD OF THE ATHEISTS'

Ellen Bass

'A GOD OF YOUR UNDERSTANDING'

Tony O'Neill

'FUCKING THE SMITHS'

Rob Plath

'RESPECT FOR THE GAME'

Richard J. Martin

'RACE RELATIONS-A PORTRAIT IN MOTION' & 'SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK'

Dennis Paul Wilken

'NECKS'

Arlene Ang

'READING A SWEDISH POET'

Lou Lipsitz

'NINA SING'

Ra Scion

'FOR THE BARREN ORANGE TREE'

Lisa Marie Basile

'NEW WEATHER'

Christopher Locke

'AT A RED LIGHT IN SAINT LOUIS' & 'THE OTHER 10 PRECENT'

Justin Hyde

'SLEEPER'

Helen Vitoria

'POMES LIKE JACKSON MAC LOW'

Doug Draime

5 POMES from LITTLE COMMENTARIES

Suzanne Buffam

'BUDDHA SAID NOTHING'

Suchoon Mo

'MAN TITS' & 'A LIBERTINE IN ALBANY'

Rebecca Wolff

_____________________

+ Poetry by | A.F. Cronin, Howie Good, Lenea Grace, Luis C. Berriozabal, Lyn Lifshin, and others.

'SELF PITY' a poem by James Valvis

2011-04-15T09:39:00.001-07:00

I like self-pity.
I think it's good.
It's not like pity for others.
I think that's a lie.
There's almost nothing better
than lying on your bed,
all the lights out,
the room too lonely to bear,
thinking you deserve better
than you've gotten.
Self-pity is there
when self-respect is not.
It's there when self-confidence
is afraid.
It's there when self-esteem
is worthless.
I love self-pity
but everywhere I go
no one ever has a good thing
to say about it.
That's just self-pity, they complain,
and wag their virtuous fingers.
I don't think that's right.
I think self-pity has gotten a bum rap,
just like me.

-
James Valvis lives in Washington State. His work has recently appeared in Arts & Letters, Atlanta Review, Blip (Mississippi Review), elimae, Foundling Review, Rattle, River Styx, and is forthcoming in The Pedestal, H_NGM_N, Hanging Loose, New York Quarterly, Night Train, Verdad, and others. His full-length poetry collection, How to Say Goodbye, is forthcoming from Aortic Books. He's not as handsome as his Facebook picture suggests.

'THE PARROT' Micro-Fiction by Dennis Paul Wilken

2011-04-10T05:40:00.019-07:00

She talked non-stop. When they first met, he thought she knew everything. Later, he realized she was simply very pretty. He'd always been a sucker for beauty.

Unfortunately, he didn't discover his mistake until after they were married. Now, years later, he no longer felt she was even mildly attractive. And he definitely didn't feel she knew anything worth knowing. He thought she simply repeated the last inanity she'd heard on television.

Some days, she channelled Barbara, some days Rosie, and some days Oprah.

He didn't care much for them either.

-
Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist, poet, and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. He lives in Seattle, Washington and is a Contributing Editor for Commonline.

THE MAN WHO SPOKE COMIC BOOK Micro-Fiction by Rod Tipton

2011-04-06T07:47:00.002-07:00

Thurston Reeves was admitted to Dauphin County Senior Care Center at the age of 58. He was taken to a room in the South East corner of the Memory Annex Building that sits some hundred yards behind the main facility. By luck it had view of the Susquehanna River.

The victim of a genetic mutation, his diagnosis was early onset of Alzheimer’s. At 59 Thurston’s great-grandfather, John Reeves, walked out of the family farm house 3 AM and into an Indiana January blizzard wearing only his long-johns and carrying a broom. John’s last recorded words were “Got to find Tuffy.” Tuffy was his childhood dog that had died some thirty-five years prior.

Thurston sat in a chair at his window for the better part of that day silently watching the river flow past. It wasn’t until just before dinner he made his first pronouncement; “The antimatter converter is failing. We must find another power source or we’re going in.”

Growing up he read comic books religiously. The Dale twins, who lived three doors down, and he spent hours, days, months and years acting out super hero scenarios. They memorized and used the phrases and terminology of comic book fantasy. “Your puny attack is futile against my weaponry” and so on.

Almost a year to the day before becoming a resident of DCSCC, Reeves began peppering his conversations with “comic-book-speak” as his son called it. Six months later he spoke nothing else.

Dean Wilkinson was 62 and worked three jobs to make ends meet. Caring for the slowly dying at the Annex was his least favorite job, but he needed the money. It was 4:30 AM when he signed the forms at the nurses station and picked the tray full of small brown envelops containing the drugs for his 5 o’clock rounds.

He was loopy tired but ahead of schedule which meant an early end to his shift and extra sleep. It was exhausted dyslexia that caused him to be standing in the doorway of room 417. Reeves was sitting at the window watching the summer mist melt away and Susquehanna slowly becoming visible in the light of dawn.
Wilkinson flipped on the over head light and the mist and river were gone. Reeves looked at his own reflection which was confusing. Wilkinson sat the tray down, “Time for your meds Mr. Clark.”

While Thurston tried to make sense of the word “ Clark”, Wilkinson put two pills in Reeves hand. “Swallow these down.” Thurston felt the situation needed to be clarified. “Astronavigation has yet to plot a course for this mission.”

Wilkinson’s years of experience had gave him a deep reservoir of problem solving techniques. “Hurry, take them.” Dean said in his most authoritarian voice, “They will give you more power then you can imagine.”

Reeves gaped in awe at the green and orange capsules glowing in his hand. His destiny had finally arrived. The might and glory of his murky past was being given back to him. Soon he would explode up into the still gray sky and fly away leaving a trail like a comet.

He looked into the eyes of man with the spongy face who stood before him, it was time for a farewell then; “Even though I have replenished my supplies and my sun-packs are full, I am loathed to leave this green planet.” He threw the pills back and swallowed.

Wilkinson’s best smile was thin and tired. He flicked the light out and left. Reeves turned back to the window and found the river. These drugs were not meant for his body and in less then two hours would stop his heart from beating. Thurston liked how the river was long and silver. To him these attributes seemed to give it a purpose, a purpose he wished he could share.

-

Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.

'INTERIOR THEATER' a poem by Howie Good

2011-03-20T05:18:00.002-07:00

Who but you would love
the clutter of meaningless detail,

the way the sun wriggles
on ripples of water?

I can say nothing about crying
that someone hasn’t already said.

A shadow,

expecting to find only a child at home,
climbs the stairs

with a mouthful of nails
and a cold-forged hammer.

_
Howie Good is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011).

'WISDOM TEETH' a poem by Lenea Grace

2011-03-19T03:27:00.007-07:00

Tonight you will rest
jaw stuffed with cotton, bloody
with welcome cavities, fresh
wounds, remnants of an otherwise
peaceful nap earlier this afternoon
in the Victoria General.

Tomorrow he will telephone,
with remorse and without love,
prematurely rip each stitch, leave you
to drain. There, there; there
is no time to dissolve, dear.
The ambulance is here.

Your chart will hang off the bed
display name, age, sex: details
he will choose to forget. Remember,
you are a textbook case.
It is not often that oral surgeries lead to cardiac arrest.

Lenea Grace is a Canadian writer living in New York. Her work has been published in Grain, EVENT, ditch, and Gulper Eel. She's inspired by rock and roll, Soviet grandmasters, rivers, Townes Van Zandt, and trying to find the balance between the heartbreaking and the hilarious.

Visit her website at http://leneagrace.blogspot.com.

'SHARP FLESH' a poem by Lenea Grace

2011-03-18T03:19:00.001-07:00

Do not be fooled by this, his soft eyes,
his beard, hirsute with auburn tufts
that betray darker locks, limbs.
His shoulders, warm with laughter,
strong with weights: dead and alive,
the raw exercise of memory.
His hands do not give away his profession,
but lend themselves to calloused dignity,
ink and algae.
Do not touch them.

He is so sharp.
He is so sharp, ladies, and he will cut you with his flesh.

-
Lenea Grace is a Canadian writer living in New York. Her work has been published in Grain, EVENT, ditch, and Gulper Eel. She's inspired by rock and roll, Soviet grandmasters, rivers, Townes Van Zandt, and trying to find the balance between the heartbreaking and the hilarious.

Visit her website at http://leneagrace.blogspot.com.

'SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE' a poem by Howie Good

2011-03-16T05:41:00.003-07:00

1
We were children together
licked by the dog

with the black tongue

scattered rows
of lighted windows
looking away

a bloody ax
at any given moment

among the tools
in the backyard shed

2
We went to live quietly
except for hunters

and church bells
in one of the rectangle states

a necklace of red berries
discovered around her neck

what I’d been doing until just now
between tiny heart attack

_
Howie Good is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011).

'SLEEPER' by Helen Vitoria

2011-03-14T05:55:00.004-07:00

There is a red skirt
lifted with raw knucklebone

near my mattress
& god’s a sleeper eye

darkness is on her knees
like a battered wound
hard on pavement

his October branded shoulders
change against impending March

heaving like breath
like blue drowning in the lungs

there is so much left, after the taking

Helen Vitoria lives and writes in Effort PA. Her work can be found and is forthcoming in many journals including: elimae, PANK, Mud Luscious Press, Poets & Artists Magazine and Dark Sky Magazine. Her chapbook, "The Sights & Sounds of Arctic Birds," is available as an e-chap from Gold Wake Press, 2011. She has been thrice nominated for Best New Poets Anthology 2010. She is completing her first full length collection: "Corn Exchange," with an expected release Fall, 2011.

Find her here: http://helenvitoria-lexis.blogspot.com

'FANTÔME' by Helen Vitoria

2011-03-13T05:49:00.001-07:00

six months of: I want, I want, I want
& you are poaching for albino deer
near a white bicycle leaning at the garden gate
there is one tire spinning & I mistaken you as, gone
I tell you the legend of the ghost deer
neither is being considered: the pursuit or the intent to kill
what can be disputed is your domestication,
a vernacular of metaphor, a far gone animal husbandry
with your aristocracy practice & hunting skills,
you look almost honorable in the barren field

_
Helen Vitoria lives and writes in Effort PA. Her work can be found and is forthcoming in many journals including: elimae, PANK, Mud Luscious Press, Poets & Artists Magazine and Dark Sky Magazine. Her chapbook, "The Sights & Sounds of Arctic Birds," is available as an e-chap from Gold Wake Press, 2011. She has been thrice nominated for Best New Poets Anthology 2010. She is completing her first full length collection: "Corn Exchange," with an expected release Fall, 2011.

Find her here: http://helenvitoria-lexis.blogspot.com

'DÉNOUEMENT' a poem by June Nandy

2011-03-09T05:38:00.004-08:00

I’ve unclothed me of the
filigreed cob-web. Trusted guard
reason savors her long-due release;
and I dote on to mine—listening to
the oar of the boat, singing an andante.

The stars high, reminds the
square sky of a citadel, where
the walls paint colours albino,
the clock walks the mortar skin,
leaving trails of a recurring echo.

The river flows overwhelming,
pouring in to the canoe; a requiem
wants to silence the steer. Swirling
in twirls. Water carousel in
waltz. A dénouement
unfurls.

-
June Nandy's recent works have appeared in Qarrtsiluni, Aphelion Webzine, Hudson View, Up The Staircase Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has an award winning poem in the open poetry contest, 2009 with Prakriti Foundation, Chennai. Her novel, 'Ideospheres of Pain' has been released recently in India which advocates for an ideology-free world. She has been nominated for the best of the Net Anthology 2010 and best of Dzanc Books Web Anthology 2011. She has received her post-graduation in English Literature and is a professional translator for about a decade now. Her poetry and other details can be accessed at: http://throughmystripedshirt.blogspot.com. She lives with her family in Calcutta.

'FORWARD THINKING' a poem by Ivan Jenson

2011-03-07T05:47:00.001-08:00

come on
now
all that
is ancient
history
let’s think
about the future
and how it has
not happened yet
and how it will unveil
its miseries and its mysteries
and how there is a chance that chance
will smile or frown on us depending on
the mood of time’s movement yes we are
all victims or victors there is either fanfare
or failure and anyway they say a comet
is coming which will turn even the most famous
faces into mere bare bones of anonymous rex

-
Ivan Jenson has enjoyed unprecedented success publishing his poetry in the US, the UK, Sweden and France and he has received recognition for his bold Pop Art. His Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and he has sold several works at Christie’s, New York. Ivan Jenson is highly sought after for his popular and dynamic live readings on the stage. His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Camroc Press Review, Poetry Super Highway, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground voices magazine, Blazevox, and many others. Ivan Jenson is also a Contributing Editor for Commonline. He now writes novels and poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.ivanjensonartist.com

'DRIFT' a poem by Dennis Paul Wilken

2011-03-06T07:46:00.003-08:00

The meanness pours off some faces
Like a bullet speeding from the barrel of a gun,
Just as beauty shines out of other, gentler eyes;
We are a species owing much
To both heaven and hell
Without truly knowing
Which camp is ours,
Often ending up
With whatever side
Will have us.

-
Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot, Madswirl and his editorials in Pacific Publishing publications. His last chapbook, Sweat Off the Diamond, was published in 2009. He lives in Seattle, Washington where he is a Contributing Editor for Commonline.

'CONDO LIFE' by Rod Tipton

2011-03-05T18:42:00.003-08:00

the great, great,

grand progeny

of wolves

living the

condo life;

a nervous little

black and white,

bob-tailed dog

snapped to a leash

dragged down

the sidewalk

by clacking ultra-high heels

her thin lips pulled back in

an eternal frown,

"come on baby

do a nice poopy

for mommy.

I've got a date"

-
Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.

'VAMPIRE STORY' by June Nandy

2011-03-03T05:32:00.000-08:00

It was not at the restaurant doors only
that Gandhi stood as a durwan. He wriggled
in mom’s purse too; she said, he is an austere
cross to the Dracula. I thought—freedom
meant: right to choose.

Friends say vampires are seductive,
when they peer through the sky-boards
from gilt-edged bath-tub or flaunt the
bond with dry martini. They say—love
marks give status to anonymous.

Now I understand, why stories
of success makes me anemic.

-
June Nandy's recent works have appeared in Qarrtsiluni, Aphelion Webzine, Hudson View, Up The Staircase Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has an award winning poem in the open poetry contest, 2009 with Prakriti Foundation, Chennai. Her novel, 'Ideospheres of Pain' has been released recently in India which advocates for an ideology-free world. She has been nominated for the best of the Net Anthology 2010 and best of Dzanc Books Web Anthology 2011. She has received her post-graduation in English Literature and is a professional translator for about a decade now. Her poetry and other details can be accessed at: http://throughmystripedshirt.blogspot.com. She lives with her family in Calcutta.

'HELICOPTER' a poem by J. Michael Wahlgren

2011-02-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

I heard someone say my name.

Use it as a phonograph.
Spin its ends through history.

Put to use the words that come from its story.
Once written down. The notes between us,
a fiery myth spells me clear of evil.

Upheaval seems to deny good principle;
The approach of which has fallen like a bird, mid-flight.
The seams are sealed in skyline.
Unbidden, I speak your name.

That Made Me Laugh

Your dive
was
backwards

through
dispossessed
centuries.

I curl
up with my
thoughts

In a daylight
driven by stranger’s
words, like dots.

3 Studies of the Human Experience From Artist Chelsea Lawrick

2011-02-27T13:06:00.016-08:00

"my legs and yours" 5ft x 4ft, oil on canvas

"This painting is of a photograph I took of the inside of a freezer that was outside the gallery of an art show I was in. Curiosity pulled me to open the freezer and find a freezer full of frozen animal legs, and it made me think of preservation and of myself. The image startled me into remembering that humans have instincts like animals despite the social structures we place ourselves in, and something from within insisted I make it into a painting."

"Your Mundane Life is Killing Me" 33" x 24", mixed media

"This was done with a life model while I was studying in England. Flipping through magazines, I thought about how plain life can be unless you make the active choice to do something with it, and thus I used collage from the magazine that I felt were relevant to those thoughts. The skeleton and the body are to show the physicality of humans without their minds, as though someone is simply existing rather than living and experiencing: humans as items existing rather than lives living."

"6 and Counting" installation, silkscreen on paper

"This is a wallpaper I made with a traditional damask pattern. I changed the insides of the pattern to faces of six of the young men who killed themselves during September in the United States as a result of senseless, homophobic bullying. The chair is multipurpose: the idea is that a person could sit in the chair, and once sitting, is facing away from the wallpaper (away from the young men who's victimization was ignored). It could also put someone in the empty spaces in the wallpaper, as in they too are victimized. When the chair is empty, however, it can speak to the loss we have experienced of these young men due to senseless bullying."

_
Chelsea Lawrick is an emerging artist from Vancouver, B.C. She employs the use of print making, drawing and painting to create works that express different sides of the human mind as well as raising social issues. She draws on personal experience to create relatively dark representations of the human mind and social situations. Social issues are addressed through notions of memory and ignorance. She recently returned home from a four month long trip to England, where she took visual arts courses at the University of Central Lancashire and traveled to several European cities during her time off.

More of this artist's work can be seen on her blog at: http://www.secret--places.blogspot.com/

LATTER-DAY WESTERN HERO a poem by Dennis Paul Wilken

2011-02-21T08:07:00.001-08:00

All the big words have grown heavy with the bullshit
Employed by our corporate owners
To keep us in line;
Empty words like patriotism
Help the poor fools
Vote against their own interests
And allow rich masters
To kill their children
In dusty, far away places
In the simple service of money
They will never share;

What could a big word like honor or freedom
Mean to an old hypocrite like Dick Cheney,
Who hustled six deferments
From his bought and paid for little
Wyoming draft board,
But in later days advised death for any American boy
Deciding a third Iraq tour might not be healthy

All the big words from the real Tricky Dick’s
Twisted, fuzzed-up mouth
Are as covered with traitorous bullshit
As is his corroded,
Sin-blackened,
Half-plastic,
Rattlesnake’s heart.

