issue 5
fall, 2015
Shloka Shankar
Priyadarshini Komala
Morgan Christie
Alex Dreppec
Scott Wiggerman
Aricka Foreman
Aaron Horeth
Jude Cowan Montague
Makalani Bandele
Glen Armstrong
Eugenia Hepworth Petty
Noel Fielder
Anne Lévesque
Vanessa Raney
The Frost Heaves
Jessica Morey-Collins
Ella Nowicki
Luke Normsy
Brad Garber
Richard Baldasty
Morgan Christie
Derek Pollard
Dawn Cunningham
Daniel Lehan
Steve Timm
Kayla Rae Candrilli
Daniel Hales
John Grey
Kaleena Kovach
Lionel Whitehead
Azia DuPont
Sarah-Jean Krahn
Felino A. Soriano
Carlo Matos
Melanie Whithaus
Richard King Perkins II
Priyadarshini Komala
Morgan Christie
Alex Dreppec
Scott Wiggerman
Aricka Foreman
Aaron Horeth
Jude Cowan Montague
Makalani Bandele
Glen Armstrong
Eugenia Hepworth Petty
Noel Fielder
Anne Lévesque
Vanessa Raney
The Frost Heaves
Jessica Morey-Collins
Ella Nowicki
Luke Normsy
Brad Garber
Richard Baldasty
Morgan Christie
Derek Pollard
Dawn Cunningham
Daniel Lehan
Steve Timm
Kayla Rae Candrilli
Daniel Hales
John Grey
Kaleena Kovach
Lionel Whitehead
Azia DuPont
Sarah-Jean Krahn
Felino A. Soriano
Carlo Matos
Melanie Whithaus
Richard King Perkins II
Morgan ChristieHer work has appeared in Hippocampus, Aethlon, Blackberry, Germ Magazine, Moko, and elsewhere. She will begin her candidacy at the University of Oxford for the Masters in Creative Writing this fall.
She said, "[These\ poems... were created in response to Orlando White's Bone Light. They reflect nuances of human nature through line, theme, whitespace, and design; a blending of poetry as art that also elevates thematic purpose." This That and the Other Ones
Stages |
alex dreppecAlex Dreppec (artist's name) - born 1968 close to Frankfurt as "Alexander Deppert", studied psychology and linguistics and went to Boulder/Colorado for his Ph.D. (finished 2001). German author with hundreds of publications (both poetry and science) in German journals and anthologies, both the most renowned ("Der große Conrady" - since 2008) and the best sold among them. "Wilhelm Busch" Prize 2004.
Having (re-)started writing poems in English a few years ago, he started to submit them in 2013. Numerous poems were accepted by “Borderlands Texas Poetry Review”, “Parody on Impression”, “English Journal. National Council of Teachers of English” (USA), “The Interpreter's House”, “The Journal” (UK) and others so far. He says, "I am a poet who loves sound poetry and believes in the musicality of the written word. Sound poetry lets me assemble the disparate pieces of the world of the words to form little journeys on paper. Most of the times, these journeys do not end where I expected. As a teenager, I considered myself a punk singer writing punk song lyrics. My father wrote poems. I thought that was a little strange and I made fun of him sometimes. After some years, I had to realize there was no music for my punk song lyrics. So I started to consider that I was actually writing poetry. My father made a little fun of me in return" Masochist Marsh (audio)
Nudest Neanderthal Nanas (audio) O Sound Poetics Minutes of the Cleaning.... |
scott wiggermanScott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, Presence, and Vegetables and Other Relationships; and the editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga, and Wingbeats II. Recent poems have appeared in Decades Review, Frogpond, Pinyon Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and the anthologies Pushing the Envelope: Epistolary Poems, This Assignment Is So Gay, and Forgetting Home: Poems about Alzheimer’s. He is an editor for Dos Gatos Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He says, ""Across the Sky" is an erasure based on the opening page of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. "The Rest of the Story" is a whiteout erasure based on the last page of James Joyce's story "The Dead" from Dubliners. "Marriage: A Unique Relationship" is a blackout/redacted erasure based on an editorial in The Tennessean against same-sex marriage." Across the Sky
The Rest of the Story Marriage: A Unique Relationship |
Aricka ForemanAricka Foreman’s work has appeared in The Drunken Boat, Minnesota Review, Union Station Magazine, Vinyl Poetry, Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poems for the Next Generation by Viking Penguin, Learn Then Burn 2: This Time its Personal. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem and the Callaloo Writers Workshop, and is the Enumerate Editor for The Offing. Her chapbook Dream With A Glass Chamber is forthcoming from YesYes Books.