-
Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot, Madswirl and his editorials in Pacific Publishing publications. His last chapbook, Sweat Off the Diamond, was published in 2009. He lives in Seattle, Washington where he is a Contributing Editor at Commonline.

3 Prints - Habitat Gallery by Double Parlour

2011-02-19T21:40:00.008-08:00

'OBIIT' © Doubleparlour

'OUEST' © Doubleparlour

'OH DEER' © Doubleparlour

-
Double Parlour, born in 2007, is a creative collaboration between Ernesto and Cassandra Velasco. Both are artists who like to explore a variety of subject matters with different mediums. Some work is done as a joint effort and others are solo works. They like to mix it up in a variety of mediums to create sculptures, paintings, drawings and prints. You can find more of their work by visiting their Etsy shop, doubleparlour or their website, www.doubleparlour.com.

'THIEF' by Brad Bisio

2011-02-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

i used to steal…

baseball cap souvenirs
from Telluride, Taos and Alta
because of the rush.

i used to steal…

mechanical pencils – replace-
ment lead and erasers – by Pentel
from the university bookstore
because i was a punk college student.

i used to steal…

belts
from Macy’s and Abercrombie and Shit
because there are plenty of people willing to pay $50
for something that costs $5 to make.

i used to steal…

trail mix from Safeway bulk bins
and canned albacore tuna in water
because i was unemployed and hungry.

i used to steal…

Odwalla protein drinks and Tom’s toothpaste
from the upscale, health-food market
where i used to work
because the owner paid us $7/hr. while charging $38
for a jar of honey. He would blow up our asses:
“You’re the heart and soul of this company.”

i used to make excuses
about why
i used to steal.

i used to steal
because i was a thief.

i’m still a thief…
i just don’t steal anymore.

-
Brad Bisio has lived in New York and California and places in between where he has worked numerous jobs to support his writing and musical habits such as at a lumberyard, a glue factory and as a house painter. He played in a band while living in Colorado and performed as a solo artist in San Francisco. He has recent work in Mad Swirl, Word Riot, Dogzplot, Boston Literary Magazine, Spot Literary Magazine and Gutter Eloquence. He won the Advisor’s Award for the story, “Still No One, but Returning Different” published in Toyon. He teaches Adult Education at Nashville State Community College.

2 Prints-Mixed Media Gallery artist Vincenzo Rizzo

2011-02-16T10:54:00.002-08:00

'NIGHT FLIGHT' © Vincenzo Rizzo

'MY BLOODY WAY' © Vincenzo Rizzo

-
Vincenzo Rizzo (1974) achieved a degree in painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti (Italy) where he specialized in visual arts and disciplines of show. Since 1996 he's participated in exhibitions and reviews of art in various centers of Italy. Currently he collaborates with the Laboratory of art TEKNEMATA. You can find more of his work by visiting his Etsy page, Vincenzorizzo.

4 Prints-Mixed Media Gallery artist Vincenzo Rizzo

2011-02-14T10:18:00.012-08:00

'AMERICA' © Vincenzo Rizzo

'GLAM' © Vincenzo Rizzo

'PARIS' © Vincenzo Rizzo

'SIRACUSA' © Vincenzo Rizzo

'THE EIGHTY-SIX YEAR OLD SEX-OFFENDER' by Justin Hyde

2011-02-12T08:59:00.005-08:00

the inside
of arthur's left thigh
is a collage of
yellow
orange
and black.

ever time
i start thinkin on
one of them
little angels
in pigtails,
he tells me
holding up an
ivory shoe-horn
on the end of
a bamboo stick.

it rings
up and down
the prison halls
several times
a night.

Justin Hyde lives in Iowa where he works with criminals. He has a web-page here: http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/justinhyde.

'Geisha Smoke Break' Art from Venture77

2011-02-12T07:54:00.004-08:00

'Geisha Smoke Break' @ Venture77

'LAST NOTE' by Justin Hyde

2011-02-10T10:21:00.006-08:00

drop by
your ex wife's
middle of the day
to grab some
final belongings.

two wine glasses
in the sink

and your wedding photos
which only last week
still hung in the hallway

are gone.

you smell
the sheets
and pillows
in her bed

then you find
a used condom
in the
bathroom garbage

as your heart
fills with
concrete

dropping down
into your
ankles.

Justin Hyde lives in Iowa where he works with criminals. He has a web-page here: http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/justinhyde.

'LEAP' Micro-Fiction by Jennifer Hurley

2011-02-09T10:15:00.004-08:00

My father tried to jump off the bridge again this week. He’d climbed most of the way up the fence and had one leg over on the other side before someone noticed him. I heard about it second-hand, through Maureen, my father’s wife. My mother is dead, and I am my father’s only daughter, but we barely know each other. I live in a different city and see him only on holidays, and we pretend everything is fine. We exchange impersonal gifts and discuss the weather and his roses.

Before my father started trying to jump off bridges, he was a banker. Initially I thought he must have lost money in the financial crisis, maybe his money, maybe somebody else’s. Perhaps he was pushed to despair by the loss of my inheritance. But Maureen told me no. She said the demon had gotten its claws in him long ago. That gave me a weird hope that someday he might cast off the demon and emerge as his true self.

Maureen always insisted that my father wasn’t that bad, and it was true: I had never seen him do anything deliberately cruel. But whenever I encountered other fathers in the world—even just a man on the street carrying a baby on his back—I felt cheated. I wanted to trade my father in for a new one, for someone who would ask me a real question, like why I hadn’t gotten married, or whether there was something else I wished I were doing with my life.

Wise as she was, Maureen said there was no use wasting your life wishing. After that I put my father out of my mind. But when she called to tell me about his most recent attempt to jump off the bridge, I started thinking about him again. That afternoon I drove out to the bridge in my city, which was far out of my way. It was a cold winter Sunday, and hardly anyone was on the road. I put my emergency lights on and got out of my car. I gripped the fence with both hands and looked at the water below. It was such a long way down. I stepped back, lightheaded, nauseous. I couldn’t imagine the kind of pain it would require to make that leap.

I heard something behind me. A man in a brown suit was coming towards me. Stop, miss! he shouted. No, I said. I’m not—I stopped speaking. I was struck by how worried he looked. There was sweat all over his face despite the cold. Please, think of what this would do to your parents, he said. I thought that was funny, so I laughed. How can you laugh? he said, his voice hoarse and full of emotion. I’m sorry, I told him. I made a motion as if to climb the fence, just so he would try again to stop me.

-
Jennifer Hurley's short fiction has previously appeared in The Mississippi Review, Stone's Throw Magazine, and Slow Trains, among others. She is an alum of Boston University's graduate creative writing program (which was then an M.A.) and currently works as an Associate Professor of English at Ohlone College in the San Francisco Bay Area.

'CROSSWORD CANNIBAL IN C-MAJOR' Kyle Hemmings

2011-02-09T10:00:00.002-08:00

Crossword Cannibal in C-Major

Sitting in the park. An outdoor concert.
He was an ex-cellist. Now a bubble.
The bubble pretended it couldn't hear.
"I'm worried about your health," she said,
"pastrami, pastrami, and if not that,
sausauge sandwiches, mozzarella balls
or open steak with fried egges and hot sauce."
Real tart hot sauce is like an Etude, he thought.
The way he once played and pined.
Tree branches leaned as if to listen.
Salubrious, she said, pencil tapping the crossword.
It means healthy. He looked up.
The string section rose and took a bow.
His appetite. His ruined fingers.
He could eat something the size of a cello.
Or the something that ate at him.
He'd wind up eating himself
then he'd burst into cacophony.

Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey where he talks to disillusioned cab drivers and humble ex-nymphomaniacs. His work has been featured in Technicolor, Amphibi.us, Spork Press, Nano Fiction, Pank, and elswhere.

'ON WHY I QUIT USING' by Christopher Locke

2011-02-07T07:32:00.001-08:00

Because it was holy;
it was daily communion
in my Chevrolet. Fisting
plastic bags clouded with
Vicodin, I knew each pill
was a totem to all the lost
chances I thought I’d gladly
lose again. White, pure as bone,
they clicked their bright songs
between my teeth, my two
rows of little headstones.

Later, reclined in the front
seat, I’d roll down the window
and realize I was surrounded
by so much lust, the brick
buildings strident and ineluctable,
a Kama Sutra of flowers spilling
down from their windowsills,
until I was raw with pleasure,
the heart’s sweet chirrup
emptying my veins, a bushel
of sunlight honeying the edges,
my lips, my fingers gently
holding the wheel, everything
note-perfect and finally, finally true.

Christopher Locke has new poems appering or forthcoming in 32 Poems, Adbusters, Southwest Review, FlatmanCrooked, Slipstream, Alimentum, The Same, Contemporary American Voices, and Memoir (and), among others. His first full length collection of poems, End of American Magic, is just out with Salmon Poetry (Ireland). Chris lives in New Lebanon, NY with his wife and two daughters and teaches literature and writing at The Darrow School.

'GEOMETRY' by Lydia Suarez

2011-02-07T07:31:00.001-08:00

Sundays we drive along the Hudson,
leaving city smells of coffee and laundromats
to follow chipmunks
who crisscross segments
in open fields
and stroll the perimeter of a lake where
paddle boats cloaked in tarps
collect orphan leaves.
We sip hot chocolate from cardboard cups
with donut hole handles
and return in a pale winter sun
wondering where summer has gone.
At a cafeteria we stop
to eat Cuban sandwiches
cut like isosceles triangles
at a counter where
I spin oblivious,
and my father
aware
how fertile youth
bears barren age.

Lydia’s poems and stories have appeared in journals including Quality Fiction , Prism Review and Six Sentences. Recently, a collection of stories was chosen as a finalist in the Grace Notes Competition and a novel was selected as a semifinalist for the Elixir Press Fiction Award.

'(BELATED) ELEGY FOR BRAUTIGAN' by Howie Good

2011-02-07T07:31:00.000-08:00

A woman from Tacoma
screams your name
while having drunken sex

with a stranger.
The stolen painting hangs
in the house next door.

Trout dapple the Pacific Northwest
like the silver sound
of Chekov’s phone ringing.

It’s a little early to think about dinner.

The stuff your mother threw out
would be worth a lot of money now.

'RIVERRUN THE LADDER' by Elizabeth Kate Switaj

2011-02-05T10:00:00.008-08:00

they are shadow & water
defined into unsteady crescent moons
as they battle towards the sea

to return only themselves, their flaking
rusting selves
               I've been there
                               but it wasn't to breed

and I couldn't return with the sea
to feed a black bear
                     or an eagle
                                  or rot to give life
                                 to dirt
to trees I couldn't wrap myself around

                                       no, I survived
                                         and only fed
the kind of predator who leaves bodies
on concrete or hotel beds

                            I want to endure like the salmon
                             yet choose a different river
if I really have to leave the sea
if the oil doesn't catch me

'DISTANCE' by Joshua Berida

2011-02-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

---why are you so near?
As though you are still
Like a bird with an alphabet
For wings.

'SEALED' by Noel Sloboda

2011-02-05T09:30:00.002-08:00

Untouched, two lone survivors cleaved

to roosting rods, above the red
wet mess smeared across the planks. Why

they were spared by the red

fox who carried chaos indoors—
their sisters away—remained

a mystery; the reason

didn’t really matter: the girls
never recovered, and after

the eggs stopped, we couldn’t

read the poems scratched
in the dirt; they couldn’t

understand our apology

when we brought them
behind the corn crib

to the chopping block.

('Sealed' was first published by The Chaffin Journal)

Noel Sloboda, originally from New England, currently teaches at Penn State York and serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company. His work has appeared in The Roanoke Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and Philadelphia Stories. He is the author of the poetry collection Shell Games (2008) as well as two chapbooks: Stages (2010) and Of Things Passed (2010).

'THE RIVER' Micro-Fiction by Charles Watts

2011-02-04T17:22:00.000-08:00

Eddie had to look after Gramps until Mom got home, and he was not happy.
He had to skip soccer practice at the High School, and babysitting the
old man was never any fun. Last week, Gramps found the gun Mom hid and
threatened to kill himself, but he couldn’t find the bullets. When he
was in a mood he was hard to control. Even at 80, Gramps was sturdy.

Eddie heard the front door slam. Gramps was on the loose, in the wild.
Eddie ran out to the porch and saw him heading straight for the river.
He overtook Gramps twenty feet short of the bank and grabbed his arm.

“Where you goin’, Gramps?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Eddie, Gramps. Come on back to the house.”

“I got business.” Gramps tore his arm away and ran for the water.

Eddie caught him at the riverbank and wrestled him to the ground. The
old man was still farm strong, and it was tough to keep him down.
Finally, he stopped struggling.

They both stood up and brushed the sand and mud from their clothes.
Gramps put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.
“Eddie, you got to let me do it. I’m worthless to anyone. You got to let
me.”

“You called me Eddie.”

"What’s that?

“You called me Eddie.”

“Who’s Eddie?”

They walked back to the house. Gramps sat on the porch while Eddie made
coffee. Gramps liked it hot and black.

Early in his career, Charles had an underground play in Los Angeles, which led to script writing contracts for several TV series, including "Kojack" and "Here Come the Brides." He fled Hollywood, got an MFA in poetry, and went to Iran to teach literature at several Universities. For five years, he edited "Seizure," a magazine of poetry and fiction. Do not worry about his sanity; he has done many other things. Publications so far this year include one story and six poems in lit journals, and ten poems in a new anthology (Karma in the High Peaks) from Ra Press, due out in September 2010.

'SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT' & 'SONG IN A MINOR KEY' by Howie Good

2011-02-04T14:55:00.004-08:00

Scene Of The Accident

1
A nurse in white clogs hurried along the corridor. She had
to give the boy with the cuckoo clock heart a sedative.
His family stood around the bed like awkward strangers.
The doctor, a smoked-down cigarette between his fingers,
had excused himself. He had been trained to observe the
observable. The dusk was all old doors and blank windows,
a memorial to lost seamen.

2
The crowded elevator disappeared between floors.
Pedestrians stood weeping at the crosswalk. She still
loves you, said the old man walking a dog on a rope. I
smelled the salt of the nearby tears. It took two or three
matches before the light would stay lit.

Song In A Minor Key

Love bends like light around found objects,

a destitute white Ford, say,
with one red door and Florida plates,

while the shadows invite themselves,
the echo of the sun going down,

police marksmen in the windows.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 20 print and digital poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Lovesick, published by Press Americana.

'MUD' Micro-Fiction by Caleb JW Brasset

2011-02-04T14:51:00.001-08:00

Things driving young women to suicide, various pressures and arranged marriages and violence and so on, were the subject of the article I read on the train back to Toronto from Ottawa at the beginning of spring. I read the article then looked out the window on the east side of the train: the waves of Lake Ontario were high and brown, breaking kilometres of mud along the shore. Further out the water turned silver under the sun. I picked up the newspaper and read the last part of the article again. Then I read the first part once more. I could not imagine the young women. I could not imagine their lives, their different lives all rushing to the same conclusion, as if in a funnel. I folded the newspaper and put it down on the seat beside mine, which was empty, and released the lever to incline my own seat, and looked out the window again. We were passing a factory, or some building of that kind. There did not seem to be anyone working, but there were a dozen or so men lined up along a small wharf, holding fishing poles. They were standing with their backs to the train.

'PARKING LOT BOYS' & 'POISONED' by Jeffrey Kahrs

2011-02-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

Parking Lot Boys

sit on a broken couch
underneath a plum tree
with the rough bark

and the spindly limbs found
in abandoned orchards.
Ferhat the owner’s

second cousin’s son,
Tarık from Turkmenistan,
Ali who showed me

the tunnel leading
to Yildiz Palace.
Mehmet’s ringtail doves

still coo in the old key shack
but he like them is gone,
replaced by these new boys.

They’ll stay a few months
and live in the tunnel,
spend more on cigarettes

than food. They’ll sit
under this plum tree
when weather permits

on furniture they found
abandoned on the street.

Poisoned

While you vomited or slept instead of vomiting
we imagined dressing you in a t-shirt with
a slogan, and it came down to either I SHOT J.R.
or I AM YOUR BITCH. We ate
Persian chicken with almonds stilton stuffed
squash Turkish style chocolate bread pudding and
I won’t let you read this till you can become
jealous. Eric apologized for eating slowly
and ate slowly. Jimmy and Anna
live in the middle of nowhere with the poor
and the poor leave them alone. The Bosphorus night view
stretches to the black hole that is the Black Sea,
and you can see the plain at Büyükdere
where crusaders gathered under
a huge plane tree. Cut down I suppose.
We also discussed a t-shirt
that said OLD HIPPIES DO IT WITH
HALLUCINATIONS, but Jimmy
pointed out it was too damn long.

Jeffrey Kahrs was born in the Hague, Netherlands and was raised in California. He moved to Seattle in 1983. In 1988 he helped found a reading series in called Radio Free Leroy’s, which ran for six years. Since 1993 he has lived in Istanbul and worked primarily as a teacher. Over the last few years he has co-edited an issue of the Atlanta Review on poetry in Turkey, been published in Subtropics and had a chapbook e-published through Gold Wake Press. Most recently his eleven-section poem, The Divine Animal, was published at the website mediterranean.nu. In 2010 he will be published in Cantaraville and Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics.

'THE CHEF IS PISSED, GET OFF THE BOAT' by Dave Migman

2011-02-04T13:49:00.002-08:00

2 pale eggs side by side
an onion made the skies cry
there was also a sausage
wrapped in plastic by an elastic band

he would fry them all
on a bed of rice

energies and metaphors would be released
they would dance around
to the spirit drum
the electric crackle
would ignite his night’s desire
a shaman’s pulse
would tickle his dreams

the oil was ready
the ceremony began

Dave Migman is a writer living in Scotland. The credits include journals Neon (22) and Breadcrumb Scabs (18). His novel is entitled The Wolf Stepped Out (Dog Horn Publishing).

'TRASH NEST' by Adam Moorad

2011-02-04T13:43:00.001-08:00

goddamn birds coo blankness
the night, moving, is right now
casing the smog with moonlight

we stare one another down
full-frontal lunar wonderment

feathers drip sewer juice color
wetted, wanting to be touched

there is nesting every hour
drying rotting tarring eves
tinkering logarithmic patterns
with invisible GE oven heat

it’s 9:33 p.m. on a weekday
nothing was finished today
eating breakfast food for dinner
(again)

the summer is almost over

'EVEN' by John Grochalski

2011-02-04T13:36:00.000-08:00

my wife
sometimes tells me
about the men
calling out to her
on the way to work

the construction guys
mexican landscapers
in beat-up trucks
the stone hauling gent
at the masonry store

they’re all derelicts, she tells me

nice guys

lonely guys trying to get a smile
out of me

you have nothing to worry about
she says

easy for her to say

i know all about lonely, nice guys

maybe i just get agitated
because i haven’t been hit on
by a woman since 1997

apathy does strange things to the ego

but last week it finally happened
as my wife and i
walked up market street
in san diego

we passed two ancient
homeless women
digging for their dinner
through tourist trash

one of the women
looked up from her can
and said to the other

now, there goes a good looking man

i was the only guy on the street

i just looked at my wife and smiled

vindicated

acknowledged by the world at large

even

knowing that i couldn’t pay
for that kind of action
back on the east coast.

John Grochalski lives in Brooklyn, New York.

'CITIZEN PAIN' by Ivan Jenson

2011-02-04T13:32:00.001-08:00

don’t let them fool you
it's not about the process
and it's not about the journey
trust me, it's
about getting there
grabbing what you can
be it a trophy or the cash
the lover or the applause
and then hoarding the spoils
of your riches and
surrounding it with a fortress
built by bricks of fear
and mortar of selfishness
and holding on
with all your might
until you must let go
and say, "Rosebud"

Ivan Jenson has enjoyed unprecedented success publishing his poetry in the US and the UK and he has received recognition for his bold Pop Art. His Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and he has sold several works at Christie's, New York. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Camroc Press Review, Poetry Super Highway, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground voices magazine, Blazevox, and many others. He now writes novels and poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. http://www.ivanjensonartist.com/

'DIAGNOSIS' by Antonia Clark

2011-02-04T13:30:00.001-08:00

The evidence is always flimsy,
shadowy images, vague imaginings—

the body's secret history: stones
lodged in crooks and shallows,
scarred fields, accumulated debris.

On its red and blue map—
clogged thruways, weedy back roads
streaming with illegal aliens.

A haunting of drawn breath,
turbulent with rasp and wheeze-—

the scrape and catch of a key
in its lock, a turning, the dark
and empty room beyond.

Antonia Clark works for a medical software company in Burlington, Vermont, and is co-administrator of an online poetry workshop, The Waters. Recent poems have appeared in The 2River View, Anderbo, Apparatus Magazine, The Cortland Review, Soundzine, Umbrella, and elsewhere. She loves French food and wine, and plays French café music on a sparkly purple accordion.

'NINA SING' - A Lyrical Poem by Ra Scion

2011-02-01T18:52:00.001-08:00

Air of inequity is thick in my circumference
Untouched are none when they’re summoned up to punishment 
Sons sent to war for the grunt work of the government
All debts repaid on the last day of judgment

I’ve heard purported it’s approaching with celerity 
Proselytes testify with utmost sincerity 
I don’t think he’s comin’ y’all – try me for heresy
But what’s all the stallin’ for, a little more disparity? 

Beckon the Armageddon, tell ‘em we exhausted
Every option since the trade winds laid claim to caution 
Damned since the Gnostics allied with the sergeants  
Yo I’m tired of waitin’ – slide the blade across it now 

Another demonstration staged on the proscenium  
Curtain drawn, who’s workin’ behind ‘em with the medium? 
Road blocks, keep throwin’ rocks at the imperium  
Hell yeah, a long march, staunch grown wearisome 

Seein’ fam fallin’ through the cracks in the variance 
Famished on a barren land of AIDS and malaria 
One percent could fix it with a tenth of their inheritance
Freedom buried in the treasure chest of the nefarious  
Terrorists with pipe bombs, who’s sittin’ on the megaton?
FEMA slow to respond, blame it on the weather, wrong 
Billion-dollar telethon, tell ‘em where the cheddar gone 
And wonder why my people keep their weapons drawn—
Click.

RA Scion is one half of the critically acclaimed hip hop duo Common Market. He now preforms under the pseudonym Victor Shade (alter ego of Marvel Comics' West Coast Avenger, The Vision) and has released his debut effort Victor Shade (SCIONtific Records). The poem "Nina Sing" has been adapted from a live version of "Nina Sing ", a song from the 2008 album Tobacco Road.

Blasting the Canon: Hip-Hop Poetics, Race & the Ivory Tower

2011-01-31T15:26:00.011-08:00

-- by Michael Cirelli
Diamond cutter spine, armadillo armor that bends around the blades, bugs in the beard, ebony in the lung piece, bricks in the Timbs, bazooka in the tooth that he's flashing at your friends. It’s a lifestyle baby. No insipid recipes, not a single innocuous atom in the centerpiece. Oh my God, journalists across the globe are officially critiquing my first eight bars…

At first glance, these words from emcee Aesop Rock are as complex as John Ashbery’s verse is to me, but dig deeper and most “hip-hop heads" [1] will see the intertextual connections that are being made in regards to hip-hop culture. For example, “ebony in the lung piece” is a direct reference to the roots of the art form, which are black. Then we see references to Timbs, which are Timberland boots, as well as the “bazooka tooth” reference that aims at the power of this verbal and linguistic art form.

Emcee Aesop Rock

Aesop points out that hip-hop is a “lifestyle,” a culture (which we will explore deeper), and is not bound by “insipid recipes.” He then brilliantly closes his “first eight bars” by commenting on the critique. Rather than critique this form, (rap/hip-hop/lyrics, [2]) my essay will demonstrate the historical lineage that arrives at rap, as well as the validity of it in the framework of the poetry academy. For the sake of this essay, and not slighting the handful of black poets who have made permanent marks on the academy, I am more prone to point out some of the inconsistencies in what the academy deems important, in the light of its primarily white, male framework.

Unfortunately, it must also be noted that many of the black poets that have breached the guilded Ivory Tower, are less touted for the innovation of their craft, but more so for the cultural contributions they bring to the art. Therefore, it is even more important for me to highlight the importance of rappers as the populist poets of our era, to create a space and dialogue around the impact that this form of poetics should have on the academy. In Hip-Hop Poetry and The Classics (Milk Mug, 2004) [3], one of the forefathers of hip-hop music and culture, Russell Simmons says, “Hip-Hop is the global poetic language of today’s youth, and the hip-hop poetry of today will be looked back upon as the classics of our era.”

Rapper MF DOOM

To further examine the epistemic qualities of rap lyrics, we need to focus on cultural factors in the African-American (and Latino) community. For instance, when rapper MF Doom claims, “Look like a black wookie when he let his beard grow/weirdo, brown skin'ded always kept his hair low. Rumor has it, it’s an S-curl accident,” he is speaking to a specific community, his community. Unless we are aware of an “S-curl” as a type of hairstyle, or that “brown skin’ded” may be a vernacular norm in a hip-hop poetic tradition, then you most likely will not understand what he’s referencing. The richness in such phrasing has much more going on than end rhymes and meter. These verses are tapping into cultural and sociological perspectives that are part of a hip-hop vernacular that has evolved through the various black colloquialisms and idioms to create a uniquely “hip-hop” lexicon. There is even a hip-hop dictionary, Hip-Hoptionary (Broadway Books, 2003) [4], as well as websites dedicated to the language of the culture, complete with “slang flash cards” and a regularly updated list of new terms. The more connected you are to these culturally significant references, the more you will understand and appreciate. In Tony Hoagland’s poem, “Rap Music,” he compares the sound to “Twenty-six men trapped in a submarine/ (are) pounding on the walls with a metal pipe, shouting what they’ll do when they get out.” To the casual outsider, it just may be, however to the generation of young people who have grown up on and in hip-hop culture, these MF Doom lyrics are as lush with allusion as T.S. Elliot’s “The Waste Land.”

“Linguistic scholars, for the most part, have slept on hip-hop culture and the innovative and inventive use of language in the Hip-Hop Nation,” wrote Stanford University Professor of Linguistics & African-American Studies, H. Samy Alim in his course description of “The Language of Hip-Hop Culture.” Although courses like this have been popping up sporadically in respected universities across the U.S. and internationally (Harvard, UC Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin, UCLA, Oxford, University of Johannesburg), “to an intelligent forty-year-old, rap initially is dumb and does sound ugly,” claims Mark Zanger in his essay in The Boston Review [5]. Unfortunately this view has always permeated the white-American paradigm, one that perpetuates privilege through stereotyping: race, class and gender, as well as discrediting cultural phenomena like vernacular, colloquialisms, and speech genres. Just the fact that the academy is framed primarily by white male poets gives even more credence to these forces at work today. Furthermore, when we look critically at the primary forces that promote and perpetuate mainstream rap today, we see that people behind the scenes (who allow violent, homophobic and misogynistic music) closely resemble their counterparts in academia. So maybe the ugliness and dumbness that Zanger speaks of is more of a white American problem, one rooted in hundreds of years of hegemonic conditioning that places blame on the most marginalized cultures in our society. Rapper Jay-Z poignantly acknowledges this phenomenon (race, consumerism and violence) in his soundtrack to the Hollywood blockbuster movie American Gangster in the song “Ignorant Bullshit” when he acknowledges the movie Scarface as being much more influential than the gangster rapper Scarface in his personal coming of age:

I missed the part when it stopped bein 'bout Imus

What do my lyrics got to do with this shit!

Scarface the movie did more than Scarface the rapper to me

So that ain't to blame for all the shit that's happened to me

Are you sayin what I'm spittin

Is worse than these celebrataunts showin they kitten, you kiddin!

Let's stop the bullshittin

'Till we all without sin, let's quit the pulpittin’

In an American Poetry Review essay by Tony Hoagland [6], one of the few poets who isn’t afraid to be “controversial” in his poems (best exemplified in his poem “The Change”), he poignantly acknowledges the trouble of race in the white academy:

But few, if any, want to get their hands dirty these days, and it costs us. Consider, just for an example, the subject matter of race in America. Why hasn’t racial anxiety, shame and hatred — such a large presence in American life — been more a theme in poetry by Caucasian-Americans? The answer might be that Empathy is profoundly inadequate as a strategy to some subjects. To really get at the subject of race, chances are, is going to require some unattractive, tricky self-expression, something adequate to the paradoxical complexities of privilege, shame and resentment. To speak in a voice equal to reality in this case will mean the loss of observer-immunity-status, will mean admitting that one is not on the sidelines of our racial realities, but actually in the tangled middle of them, in very personal ways. Nobody is going to look good. Meanwhile, of course, American black poets have been putting the nasty topic on the table for a long time, in very personal ways.

Not only have African-American poets been at the forefront of examining these dynamics for years, (which has its own socio-political implications), but race and inequality has shaped the history of rap lyrics and vernacular since its inception. For example, a very hot button issue associated with this culture is the use of the “N word” [7]. However, when examining its use in literature and music we will find myriad opinions and viewpoints. We see the reclaiming of the word in A Tribe Called Quest’s “Sucka Nigga:”

See, nigga first was used back in the Deep South

Fallin’ out between the dome of the white man's mouth

It means that we will never grow, you know the word dummy

Other niggas in the community think it's crummy

But I don't, neither does the youth cause we

em-brace adversity it goes right with the race

And being that we use it as a term of endearment

Niggas start to bug to the dome is where the fear went

Now the little shorties say it all of the time

And a whole bunch of niggas throw the word in they rhyme

Yo I start to flinch, as I try not to say it

But my lips is like the oohwop as I start to spray it

My lips is like a oohwop as I start to spray it

Rapper Mos Def also adds to the conversation, and even has Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest on the track, in his single “Mr. Nigga:”

Who is the cat eatin out on the town

And make the whole dining room turn they head round

Mr. Nigga, Nigga Nigga

He got the speakers in the trunk with the bass on crunk

Who be ridin up in the high-rise elevator

Other tenants who be prayin’ they ain't the new neighbor

Mr Nigga, Nigga Nigga

They try to play him like a chump cause he got what they want

Troy Donald Jamerson (aka rapper Pharoahe Monch)

For the sake of this essay, it is important for me to engage (and re-engage) this ongoing, evolving and dynamic dialogue happening within hip-hop culture, (through the medium of rap), as one that is acknowledged in the context of a poetic discourse. Books and scholarship regarding hip-hop history and culture are abundant, but what is glaringly missing is a relevant discourse around the poetics of rap. However, when I want to make my case, I am often forced to frame the conversation around institutional norms (academic) that determine what is deemed worthy. For example, the idea of the “remix” [8] in rap, is an old and honored tradition in the poetry canon, best exemplified ad nauseum in MFA programs across the country in exercises such as the “imitation poem” [9]. Therefore, when we can see the similarities, (which will hold abundantly true for rhymed verse, sestinas and villanelles), this argument starts to make sense. However, one of the major red flags in making these arguments for rap, is that in order to make them, one needs to frame them in the context of the white academy, which is problematic, especially when this “hip-hop poetry,” (which arguably mirrors the cultural aesthetics of the Beat and New York School movements, not to mention its literary historical context) has not reached the “Ivory Tower” in any significant ways in English Literature or Poetry. This argument, to “validate” hip-hop literature, rests on a slippery (and potentially racist) slope, as rap lyrics and hip-hop culture have their own histories and evolutions that stand on their own, and need not be validated in comparison with other accepted forms of literature or scholarship. Luckily, professors like Alim (among others) is creating spaces for these discussions to happen. In an article written for the Journal of English Linguistics [10], he examines the poetics of hip-hop rapper/emcee/MC [11] Pharoahe Monch, breaking down the artists double, triple and quadruple “multirhyming skillz” while incorporating the jargon of the genre: ishhh, spit, madd styles. Professor Alim and many of his contemporaries have also done extensive studies examining “Hip-Hop Nation Language” and its relation to African American Vernacular English (AAVE), because of its profound effect on media and popular culture, which is heavily derived from hip-hop culture. Interestingly enough, (outside of examples found in poetry,) “AAVE is the only American dialect where is deletion is found” [12]. AAVE has its own set of rules for grammar and linguistic composition that are just as complex as any language or dialect. Many examples of this can be found throughout African-American literature and music. It is this fluidity of language, the ability to recreate the means of expression and the way that things are said, that makes rap lyrics a continuation and an evolution of our poetic tradition. It’s new, it’s original, and in the idiom of hip-hop: it’s fresh.

I would better Alim’s statement, by claiming that most of the academic poetry world has also “slept on” the poetic value of hip-hop lyrics, or rap. Furthermore, as highlighted in The Handbook of Poetic Forms (T&W Press, 1987) [13], this essay deliberately treats “rap” as a poetic form, just like sonnets, pantoums, or sestinas. With rappers like MF Doom finding fresh and inventive ways to use the end word “super,” (ten times in his new single “Hoe Cakes,”) I am reminded how some of my favorite sestina writers seem to effortlessly integrate their end words with newness and originality. In a recent reading I attended with master prose writer Russell Edson, he even championed form over free verse. He claimed that the restrictions of form have the effect of freeing the author from the pressures of poem making. In regards to form, Anthony Hecht is also quoted as saying, “So preoccupied is he bound to be with the fulfillment of technical requirements that in the beginning of his poem he cannot look very far ahead, and even a short glance forward will show him that he must improvise, reconsider and alter what had first seemed to him his intended direction, if he is to accommodate the demands of the form” [14]. Anyone who has ever heard a rap will undoubtedly pick up on its form immediately. Furthermore, this “improvisation” that Hecht comments on is a fundamental aspect of rap lyrics and also has its own sub-form called “freestyling.” In a freestyle rap, the emcee will extemporaneously rap about his current surroundings, or if in a “freestyle battle,” the rapper will duel with another emcee much like the medieval troubadours did. Not only did the 12th century troubadour poets, mostly French and Italian, duel each other with love songs/poems, for a “maiden’s love,” but the themes they advocated, the ideas of courtly love, as well as in many cases crude advances, have become the bedrock of love songs of every genre. However, rather than negate these similarities, it would be better for us to locate them within their rich traditions and histories that unfold in a complex lineage of poetic forms (located in countless cultures around the world).

It is this generation that has seen a new explosion of song writing that is derivative of these oral poetic traditions. In the U.S. alone, rap is a multi-billion dollar industry. In October of 2003, black artists held the top ten spots on the Billboard charts for the first time ever. Dana Gioia, (now NEA president), in an October 1994 talk at Poets House in NYC [15], recognized that the “primary means of publication for new American poetry is now oral.” When we examine closely the roots of rap, we can trace the lineage that begins in the African bardic traditions, through to the African-American expressive/oral traditions, and their evolution today as a hip-hop culture that is steeped in its own language, craft, and style. What we are seeing is the reemergence of the our ancient poetic traditions as one of the most popular and lucrative art forms in American history. We have a whole generation of people that are involved in and excited about, “geeked off,” a lyrically based art form. Gioia later explains:

Spoken word artist Ursula Rucker

There has been a huge reemergence of populist oral poetry, largely among groups who were alienated from the dominant, academic, literary culture. The new schools of populist poetry include rap, cowboy poetry, and poetry slams, which together command audiences in the millions. What was seen then was the increasing intellectualization and academicization of poetry. But history usually works dialectically, and one trend often creates its opposite. Nor would anyone twenty years ago have predicted that most of this oral poetry would be formal—in the then discredited and supposed elitist techniques of rhyme and meter. Rap is usually composed in a four-stress line (like Anglo-Saxon poetry without the alliteration) and mostly rhymed in couplets.