She says, "The attached poem plays with two concepts: the rhetorical command of html code, and the colloquial "there's no handbook for..." notion of coming out as a queer woman. Part of that coming out is wrestling how to talk about desire without objectifying, fetishizing, or reifying certain ideas. How does one un-program their language? I suppose, this poem is an attempt to figure out how to answer that question." Capturing a Language of Want Without A Handbook
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Aaron HorethAaron Horeth has been writing on and off throughout his life, taking brief interludes between phases. He uses writing, among other mediums, as an outlet for expression. His writing tends to stray toward silliness and the grotesque; it has, on occasion, swayed toward seriousness and emotional (he’s a sensitive guy). He finds inspiration in various places and in the minute details of life.
He told us, "Words and Letters Parts I & II started out as one poem that I split in two. My goal is to have the reader combine the two together. Maintaining the spacing is crucial for this piece because it gives a clue to the reader. " Words and Letters Parts I & II (animated gif)
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JudE Cowan MontagueJude Cowan Montague is an artist. writer and composer with a multi-media practice that crosses disciplines. She is active in new printmaking, installation, poetry, prose fiction, film history, vocal work and performance. She is known for her innovative work with international news agency output. This practice developed while working as an archivist for the Reuters Television Archive. Her first collection For the Messengers (Donut Press 2011) re-formed edits from the Reuters output during 2008 as individual poems. Her album The Leidenfrost Effect (Folkwit Records 2015) was co-composed with Dutch producer Wim Oudijk and reimagines quirky stories from the Reuters Life! feed.
She is a broadcaster and curates and hosts The News Agents a weekly hybrid news-arts show on Resonance 104.4 FM. www.judecowanmontague.com She says about her work: "These three files are visual poems from an improvised collection of forty pages created during an art residency in Atina, Italy in August 2015 curated by Rekha Sameer. The visual poems capture and play with aspects of Atina past and present. Atina is in the hills of Lazio and is a small Italian town with Roman remains. Legend has it the city was founded by the god Saturn. Atina was caught up in tragedy during WW2 and after." ATINA - visual poetry 32,
ATINA - visual poetry 35, ATINA - visual poetry 37 |
Makalani Bandele(featured poet)Makalani Bandele is an Affrilachian Poet and Louisville, KY native. He is the recipient of the Ernest Sandeen Poetry Award and fellowships from Millay Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Kentucky Arts Council, and Cave Canem Foundation. His poems can be read in a wide variety of online and print journals. Hellfightin’, published by Willow Books in October 2011, is his first full-length volume of poetry.
See interview to check out his ideas about his poetics and read more of his poetry implied boom of her
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glen armstrongGlen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three new chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cloudbank.
He says: "These poems are from a manuscript that explores fan fiction and the technology that facilitates that unwieldy and passionate endeavor. I am interested in the politics of who gets to cherish and “play within” a given text. (Who gets to create and distort meaning?) " (We say, we do, Glen, we do) Slash for Captain Marvel 1
Slash for Captain Marvel 4 Slash for Captain Marvel 6 |
Eugenia Hepworth PettyEugenia Hepworth Petty enjoys covering objects with wax, mod podge, resin and glitter. She is the author of one chapbook of poetry— Pamyat Celo/Memory Village, and holds a MA in Poetics from New College of California. Links to her writing publications and photographic galleries may be found here: www.eugeniahepworth.com
She told us, ""Lamp" was created from an erasure prompt in which we were create a poem that's part erasure, part art. Options included experimenting with collage, using cutouts from magazines and other sources to obscure your unused text." Lamp
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Noel FielderNoel Fielder is everything at different times, but most frequently an insomniac and student living in New Jersey. He has been published with ‘The Interstate Oratorical Association’, ‘The Kansas City Star’, 'The Reverie Journal', and the ‘Love and Forgiveness in Governance Project’. Noel’s favorite color is all of them.
He says, "'Salvage' was the combined product of unrequited love, sudden-onset existential conflict, and a desire to vandalize something. I was sitting at a Bay Area Starbucks defacing their napkins, which prompted a rush of relief and forgiveness. 'Salvage', in addition to the reader's interpretation, identifies beauty in humanity's rawest materials and surroundings. It accepts the difficult and believes in peace." Salvage
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Vanessa RaneyVanessa Raney is an American living in Croatia and studying the Croatian language. One of her art poems previously appeared in *shuff Poetry* in 2014, while early 2015 saw the publication of her two bilingual animated GIFs in *Poetry Invitational* and *S/tick*. Her first bilingual chapbook *The idea of woman*, which includes an integrated art poem series and original drawings, is due out from dancing girl press in fall 2015. To find out more go to http://vanessa-raney.blogspot.com.