Furthermore, the explosion of oral poetry that we see today through poetry slams and hip-hop, stems back to ancient traditions in African, Indian, Greek and Roman societies. The earliest examples of this tradition date back to the West African griots, which can be translated to mean news-singer, bard or rhapsode. The griots primary role was to sing the news, pass down the oral history, traditions and cultural mores of their societies. They were originally members of the Mandinke people, however most were nomadic, wandering poets and “praise-singers” who used poetry and rhythm to preserve their history. This is a key role of today’s emcee, especially in the light of the mainstream rap music that promotes sex and violence, although these themes are also timeless (and promoted by capital forces). There are still many rappers, often regarded as “conscious rappers,” who hold true to the story-telling, historical preservation and socially aware roots of this oral poetic tradition. In Nas’ single “I Can,” along with infusing feel good rhymes that are aimed at inspiring youth to achieve their goals, he gives a thumbnail history lesson:

Be, be, 'fore we came to this country

We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys

There was empires in Africa called Kush

Timbuktu, where every race came to get books

To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans

Asian Arabs and gave them gold when

Gold was converted to money it all changed

Money then became empowerment for Europeans

The Persian military invaded

They heard about the gold, the teachings and everything sacred

Africa was almost robbed naked

Slavery was money, so they began making slave ships

Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went

He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces

Shot up they nose to impose what basically

Still goes on today, you see?

What we see throughout history are different incarnations of this same role in ancient and modern civilizations across Greece, India, Europe and the Americas. Song has always been a cultural preserver, and the aesthetics of the lyrical content of such advances, almost always represent the social, cultural, political or philosophical drives of a certain society. In India, for instance, the oral tradition was passed on through prayer, scripture and art, while in Greek and Roman civilizations philosophical debates using song and poetry closely resembled the freestyle battles that I have previously mentioned. Today’s rappers also recognize this history. Los Angeles based rap group, The Freestyle Fellowship, even named their first album “Innercity Griot.” And even Nobel Prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heany acknowledged the lyrical power of rapper Eminem, claiming that he has "sent a voltage around a generation." Like many popular rappers today, Eminem got his start as a battle (freestyle) rapper, which is depicted in the 2002 blockbuster movie 8 Mile.

And like in 8 Mile, the struggle that many of these rappers go through resemble the epics of our ancient canon. With rappers like Tupac and Notorious B.I.G., who have reached icon status in the rap community, it is hard not to compare their lives and music to the epics of the past. Brooklyn rapper U.S. even boasts of his lyrics, “my style is a violent gift to Troy.” In Aristotle’s Poetics [16] he defines tragedy:

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

Ready To Die (album cover)

According to Aristotle, it is through “tragedy” that the aims of poetry are best fulfilled. When comparing this to the rap canon, what we will find is an overwhelming catalogue of tragedy. These values and realities are imitated throughout the rap culture. Because the black American experience is one wrought with oppression and injustice, rap’s role in truth telling, especially in relation to its oral poetic lineage, almost always exposes the experiences within these systems. In Notorious B.I.G.’s seminal album “Ready To Die,” we are taken through the epic experiences of a young Christopher Wallace. In his anthem-like song, “Juicy,” he outlines his life going from “ashy to classy” and the struggles that he endured to get there. What we see in Aristotle’s Poetics is the idea of a complete action that the poetry, according to Aristotle, should take. In “Ready To Die,” we see this arc over and over again. Not to mention that the presentation of these experiences are done with “harmony and rhythm,” also praised by Aristotle, who explains that they are the “pleasures” of the form.

However, when examined closely, this “voltage” that Heany speaks of is something that is also inherently derivative of African-American culture, dating back to slavery. Most notably, the dozens, also known as dirty dozens or “playing the dozens” was a custom in which two competitors went head to head in a comedic trash talk, a game of insults, that often targeted an adversary’s mother or family member. This tradition can be traced back to chattel slavery as an alternative to physical contention between slaves, which often carried potentially harsh consequences. Furthermore, the term “the dozens” refers to the devaluing of slaves on the auction block who were “past their prime”, and therefore sold by the dozen. However, in essence, the dozens is a game of wit, self-control, mental and verbal agility that has roots deep in Africa, the Greek and Roman forums, Medieval Europe and the street corners of Brooklyn, the Bronx, or anywhere else that hip-hop culture exists. In Hoagland’s essay [17] on “meanness” and “negative capability” he expounds on the relationship between truth telling and the power of menace. He states:

Meanness, the very thing which is unforgivable in human social life, in poetry is thrilling and valuable. Why? Because the willingness to be offensive sets free the ruthless observer in all of us, the spiteful perceptive angel who sees and tells, unimpeded by nicety or second thoughts…There is truth-telling in meanness, but that is not all of it. Meanness is also an aesthetic asset for its flavor of danger. Nothing wakes us up like menace — Menace refreshes. When a poem becomes aggressive, it rouses an excitement in us, in part because we see that someone has broken their social shackles. We feel intoxicated by that outlaw freedom, and we covet it for ourselves.

Mural of Tupac Shakur in Sierra Leone.
©Teun Voeten 1999.

When we compare this to hip-hop, a form rooted in the “outlaw freedom” of a Tupac Shakur, or the menace of rappers and producers who even have names like MF Doom, Mad Villain, Yukmouth, or Evil Dee, we see how negative capability is inherent in the aesthetics of rap as well. Because hip-hop was borne of the streets, in an economically disadvantaged and oppressed people of color culture, the rebellious aspects of the content are second nature, as well as the liberatory messages therein. However, rap seems to get a bad rap when it exposes the violent realities of its environment. It is almost always dismissed as violent and, as we have seen, “ugly.” But in poetry, it seems to be different, as Hoagland further explains:

Once upon a time, Meanness was poetically permissible, even celebrated. Satire rejoices in the lampooning of human nature, in telling tales of vice and folly. Juvenal and Villon, Chaucer and Swift, Ben Johnson and Catullus — the poets of social satire slander their enemies, mock their neighbors, and tell tales on their lovers with glee. Spitting, punching below the belt, and face-slapping for them was a source of creative energy and pride.

The common and widely satirized “ya mama” jokes are also culturally connected to this lineage, as well as being a highly recognized argumentative rejoinder in AAVE. The alternative rap group The Pharcyde, has a whole song dedicated to the phenomena:

Ya mama’s so fat. How fat is she?

Ya mama is so big and fat that she can get busy

with twenty-two burritos, but times are rough

I seen her in the back of Taco Bell with handcuffs

But rap lyrics are more than just clever insults and whopping punch lines. At its core, this form has roots in protest music, spirituals, as well as the tradition known as “toasting” where African-American heroes are championed through rhymed tales. This tradition is has also transcended most musical genres and is also a cornerstone of many rappers’ work including Nas, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco and a host of others. On Common’s 2000 album “Like Water For Chocolate,” which also carries its own literary allusion, he details the life of Black Panther Assata Shakur from her capture by police, to her prison escape and subsequent asylum in Cuba (another country with a populist hip-hop culture.) In “Song for Assata” Common accounts in a gripping detail:

There were lights and sirens, gunshots firin’

Cover your eyes as I describe a scene so violent

Seemed like a bad dream, she laid in a blood puddle

Blood bubbled in her chest, cold air brushed against open flesh

No room to rest, pain consumed each breath

Shot twice wit her hands up

Police questioned but shot before she answered

One Panther lost his life, the other ran for his

Scandalous the police were as they kicked and beat her

Comprehension she was beyond, tryna hold on

to life. She thought she'd live with no arm

that's what it felt like, got to the hospital, eyes held tight

They moved her room to room-she could tell by the light

Handcuffed tight to the bed, through her skin it bit

Put guns to her head, every word she got hit

"Who shot the trooper?" they asked her

Put mace in her eyes, threatened to blast her

Her mind raced till things got still

Opened her eyes, realized she's next to her best friend who got killed

She got chills, they told her: that's where she would be next

Hip-Hop educator and historian Davey D further explains:

Hip-Hop Scholar Davey D

Prior to hip hop, black radio stations played an important role in the community by being a musical and cultural preserver or griot (story teller). It reflected the customs and values of the day in particular communities. It set the tone and created the climate for which people governed their lives as this was a primary source of information and enjoyment. This was particularly true for young people.

It has even been noted that in 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech that honored black djs and their importance in keeping the Civil Rights Movement alive. “He noted that while television and newspapers were popular and often times more effective mediums, they rarely languaged themselves so that Black folks could relate to them (Davey D).” Even Dana Gioia in his article, “Can Poetry Matter?” [18] attests to the power of the oral poetic:

Poetry is an aural medium, and thus ideally suited to radio. A little imaginative programming at the hundreds of college and public-supported radio stations could bring poetry to millions of listeners. Some programming exists, but it is stuck mostly in the standard subculture format of living poets' reading their own work. Mixing poetry with music on classical and jazz stations or creating innovative talk-radio formats could re-establish a direct relationship between poetry and the general audience.

Keeping all of this in mind, it is important to view rap music as a vital form of radical truth telling. Not since the sixties have we seen a musical genre that is associated with social progress, as well as poetry. Even now we see folk singers like Bob Dylan included in the Oxford Book of American Poetry, (but no rappers). The argument can be made that much of the original spirit of the form has been lost with the mass marketing and comodification of hip-hop, however at its root is this lineage of radical truth telling. And contrary to what is heard on the radio or portrayed in the media these days, there are still rap artists that are keeping true to the tradition, and the lineage of the oral poetic.

Def Poetry Jam's producer, Russell Simmons

It is my belief that because what is played on mainstream radio doesn’t reflect the spirit of the tradition, and often fails to encourage the values that make “good art,” and is justifiably kept out of the academy. With this in mind though, open mics at coffee shops don’t hurt poetry, neither do poetry slams, or Def Poetry Jam. This is because what the academy deems as “important” is not affected by the social life of poetry, and therefore MFA programs continue to thrive, and the guild continues to influence what is published. However, the same qualities that make bad poetry, make bad rap. What constitutes “good rap” has to do with good values in the form. Those values usually stem from literary traits such as language, tone, or devices. In rap lyrics, being “fresh” is considered one of the most reputable qualities to have. This can be true for poetry, however it would most likely be called “originality.” It is through these two concepts, freshness and originality, that I am gauging what I call “radical,” and therefore champion those types of lyrics in their inter-relation with poetry, as well as their own independent status as poetry in the rap form.

Because judging sincerity, or genuineness, is a subjective undertaking, I am more compelled with how a story is told in a work of art. It was out of a sincere need to tell one’s story, that this genre (rap) evolved, and still thrives in American youth culture, as well as slowly being recognized in the academic world. A well known maxim in the rap world is the concept of “keeping it real.” Because rap has not been picked over by the academic world, there are less measures for genuineness, and sadly enough, legitimacy. This is not the case in hip-hop culture though, as opinions, lambastes and just straight “hatin’” run rampant in the rap world. It is through this concept of “keeping it real” that rappers judge each others’ genius. In Hua Hsu’s Village Voice article [19], he claims:

Hip-hop is for, by, and about the people, while the university assumes elitism. Hip-hop is about keeping it real and being true to experience while the university regards "realness" and truth as mere social constructions.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

Furthermore, the “truth” that is revealed in rap lyrics is hardly ever born out of social constructions (except to challenge them), but rather the innate desire to express one’s story. In 1982, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released their seminal song, “The Message.” This song became the bridge to the music that was being made pre-disco era, that followed the tradition of the griot, and championed the storytelling that defines the rapper’s experiences:

Broken glass everywhere

People pissing on the stairs, you know they just

Don’t care

I can’t take the smell, I can’t take the noise

Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice

Rats in the front room, roaches in the back

Junkie’s in the alley with a baseball bat

I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get far

Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car

Chorus:

Don’t push me, cause I’m close to the edge

I’m trying not to loose my head

It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under

With the emergence of confessional songs, the reemergence of music as a vehicle for social change, status and community, rap began to transition from the party music associated with disco, to an art form that was able to convey the feelings and emotions of a culture rooted in the South Bronx, and spread throughout the NYC boroughs. In rapper KRS-One’s first book Ruminations [20], he states, “Rap is the verbal expression of an inner city culture known as hip-hop.” Furthermore in a recent issue of Jet Magazine, Russell Simmons claims:

Hip-hop has transcended beyond just music. It has become a lifestyle and/or a culture for people worldwide. Hip-hop is an attitude and hip-hop is a language in which a kid from Detroit can relate to a kid in Hong Kong. Seventy-five percent of our audience is nonblack kids. Now you have kids in Beverly Hills are now sensitive to situations in Compton.

Aside from the profound sociological affects that hip-hop culture has nationally and abroad, its implications in our literary traditions run deep. Not only are the roots of this culture traced back to the earliest civilizations, but the cornerstone of this culture, rap music, is one that is steeped in language, vernacular and form. What we are witnessing is an entire generation of young people that are not only impacted socially, economically and politically by hip-hop, but also by their alignment with the language arts that are at the core of the rap form. If the belief that “imaginative freedom can flourish amid self-imposed restrictions and that originality starts from a mastery of tradition" [21], then today’s rappers have mastered the tradition since birth. Because hip-hop is a culture, today’s emcees have grown up listening to and mastering the techniques of the form. In Brad Leithauser’s essay [22] “Metrical Literacy” he argues, “poetry is a craft which, like carpentry, requires a long apprenticeship merely to assimilate its tools.” This apprenticeship happens naturally because hip-hop is a culture, and the language of rap, is spoken from a young age. The terminology of rap has become a normal part of Black American vernacular (and now all American vernacular), and has also made its way from being considered slang, to having words included in the Oxford dictionary. Leithauser further states:

"Never before in the long line of English verse have we seen the ascendancy of generations of poets who have at no time in their careers worked seriously with form…Poets tend to resent, often rightfully, being reviewed by non-poet critics, who may not fully compass the actual ways a poem is constructed; but having once sacrificed a first-hand knowledge of poetic forms, these poets themselves are, when passing judgments on the formal masters of the past, in precisely the same position as the non-poet critics they resent."

This argument can hold true for critics of rap as well. When we examine the demands on the form of rap, we will see that rap is a highly complicated and intricate form. Along with maintaining a primarily 16 bar form, which is usually on verse consisting of 16 end rhymes, the artist also incorporates rhythm, tone, internal rhyme and meter. Professor Alim explains [23]:

As poets, Hip Hop MCs (rhymers) have both built on and expanded far beyond the American poetic tradition, using a form that is highly intertextual and that demonstrates multilayered poetic complexity. While Hip Hop MCs draw upon alliteration and assonance and other traditional rhyme forms, they also employ new rhyme strategies that require new categories of knowledge, such as compound internal rhymes, primary and secondary internal rhymes, chain rhymes, back-to-back chain rhymes, and bridge rhymes. Hip Hop MCs also employ various literary techniques, such as wordplay, simile, metaphor, narrativity, flashback, role-play, suspense, irony and imagery in their lyrical compositions. Often reconstructing these rhymes in a multirhyme matrix, Hip Hop MCs offer a vast corpus of linguistic texts to be analyzed.

De La Soul

And to this statement, I say, why wouldn’t they. In light of 3000 years of black poetry [24] , this lineage has incarnated today as one of the biggest cultural forces in the United States: socially, politically, and economically. The rapper Trugoy of De La Soul even proclaims in one of his songs, “I specialize in the art that pays!” The language of hip-hop is also largely the language of youth culture, not to mention the generation of marginalized people in the United States that have shaped its voice. When this language is viewed as “defective” [25], not only are we perpetuating hundreds of years of systematic white supremacy, but we are missing an amazing opportunity to enrich and diversify our profound American poetic canon. Our next step is to champion these “highly intertextual” forces and this “multilayered poetic complexity” as something to examine, study, critique, and most importantly, appreciate and respect.*

(A version of this article first appeared in New York Quarterly #66 under the title "The State of American Poetry: Hip-Hop.")

Michael Cirelli is the author of Vacations on the Black Star Line (Hanging Loose, 2010), which explores race, privilege, and whiteness through the lens of Mos Def and Talib Kweli's seminal Black Star album. His first collection, Lobster with Ol' Dirty Bastard (Hanging Loose, 2008), was a NY Times poetry best seller from an independent press and was featured in the "Debut Poets" issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. He is the Executive Director of Urban Word NYC, one of the nation's leading nonprofit presenters of youth literary arts programs, and has authored two curricula, Poetry Jam (Recorded Books, 2010) and Hip-Hop Poetry & the Classics (Milk Mug, 2004). His newest collection, The Situation: Jersey Shore Poems, is forthcoming from Penmanship Books.

Notes
1. A hip-hop head is the commonly used term for a fan or aficionado of hip-hop; and a vital member of its culture.
2. These words will be used and interchanged to describe the poetry we are examining. Hip-hop is the culture that encompasses rap music. However, hip-hop can also refer to rap, or the rap lyrics. Rap is the music that we are exploring as another form of poetry. And lyrics are also the poetry of the rap, or hip-hop.
3. Cirelli, Michael, and Sitomer, Alan. Hip-Hop Poetry & The Classics. Los Angeles: Milk Mug, 2004.
4. Westbrook, Alonzo. Hip-Hoptionary. New York: Broadway Books, 2003.
5. Zanger, Mark. “The Intelligent Forty-year-old’s Guide To Rap.” The Boston Review Dec. 1991.
6. Hoagland, Tony. “Negative Capability.” The American Poetry Review Mar/Apr 2003: Vol. 32, No. 2.
7. Recently, the multi-platinum recording artist Nas, was pressured from his record company (with threats of shelfing the project) to change the title of his new album from “Nigger” to “Untitled.”
8. A remix is a new version of an already popular song that usually involves multiple rappers adding to the conversation.
9. See many of David Lehman’s “Poem(s) in the Manner of..” Some examples in NYQ 64
10. Alim, H. Samy. “On Some Serious Next Millennium Rap Ishhh.” Journal of English Linguistics Mar. 2003: Vol. 31, No. 1.
11. Again, these terms will also be interchanged and mean the same thing. MC has been broken down to mean a number of things: Master of Ceremonies, Mic Controller, “Move the Crowd.” However, MC or rapper is also spelled out emcee in many cases.
12. Rickford, John R; Arnetha Ball; Raina Jackson Blake; and Naomi Martin. “Rappin’ on the copula coffin: Theoretical and methodological issues in the analysis of copula variation in African American Vernacular English.” Language Variation and Change, 1991, Vol. 3, 103-132.
13. Padgett, Ron Ed. The Handbook of Poetic Forms. New York: Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 1987.
14. Lehman, David. The Line Forms Here. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1992, pg. 26.
15. Gioia, Dana. “The Future of Poetry Publishing.” Poets House NYC, October 1994.
16. Fergusson, Francis. Aristotle’s Poetics. New York: Hill & Wang, 1961, pg. 7.
17. Hoagland, Tony. “Negative Capability.” The American Poetry Review Mar/Apr 2003: Vol. 32, No. 2.
18. Gioia, Dana. “Can Poetry Matter?” Atlantic Monthly May 1991.
19. Hsu, Hua. “Hip Hop Scholars Bumrush the Academy.” The Village Voice Jan. 8-14, 2003.
20. KRS-One. Ruminations. New York: Welcome Rain Publishers, 2003.
21. Lehman, David. The Line Forms Here. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1992, pg. 25.
22. Leithauser, Brad. “Metrical Literacy.” The New Criterion Summer 2000.
23. Alim, H. Samy. “On Some Serious Next Millennium Rap Ishhh.” Journal of English Linguistics Mar. 2003: Vol. 31, No. 1.
24. Abdul, Raoul, and Lomax, Alan. 3000 Years of Black Poetry. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1970.
25. Delpit, Lisa, and Kilgour Dowdy, Joanne, ed. The Skin We Speak. New York: The New Press, 2002.

'WATER ALL AROUND US' by Rebecca Schumejda

2011-01-30T18:13:00.002-08:00

He says, “there is water all around us,”
a half dozen times, my great uncle
points out the living room window
at ponds and streams
framing his Adirondack property.

The foundation of the farmhouse,
where he and his late wife
brought up nine children,
is all that is left of razed memories.

“We brought our belongings
over to this house in wheelbarrows,”
he chuckles. I look out the window
behind him; the snow, at this altitude,
is merciless. Surely, our boot prints
will have vanished by the time we leave.

I wonder if he even knows who I am,
Hope’s daughter I remind him,
I don’t say Doug’s daughter anymore,
not since my father passed on.
Even the names of loved ones
get pulled out with the tide.

As he fiddles with his sideburns
he tells us how he was going
for a haircut today,
but the girl who cuts his hair
was killed last night while she slept.

“A truck drove right through
her bedroom, a bad curve,”
he repeats this story several times,
then points his bony finger
at the ponds and streams again,
and says, “must have been icy out.”

'EXCAVATION THEORY' by Daniel Romo

2011-01-30T18:09:00.002-08:00

Tell me about the part when we chalked Xs on our limbs—
dissected the delicate hinges of our anatomy
in the name of Science.
My lines were straight,
unwavering archeological sites
certain of the reward.
Yours fragmented, mostly
virgin theories
of expedition afraid to go all the way.
But the blade sliced through your bones
as if rescuing the marrow from the clutches of calcium.
The nerves proved more difficult.
Their fibers sewn together:
a militia of strong-armed filaments.
I stopped short of cutting out your heart.
You called me “chicken”
asking, Where is the celebrated sonata?
The bloody concerto?
You called me “Balk.”
I didn’t correct you.

_
Daniel Romo teaches high school creative writing, and lives in Long Beach, CA. His recent poems can be found in Fogged Clarity, Scythe,and Blaze VOX. He is an MFA candidate in poetry at Antioch University.More of his writing can be found at danielromo.wordpress.com

'STORM SURGE' & 'ABIGAIL'S SLUMP' by William Doreski

2011-01-30T18:07:00.005-08:00

STORM SURGE

On the shore near the oyster beds
I lie as flat as possible.
A hundred feet further inland

neighbors flop sandbags the size
of watermelons, shaping a wall
to protect the processing plant

and the tiny frame houses clustered
about it. The sky whirlpools in corpse
tinted hues. The hurricane

loiters twenty miles offshore.
Shrimp, oysters, clams and prawns cower
as the pressure drops. The sandbaggers

curse so crudely the air curdles.
They want me to help them wall out
the threat, but my body will break

the force of the water and save
my soul, if not the local
seafood industry. The wind

picks up, howling like a dog pack.
I lie even flatter, pretending
I'm empty as a clamshell. A cry

from beyond the seawall. It's coming.
I lift my head enough to read
the line of gray water scrawled

along the horizon. It grumbles
like an organ being tuned. The sand
quakes beneath me. I roll over,

bury my face. The water blasts
right over me, a crushing embrace,
and I drown so completely

I'm convinced I've never lived.
The water has become the world
and I'm part of it. Yet it recedes

as abruptly as it arrived;
and I rise and find the sandbags
have held, the packing plant standing,

the oysters cheering in their beds;
and I don't have to number myself,
unless I want to, among the dead.

ABIGAIL'S SLUMP

Abigail's slump continues.
Dangling a monkey in a cage
above her bed didn't cheer her
but frightened away her boyfriend,
whose snoring had shocked the neighbors
and whose beard had scratched Abigail
so badly she had to apply
pancake batter to her wounds.

Now the monkey runs loose, dropping
prune-sized pellets wherever
he pleases. Abigail sighs
in her rocker and reads books
in faux-leather bindings sent
by the Reader's Digest Book Club
and cries because stories of grit
and determination don't apply.

Her father wants to roast the monkey,
but he wanted to shoot and cook
Abigail's boyfriend as well,
being hardly a gourmet.
The whole village feels burdened

by Abigail's slump. To brighten
her life the selectmen declare
"Abigail Days," and sponsor
a carnival, a puppet show,
a drawing for a red Ford pickup.

On the green the townsfolk applaud
and pat Abigail's broad back.
She rides the carnival rides
and buys a book of tickets,
hoping to win the big diesel truck.
At dusk the volunteer firefighters
ignite a bonfire and burn the last
local Democrat at a stake
while at home her monkey snarls and flings
blobs of monkey-dung. The night-wind
wheezes, and a sneer of airplanes
slits the comprehensive sky.

'LOOSE SHOPPING CARTS' by Bhalachandra Sahaj

2011-01-30T14:18:00.006-08:00

Loose Shopping Carts

I wouldn't think of their travel
if they didn't stop at a bus station.
One beige, honey-comb mesh cart holds
an abandoned coffee cup like a token pride,
the owner pushing the stubborn wheels
to an end of movement, sipping the remaining
liquids of a drink that was supposed to pull
his feet through two meals. The cart rests
against the wall that divides the null
of leaving and waiting.

Bhalachandra Sahaj is an author of three full-length poetry books, two poetry chapbooks, and one novel. Currently, he is working on his second novel, A Hole in Heaven, a philosophic, war-time epic. He lives in Shoreline, Washington.

Labor, Hip-Hop-Poetry, Community, & Common Market's Ra Scion

2010-12-31T14:27:00.004-08:00

(Ra Scion preforming live)

In an age where many popular emcees rap about wealth, rims, and bitches, Ra Scion (aka Victor Shade) of Seattle's Common Market forges ahead of the pack searching for somthing else, something more and less elusive. Because of that fact and others, and in our opinion, Ra Scion is one of the best emcees in the hip hop game today.

One could even say, with caution, that Ra Scion's vocals are similar, if not an improvement on, those of the great Talib Kweli. In fact, many hip hop heads we've played Ra for have even mistaken him for Brooklyn's Kweli.

Recently Current TV caught up with Ra Scion, following him through a typical day where he not only rocks the mic but mop and a broom as well. If you're Kanye West, you should be taking your hat off -- right about now.

Underground Hip Hop Continues Nodding at the People & We Can't Help But Nod Back

2010-12-20T14:33:00.006-08:00

-- Editorial

Underground hip hop continues to be a bastion of hope and a voice for the labor class and the poor, or as we've called it, 'the people.' While it would be impossible to be comprehensive here, we've set out to highlight a few of the best pieces to emerge in the last few years -- the ones that speak to us, literally.

Remember D'angelo's 2006 'Untitled' video, you know the minimalist one where he stands presumably naked, beckoning the ladies with every twitch of his pecks as he asks "how does it feel?" Atmosphere's track 'Guarantees', off his album When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (2008) is sort of like that, only for Atmosphere the ladies are working stiffs, wayward struggling souls whose "only guarantee is to walk away."

Common Market's independent 2008 album, Tobacco Road, gives a heavy nod to the labor class through emcee Ra Scion's engaging and unique lyricism and the video for the single 'Trouble Is' is a fine and creative introduction to that fact. Bobbing our heads steadily over here at Commonline.

In 2006 the revolutionary Hip Hop duo Dead Prez teamed up with Outlawz to produce a little known album called Can't Sell Dope Forever. Among the bright spots on the album is the track 'Believe,' an anthem anchored by Stic.Man, one half of Dead Prez. What's more, the female you hear on the track is no other than Stic.Man's mother. The track addresses the general diaspora of poor and minority communities and calls for the taking of personal responsibility by their members. "...too many of us addicted to the American dream / we high from the lies on the TV screen / we drunk from the poison that they teach in the schools / and we junkies from the chemicals we eat in the food." - Stic.Man

Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University, characterizes Houston, Texas based rapper Scarface as one of the unsung heroes of meaningful hip hop. Dr. Dyson is indeed correct. Over the years Scarface has skillfully combined important social commentary with hard hitting beats, producing some of the most palatable and important urban music available today. 'Can't Get Right,' a video single featuring the soulful Bilal from the 2008 Emeritus album, speaks for itself. Watch it, twice.

In 2008 legendary rapper Ice Cube released Raw Footage, his eighth and arguably best studio LP. Yes, we know that this is a bit over the underground line, but cut us a little slack because the socially charged song and video for the single "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It" is about as good as it gets when it comes to politicly conscious Gangsta Rap. The video for the track is fairly minimalist, but like Scarface's 'Can't Get Right' it contains a montage which plays apropos the song's lyrics. The montage includes media from the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the crashing of United Airlines Flight 175 into the second tower of the World Trade Center, multiple instances of police brutalilty, and the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007, among dozens of other historical clips. Pyroclastic flow? -- check.

'AROUND THE WORLD'a poem by Ivan Jenson

2010-09-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

there will come a sweet
Swiss chocolate time
made in Japan
crafted in Italy
imported from Spain
fragile as China
and carved in Africa
and it will be
soft as French fabric
and Tibetan tapestry
and we will all
run barefoot on
Persian rugs
and the magic carpets of
Arabia
and the cold cobblestones of
Copenhagen
and although this is a moment
as distant as Australia
and as hard to reach
as the Himalayas
it will arrive
like a world weary
traveler bearing
exotic gifts
for everyone
to enjoy

Looking Past The Nonsense & Into YouTube's Revolutionary Soul: Nina Simone, Otis Redding & Curtis Mayfield

2010-08-30T14:24:00.007-07:00

--Editorial

(Simone)

YouTube is a hell of a time waster, but that doesn't mean that everything on the site is a waste of time, far from it. Amongst the millions of videos -- many consisting of young women (filming themselves) doing the 'pussy pop,' kittens play fighting, and everyone and your brother offering ill-formed opinions on the topic of the day -- there exist a few that stand the test of time, often because the experience they've been informed by and the emotions they convey are still with us today. And then we heard a great voice shout over the divide of 40+ years "...AND EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT MISSISSIPPIGODDAM."

Nina Simone's 'Missisippi Goddam' begins cheerfully; on the recording she sarcastically introduces the song calling it "a show tune" but saying that, "the show hasn't been written for it yet." A lengthy essay could be written just on the intensity in Simone's gaze as she sings the song, which rails against the the common argument that civil rights activists and black Americans should "go slow" when trying to make changes in the United States. In this truly incredible live performance from the 60's Simone sings to a crowd of white faces "you lied to me all these years / you told me to wash and clean my ears / and talk real fine, just like a lady /...oh but my country is full of lies / we're all gonna die and die like flies / I don't trust nobody anymore, if you keep on saying 'go slow."

In December 1967, after only seven years of recording, the soulful Otis Redding lay dead at the bottom of a lake in Minnesota where the small plane he was aboard crashed. Redding, who hadn't yet released his most well know track, 'Sitting On the Dock of a Bay,' was just 26 years old. In this live 1967 performance from his European tour Redding intensely and passionately works the crowd and himself into emotional overflow as he sings 'Try a Little Tenderness,' complete with a short encore.

With The Impressions, Curtis Mayfield recorded tracks like 'Keep on Pushing,' 'People Get Ready,' and 'We're a Winner', the last of which became a black power anthem when it was released in 1967. As a solo artist Mayfield went on to record tracks like 'Freddie's Dead' and 'Super Fly;' both found mainstream succsess, although Mayfield's lyrics continued to consist of serious commentaries addressing the state of affairs in black America. In this classic live footage (complete with montage) from the 1972 Save the Children benefit concert in Chicago, Mayfield asks "we people, who are darker than blue, are we going to stand around this town and let what others say come true?" As he goes on Mayfield asks for your love, and I'm sure you'll give it, willingly.

'HOW TRUE' by Nancy Devine

2010-06-10T19:46:00.008-07:00

Did my father,
when he had lymphoma
in the last year of his life,
travel down and up that roadside ditch,
a clog of long grass and thistle,
to join my mother and me
as we picked Juneberries,
his drop-foot an obstacle
but not the end?

It could be lies:
my father strode to a small,
low patch of berries,
his uneven gait iambic,
at worst a near-stumbling syncopation.
He bent toward a bush,
the purple fruit
sweet and almond-flavored,
each separate
on a setting of green.
There he picked and ate.
My father really ate
like there was no tomorrow.

-
Nancy Devine teaches high school English in Grand Forks, North Dakota where she lives. She co-directs the Red River Valley Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project. Her poetry, short fiction and essays have appeared in online and print journals.

'THE SLENDER SCENT' by James Robison

2010-06-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

The rebel angels have done their work.
A water moccasin esses in the condo’s aqua pool, a wobbly black stroke.
Against the storm sky’s ink blue, in hyper real focus
phosphorescent radiance
defines the hedge, pool house, wild rose.
I live on a green plane between seas: the backlit ocean of sky
and the thrashing olive Gulf. You catch the slender scent of pineapple
on a maple table in sun under the western facing window showing St. Ann’s Church,
icewhite and modern, leaning like a harp among raintrees, behind the many trunked and
colossal banyon with shade enough for a city block.
She will protect us from ourselves if we work, if we work.
A bailiff will hammer on that door
with a Notice of Intent to Levy or the thirty-day eviction
from the court. The TV’s screech next door will partner with
the manic laughter of gulls. Your sorrows just kill them.
Mangled in filament, the pelican will
unfold from her valise-like nap and try, panicked, to fly.
She won’t, can’t. East of the marina above the river, god’s own wrath is
told in old thunder.
You asked for this.
Where the rust and moth do not consume, nor thieves steal, there will I be
If I just work, if I work.

-
James Robison has published many stories in The New Yorker, won a Whiting Grant for his short fiction and a Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his first novel. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Grand Street. The Mississippi Review devoted an entire issue to seven of his short stories. He co-wrote the 2008 film, New Orleans Mon Amour and has work forthcoming in Story Quarterly and The Blue Fifth Review, and Corium Magazine. He taught for eight years at the University of Houston's Creative Writing Program.

'LOW' by M.P. Powers‏

2010-06-10T10:03:00.057-07:00

I should probably pick up
the phone and ingratiate myself
to my latest creditor
he's leaving a message on the machine -
a little stern and yet polite

he's just doing his job
and when he finishes
giving me his sermon
he'll be onto the next, the next, the endless
stream of debtors

day after day and every night
I can picture him
going home to his children and wife
enjoying a hot dinner

warming his toes by the fireplace

the occasional
blowjob on some stiff sears mattress
to help him fall asleep

to help him forget
about people like me - the soggy
deadbeats
of america

a people he has inherited
a people that will never go away

I should probably pick up
the phone and introduce myself
to him - talk about politics, rembrandt,
the collected poems of oliver
wendell holmes

I should probably pick up the phone
and talk about anything
other than my debt

I've already
decided I'm going
down

'SHAVED CLEAN' & 'NONCHALANT' by Oleh Lysiak‏

2010-06-10T10:03:00.055-07:00

SHAVED CLEAN

Shaved clean in a transparent
white lace teddy and matching
fuck-me pumps, she steps out
from behind a boulder, smiling,
Ma Barker prominent in her jack-
Mormon lineage. She brings a
change of lingerie, assorted colors,
for each day of the trip. Third river
day she’s on the front tube buns to
sun inducing service, won’t rig or
cook or help. Fourth day conversation
stops. He doesn’t understand how his
patched raft floats such leaden silence.
They make the takeout. He drops her
off and drives back to the river,
fishes around his rig bag for the
Dr. Bronners, jumps in and scrubs.

NONCHALANT

Her nickname begins with “Afghani”,
ends in a rhyme, classic Modigliani
features on a Giacometti frame, she
smuggled hashish to Manhattan from
Kabul. I’m embarrassed to tell you
how much hash I can stuff up my
vagina, she ventures nonchalantly.
I order more drinks.

Poetry by DB Cox |

2010-06-10T10:03:00.044-07:00

one-story house

rotting & rundown
sits like the corrupted
centerpiece
of a dying neighborhood
staring
eye-like windows
front door
torn away-gaping
like an open mouth
with nothing to say
murky hallways
always half-lit
by the yellow glow
of glass pipes
where only those
in-the-know
can decode the lexicon
spray-painted along
fractured walls
low-slung cars
crawl the boulevard
injecting sub-sonic
bass lines
into the twilight
bad-ass backing track
for well-strapped gangs
banging both sides
of the block
settling old scores
over scars as cold
as tagged toes
behind stainless steel
freezer doors down
at the city morgue
nightly play of d.o.a.
where no one
gets a curtain call
revolving
blue-light reflections
caught in the glass
of one-story windows
on the street
where the lost
keep house

Poetry by John Grey |

2010-06-10T10:03:00.042-07:00

BUMPER STICKER

It reads MY CHILD
IS AN HONOR STUDENT
AT THOMAS JEFFERSON HIGH.
It doesn’t say
he looked into his heart
and tried to write
but came up against
a pain and spirit
too expressionless
for any poem,
that he imagined himself
hot and hungry on a raft,
a thousand miles from land,
that he cut his finger
and the blood flowed
and he feared that it was
hollowing out his body.