She told us, " 'The days of ends' is an art poem series inspired by by Adso of Montier-En-Der and The Book of Revelation. It was the first attempt I made to create a story across images and through text. All the work is mine." "To Milton" is inspired by the movie *Drive Angry* starring Nicholas Cage, I played with different ideas while creating a poem that combines movement and strangeness. I used tools in Paint and GIMP 2.8. All the work is mine." "The same source" is a mixed media piece that placed an idea in a specific location. The image is in the public domain which I turned into a watermark in order to place the text I created over it." The days of end
To Milton (animated gif) The same source |
the frost heavesDaniel Hales & Dan MickusDaniel Hales is the author of Tempo Maps, a poetry chapbook with the companion CD: Miner Street Symphony (ixnay press). His work has appeared in many journals, including Verse Daily, Conduit, H_NGM_N, Sentence, Quarter After Eight, and Booth. He’s released three eps with The Ambiguities and three albums with The Frost Heaves, most recently "Contrariwise: Songs From Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass." www.danielhales.com
He told us, "Beward of Falling Rocks is a collaboration between myself and my bandmate Dan Mickus. He wrote and recorded the guitar part; I wrote and recorded the poem that accompanies it. Fragile Use No Hooks and Hymn To The Singularity are both prose poems about music." Beware of Falling Rocks (audio) Fragile Use No Hooks Hymn To The Singularity works
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Jessica Morey-CollinsJessica Morey-Collins is an MFA student at the University of New Orleans, where she works as associate poetry editor of Bayou Magazine. She blogs on craft for the North American Review and was awarded a scholarship to attend the 2015 NYS Summer Writer's Institute. Her poems can be found or are forthcoming in Pleiades, Vinyl Poetry, ILK Journal, Black Tongue Review, Cleaver, The Buddhist Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
She says her poetry, "seek[s] to facilitate an experience of their emotional content by using field composition to force/enable multiple reads while disrupting the left-to-right fluidity of the initial read." Intention Setting
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Ella NowickiElla Nowicki is a student in Wisconsin whose work is appears in Rust+Moth and is forthcoming in Eunoia Review. She plays the tin whistle and spends her days writing or eating peach pie.
She told us, "'Evelyn' explores crushes. It acts on the ideal of summer light, balconies at friends' houses, and idleness, with the aim of capturing childlike love against engaged reality. I try to avoid the notion that real life is uncreative or bleak." Evelyn
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Vanessa RaneyVanessa Raney is an American living in Croatia and studying the Croatian language. One of her art poems previously appeared in *shuff Poetry* in 2014, while early 2015 saw the publication of her two bilingual animated GIFs in *Poetry Invitational* and *S/tick*. Her first bilingual chapbook *The idea of woman*, which includes an integrated art poem series and original drawings, is due out from dancing girl press in fall 2015. To find out more go to http://vanessa-raney.blogspot.com.
She told us, " 'The days of ends' is an art poem series inspired by by Adso of Montier-En-Der and The Book of Revelation. It was the first attempt I made to create a story across images and through text. All the work is mine." "To Milton" is inspired by the movie *Drive Angry* starring Nicholas Cage, I played with different ideas while creating a poem that combines movement and strangeness. I used tools in Paint and GIMP 2.8. All the work is mine." "The same source" is a mixed media piece that placed an idea in a specific location. The image is in the public domain which I turned into a watermark in order to place the text I created over it." The days of end
To Milton (animated gif) The same source |
Brad GarberBrad Garber writes, paints, draws, photographs, hunts for mushrooms and snakes, and runs around naked in the Great Northwest. He has published poetry and essays in such publications as Clementine Poetry Journal, Sugar Mule, Dark Matter Journal, Gambling the Aisle, Toad Suck Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Barrow Street and other quality publications. 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee. He has shown his drawing and paintings since 1997, in the Portland and Lake Oswego, Oregon area and his photographs have made it onto the front cover of Vine Leaves 2014 Anthology, and in Gravel Magazine, Poor Yorick Journal, Off the Coast, Quail Bell, The Grief Diaries, Livid Squid, Mud Season Review, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, Dirty Chai and Foliate Oak.
While he didn't tell us very much about his work, we loved the mixtures of the different types of media. Earth Words
How It Really Happened |
JudE Cowan MontagueJude Cowan Montague is an artist. writer and composer with a multi-media practice that crosses disciplines. She is active in new printmaking, installation, poetry, prose fiction, film history, vocal work and performance. She is known for her innovative work with international news agency output. This practice developed while working as an archivist for the Reuters Television Archive. Her first collection For the Messengers (Donut Press 2011) re-formed edits from the Reuters output during 2008 as individual poems. Her album The Leidenfrost Effect (Folkwit Records 2015) was co-composed with Dutch producer Wim Oudijk and reimagines quirky stories from the Reuters Life! feed.