Nothing there of
how he came to identify with
a roadkill Jesus
on a cross of asphalt,
or the dark, smelly water
at the well bottom,
or the squeal of an electric guitar
chain-sawing through its own feedback.

It just said he had been set
some small insignificant task
unrelated to his life
and he had completed it successfully
by paying it no mind.

'WALNUTS' a poem by Justin Hyde

2010-06-10T10:02:00.022-07:00

a delaware wind
blows you from graveyard
to second shift &
after your first night
herding five hundred soulless peacocks
minor hustlers
in the custody of the state of iowa
you drive to the waveland
where an ex opera singer
who studied at juilliard
tells you how she went from three hundred
to one eighty-six by
eating nothing but bay leaves and walnuts
anaconda
her arm swallows you deep center
out to her dodge shadow
where for the first time
at thirty-one years old
you find yourself
vacuuming white powder
off a sunburned dash
immediately
implicitly
succinctly
understanding the
twitching august knuckles
of every
stooped over
eighty year old woman
you've ever seen
standing in line
to buy
scratch tickets.

Justin Hyde lives in Iowa where he works with criminals. He has a web-page here: http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/justinhyde.

2 Poems by Rod Tipton |

2010-06-10T10:02:00.020-07:00

Those Who Ruled Us

the small monsters
that sat at our elbow
who we invited to disclose
encouraged them to share

their gibberish contempt
and senseless calculations
have skulked back sneering
into the half lit shadows

scientists can know beasts
past by their leavings
but the stench of cannibals
is all we have left to sift

The Last Hoax

gambling on the power of a hoax
we talk like nothing is wrong

she repeats the same old tale
but the moral of her story escapes me

my thoughts are not germane
my gut is rebelling

there were nights we looked for each other
with flashlights and bull-horns

hounds bayed for our bodies
to be lock together with grand truths

but that search ended long-ago
and she has blanked on my name

emptiness is already growing
between us like moss

trite conversation is our only lifeline
or gravity will have its way

and drop us into another pointless
fireball of contempt

leaving this room is complex
an informality of grace and disregard

the wood door is near
I can almost touch its carved images

it is with great relief I realize
I will never see them again

_
Rod Tipton is a writer and filmmaker as well as the Editor of Commonline. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Poetry by Ernie Culver |

2010-06-10T10:02:00.019-07:00

the crackerjack reality of it all

a strawberry blonde

eyes of jade

runs a smile over me

like I have a deep
sense of self
worth

more than most

maybe know something that even
the cricket’s don’t

she tells me I look like her
ex

to a fucking-T

could be his twin really

but seems like you
got it together
upstairs

something more than just
packing peanuts

told her
I have 30 yrs
of burned out filaments
and
wire shorts
up there

so the
possibility of being

two of the same

and

one of many

is closer to fact
than fiction

doubt it
she says

takes my deposit

two 20s and a 5

and pulls up my acct

that smile
seconds ago

drops
below zero

tells me I’ve overdrawn

3 times
in the last
3 days

told you
I said

and
walk back outside
into
the crackerjack reality
of it all

zen like

with a deeper sense of self worth

more than most

-
Ernie Culver is 30 years old and lives in Albuquerque, NM. Just recently started writing again from a 10 year hiatus. As of yet, his poems have only appeared in Mad Swirl.

'SEEING MYSELF NAKED' by Dennis Paul Wilken

2010-06-07T21:30:00.004-07:00

When I hear the word nude
I never think of men
And their hairy asses,
Big feet
Splayed by neglect
Drooling with lust
Following their little penises around
Like trained seals

I think of women
Their more delicate features--
Even those girls who hate
The word "girls"
And wish to meanly,
Bad haircuts a badge of cuteness
Despite their worst intentions;

When I hear the word nude
I see nipples in my minds eye
And the infinite variety of bush
I, a spiritual man,
Wish to see (and touch),
Hot as Moses burning namesake;

I never think of men
When I hear the word nude
Although I have high hopes for the one
Special guy I know intimately--
He looks great nude,
But he's the
Only one.

Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot, Madswirl and his editorials in Pacific Publishing publications. His last chapbook, Sweat Off the Diamond, was published in 2009. He lives in Seattle, Washington where he is a Contributing Editor at Commonline.

Poetry by Peycho Kanev |

2010-06-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

Bless My Way

I am snarling face in the darkness.
I am clock without hands,
showing the right time.
The stillness absorbs the screams.
Stones shake loose in the tombs.
The ghost of Villon weeps,
the creature creeps toward the sun.
Lay down and wait like an animal,
like a king within the grave,
like a woman for its prey.
Hell is right here – embrace it.
It will come,
soon or later.
and when it does
when it does…
there is only one way -
smirk.

-
Peycho Kanev’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Poetry Quarterly, Welter, Ann Arbor Review, The Shine Journal, The 13^th Warrior Review, Mascara Literary Review, The Arava Review, The Mayo Review, Windmills, The Aroostook Review, Chiron Review, Tonopah Review, Mad Swirl, In Posse Review, 322 Review, Naugatuck River Review, The Houston Literary Review and many others. He is nominated for Pushcart Award and lives in Chicago. His collaborative collection "r", containing poetry by him and Felino Soriano, as well as photography from Duane Locke and Edward Wells II is available at Amazon.com. His new poetry collection “Bone Silence” will be published in September 2010 by Desperanto, New York.

The Seminal Transmission of Orphic Ghosts: Garry Thomas Morse's 'After Jack' Reviewed

2010-06-07T11:10:00.006-07:00

After Jack by Garry Thomas Morse
Talonbooks, 184 pages, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0-88922-630-2

Reviewed by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

Cover: The martini glass as modern-day Grail. Perhaps as counterpoint to Spicer’s ignoble death in 1965 from acute alcohol poisoning (last words: ‘My vocabulary did this to me’), or as insinuation to the book’s own 'Holey Grail' contained within, we can determine only that the vessel is topped with a clear libation, a suggestion. Whether water or vodka is uncertain; what can be drawn is that there is no empty. Rather, in mock transparencies, it is a glass, like this book, full of ghosts.

And so begins "After Jack", a palimpcestuous serial entanglement of ritual enlightenment, ensconced in translations and transformations, as summoning cantos around the fugue-ghost of Jack Spicer, Berkeley Renaissance poet.

Open book at random:

'Please overlook the letters riddled with riddles.'

And again:

'You crave particulars, but is this how you divine the future?’

In solitary and disconnected gestures, one cannot help but ascertain a clamant secretum, a poet-as-oracular dissonance within its pages. As a medium, its medium serves adequately as its own medium and medium; fitting as the 'Jack' in 'After Jack' refers to Jack Spicer, barroom soothsayer and self-professed poetic channeler of the Berkeley Renaissance. Before Morse was a mote, Spicer delivered a series of lectures in Vancouver (Morse's stomping grounds) in which he revealed the poet as medium more than artist, inferring a certain talent—nay, absolutism—to receptivity as priority over composition. Far too clever for its own good, After Jack is a large rabbit-eared radio, indeed.

Adopting Spicer's philosophy and techniques, and with its own nod to Spicer’s After Lorca, Morse weaves narrative assemblages and textual mirroring as the primary jumping off point. Clever wit and pundits intermingle with riddles, fragmented insinuations and dervishes spun like juggernauts at the ball. Bits of glitter blend with imposition and flotsam, and once engaged, you are along for a sometimes sparkling, oft looming (but never boring) ride.

Like Spicer, Morse seems fond of the 'verge extreme' as counterpoint, and deftly interweaves posthumous letters both from and to Spicer throughout its context , in which the reader is forced to observe and draw their own conclusions based on whatever they know (or do not) of Spicer’s work and philosophy rather than any experiential, purposeful delivery. A post-modern game of shades ensues, and in the spaces lie explicit and exquisite gestures as montage; shadow photographs that move as if caught unaware:

I want the essence of wet I want the remnants of breath

I want the night to shut my eyes I snatch the flower from my heart

Morse is adept at this game of words, and his work assumes a prescient agriculture, a field of Spicer as toiled and tilled by his own seed. There are murmurs, elegies and consecrations; letters and translations as brusque and infinite in spectral comprehension as the recursions of the spirit and the subconscious mind.

Glints of somber prophecy can and do prevail in the maelstrom, and read as bittersweet poignance particularly as regards the ADHD zeitgeist:

We live in such an age of interruption there is more time spent on the particulars of getting together than actual meetings. Once the poem had an aim, an ambition of sorts, a confirmation of See you there on such & such at so & so & now it just shivers,

and

The antique vanity continues to exist without its mirror. Some nights I can hear its namesake breaking.

Its own collection of one night stands, Morse manages to blend the popular with the populist, arrogance with uncertainty and intersperses a reverence to language that can only be described as implicit in its irreverence. The mote of light as well as dust as well as grime as well as rotten and clotted blood are captured and forced to pose in infernal and unerring honesty, if not simplicity. Aftermaths are never ignored, but encouraged. What comes next, and just whose ghosts these are, can only partially be surmised.

In one word? Insinuation, emphasis: sinew. After Jack is a ramping ripple of sinuous tissue, a specter of postmortem fleshbit that leaves one guessing as to which part precisely is which while never knowing what belongs to whom, but even in the unidentifiable indelible, tantalizes the reader toward an uncertain sense of wanting more.

Or to mimic its own mimetic: Wanting Mor/s/e.

'CONFORMITY' & 'RIGHT RESPONSE' by Geordie de BoeR

2010-06-06T14:43:00.002-07:00

Conformity

means being on
the same page,
as though reading
with slow learners,
or learning from
a sage with one
message, or being
a part of the club
and beaten mute
by a person in
a clean green
suit, always in
a pristine suit.

Right Response

A nudge in the ribs,
or just a word,
makes them over-budge,
so to speak,
makes them absurdly
angry, show their
meaner streak; or,
hold their hatred
close to the heart,
so when you
start to express hope
you get a depressing
retort in return.
Turn the other cheek
means Shoot them
the moon, full,
no quarter.

-Geordie de Boer, a rambler and writer of fiction and poetry, lives in Washington State. He has been published most recently by Leaf Garden, Bird’s Eye reView, PANK and Right Hand Pointing. Visit him at Cockeyed Fits.

'FEATHERED ALPHABET' by Annie G. Rogers (2009 Pushcart Nominee)

2009-10-14T20:21:00.017-07:00

The snow begins
it falls and no one can stop it
it covers the back fence and flings itself
outward, a lost thing—
erasing time and memory in its great silence.

A running figure
on the last scrap of day
a rope of footfalls writes the script
wind turns to smoke and threads—
that double what the voice can say.

_
(A version of "Feathered Alphabet" first appeared in Annie G. Rogers' book, A Shining Affliction.)

_
Annie G. Rogers is a poet, as well as a writer of memoir and fiction. She has published two books that combine her clinical work in psychoanalysis with memoir: A Shining Affliction, and The Unsayable. She has edited a volume of short fiction and memoir writing from her workshops with writers in Ireland, Charlie's Chasing the Sheep. She is currently working on a book of poems, Approximate Names. She is Professor of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Psychology at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Quick Fiction: Snapshots in a Spoonful of Time

2009-10-14T20:21:00.015-07:00

Reviewed by Julie M. Tate

The Vestal Review, one of the few journals dedicated to flash fiction (or mico-fiction/short-short fiction), considers its genre "an underrepresented type of fiction." It isn't the only journal to think so; more and more often authors find quality journals accepting flash fiction as a credible genre of work.

One of my favorite flash journals out today is a bi-annual publication aptly titled Quick Fiction, distributed by The Parlor, North Shore's Independent Writing Studio and edited by Jennifer Pieroni, since 2001. The Boston Globe recently ranked Quick Fiction #4 among 100 New England literary magazines. Boston’s Weekly Dig has called it “a journal filled with great work from writers who respect the rigid, potentially gorgeous contours of micro-fiction and have a great deal to say in very little time.”

In my opinion, flash-fiction still isn’t really recognized as a legitimate genre. With the word count ranging from 500-1500 and negotiable plots, there are many ways to define flash fiction. Quick Fiction is dedicated to showcasing works of 500 words or less. It isn’t quite a short-story, not nearly long enough to be a novella, not quite condensed enough to be a poem. Many people I’ve talked to have written flash fiction off as “an easy way out” or basically for people not good enough to excel in any of the above mentioned genres. Prose in general tends to be frowned upon, a wordy, needless group of words that could possibly be expanded upon or cut down. Does anyone remember Samuel Taylor Coleridge's infamous quote: “I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order.”

To journals such as Quick Fiction however, flash fiction is a photograph in 500 words; the work even looks like a photograph on the page. It takes immense talent to describe a scene in all its detail in 500 words, to showcase a wealth of imagery in a spoonful of time. By no means is it an easy task. Descriptions that entice and colorful language are a must; it might well be one of the hardest types of genres to write. Any of the included stories in an issue of Quick Fiction will re-enforce this fact. From the absurd and sickeningly beautiful “The Practical Application of Beauty” by Andrea Kneeland in Volume 15 to the gorgeous description in “Sunny Days Are Fine” by Matthew Purdy in Volume 12, Quick Fiction is dedicated to publishing some of the best at this craft. The stories chosen for this journal stay with you long after your eyes have taken in their short borders, letting your imagination run with what could be and what is.

-----
(Quick Fiction Volume 15 is available now for $8. For samples and subscription information visit http://www.quickfiction.org/)
-----
Julie M. Tate is a freelance artist and journalist currently residing in Tulsa, OK though she considers Chicago home. Her poetry has been featured in numerous anthologies including The Great American Poetry Show and is the owner, author and editor of Gossip and the Devil [http://www.devilgossip.com/], a creative/lifestyle blog focused on poetry, vicodin, jetsetting and boys with brown eyes.

Poetry by Stephen Dunn |

2009-10-14T20:21:00.007-07:00

ARS POETICA

For a while I climbed the ladder,
not realizing I'd placed it
against the wrong house. The window
I tried to look into was a mirror.
I fell backward into the world.

------
Stephen Dunn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Different Hours. He has also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dunn lives in Frostburg, Maryland and teaches at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey

'YOU MIGHT AS WELL DANCE TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS' by Doug Draime (2009 Honorable Mention)

2009-10-14T20:20:00.006-07:00

Tune in to the tuned out
Turn on to the turned off
It doesn’t Matter
Anyway you work it
You can’t please ‘em all
Who cares if you’ve written
40,000 poems
Blind folded in a deep dark pit
Though you may be the
Last poet standing
Some poet-ego-enfant terrible
Will come along & bomb
You when you least expect it
All you can do is keep on keep on
Pounding those keys like freedom

Tune in to the tuned out
Turn on with the turned on
It can’t Matter
Anyhow you work it
You can only please yourself
Who cares if you’ve written
100, 000 poems
Blind folded in a pig stye
Though chances are you are the
Last real poet standing
Some poet-ego-enfant terrible
Will come down the road & shoot
You when you have your back turned
All you can do is keep on keeping on
Pounding those keys like freedom ringing

Tune out to the tuned in
Turn off to the turned on
It don’t Matter
Any time you work it
You can only please the moment
Who cares if you’ve written
420, 000 poems
Blind folded in a vat of pointlessness
Though the fact is you are the
Last poet with balls standing
Some poet-ego-enfant-terrible
Will stick the blade repeatedly into
You just as everything seems to be falling into place
All you must do is keep writing the truth as you see it.
Pounding those keys like freedom singing.

----
Doug Draime emerged as a presence in the 'underground' literary movement in the late1960's in Los Angeles. Most recent books include: Knox County (Kendra Steiner Editions) and Los Angeles Terminal (Covert Press). Forthcoming: Boulevards Of Oblivion (Tainted Coffee Press), and a full-length collection, Farrago Soup coming out from Coatlism Press. Another full-length collection (poems 1967-2007), working title: Transmissions From The Underground is looking for a publisher. Draime's diverse range of writing continues to appear in publications worldwide. He has lived in the foothills of Oregon since the early 1980's.

Poetry by Cynthia Spencer | (2009 Honorable Mention)

2009-10-14T20:20:00.005-07:00

Ascapuon

I have run,
a blur of dark blue,
the color of the night sky rushing over
the Mediterranean, dotted with stars, viewed with wonder;
Over the underground city, the caves,
the streets, the old, the poor, the sick,
the leather-skinned beggar
holding up her sleeping daughter
to the heavens and the people.
her eyes wet with Please.
Please.

This was not America, though I knew
America may someday be this.
It was an ancient rock formation that could show us all our dreams,
a neverending field of the forgotten dressed in green and crumbling marble.
This country was a blur of rock, ruin and flowers,
flying past me as I ran with arms outstretched,
as if the next step would finally find no ground.

But before I could part with that land, I was stopped
by a small boy standing calmly in my path:
brown skin, dark eyes shining joy,
black hair, white teeth and homespun cotton
matched the daisies in his hands,
his pink tongue incomprehensible, but
I knew the meaning of his smile, his white petals.
I was gathering flowers all the while,
scooping them up in my arms as I ran.

---

Cynthia Spencer is a student at Beloit College in Beloit, WI, currently living and working in Chicago. Her work has been published online in Shape of a Box and Poetry Cemetery. Her blog can be found at: http://schplynthia.blogspot.com.

Poetry by D.B. Cox | (2009 Honorable Mention)

2009-10-14T20:20:00.001-07:00

last chance motel

a run-down motel
clings to the shoulders
of a narrow highway
a blinking neon sign
shoots holes through the middle
of a mississippi night—
enfolded in the semi-darkness
of a lamp-lit room
a man leans over a table
etching straight-razor
phrases into the
pages of a hotel notepad
recounting hazy days
strung out behind
like empty boxcars
way past the possibility
of finding something
to count on—
like
the orbit of the earth
around the sun
like
moon-swung oceans
guided by gravity’s hands
like
a lucky star to steer
his feet past lonely streets
that lead
to places like
this last chance motel—
where he sits
with pen in hand
a pistol on the table
& a bible in every room.