She is a broadcaster and curates and hosts The News Agents a weekly hybrid news-arts show on Resonance 104.4 FM. www.judecowanmontague.com She says about her work: "These three files are visual poems from an improvised collection of forty pages created during an art residency in Atina, Italy in August 2015 curated by Rekha Sameer. The visual poems capture and play with aspects of Atina past and present. Atina is in the hills of Lazio and is a small Italian town with Roman remains. Legend has it the city was founded by the god Saturn. Atina was caught up in tragedy during WW2 and after." ATINA - visual poetry 32,
ATINA - visual poetry 35, ATINA - visual poetry 37 |
Richard BaldastyRichard Baldasty's work in short prose, poetry, and text/image has appeared in Shuf Poetry, Gravel, Thick Jam, and Burrow Press Review, among other literary journals. He is self-employed in garden maintenance (aka "yard boy") in Washington State.
He says: "I often work in text/image. For some pieces ("Porcelain Rocker"), I make a collage, then craft a poem to accompany my image; for others ("YES Vertical"), the reverse: I write a poem, then design a collage to mirror it. For many pieces I cut some or all words required from magazines to emphasize the physical nature of text on paper." YES Vertical
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Morgan ChristieMorgan Christie work has appeared in Hippocampus, Aethlon, Blackberry, Germ Magazine, Moko, and elsewhere. She will begin her candidacy at the University of Oxford for the Masters in Creative Writing this fall.
She said, "[These\ poems... were created in response to Orlando White's Bone Light. They reflect nuances of human nature through line, theme, whitespace, and design; a blending of poetry as art that also elevates thematic purpose." This That and the Other Ones
Stages |
Derek Pollard(honorable mentions)Former contest judge Derek Pollard is co-author with Derek Henderson of the book Inconsequentia (BlazeVOX). His poems, creative non-fiction, translations, and reviews have appeared in American Book Review, Colorado Review, Diagram III, Drunken Boat, E·ratio, H_ngm_n, Pleiades, and Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, among numerous other anthologies and journals. Currently, he is Assistant Editor at Interim. More information can be found at http://dpollard.squarespace.com.
He says, ""Click" arose in response to my grandmother's increasing dementia. Our last nearly intelligible exchanges often involved her getting caught in a sort of language spill, with her repeating one word ("bad" was one of the recurrent ones) in a dizzying rush in an effort to form at least one complete sentence. "Connection" is a slightly modified version of a coded error message I received from the New Ohio Review online submission manager in 2009 after trying, unsuccessfully, to upload the file containing my poems. The error persisted over many attempts, indicating that the fault lay with the NOR system. It was an interesting way to receive a rejection: immediately, and as the result of an inadvertent firewall. Derek has been with shuf from the beginning so we have to extend a warm hug! The Click of Speech
Connection: Keep Alive |
Dawn CunninghamDawn Cunningham was raised in Northeast Indiana. Her grandmother Ginny shared the gift of storytelling through a long tradition passed down from mother to daughter. Since Gran’ma Ginny had no daughter to pass the tradition to, her granddaughter—Dawn—became the candidate. Ms Cunningham believes, “The story makes the world live.” She still resides in Northeast Indiana with her fiancé Christopher Hines. She has 4 children and the 9th grandchildren on the way. She earned a BGS and MA from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW). Her work has been published in Confluence, Diagram, Cliterature, MisfitMagazine, The Voices Project, and Flare: The Flagler Review.
She says, "Keep(s)-(h)er" comes about from my daily life of keeping a house and property while dealing with a husband often emotionally absent or fixated on himself to be aware that anything else existed. My children were very active, and I wouldn't have changed that. Organization and cleaning from all of them is the only change I wanted. So, this poem was written due to frustration, feeling that I was just as cluttered asthe house and the property. As for "the dog barks madly my way," the incentive to write was due to the need to write about feelings and experiences. I wanted something unique that brought in the eeriness of sounds at night, a dog barking in the distance, and the insecurity of self. This poem took on many transformations before finding its final form. The poem is meant to be read in sections or across the page. Keep(s)-(h)er
the dog barks madly my way |
Daniel LehanDaniel Lehan's visual texts have been published in Ditch, *82 Review, The Delinquent, Experiential / Experimental, Kumquat, Poetry & Paint, Foame:, Diagram, Postcard Shorts, Ink Sweat and Tears, Shuf, Small Po(r)tions, M58, Indefinite Space, The Stardust Gazette and SPUR. His 'Book Pages Destroyed By Typewriter' are included in The New Concrete, published by Hayward Publishing, London 2015.
He says, "Metro Nightmare One is part of an ongoing series - Metro Nightmares - made from newspaper headlines cut from the METRO newspaper, a free daily newspaper distributed at railway and underground stations in London. The collaged texts are glued into children's books, the pages of which I have painted black. Reading this particular newspaper I am always struck by the level of violence that is recorded daily - words that were perhaps rarely used are now commonplace. " Metro Nightmare One (animated gif)
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Steve TimmSteve Timm is the author of 2 books (Un storia and Disparity) and three chapbooks. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of places, including ShufPoetry. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he teaches English as a second language at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He says about his work, "These poems are from a 100-poem work called Rule of Composition. They are ekphrastic works, written while listening to the Cecil Taylor Feel Trio's ten-CD boxed set called 2 T's for a lovely T. I listened to the entire thing 10 times, hence the 100 poems. The titles are the titles of the trio's music. These three poems are from the second listening. I should add that I was well into this project before I heard of Fred Moten's awesome The Feel Trio." Epicritic (Pertaining to Cutaneous Sensitivity)
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Kayla Rae CandrilliKayla Rae Candrilli received a Bachelors and Masters in Creative Writing from Penn State University and is a current MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. Candrilli was awarded first place in Vela Magazine's non-fiction contest for women, and is published or forthcoming in The Chattahoochee Review, Puerto del Sol, CutBank, The Boiler, Pacifica Literary, and others.
She just hope we got a kick out of her poetry. (Yes we did.) Call Her
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Vanessa RaneyVanessa Raney is an American living in Croatia and studying the Croatian language. One of her art poems previously appeared in *shuff Poetry* in 2014, while early 2015 saw the publication of her two bilingual animated GIFs in *Poetry Invitational* and *S/tick*. Her first bilingual chapbook *The idea of woman*, which includes an integrated art poem series and original drawings, is due out from dancing girl press in fall 2015. To find out more go to http://vanessa-raney.blogspot.com.
She told us, " 'The days of ends' is an art poem series inspired by by Adso of Montier-En-Der and The Book of Revelation. It was the first attempt I made to create a story across images and through text. All the work is mine." "To Milton" is inspired by the movie *Drive Angry* starring Nicholas Cage, I played with different ideas while creating a poem that combines movement and strangeness. I used tools in Paint and GIMP 2.8. All the work is mine." "The same source" is a mixed media piece that placed an idea in a specific location. The image is in the public domain which I turned into a watermark in order to place the text I created over it." The days of end
To Milton (animated gif) The same source |
Daniel HalesDaniel Hales is the author of Tempo Maps, a poetry chapbook with the companion CD: Miner Street Symphony (ixnay press). His work has appeared in many journals, including Verse Daily, Conduit, H_NGM_N, Sentence, Quarter After Eight, and Booth. He’s released three eps with The Ambiguities and three albums with The Frost Heaves, most recently "Contrariwise: Songs From Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass." www.danielhales.com
He told us, "Beward of Falling Rocks is a collaboration between myself and my bandmate Dan Mickus. He wrote and recorded the guitar part; I wrote and recorded the poem that accompanies it. Fragile Use No Hooks and Hymn To The Singularity are both prose poems about music." Beware of Falling Rocks (audio)
Fragile Use No Hooks Hymn To The Singularity |
Scott WiggermanScott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, Presence, and Vegetables and Other Relationships; and the editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga, and Wingbeats II. Recent poems have appeared in Decades Review, Frogpond, Pinyon Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and the anthologies Pushing the Envelope: Epistolary Poems, This Assignment Is So Gay, and Forgetting Home: Poems about Alzheimer’s. He is an editor for Dos Gatos Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He says, ""Across the Sky" is an erasure based on the opening page of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. "The Rest of the Story" is a whiteout erasure based on the last page of James Joyce's story "The Dead" from Dubliners. "Marriage: A Unique Relationship" is a blackout/redacted erasure based on an editorial in The Tennessean against same-sex marriage." Across the Sky
The Rest of the Story Marriage: A Unique Relationship |
JudE Cowan MontagueJude Cowan Montague is an artist. writer and composer with a multi-media practice that crosses disciplines. She is active in new printmaking, installation, poetry, prose fiction, film history, vocal work and performance. She is known for her innovative work with international news agency output. This practice developed while working as an archivist for the Reuters Television Archive. Her first collection For the Messengers (Donut Press 2011) re-formed edits from the Reuters output during 2008 as individual poems. Her album The Leidenfrost Effect (Folkwit Records 2015) was co-composed with Dutch producer Wim Oudijk and reimagines quirky stories from the Reuters Life! feed.
She is a broadcaster and curates and hosts The News Agents a weekly hybrid news-arts show on Resonance 104.4 FM. www.judecowanmontague.com She says about her work: "These three files are visual poems from an improvised collection of forty pages created during an art residency in Atina, Italy in August 2015 curated by Rekha Sameer. The visual poems capture and play with aspects of Atina past and present. Atina is in the hills of Lazio and is a small Italian town with Roman remains. Legend has it the city was founded by the god Saturn. Atina was caught up in tragedy during WW2 and after." ATINA - visual poetry 32,
ATINA - visual poetry 35, ATINA - visual poetry 37 |
John GreyJohn Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Perceptions and Sanskrit with work upcoming in South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Owen Wister Review and Louisiana Literature.
About his work he said, "For those times when a need arises to take a sledgehammer to sense" We said, "yep" extract 59
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Daniel HaLesDaniel Hales is the author of Tempo Maps, a poetry chapbook with the companion CD: Miner Street Symphony (ixnay press). His work has appeared in many journals, including Verse Daily, Conduit, H_NGM_N, Sentence, Quarter After Eight, and Booth. He’s released three eps with The Ambiguities and three albums with The Frost Heaves, most recently "Contrariwise: Songs From Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass." www.danielhales.com
He told us, "Beward of Falling Rocks is a collaboration between myself and my bandmate Dan Mickus. He wrote and recorded the guitar part; I wrote and recorded the poem that accompanies it. Fragile Use No Hooks and Hymn To The Singularity are both prose poems about music." Beware of Falling Rocks (audio)
Fragile Use No Hooks Hymn To The Singularity |
Brad GargerBrad Garber writes, paints, draws, photographs, hunts for mushrooms and snakes, and runs around naked in the Great Northwest. He has published poetry and essays in such publications as Clementine Poetry Journal, Sugar Mule, Dark Matter Journal, Gambling the Aisle, Toad Suck Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Barrow Street and other quality publications. 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee. He has shown his drawing and paintings since 1997, in the Portland and Lake Oswego, Oregon area and his photographs have made it onto the front cover of Vine Leaves 2014 Anthology, and in Gravel Magazine, Poor Yorick Journal, Off the Coast, Quail Bell, The Grief Diaries, Livid Squid, Mud Season Review, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, Dirty Chai and Foliate Oak.
While he didn't tell us very much about his work, we loved the mixtures of the different types of media. Earth Words
How It Really Happened |
Kaleena KovachKaleena Kovach recently received her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is an avid crafter (of words and yarn and cross stitch), and is beginning her journey towards becoming a high school English teacher.
She says, "These poems come from my thesis, a historical and abstract exploration of fire entitled, "ashes are just fire ghosts." The use of image and of text as a visual medium are an attempt to overcome the deficiencies of language. When confronted with tragedy, where words simply do not mean enough, images can begin to fill the gaps." Flickering
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Dawn cunninghamDawn Cunningham was raised in Northeast Indiana. Her grandmother Ginny shared the gift of storytelling through a long tradition passed down from mother to daughter. Since Gran’ma Ginny had no daughter to pass the tradition to, her granddaughter—Dawn—became the candidate. Ms Cunningham believes, “The story makes the world live.” She still resides in Northeast Indiana with her fiancé Christopher Hines. She has 4 children and the 9th grandchildren on the way. She earned a BGS and MA from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW). Her work has been published in Confluence, Diagram, Cliterature, MisfitMagazine, The Voices Project, and Flare: The Flagler Review.
She says, "Keep(s)-(h)er" comes about from my daily life of keeping a house and property while dealing with a husband often emotionally absent or fixated on himself to be aware that anything else existed. My children were very active, and I wouldn't have changed that. Organization and cleaning from all of them is the only change I wanted. So, this poem was written due to frustration, feeling that I was just as cluttered asthe house and the property. As for "the dog barks madly my way," the incentive to write was due to the need to write about feelings and experiences. I wanted something unique that brought in the eeriness of sounds at night, a dog barking in the distance, and the insecurity of self. This poem took on many transformations before finding its final form. The poem is meant to be read in sections or across the page. Keep(s)-(h)er
the dog barks madly my way |
A Rare Find
When the Blarney Stone was sand-blasted for removal of graffiti some years back, there was found faintly but heroically carved upon its hoary surface, an early Celtic verse entitled "Comely Sits Connaught" which has put into doubt the previously accepted historiography of Irish poetry. The complete verse, together with an annotation necessary to the appreciation of its full significance, follows. Da nee boi Tare me ne far From the weighted song Me mither sang to me Of the time of Macuel son of Meduel Fit to be played on The whaled sinews Thy wailing wind: Rune runic runed. Celtic Celtic O And Umber Deen, aye Winter is icummen Through the rye. Hey noonie none The king is in his counting house Maud is gonne. Da nee boi So far defies explanation. The theory: magical incantation or exhortation used to bring feuding clan chiefs to tears thus promoting peace. May also be instruction to youthful warriors where best to cripple enemy with shillelagh. Tare me ne far Variation of Tara, ancient home of Irish kings. See also, "Tor they'll tare your heart in two," Celtic ditty, thought to be war-like in origin. From the weighted song Songs were weightier in those days, no doubt in part due to the heaviness of Irish harps before the invention of plastic. May also refer to the origins of metre: the alternate beat of two hammers on the anvil (weighted = anvil) in the time of Lamiach, traditionally considered the deflowerer of Brigid, Irish Muse-goddess. Me mither sang to meApparently song of some sort whose ultimate origins were lost in antiquity. Of the time of Macuel son of MeduelDuring this time originated the Irish harp to whose accompaniment, like as not, was played the aforementioned song. Fit to be played on The whaled sinews These lines demand to be read together. They refer to the fact that the Irish harp originated, according to tradition, when the wind played on the dried tendons of a beached whale's skeleton. See annotation to Of the time of Macuel son of Meduel, above. The whaling windThe wind wailed. May be a Celtic pun on "whaling wind," see above, the ancient Celts often displaying a wry humor, particularly effective when accompanied on the Irish harp. Rune runic runed Apparently a Latin or Scandanavian import with magical significance; may also be the exclamation of a big loser in the Irish sweepstakes. From this point on there sets in a marked decline in the purely literary merits of the poem paralleling the decline in Irish fortunes as a result of the English conquest. Celtic CelticEarly cheer or incantation used to induce vatic trances at solstice ceremonies. Sometimes combined with whiskey. These two words together with the three in the previous line undoubtedly reflect the five stations of the Celtic year. Both lines also demonstrate the affinity of the Irish bards for alliteration which may stem from the fact that Macuel (previously mentioned) was a stammerer and let Meduel do the speaking for him. The "O" concluding the line explains the later profusion of Irish names, e.g., O'Reilly, O'Hara, adopted in emulation. Of course, it may also constitute a word beginning with this letter, never completed. An esoteric coterie of scholars cannot be shaken from their view that the letter "O" was originally prefixed to the first line of the poem. And Umber DeenProbably a reference to Cork Umber Deen, an Irish football back (dubbed by bardic sportswriters "the svelte Celt"). Aye refers to the ancient football formation in which Deen excelled or possibly the grateful crowd's approbation: "When Irish ayes are smiling." Winter is icummen Odd inscription found pounded somewhat deeper in the stone than the rest, some say by unknown vandal: early twentieth century. Others maintain is an authentic part of the original poem and point to the line next following. Through the ryeNature-fertility reference, or reference to drinking bouts into which bardic sessions frequently degenerated (scholars divided). Rhymes with Aye, two lines previous, perhaps the first instance of rhyme in Irish poetry, a device later "borrowed" for greater effect by Anglo-Saxon poets. Hey nonnie none Anglo-Saxonism believed to have been forced upon the Irish by the cruel overseer of the English king Edward and never quite thrown off although Sein Fein made a valiant effort to do so in the early 20's of the contemporary era. The king is in his counting houseBelieved to refer to King Muldoon the Miserly yet whose liberal allowance of Celtic or Keltic as alternate spellings later resulted in split into northern and southern Ireland. Variant: The king is in his curling house. The king was fond of trivial games or of curling his toes, a permissible royal fetish (opinion split). Maud is gonnethis seeming non sequitur has stumped all investigators. Maud probably meant "mad" in ancient Celtic, and either the king went mad ("gonne mad") or his madness left him ("madness gonne"), perhaps soothed by the harp playing alluded to above. The similarity of the latter conjecture to the Biblical story of King Saul has led some historians to support the theory that the Irish descended from, or intermarried with, a Lost Tribe of Israel. |
Lionel WhiteheadLionel Whitehead's literary novel ebook "The Novel, Kunzman, the novel!" is available from Lulu Book Store, Barnes and Noble Nook and other distributors.
Lionel told us, "Humor, which the Irish reader might like or not like." A Rare Find
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Azia DupontAzia DuPont, a Minnesota native, currently resides in Southern California. She founded the small press Dirty Chai in 2012. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Maudlin House, S/tick, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, Dead Flowers: A Rag | Bohemian Pupil Press and elsewhere. You can find her online via www.aziadupont.com or via Twitter @aziadupont
She says about her work: "I have taken the character April Wheeler out of the pages of "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates and have been working on a collection of erasures, dialogue and poems focusing on April Wheeler and myself. Essentially, April Wheeler is my alter ego- a woman who found herself suddenly stuck in a life she didn't exactly want, not knowing who she was or how she got there. These poems explore the hardest parts of being a mother, wife, person, in a world that expects you to know your role and thrive in it." April Wheeler II
April Wheeler VIII April Wheeler XVII |
Sarah-Jean KrahnSarah-Jean Krahn is the Managing Editor of the feminist creative writing journal S/tick and holds an MA in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory from McMaster University. Her award-winning experimental writing has appeared in various anthologies and journals, including the Berkeley Poetry Review and the academic journal Feminist Studies. More from Sarah-Jean can be found at sarahjeancreates.com.
She told us, ""Access Denied" broadly follows the narrative of a female alderman from Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada who made international headlines when she was apparently kidnapped, then eventually found in Las Vegas. This piece uses fragments of the narrative discovered through online searches to piece together her story and shed a more empathetic light on Ms. Heatherington's "ordeal," as it is often called by these sources, as well as to conduct a feminist criticism of the difficulties faced by female politicians under media glare. The mode of the narrative includes a mimicry of computer language, stemming from the term "Access Denied," which references both the challenge in trying to break into a metaphorical computer/narrative that belongs to someone else and the challenge for women in trying to access and maintain public office. Finally, this mode also helps to represent the multiple voices that clamoured to speak for Ms. Heatherington when she could not speak for herself." Access Denied
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Felino A. SorianoFelino A. Soriano is a poet documenting coöccurrences. His poetic language stems from exterior motivation of jazz music and the belief in language’s unconstrained devotion to broaden understanding. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthologies. Recent poetry collections include Forms, migrating, Of isolated limning, Mathematics, Espials, watching what invents perception, and Of these voices. He edits the online journal, Of/with: journal of immanent renditions. He lives in California with his wife and family and is a director of supported living and independent living programs providing supports to adults with developmental disabilities. Visit felinoasoriano.info for more information.
He says, "These three poems are from a collection I am writing called "Oscillating Echoes", which documents memories being heard and reinterpreted." from Oscillating Echoes 1, 2, 3
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Carlo MatosCarlo Matos has published eight books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. His first book of fiction is now available from Mayapple Press. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in such journals as Iowa Review, Boston Review, PANK, and Paper Darts, among many others. Carlo teaches writing at the City Colleges of Chicago and the Rooster Moans Poetry Coop. He has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Fundação Luso-Americana, and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. A former cage fighter, Carlo now trains fighters when he's not entertaining clients at the Chicago Poetry Bordello. For more about his work, please visit carlomatos.blogpot.com. Follow him on twitter @CarloMatos46.
He says, "These poems are erasures of centos from Simone Muench's WOLF CENTOS. They are a part of a larger manuscript in which I am systematically erasing the wolf from her book. The conceit is that Muench’s book has been recently declassified, but like all declassified government documents, any sensitive (or damning) information has been blacked out. " The Wolf Declassified 1
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Melanie WhithausMelanie Whithaus is in the MFA graduate program at University of Missouri – St. Louis where she studies creative writing. She has been published with Umbrella Factory Magazine, Scapegoat Review, Luciferous webzine, Crack the Spine literary magazine, The Rusty Nail literary magazine, Palaver Journal, and Journey Student Literary Magazine. She has threechapbooks: Enigma (2013), The Aviary (2015), and the upcoming Heart Murmurs and Nosebleeds (TBA). Her blog can be found at meldickinson.tumblr.com, and her writing is known for its raw voice and her “no holds barred” style..
She told us this poem was, "A drunken statement from a friend turned into a collaboration between a photo I had whited-out and the words. The ghosts and the words I felt went perfectly together." The Ghosts are Everywhere
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Derek Pollard(HONORABLE MENTIONS)Former contest judge Derek Pollard is co-author with Derek Henderson of the book Inconsequentia (BlazeVOX). His poems, creative non-fiction, translations, and reviews have appeared in American Book Review, Colorado Review, Diagram III, Drunken Boat, E·ratio, H_ngm_n, Pleiades, and Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, among numerous other anthologies and journals. Currently, he is Assistant Editor at Interim. More information can be found at http://dpollard.squarespace.com.
He says, ""Click" arose in response to my grandmother's increasing dementia. Our last nearly intelligible exchanges often involved her getting caught in a sort of language spill, with her repeating one word ("bad" was one of the recurrent ones) in a dizzying rush in an effort to form at least one complete sentence. "Connection" is a slightly modified version of a coded error message I received from the New Ohio Review online submission manager in 2009 after trying, unsuccessfully, to upload the file containing my poems. The error persisted over many attempts, indicating that the fault lay with the NOR system. It was an interesting way to receive a rejection: immediately, and as the result of an inadvertent firewall. Derek has been with shuf from the beginning so we have to extend a warm hug! The Click of Speech
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Richard King Perkins IIMy name is Richard King Perkins II and I am a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. I live in Crystal Lake, IL with my wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. I am a three-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. In a six year period, my work has appeared in more than a thousand publications.
He just told us that his poems were, "Exchanges between poets and editors." We thought it was just a bit more... 11 Point Times New Roman
I Already Told You How This Was Going to End Mockography |
Shloka ShankarShloka Shankar is a freelance writer from India. She loves experimenting with found poetry and Japanese short-forms such as haiku, haiga, and haibun from time to time. Some of her poems have recently appeared in Eunoia Review, Infinity's Kitchen, The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society, Oddball Magazine, ATOMIC Poetry Journal, and The Other Bunny. She is also the founding editor of the literary & arts journal, Sonic Boom.
She says, "These pieces are in response to some of the experiments outlined by Charles Bernstein." Monoku/Vispo (cover)
Priyadarshini KomalaPriyadarshini Komala is a painter based in Washington, D.C. Her work portrays Indian Identity, nature, self-reflection, science and womanhood. Ms. Komala has shown her work at several art galleries in Washington. D.C including the prestigious District of Columbia Arts Center and has been featured in distinguished magazines.
She named her art: Sea of Thoughts Sea of Thoughts (cover)
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