---

DB Cox can be found in the early-morning hours, bent over a Fender Stratocaster guitar, in roadhouses and juke joints throughout the south. He describes his playing style as "a look at life through drunken, godless eyes" To quiet his tortured soul, he writes. He has published four books of poetry. His first chapbook is entitled "Passing For Blue", and is available from Rank Stranger Press. Two other chapbooks, "Lowdown" and "Ordinary Sorrows", are available from Pudding House Publications. His latest collection called "Empty Frames" can be picked up on-line at Main Street Rag Publishing.

A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winner Stephen Dunn

2009-09-19T17:51:00.040-07:00

-- Interview J. Osel

Photo courtesy Matt Valentine

A few years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the work of New Jersey based poet Stephen Dunn, handing me a book, telling me “…this is one of the greatest living poets.” I first ventured into Dunn’s work through his 1996 work, Loosestrife, one of his fifteen poetry collections. I then went on to read 1994’s New and Selected Poems, 2006’s Everything Else in the World, and of course, Different Hours, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize.

Dunn, who moved to Spain in his mid twenties to, as he puts it, “rescue my life from being "successful" in a soulless environment,” says that his latest collection, What Goes On: New and Selected Poems, reflects the struggle of relationships and writing. Dunn calls both of these things, when sustained, “triumphs over the unlikely…” In-fact, with regard to his own writing, Dunn says that he’s most proud of his ability to sustain the “difficult enterprise” of creative writing.

Difficult as being a professional writer may be, you’d think that one might come to view their own writing as an act of pseudo therapy. However, despite the personal nature of Dunn’s poetry, he asserts that his writing is not a therapeutic undertaking, saying that he writes with the reader in mind and that his fidelity is "to the credible, not necessarily the actual."

Last month I corresponded with Dunn over a period of weeks; we discussed the evolution of his poetry, the existential muse, writing poems of “the moment,” and his latest collection, What Goes On: New and Selected Poems (1995-Present), among other things.

CLJ: Your first book, Five Impersonations, was published in 1971 when you were in your early 30’s. What Goes On: Selected and New Poems is your latest collection. How has your writing developed over time? If a reader studied your first and last works what do you think they’d discover with regard to the divergences between them?

Dunn: I think what might be discovered is a deepening of my concerns combined with the development of -- for lack of a better word -- craft. In the beginning, I had a little verbal facility and I suppose some minor sense of what a poem could be. But of course the more one stays with the enterprise, and becomes a maker instead of an utterer, the greater the likelihood that the mysteries of composition will reveal some of its secrets. What a reader might find in my work is a larger commitment to the poem in its entirety, as opposed to any of its moments. And a greater commitment to the poem's sonics as well. Early on, it could be said, I wrote the poems of my education. Gradually, I wrote my own poems.

CLJ: When you say “a deepening of my concerns” do you mean a philosophical/truth-seeking deepening?

Dunn: Yes, that, but also an embodying of those concerns, an exploration of a subject in which you try to feel your way into knowing, or think your way into how you feel. I suspect I've improved my emotional intelligence over the years. To deepen is to reach for what isn't easily said. When I was younger, I wasn't impatient enough with the satisfactory.

CLJ: You’ve been writing professionally for nearly forty years and your work has been applauded by many. When you reflect on your career, what stands out for you; what are you proud of? Is there anything you’re not so proud of?

Dunn: I guess I'm most proud of having been able to sustain my work for so long, to having kept the difficult enterprise going, and to have made a few poems that seem to matter to a few people. And to have written a few essays that have instructed me about what poetry has taught me about itself. Sorry for the generalities, but they seem more accurate than the specifics would be.

CLJ: At numerous times you’ve mentioned a long-standing love affair with existentialism. To what extent is your poetry is driven by the urge to make meaning out of existence.

Dunn: Existentialism still has its appeal, or aspects of it. I do believe that there's no meaning to our lives except for that which we create, and can live by. The world, however, occasionally gets in the way. Other people tend to complicate things. Love and duty often muddy up a good plan, scarcity has been known to abrogate dearly held principles, neuroses undermines will; it's pretty hard, and maybe not entirely desirable, to live any ism. My "love affair" with existentialism has a history of break-ups. Fortunately my poetry is also driven by other motives. The wish to make beautiful objects, for one, the wish to frolic with language, for another. Or, a la Auden, enjoying the hard work of pursuing "the clear expression of mixed feelings."

CLJ: In 1964 existential philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature but refused to accept the prize as a protest against the way such prizes turn writers into institutions. In 2001 you won the Pulitzer Prize for your collection, Different Hours. As the recipient of such an illustrious prize do you concur with Sartre’s assessment? How has winning the Pulitzer Prize changed things for you?

Dunn: Sartre was already an institution, so his was not a gesture that carried with it as much nobility as you might think. I wasn't even close to an institution, so I was rather pleased with the award. In fact, it meant a lot to me, not that I don't think that it could, with a different set of judges, have been awarded to a number of worthy others. But it didn't change the way I work, or inflate my sense of importance. A good poem is a difficult thing to write. It remains so.

CLJ: The subject matter of your poetry, at times, has been especially personal. Is writing a therapeutic undertaking for you?

Dunn: Writing is never a therapeutic undertaking for me. Even when my poems seem most personal, I'm more likely to be thinking, "Is this interesting for others?" or "Would the placement of this word here rather than there accentuate the speaker's crisis?" I'm never thinking that I need to get something out of my system, or that the writing of a poem might alleviate any of my problems. I'm actually fond of withholding, of letting readers know about me only as much as I think it useful for them to know for the poem to work.

ARS POETICA
by Stephen Dunn
For a while I climbed the ladder,
not realizing I'd placed it
against the wrong house. The window
I tried to look into was a mirror.
I fell backward into the world.

CLJ: In your mind, what’s the difference between a poem written in “the moment” and a poem written out of reflection? Can the reflective poem mirror felt-experience or does it distort the original experience in some way?

Dunn: I must say that while poems of "the moment" occasionally can be pulled off without revision, they are rare in my experience, though I'm happy for the few that have occurred like that. And it all depends on what we mean by "the moment." If the moment includes, say, an imaginative premise that keeps leading to discovered language, then, yes, many poems can take immediate flight that way. But if you mean the poem that originates from some big event in your life, well, too many poets are wedded to such events, and their poems are often constricted by that kind of allegiance.

I would say that if you don't distort the original experience in some way you may be in compositional trouble. I've come to realize that the poem is more important than the experience that triggered the poem. You need to realize that no reader cares about your life, or should care. In the making of many of my poems, even ones that seem very personal, I've distorted many things. I have a fidelity to the credible, not necessarily the actual.

CLJ: A few years ago you told Guernica that at the age of 27 you quit your job and moved to Spain to “see if I could write.” Do you think this quest of finding-yourself-as-you-are is an essential affair for the emerging writer and if so, why?

Dunn: I don't know if it's essential for most emerging or would-be writers, but it was essential for me. There are many paths to becoming a writer, most of them crooked, and it would foolish of me to say that one is better than another. Whatever works for you.

The quitting of my corporate job and going to Spain was as much an attempt to rescue my life from being "successful" in a soulless environment as it was an attempt to see if I could write. That the two motives coincided and panned out I consider great luck. The story is slightly more complicated than what I've said so far, but let's leave it at that.

CL: Can you tell me about your most recent collection, What Goes On: Selected and New Poems?

Dunn: It's a "later" Selected & New poems. My first Selected contained poems from 1974-1994. This one draws from my last seven books (1995 to the present), and includes twenty new poems. The title poem, "What Goes On," was in my book Different Hours, and I chose it perhaps for obvious reasons. It's a title that I hope resonates into relationships and into the act of writing itself. Both, when sustained, are triumphs over the unlikely, or so it seems to me. I trust that the book reflects the struggle with both, and takes on other issues as well. In fact, I'd like to think -- despite my reductive comments about relationships and writing -- that the poems from book to book show a wide range of concerns and are not easily pigeonholed. But maybe what one really wants from a later Selected poems is to offer a demonstrable voice and style, something like a signature. I leave all of that for others to determine.

CLJ: Now that your new collection is out, what do you have coming down the pipe?

Dunn: I have a number of new poems that seem to be waiting for me to write a poem or two that might identify the obsessions that connect them. If and when those poems come, I'll be pretty close to having another collection ready for publication. I'm not in any hurry. I'd like What Goes On to breathe for a while. I also have about eight uncollected essays, and would hope, over the next couple of years, to move toward a second book of prose quarrels and meditations.

CLJ: What’s the answer to the question I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Dunn: Yes, but.

Stephen Dunn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Different Hours. He has also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dunn lives in Frostburg, Maryland and teaches at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey. His website address is http://www.stephendunnpoet.com/.

Matt Valentine is a photographer based in Austin. He travels extensively to photograph poets, novelists, musicians, and special events. (http://www.mattvalentine.com/).

Joseph Osel is an independent graduate researcher working in cultural studies and the Editor of CLJ.

'RACE RELATIONS-A PORTRAIT IN MOTION' & 'SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK' by Dennis Paul Wilken

2009-09-19T17:51:00.026-07:00

Race Relations–a Portrait in Motion

My street is two-toned
But the white is starting to run.
Primer-painted Volkswagen buses
Loading up
And leaving their parking spots
to lime-green Cadillacs.

--

Seven Years Bad Luck
I grew up on a
Dead end street
Where dead end folk
Refused to admit
That living where they did
Was in anyway
Symbolic.

Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot, Madswirl and his editorials in Pacific Publishing publications. His last chapbook, Sweat Off the Diamond, was published in 2009. He lives in Seattle, Washington where he is a Contributing Editor at Commonline.

5 POMES from LITTLE COMMENTARIES by Suzanne Buffam

2009-09-19T17:51:00.023-07:00

ON LA GIOCONDA

Crowds press in to glimpse her terrible smile.
What diet of secrets sustains it?

The crowds soon tire
And retreat to the buzzing café.

Aloof behind her varnish and her bulletproof veil
She casts her gaze on nothing now—

The greatest, said Da Vinci
Among all great things found here among us.

-
ON INVERSE RELATIONS

The pleasure I feel
When I say the word “trousers”
Is equal, exactly,
To the discomfort I feel
When I say the word “slacks.”

-
ON SPACE TRAVEL

Not to see the frozen heavens up close
But to see our leaky planet from afar.

-
ON IMPOSSIBILITY

I try to write “automatically”
But keep stopping to look at the sky.
Birds are in it
And a great blue silence
That fills the distance between.

-
ON AD CAMPAIGNS IN THE UNDERWORLD

Bet you can’t eat
Just one
Smiled Pluto
As he held out his handful of pain.

--------

Little Commentaries is the central sequnece of Suzanne Buffam's second book, The Irrationalist. It is forthcoming this spring from Canarium Books. (www.canariumbooks.org/wp/home/).
--------
Suzanne Buffam is the author of Past Imperfect (Anansi, 2005), a poetry collection which won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award in 2006. She teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago.

The Sky is a Beautiful Wound:Liz Waldner's Trust Reviewed

2009-09-19T17:51:00.021-07:00

Trust by Liz Waldner
Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 69 pages, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-1880834848

Reviewed by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

A metaphysical journey is never complete without it's quest for beauty and truth and the relationship of the individual in pursuit of those ideals. Trust, the award-winning collection of poems from Liz Waldner, is an ethereal collection of phantasmagoric conclusions and questions that both enfold and envelop the reader into a shared relationship of rich, textual symbiosis. Naturally, completely up my alley as anything even remotely suggestive of mythos often is.

Seduced into its pages beginning with the almost deliriously beautiful cover image, 'Self-Portrait in a Fiery Sea', by Julie Heffernen, I am deliciously struck with the obvious axiom of an untrue truth: Never judging a book by its cover. The slick ophelia in virginal stance with open hands of fire (while tentacled demons in the background emerge) does not dissapoint: The image fits as metaphor within a metaphor in that it beckons us to look further within, first the painting, then the pages, and finally ourselves.

The poems are categorized by the five sensory portals (eye, skin, mouth, nose, ear) making each piece a representation of the thing that it is held within. From the time the first pages are turned, we are greeted with fugue like visions which entrance with unearthly elegance and poignance.

Clues are scattered everywhere to draw the reader into the purpose of the piece, if there is such a thing. 'Truth, Beauty, Tree', takes its cue with the line from Plato's Symposium,

Only when he discerns beauty itself through what makes it visible will he be quickened with the true virtue.

drawing us into the riddle of what it is not only to know beauty, but the source of it - our sense of self and our senses of self. And thus our quest begins.

The first offering, 'Truth, Beauty, Tree' begins its reflection through the clever use of well-applied enjambment (which occurs with delightful consistence, forcing us to rethink the intent and meaning of its narrator over and over again):

The sky is a beautiful wound.
In it. I
would like this not to be true
but it is.

With a wild luminescence and sense of separateness, Waldner artfully demonstrates the mystics dilemma through her own search. Observation of the world features predominantly while the poems weave themselves in and throughout each other as if in response to the one preceding it, masterfully alluding to the nature of beauty and its perceiver.

The visual canticle, Booking It, lends us parenthetical visions such as

(gargoyles: A stone in the ground says EUCLID),

(crescent moons of keratin-man/encrusts the brick wall)

while detailing the extraordinary within the construct of every day ordinariness,

a chinese man was sitting on a bench/cutting his toenails.

Each lyrical sweep of Waldner's brush pushes us to a new level of meaning. As much can be said with subsequent reading, where the poems morph and unfold and another new intent appears. Impossible to 'get' upon the first reading, we are nevertheless entranced by the mesmerizing voice of the narrator. Intelligent, fantastical and a never-ending delight, Trust draws its reader in with cleverness and wit, and gives us fresh pause to remember what the truest art of poetry is: the ability to undo words,

and then undo us with them.

----

Liz Waldner is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Play (Lightful Press) and Trust (winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Open Competition). Her collection, Dark Would (the missing person) (University of Georgia Press), was the winner of the 2002 Contemporary Poetry Series; her collection, Self and Simulacra (2001), won the Beatrice Hawley Award; and her collection, A Point Is That Which Has No Part (2000), received the 1999 Iowa Poetry Prize and the 2000 James Laughlin Award.

----

Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman is an avid logophile and inkslinger whose obsession with words begain at the age of two. The former Sr. Poetry Editor for Mused Literary Review, her works have appeared in Kimera, Zuzu's Petals and Writers Digest . She currently lives full time in a modifed gypsy caravan traveling hither and thither in search of the eclectic esoteric. She only occasionally likes to bite.

2 Poems by Rod Tipton | (2009 Pushcart Nominee)

2009-09-19T17:51:00.015-07:00

MY FATHER
IN A MOTEL

I had never seen
him without his teeth
but he is sitting
on the corner
of a bed in a motel
lips caved into his mouth
until they are almost gone

his skin looser
and more transparent
than last time
he came through

In the 1950s and 60s
he smoked Luckies
wore his cap tilted back
and just off center

Taught me about fishing,
car maintenance,
airplanes, his temper
and that life is always work

He loved to move then
always traveling
but age has caught
him in mid stride

and when he should have
a wife, home and comfort
they have left conjured away
by disease and the banks

So he still travels
sleep walking through cities
his body becoming inert
falling in on its self

Right now he is slouched
next to a pink lamp
on a white spread, laid over
a commercial grade mattress
and will not budge

Will only make indifferent
noises to every suggestion
with small lifts of his shoulders
as if his words have lost
their power and been pulled
into a final nothing
gone with everything else
that had been his

---

BAR MUSIC

something charming
on the piano

a rolling tune
to make you think
of a small circus

a slender woman
on the rope

agile, balanced

wraps her leg
like a snake

and hangs
in arched glory
at a dangerous height

then snaps and twists
and lowers herself

uncurling her body
onto the stool
next to yours

“bravo” you shout
and quickly check
your wallet

hoping you have enough
to buy her a drink

--
Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.

'FOR THE BARREN ORANGE TREE' a poem by Lisa Marie Basile

2009-09-19T17:50:00.009-07:00

I do not want to write
like Lorca does,

in misery.
Free me from the torture of seeing myself fruitless.
I have blood
unending,

and I am furious,
maddened, the color
of the sun. I am

nothing but prayers
and flesh, and like Lorca,
I fear becoming a barren orange tree

-

Lisa Marie Basile is a writer and journalist from Brooklyn, New York. She has been published in several publications, including Billboard, CosmoGirl!, Knocks From The Underground and Maxim. She has won six writing awards from Pace University's Annual Writing Contest, including 1st place Poetry and Fiction. She is graduating in December 2009 with an English Language and Literature degree along with a concentration in creative writing and has served as Editor-in-Chief of The Pace Press and as Associate Editor of Aphros Literary Journal. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Caper Journal, an online literary, art and music collection. She adores Cesar Vallejo, Jorge Louis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Albert Camus and Christine Korfhage.

'MAN TITS' & 'A LIBERTINE IN ALBANY' by Rebecca Wolff (2009 Pushcart Prize Nominee)

2009-09-19T17:50:00.006-07:00

Man Tits

Look at that pair,

on the one over there.
He's young, skinny, low
muscle tone, poor, white, under-
educated . . . not looking
at a
path

on the little patch
of yard in front of his
unfavorably located
rental where he stands, hands
on hips, mutable, conceivable
speculation on the next weekend
chore.

But his tits are the good
kind: fat, conical, pale against
the brown of his wife-beater tan,
nipples slightly shiny,
aureolated. Bouncy, native tits
like the ones you like to see.

A Libertine in Albany

At the stoplight
no one looks
when I whip
it out

even though I guessed
Elvis Costello next

even though
I can always tell Led Zeppelin's
coming on

These are my rewards

Next to me in line for comestibles
my grandson

might as well be.

Teach you how to act
by the look in your eyes

like you want to fuck, stupid. Even old
sleepy eyes, in the coffee

line, manifests in the end zone
as a loser in a minivan.

------------

Rebecca Wolff is the author of three books of poetry, most recently The King (W. W. Norton, 2009). Her novel The Beginners is forthcoming in 2011 from Riverhead Books. She is the founding editor of Fence and Fence Books, and a fellow at the New York State Writers Institute. She lives in Athens, New York.

2 Poems by Doug Draime |

2009-09-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Tracks

on her
slender
arms
between
her toes
the backs
of her
beautiful
knees
in her
left hand
between
her index
finger
and thumb
deep
dark
holes
where the
only
light
she ever
knew
was
shot in

------

Walking On Water

I walked into the Wabash river
fully clothed
up to my waist,
drunk out of my mind at 16. I thought
for a moment there
that I could really
walk on water.
My friends on the bank
of the sand bar, screaming
at me to
get my ass out,
that someone
had called the cops.
But 12 bottles
of Miller High Life
and a half pint
of Jim Beam
had set me on a mission,
sent me over the wobbling edge
into some kind of insane spiritual probing
of elated intoxication and power, and
uncontrollable fits of laughter. Kenny threw
a rock that hit the water
just to the left of me. Then Vic
threw an empty beer bottle,
that I had to duck
to avoid from smashing into my head.
And I just laughed and
laughed and laughed. I have yet to see
the moon and stars
quite as beautiful and mind blowing
as they were
on that night. And I looked up
and laughed hysterically at them too,
just before the cops got there,
when I made them walk into the river to get me.
I laughed and prophesied their doom
all the way to the county lockup.
But the view of the night sky from the
barred jail cell window wasn’t
quite the same.

-------

Doug Draime emerged as a presence in the 'underground' literary movement in the late1960's in Los Angeles. Most recent books include: Knox County (Kendra Steiner Editions) and Los Angeles Terminal (Covert Press). Forthcoming: Boulevards Of Oblivion (Tainted Coffee Press), and a full-length collection, Farrago Soup coming out from Coatlism Press. Another full-length collection (poems 1967-2007), working title: Transmissions From The Underground is looking for a publisher. Draime's diverse range of writing continues to appear in publications worldwide. He has lived in the foothills of Oregon since the early 1980's.

Poetry by Mather Schneider |

2009-09-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

CANKER SORE ON A HYPOCRITE’S MOUTH

spitting at me
because I've not entered
on my hands and knees
I am no king
but I am no infant either
and the thousand and one morals
the rat-eyed lepers preach
each have a back door
where they’ll rob you in the dark
but the humans argue
the humans scream at each other
society can’t keep
its promises
and the mob looms dirty
dirty but strong
and if one person knows
that ten are fools
it is no solace
because the ten laugh together
a laughter as ugly
as oil in the ocean
that will take as long to
wash away.

-------
Mather Schneider drives a cab in Tucson.

'BLUE SUNDAY' a poem by Lyn Lifsin

2009-09-08T13:05:00.002-07:00

imagining that he slips
from her the way rings
do from a finger in
the cold. Leaves. October,
black spots on the mirror.
Separation blues in the
bed. Touching his shoulders
here on paper, he’s like
all the flowers that I
draw, bright wild petals
that don’t connect to
any stem

----------
Lyn Lifshin has written more than 125 books and edited 4 anthologies of women writers. Her poems have appeared in most poetry and literary magazines in the U.S.A, and her work has been included in virtually every major anthology of recent writing by women.

Poetry by Mercedes Lawry |

2009-09-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday

Humps of cloud pass slowly
in the morning, revealing a blue,
faint and milky. I gaze
out the window as the furnace huffs
and the scattershot rain drums
on the roof like fevered punctuation.

What do I know about the deeper truth?
Here on the couch, reading alternately
about bears and torture, while scores of others
trek to church to pray for the mad world
and their own protection. For death
is always in the room, sometimes silent,
sometimes uttering a brittle gasp.

-------------

Mercedes Lawry was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA and has lived in Seattle almost thirty years. She's published poetry in such journals as Poetry, Rhino, Nimrod, Poetry East, Seattle Review, and others. Her chapbook, There Are Crows in My Blood, was published by Pudding House Press. Among her honors are awards from the Seattle Arts Commission, Hugo House, and Artist Trust. Mercedes has been a Jack Straw Writer and has held a residency at Hedgebrook. Currently she is the Director of Communications at the Museum of History & Industry.

Poetry by John Burgess |

2009-08-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

BI-ALPHABETICAL ORDER

bi-a matter bi-birthright (right?)
bi-cell division bi-Darwinism
bi-effectual intellectualize
bi-family bi-genetics (bi-o-genetics)
bi-heterosexual coupling bi-i-i-i-i-i
bi-jeezus (skin's not a sin)
bi-kin bi-legalize bi-marriage
bi-nary bi-ology bi-path (2 paths)
bi-quarter (or eighth) bi-racial
bi-sect (don't di- sect) bi-tolerant
bi-unilateral bi-valve bi-what?
bi-x bi-y bi-zooks (you & I)!

------------------
Seattle poet John Burgess has two books from Ravenna Press, Punk Poems (2005) and A History of Guns in the Family (2008). He was a 2006 Jack Straw writer; co-founder of the Burning Word Festival; and the 2008 Words' Worth curator for the Seattle City Council. He's currently editor for the online lit journal Snow Monkey.

Poetry by J. Pharoah Doss |

2009-08-26T22:46:00.001-07:00

The Welcome Mat

when asked
when was the last time
I spoke with my daughter
I shrug and reply

we hardly speak

why not?
they always pry

because I hear it
in her voice

hear what?
the idiots ask confused

then I tell them

I hear
the meaninglessness
of my existence
in her life

besides

I’m outnumbered
wrestling enough demons
at night
and one more
might pin my weary soul
to the welcome mat of hell

---------------

J. Pharoah Doss was born in Pittsburgh Pa. He attended Geneva college. He currently lives and writes from Orlando Fl.

2 Poems by Rob Plath |

2009-08-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

One Upmanship in Suburbia

I hear teenagers
in the schoolyard
next to my apartment

their stolen beer bottles
clinking, the boys cursing, punching
one another, trying to impress
giggling razor-thin girls,
who are secretly deciding
who they'll blow
behind the dumpsters

while the August crickets
rub their legs together
in a frenzy
trying to outdo the others
for a mate.

I turn up Tom Waits
to drown them all out
and pound out another
fucking poem.

--------------

my words are war whoops against the womb

my
every
word
is
a
war
whoop

my
every
poem
a
campaign
waged
against
the
dumb
womb

the
most
destructive
bomb
of
them
all

exploding
life
into
the
world

----------------

Rob Plath is 39 years. He has published about 150 poems in 50 magazines and journals in print and online. He has one book of poetry called “Ashtrays and Bulls” (liquid paper press--home of the nerve cowboy) and two forthcoming, one from Cat Scan Press in the UK called “Sour Milk” for the soulless and another from Pooka Press in Canada which is not yet titled. He once studied with Allen Ginsberg at Brooklyn College from '95-97 and performed on a spoken word CD “Northport celebrates jack” --a tribute to Jack Kerouac. Since he has just become poetry editor of Whirligigzine - JD Finch's fiction and poetry magazine, which is in print and online. Rob lives in New York.

Poetry by Tim Alexander |

2009-08-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

maybe i think too much

i think something might happen
if i stop writing,
i might become a doctor
or a business man
a man of honor
respect
dignity
my ego might die
my blood pressure
might return
to normal
i think something might happen
if i stop thinking,
i could sell insurance
or real estate
i could get married
and have kids
i think something might happen
if i stop drinking
i could go to church
and talk to people
who aren’t there
yes I believe something might happen
if i stopped living
because then,
i could be
just
like
you

'GENDER ISSUES' by Brad Bisio

2009-08-24T12:40:00.001-07:00

A woman asked
Why do you have
earrings in both your ears?

Feeling charitable that day
I said, Because you’re you
and I’m me.

But you’re a man
she said.

Ahh
I said
and you’re a woman.
Look at it this way
I said
I have earrings in both ears
for the same reason you have
earrings in both ears.

And why’s that?
she said.

Because we both
want them there.

She still didn’t understand.

I was late for work,
no longer feeling charitable,
and even a little disgusted
with myself. When the light changed
I left her there at the corner
and reminded myself
how I wasn’t going to
waste my time
talking to people
who, no matter what I say,
will never understand me.

-----------

Brad Bisio has recent work in Paradigm, Pequin, and Boston Literary Magazine with work forthcoming in Six Sentences, Word Riot and Gutter Eloquence. He has lived in New York and California and places in between. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

'THE LAST DANCE' by Julie M. Tate

2009-08-24T12:23:00.001-07:00

A slow, building waltz
pauses outside my bedroom door,
the crescendo knocks politely
at the base of my hips.

I remember the way
your spine said goodnight,
for once graceful
as you walked away from me.

The floor retains fleeting heat.
Your scent drifts across the highway
through my half-open front door.
I flick ashes into the night air.

Settling like dust
on a forgotten shelf,
I again fall into an empty bed,
check, but not check mate, tonight.

-----------

Julie M. Tate is a freelance artist and journalist currently residing in Tulsa, OK though she considers Chicago home. Her poetry has been featured in numerous anthologies including The Great American Poetry Show and is the owner, author and editor of Gossip and the Devil [http://www.devilgossip.com/], a creative/lifestyle blog focused on poetry, vicodin, jetsetting and boys with brown eyes.

Poetry by Brandon Williams |

2009-08-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Chris Buckley, After Winning The Guggenheim

I think he keeps it in the back
of his trouser pockets, ready
to pull it out and dust it in front
of anyone who might not have heard
the news. But in class, we spend
ten minutes talking about cake,
“Cake,” he says, “you know, cake,
as in let them eat it.” With that year
of freedom in his back pocket,
he’s in a good mood, but he approaches
our poems with tenacity, as if
he’s trying to fit a year’s worth
of instruction into this final three-hour
class. But he can’t stop smiling.
“Ellipsis? What’s an ellipsis? That’s
Mr. Ellipsis to you,” he says,
and that’s the way the whole day goes.
I almost expect him to disappear
behind a curtain with a puff of smoke,
to sprinkle us with bills
for all the lines he’s given us. Instead,
he shakes our hands, claps our backs,
and walks off campus to a year
without having to circle poems
and ask, “Where’s the turn?”

---------------
Brandon Williams is a graduate of the University of California, Riverside. He has been published in journals such as Words-Myth, ken*again, and Scawy Monstur, and his work is forthcoming in Circumlocution Lit. He writes a lot. Sometimes he reads. When he does, it's usually the greats, which is probably why he so often looks confused. He is a strict believer in down-home country music and is probably a strict constitutionalist.

Poetry by Mark Barkawitz |

2009-08-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

WOLVES HOWL AT THE MOON

i sometimes/often wonder
if there’s anything
after death?

guess it’s ‘cause
i’ve buried
quite a few:

daddy,
my little brothers,
older relatives,

and a string of dogs
buried like bones
deeply in the yard.

some just pups
born into my hands
already still.

but let’s not
get morbid here.
there’s time

enough
for that
later.

---------------
Mark Barkawitz has earned local and national awards for his fiction, poetry, essay, and screenwriting. His work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, literary journals & anthologies, underground ‘zines, and is posted on numerous websites. He wrote the screenplay for the feature film, “Turn of the Blade” (NorthStar Ent., ’95) and has taught creative writing classes at community college level. He coaches a championship track team of student/athletes and ran the 2001 L.A. Marathon in 3:44:42. He lives with his wife, has two kids, and breeds golden retrievers (Woof Goldens) in his backyard in Pasadena, CA. http://www.woofbooks.com/

2 Poems by Carl Miller Daniels |

2009-08-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

sometimes, time pitty-pats on quiet feet

it was unlikely that he would be overheard, but
still, though, the sexy young man
was always very very quiet when he
was masturbating. he lay on his
back, surrounded by dozens of others
who slept around him. it was on
the maximum security ward of
a psychiatric hospital. a handtowel
dangled from the head of the metal bed.
most of the other patients seemed to be
medicated to a far greater level
than he was. they slept the sleep
that would not end until they
were awaken by the orderlies
in the morning. him, though,
he wasn't as heavily medicated.
he guessed he wasn't as "sick"
as those with whom he was
surrounded. in the middle
of the night, looking at
the bars that covered the windows,
he felt the urgency of his
hard dick under the sheets,
and he masturbated into
the towel that he withdrew
oh so quietly from the head
of his bed, and, after
he came, he returned the
towel to its position where
it dried before morning.
he always wondered if his
towel was subsequently examined
by someone on the staff
for evidence
of masturbatory activity.
but, if it was, he was
never told about it.
when released from the
psychiatric hospital,
the sexy young man
for months and months
maintained his habit
of silent of so
very very silent masturbatory
activity. then, one night,
all alone in his own little
apartment, he decided
to groan and grunt and howl
as much as possible during
the whole procedure -- just
be as theatric as possible.
and so he writhed and
moaned and groaned and grunted
naked sweaty on his back
on the bed tugging with
great force and zest and zeal on
his great big smooth hard cock,
shaking the bed, rattling
the mattress and when
he spurted cum, he
howled like a wolf.
then, quiet again,
he lay there smiling
with such a silly grin
on his handsome face,
he felt almost sheepish.
"baaaaa" he said
softly, and then he
burst into sweet
gentle throaty laughter.
"baaa baaa baaa"
he said again. and then,
he giggled so
charmingly, it was
almost as though
he had never actually
been sick,
but, if he had been sick
(and ok, yeah, he
most certainly was), well,
those days were gone,
and, now, relaxed and
beautiful naked sweaty
on the soft
white sheets, wiggling
his toes, he
was quite sure those
days were behind him,
and that none of it would
ever happen again.

two bits

i am allowed to read stuff written by rabid heterosexuals,
fervent homosexuals, smug bisexuals, preoperative transsexuals.
i am allowed to read stuff written by anarchists, socialists,
republicans, democrats, the apoliticals of the world.
i am allowed to read stuff written by folks who don't really care
about anything, who are just drifting by, miserable, wondering
why they are alive and what to do about it.
i am allowed to read stuff written by drug addicts and alcoholics
and mental patients.
i am allowed to read stuff written by folks who are so
excited and happy and proud to be alive it makes me
wonder how anybody can feel that good.
i am allowed to read stuff written by men who think that
certain 13-yr-old boys are incredibly luscious.
i am allowed to read stuff by people with PhDs and stuff
by people who dropped out of high school.
i am allowed to read stuff that makes me mad and stuff that
makes me glad and stuff that makes me
horny and stuff that makes me depressed.
sometimes i feel sorta bad that i mostly just take it for granted
that i'm allowed to read anything i want.
i know things don't have to work that way.
and in a lot of places they don't.
but, well, right now i just feel like saying that
i'm glad i can read any damn thing that i want
to read, and just let it go at that. too much mushiness is
allowed, but not really encouraged.

--
("Two Bits" was first published by Chiron Review and has been republished here with the author's permission.)

--
Carl Miller Daniels' poems have appeared in Chiron Review; FUCK!; Nerve Cowboy; Pearl; Poetry Super Highway; Poetz; Slipstream; Strangeroad; Swell; Wormwood Review; Zen Baby; Zygote in my Coffee; and 5AM, to name a few. Daniels has had two chapbooks published in the past dozen years or so: Shy Boys at Home (Chiron Review Press), and Museum Quality Orgasm (Future Tense Books). He's a contributing editor at CommonLine and lives in ruggedly masculine Homerun, Virgina.

Poetry by G. Tod Slone |

2009-08-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

Always Unquestioning and Always Unchallenging

So much was taken for granted in our society,

even by the highly educated, especially when

it served self.

One such fellow* told me the other day, he

believed that “poor teachers ought to be fired.”

But I asked him: what was a "poor teacher”?
Was it someone who didn't get the PC

teacher-of-the-year award or

someone who dared go upright and

criticize his colleagues and administrators?

Was it someone who spoke rude truths in the

classroom and in so doing upset the coddled or

someone who actually taught students

to question and challenge their very university?

Or was it the ole you’ll know a “poor teacher”

when you see, hear, and observe him?

The fellow, unsurprisingly, never did get back to me.

2 Poems by Christopher Pryor |

2009-08-18T19:27:00.000-07:00

9 10

ten
lines
in
a
poem
are
no
different
than
9

----

Clairvoyant

Hips
Tits
Some Leg
Some Ass

Beautiful.

Do I even need to ask?

-------------
Christopher Pryor is a writer and filmmaker who's around. He is 19 years old and currently a student at the University of Southern California. Others may also know him as the great Billy Van Sanchez.

'KNOW THYSELF' by Dennis Paul Wilken

2009-07-22T09:36:00.029-07:00

Know Thyself

Had to walk the earth
Ten years longer than Jesus
To learn one basic fact
About myself –

Even after all these years
Of this and that
Relationship
Breaking up on the
Rocks of day-to-day
Reality like
Pirate ships
Captained by the blind

I’d still,
Sick or Well,
Rather eat pussy
Than chicken noodle soup.

-
Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot, Madswirl and his editorials in Pacific Publishing publications. His last chapbook, Sweat Off the Diamond, was published in 2009. He lives in Seattle, Washington where he is a Contributing Editor at Commonline.

'THE LOST THING' by Stephen Dunn

2009-07-22T09:36:00.027-07:00

The truth is
it never belonged to anybody.
It's not a music box or a locket;
it doesn't bear our initials.
It has none of the tragic glamour
of a lost child, won't be found
on any front page. It's like
the river that confuses
search dogs, like the promise
on the far side of the ellipsis.
Look for it in the margins,
is the conventional wisdom.
Look for it as late afternoon light
drips below the horizon.
But it's not to be seen.
Nor does it have a heart
or give off any signal.
It's as if . . . is how some of us
keep trying to reach it.
Once, long ago, I felt sure
I was in its vicinity.

---------------
("The Lost Thing" is from Stephen Dunn's book Everything Else In The World. It was first published by The Gettysburg Review and has been republished here with the author's permission.)
---------------
Stephen Dunn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Different Hours. He has also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dunn lives in Frostburg, Maryland and teaches at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey.