Love or Fear

Brain Mill Press was honored to get these five wonderful “Love or Fear” submissions to our final event for Poetry Month. Please read the final entries by Elizabeth Berry, Pam Faste, GB Gordon, Dylan Loring, and Karen Wellsbury, and tomorrow, we’ll announce an overall winner from both the April 17th and this April 30th Brain Mill Press celebrates Poetry Month poetry posts.

Stars in the Sky

Elizabeth Berry

Maybe your cancer has come backand that is why it is so hard to sleep and when you do sleepyou wake up with a throat full of sand and you stumbleacross the worn wood floors to the kitchen for waterand gulp it down by the glassful trying not to look at the windowbecause the moon might look back and once you lock eyes with itit’s hard not to notice the blanket of stars that spreads out forever

and there’s just something about a blanket of starsspreading out foreverthat is destroying youmaking your heart literally ache in your bodyas you yearn for a boy’sfat hand in your handhis face a moon shining back in a picturethat you keep hidden in a drawerwith all of the other sharp knivessafe therefrom stars raining down from skiesfrom windshields exploding on impact.

You rub the scars.Stare out the window.

Moment Before

Pam Faste

It’s like thisthat moment before I speak,or write or post or sendor walk into a room, andthen again inthe moment just after, but also beforeas I waitawareness etched in acidthat sizzling, light-headed anticipation ofyour attention,my wrongnessreflected in your eyesin yoursilence drawn back to an ugly, rock strewn beachthe wave caught at the apex of its curvebefore the rising roar,before the scalding onrushof shame

you

G. B. Gordon

your face of cream and steeland laughter, like water and wholeand your old, blue Volvo

brick and slanting light

framingmuscled gracedancing, breathless, like a good gallop

a lady’s dirty nailsand sun marksat the corners of your eyes

a taut feelinglike guitar stringsfine-tuning the sensesno eternityjust now

Love Poem

Dylan Loring

I can’t set out to write a love poembecause when I doI end up runningcheese through the grater.

I can’t set out to write a love poembecause it makes me feellike I’m invoking broad generalizationsinstead of interpersonal revelations.

I want to write a love poemand have the person it’s intended forread it in silencethen hug me.

I want to write a love poemfor one personso that that one person knowsit is a true love poem.

Love is likefinding a good sushi restaurantin the African desertassuming you’re really into sushi.

Love is likean agoraphobe leaving his housejust this onceand just for her.

Poetry is likeprose vomiting a sculpturethat the person you loveproceeds to appreciate.

Poetry is likea smiling severed deer headon a platterbut with words.

Poetry is likea bunch of similesdesperately attemptingto convey feeling.

This is a love poem,this is not a Hallmark card,and you can’t buy one of thoseduring my love poem.

This is a love poem,we are a love poem,we are a seriesof love poems.

This is a love poem,it is cheesy,admit thatyou love it.

Dylan Loring is an MFA candidate at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he studies Poetry and Screenwriting. In addition, he hosts KMSU 89.7’s Weekly Reader author interview program and serves as Poetry Editor for the Blue Earth Review.

Grace and Tommy

Karen Wellsbury

Pa brought a puppy home, wrappedIn his coat, at Christmas remember that? Laughterbubbles up, while hands on the tablegrasp and twine, searching for a truthwhere’s my Tommy, he’s late, he’llmiss tea. Grandad died Nan, Tommy’sgone. Watch for recognition, hazy eyedremembrance, Tommy died?he’s in his room, don’t lie, and whena trick of the light looks like a smilewe have tea, I make believeit’s alright. Hand slaps table, fragilebrittle china white, her rage like flash fireshe fixedmy fissured heart, custard pourer supremeGrace beloved of Tommy,cocooned in kitchen warmth, teasated – hold my hand, pleaseknow me. Tommy needs his teashe flattens her skirt like my heart, myfirst love, took me to school, Itake her to bed.

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices wants to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like . . . the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill.

Work

Brain Mill Press is so pleased to present our first set of poets participating in Brain Mill Press Celebrates Poetry Month 2015. This group of poets responded to the poem prompt WORK. We’re moved and honored to present these poets and their poems to you.

On Growing Up

Elizabeth Berry

On the day that my grandfather died my grandmother lit a cigarette looked down at the stricken faces of her children and said well, we still have this farm to take care of. My mother, then eight, looked out the window at the cows that crowded the fence, waiting for food, for release from the swollen udders, and beyond at the hay, tall in the fields, and at the tractors resting in the sheds, waiting for the long legs of morning to walk up and turn the key.

At eighteen, my mother, as lean and brown as a leather strap covered her face and veiled her reasons to follow my father a hundred miles from home.

Three kids in three years.

        Mortgage

                yard

                        car

                                pool

                                        PTA

Low money, no money, grocery store clerk, pregnant daughter, baby crying all night, no lights, pay that bill but another’s coming.

And so it went for thirty years. Yet every month they would drive back over the mountain as visitors, and sit, drinking tea until the cows moaned and the others rose to go to work.

Occasionally, reluctant to unclasp ourselves from the circle of laughter and soft shadows that floated down from the familiar ceilings, we would follow them to the cool concrete floors, and clanging gates of the milking barn. My mother, face lit by the glow of the yellow interior lights, moved quickly to lead, to coax the herd into position and nodded with satisfaction when they lined up, and did their jobs.

Refracting

Audrey T. Carroll

Not the gentle crashing of ocean againstgrains of glass or the air againstphotosynthesizing branch

The crashing of steel against steel,wheel and rail complaining againstone another until one topples the othersends it careening

Time folds in on itself.

State to state or borough to borough?Concerns for type of steel bullet give way toconcerns for a mother traveling, perhapsby train that day

Rushing to an officethat no kindergarten teacher should have—Principal, maybe? Professor?Hers? Mine?

Time folds in on itself.

Longer I lookin the mirror, more I see herreflection staring back inthe way nose widens to smile,hand-me-down teacher’s clothes

Time folds in on itself.

Wake unsure what state I’m in.

Audrey T. Carroll is an MFA candidate with the Arkansas Writer’s Program. She graduated with a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University.  Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Fiction International, Hermeneutic Chaos, Foliate Oak, Writing Maps’ A3 Review, The Cynic Online Magazine, and others.

Dedication Is Gold

Megan Ryan

I’ve started in schoolTaking detailed notesThat covered every pageStudying for hoursPreparing for tests.

I was an overachieverGetting A’s and B’sWas a valedictorian in 8thThen saludictorian in 12th.

College was the challengeTaking on monstrous coursesThat tested my skillsTo see if I had what it takes.

I tumbled and fell,But I didn’t give inKept climbing to the topTo reach the peak of successAs the sun shined upon me.

Five years passedGot my degreeNow I needed a jobEasier said than done.

Kept searching high and lowBeen applying everywherePracticing and improvingFor upcoming interviews.

Though nothing has come alongBeen about three years nowYet I’m not giving upI’m sure the time will comeWhen my dream job appearsFor this hard-working achiever.

Code of Iron

Kim Solem

Men of ironClimb the skySome will fallA long way to dieNo single one of themHas ever screamed or criedIn agony and horrorOn their deadly diveBecause Iron WorkersLive and die by this code‘When you’re falling’‘Meet your death bold’

Once Upon a Holiday Moon

Kim Solem

The Monday after HalloweenI laid down the law to my employees“You’d better be here on the jobOn both Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve”

And if you don’t like what I have to sayLook for someplace else that paysCause here in the good old USAIt’s your boss’s way, or the highway”

Much to my surprise no one protestedNot one dared even chirpExcept for old Mable,Who slowly turned roundBent over,And lifted up her skirt

Pulling down her bloomersAll the way to her anklesShe looked over her shoulderThen said with a smirk,“You can kiss my old bare assCause this girl won’t be a slaveFor some asshole of a jerk”

I was shocked to say the leastAnd before I could show Mabel the doorAll my other employeesTurned round, then bent overAnd let their pants hit the floor

Now I ask you my fellow AmericansWhat sort of countryAllows folks to moon their boss?Let alone even dareTry to back talk?

No wonder we send jobs to ChinaAnd some to CameroonNo one there would try to moonA rich and powerful tycoon

My tale of woe gets worseAfter filling out all those pink slipsWhen I left my office, what did I find?All my employees picketingIn long strike line

And you know who was leading it?That damn old MableHolding a hickory stick“Oh Shit!”

So heed my warningMy fellow entrepreneursBefore telling folks to dance to your tuneThere just might be oneEmployee like old MableWho’s not afraidTo show you the moon

Author’s Note: Forgive me but within every pretentious poet, there is a thirteen year old, dying to get out.

More Women on the Board

Karen Wellsbury

Not enough women on the board,mainly made of men.How they will be lured,not enough women on the board?Is this sexism to be cured,to break the male dominated hoard.Not enough, women on the boardmainly maid of men?

For this year’s National Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press & Voices wants to add to your #TBR pile, sing siren songs of unsung heroes, and signal boost living poets we should be reading more. By the end of the month, we hope you will have acquired 30+ new books of poetry and that they continue to multiply in the darkness of your library. Explore new voices & new forms — re-read some old favorites — play if you liked this poet, you’ll like . . . the old-fashioned way, algorithm-free — just poetry lovers talking to poetry lovers, as the Universe intended. Happy #NaPoMo2019 from Brain Mill.

National Poetry Month Contest Winners 2018

National Poetry Month Contest Winners

Brittany Adames and Alex Stolis

Thank you poets – thank you for sharing your words, your language & imagery, your questions, and your ways of interacting with this beautiful & confounding world we inhabit. #NaPoMo makes April a month rich with posts & poetry & poets to read. The submitters to Brain Mill’s contest have enriched our reading, from prose poems to lines of lifted wisdom to switching points-of-view, to poems paired with and sandwiched alongside images.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our Editors’ Choice Selections over these last weeks, as well as highlights from our featured poets. We’re excited to share the poems of our winning poets, as well as a short list of fabulous poets whose work you should seek out & read – we know we’ll be eager to read more of them.

—C. Kubasta, Assistant Poetry Editor

Winners:

Brittany Adames, “A TANK WITHOUT GASOLINE”

Alex Stolis, “Never isn’t as long as we think”

Short List:

Paramita Vadhahong, “A Meme Reimagined: Love Between the Gaps”

Emily Hockaday, “Trending Topics”

Mira Martin-Parker, “Like a Poor Girl”

Merridawn Duckler, “Samsara” and “#Nine Pick Up Line”

Cherry Jubilee, “Bordello Song”

A TANK WITHOUT GASOLINE

by Brittany Adames

About Brittany Adames

Brittany Adames is an eighteen-year-old Dominican-American writer. Her work has been previously published in CALAMITY Magazine, Bombus Press, Rumble Fish Quarterly, TRACK//FOUR, and Rust+Moth, among others. She is pursuing a major in creative writing at Emerson College and serves as the poetry editor for Ascend Magazine and prose reader for The Blueshift Journal. She has been regionally and nationally recognized by the Scholastic Writing Awards.

National Poetry Month

Never isn’t as long as we think

by Alex Stolis

We are impermanence, filaments of light. We are not straight
Lines drawn from Point A to Forever highlighted in transparent
Blue. We spin ourselves tales. Of beginnings, of firsts. First kiss
First touch. First fuck. We mythologize impatience, fumble with
Buttons, snaps, belts unbuckled and hair unpinned. We become
A sonic boom rattling windows and shaking walls as if never can
Be measured by decibels. Not how long we can hold our breath.

About Alex Stolis

Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis; he has had poems published in numerous journals. Recent chapbooks include Justice for all, published by Conversation Paperpress (UK) based on the last words of Texas Death Row inmates. Also, Without Dorothy, There is No Going Home from ELJ Publications. Other releases include an e-chapbook, From an iPod found in Canal Park; Duluth, MN, from Right Hand Pointing, and John Berryman is Dead from White Sky e-books. His full-length collection, Postcards from the Knife Thrower, was a runner-up for the Moon City Poetry Award. His chapbook, Perspectives on a Crime Scene, and a full length photo/poetry collection, Pop. 1280, are forthcoming from Grey Borders books.

National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month 2018

Maybe you have lines living in you. Maybe you’ve been walking around like the speaker in Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones”: “This place could be beautiful, / right? You could make this place beautiful.” Maybe you’ve been inspired by Isobel O’Hare’s erasures, and have an urge to address some things. Maybe you’ve woken up in the spiked night, with a line swimming out of the deep. Maybe you have a story to tell. Or, maybe you memorized Jericho Brown’s “Colosseum” and have been repeating to yourself: “I cannot locate the origin / Of slaughter, but I know / How my own feels, that I live with it / And sometimes use it / To get the living done . . .”

These poetic efforts have touched me in the last few months, in that strange trigonometry of language, chance, and seeking, that we readers and writers do. Brown’s lines resonated with me, brought me low, and offered something – if not quite comfort, then a kind of recognition.

Poems by Wren Hanks and Tracy Mishkin

Poetry Month Spotlight

Poems by Wren Hanks and Tracy Mishkin

We are excited to share poetry by Wren Hanks and Tracy Mishkin, whose chapbooks have been selected by editor Kiki Petrosino for inclusion in the Mineral Point Poetry Series this fall. Wren Hanks’s The Rise of Genderqueer will be available August 14, and Tracy Mishkin’s This Is Still Life releases September 18.

Poems by Wren Hanks

from The Rise of Genderqueer

It’s her mouth on my cock in a unisex bar stall / my hand squeezing his cock under the greasy table / it’s my girlfriend on the marble countertop / while I’m breaking a wooden spoon / against her ass / Daddy, it’s me in a car / at 16 / convincing a Catholic boy / to put his hands on my breasts / it’s that you think / I’m a dyke / when you see my shaved head / like definitions / will protect anyone / from me / Daddy, I’m coming / for your daughters / I’m coming for your sons / coming for the dog whistle genders / in between / perhaps I am / the dog whistle / in between / Daddy Pence / don’t wait up

Dear Daddy Pence, meet me at Olive Garden

We’ll compare notes on nuptial bliss / on nights staring at Seven of Nine’s tits / while our wives drink reasonable / thimbles of wine / on ironing shirts / (tomatoes off the vine, Daddy, / and garlic bread too) / on spitting our Crest into those sinks / rimmed / with cat hair / I’ll take your hand / and ask you how long it’s been / really / since one look / at a man’s / brought your pulse up / I know the answer, already, Daddy / It’s the camera-ready red / this soldier’s aiming for

Daddy Pence, when you kiss your wife is it like

stars and stripes / your tongue an eagle’s wing / no wait a talon / do you make her mute, daddy / the way you wanna make me / a silent statistic / de-transitioned with those / chewable / bubblegums hips / Daddy, were you ever / the beauty / on someone’s bed / have you ever been / a fucking object

About Wren Hanks

Wren Hanks is the author of Prophet Fever (Hyacinth Girl Press) and Ghost Skin (Porkbelly Press). A 2016 Lambda Emerging Writers Fellow, his recent work appears in Best New Poets 2016, Foglifter, Jellyfish Magazine, The Wanderer, and elsewhere. He is an associate editor for Sundress Publications and co-edited Curious Specimens, an anthology of the strange and uncanny. His third chapbook, gar child, is forthcoming from Tree Light Books. He lives in Brooklyn, and you can find him on twitter @suitofscales.

National Poetry Month

Poems by Tracy Mishkin

from This Is Still Life

The Deadweight Machine

As if a tectonic shift has dumped a mountain
on his chest, my husband slumps in the easy chair.
Five weeks until the homeowners insurance
drops us, stacks of useful junk around the yard.
The deadweight machine measures how you hold up
against tension and compression.

When he begins to snore like Rip Van Winkle,
I imagine an organic grocer’s typo has created
a display of orgasmic blueberries. I eat them all
without paying. A man in a green apron restocks
the shelves with tender hands.

Before the war, people weighed beginning again
in a new language against the coming storm.
Every time I think of leaving, he catches a death
rattle in my car, stops the house from flooding,
sweet-talks a raccoon out the kitchen door.

This is Still Life

The house has a fresh coat of pain.
Screwdriver and utility knife abandoned
on the bed. Drawers choked
with plastic forks. Receipts, seeds,
and batteries. Needles, carpet tacks,
an open blade. Red string streaming
from cabinets—the battle flag
of a man who throws nothing away.

I should have split when I first saw
his apartment, crammed with power tools
and old TVs. Barely space to sleep.
But we weren’t sleeping, we were burning.
Falling. More room in my heart
for crazy than I knew.

My mother knows I’d rather get wet
than wait. She warns me not to fight
to reach the items on the highest shelf.
Lightning isn’t fair, she says. Arugula
doesn’t make it healthy. When you need
a Phillips, all you find are flatheads.
She calls my house memento mori:
orchids, bonsai, sun-bleached boards.

Stumbling Through

After the yellow tape and the dark blood,
after the wallet with our family photos
is released, after three days of paid bereavement
pass and the jar goes round at work
for casket funds, after I dream of identifying
the body, after the cops come back
to question us again, after praise for the Lord
and the embalmer’s skill, after whispers of revenge
and today we do not mourn, then the first breath
without a sob.

About Tracy Mishkin

Tracy Mishkin is a call center veteran with a PhD and a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Butler University. She is the author of two previous chapbooks, I Almost Didn’t Make It to McDonald’s (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and The Night I Quit Flossing (Five Oaks Press, 2016). She been nominated twice for a Pushcart — both times by Parody — and published in Raleigh Review and Rat’s Ass Review.

National Poetry Month
National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month 2018

Maybe you have lines living in you. Maybe you’ve been walking around like the speaker in Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones”: “This place could be beautiful, / right? You could make this place beautiful.” Maybe you’ve been inspired by Isobel O’Hare’s erasures, and have an urge to address some things. Maybe you’ve woken up in the spiked night, with a line swimming out of the deep. Maybe you have a story to tell. Or, maybe you memorized Jericho Brown’s “Colosseum” and have been repeating to yourself: “I cannot locate the origin / Of slaughter, but I know / How my own feels, that I live with it / And sometimes use it / To get the living done . . .”

These poetic efforts have touched me in the last few months, in that strange trigonometry of language, chance, and seeking, that we readers and writers do. Brown’s lines resonated with me, brought me low, and offered something – if not quite comfort, then a kind of recognition.

“A Young Girl Pares Fruit,” “You Gotta Let It Hit the Skin,” “Like a Poor Girl,” and “Oyinbo Banana”

Editors' Choice Poems

“A Young Girl Pares Fruit,” “You Gotta Let It Hit the Skin,” “Like a Poor Girl,” and “Oyinbo Banana”

We’d also like to acknowledge excellent work by poets Holly Mancuso, Aby Macias, and Brittany Adames.

We hope you’ll enjoy these editors’ picks as much as we did.

A Young Girl Pares Fruit

by Brittany Adames

About Brittany Adames

Brittany Adames is an eighteen-year-old Dominican-American writer. Her work has been previously published in CALAMITY Magazine, Bombus Press, Rumble Fish Quarterly, TRACK//FOUR, and Rust+Moth, among others. She is pursuing a major in creative writing at Emerson College and serves as the poetry editor for Ascend Magazine and prose reader for The Blueshift Journal. She has been regionally and nationally recognized by the Scholastic Writing Awards.

National Poetry Month

You Gotta Let It Hit the Skin

by Shirley Jones-Luke

About Shirley Jones-Luke

Shirley Jones-Luke is a poet and a writer of color. Ms. Luke lives in Boston, Mass. She has an MA from UMass Boston and an MFA from Emerson College. Her work mixes poetry with memoir. Shirley was a Poetry Fellow at the 2017 Watering Hole Poetry Retreat. She will be attending VONA (Voices of Our Nation) in June 2018.

National Poetry Month

Like a Poor Girl

by Mira Martin-Parker

I wear my jewelry like a poor girl—large and real. I wear my clothes like a poor girl—cleaned and ironed. My whites are always whiter that white and I’m always de-linting myself when I wear black. There’s not a spec of dirt or fuzz on my sweaters. Like a poor girl, I am self-conscious at formal tables. I lose my tongue. I don’t order beer. Like a poor girl I read Dostoyevsky on the train. Because, like a poor girl, I have over educated myself. I am like a poor girl when I get my paycheck. I spend it all at once, down to my last ten dollars. I cannot save a thing. For, like a poor girl there are so many things I need, like a cashmere coat, tailor-made in North Beach, with silk lining and antique buttons. And it’s impossible for me to imagine going without wine from the wine shop, fresh baked bread, and organic produce, since like a poor girl, I must have the best of everything. My desk at work is always clean, my bathroom at home is spotless—I bleach each mold spot when it first appears. Like a poor girl, I live in the best city, in a lovely neighborhood, in a darling apartment. But in spite of all that I do, like a poor girl, nothing works, and it’s always apparent right away to everyone that I am a poor girl, and like the poor girl that I am I can’t help looking into the windows of Boulevard restaurant as I pass by on my lunch break, even though I tell myself that there’s nothing to look at inside but white people eating delicate portions of salmon and tossed greens and drinking glasses of wine. Still, I can’t help but look in at them—especially the men—because deep inside I will always be, just like a poor girl.

About Mira Martin-Parker

Mira Martin-Parker earned an MFA in creative writing at San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in various publications, including the Istanbul Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Mythium, and Zyzzyva. Her collection of short stories, The Carpet Merchant’s Daughter, won the 2013 Five [Quarterly] e-chapbook competition.​

Oyinbo Banana

by Uche Ogbuji

Who said they brought Magilla from Congo bush? Na lie! Saint Lumumba himself showed me His New York City stomping grounds. That Toby Couldn’t see for Kunta Kinte, though He made hay on claiming President Nonesuch For Kenya. Oh no, this ape of the John Doe Was fabbed in US of A. Republics Are King Kong of their combined simian subjects; This one’s about to eat its Jump Jim Crow.

The 45 speed of 419 scheme Plays like this:

                                   Oh you noble poor, rejects                       From the Merkin Dreamliner, we’re on your team.

Just shave an edge more from your pennies our way And we’ll guarantee a lifetime of C.R.E.A.M. Our magic hat is bringing your jobs back, Bae!

Just need a deposit to get things rolling: Health care, welfare, public housing, let’s just say We’ll trade imploded tax code when we come polling Won’t hurt a bit! Trust us, our fathers made Grand puba, We keep the Illuminati Skeleton key in hock at the lodges, see!

Next to Brazzaville diamonds, to kryptonite For China when we throw cash at the Navy And best believe we’ll serve Mexico right From the get-go. Which brings us to that mob, The refugees and immigrants here to fight You good white people for each and every job.

We got your back, sending them all the fuck back, Skewer those fools on their own shish-kebab Our motto: build a wall; hug a smokestack, Jack!

Stand back from flood of green MAGAmillions The whiteman economy back in black.

It lives on in breathtaking resilience, Lure of big men, with their Beemer Benzes, Their WAGs spa-side touching up their brazilians.

An aspiring eye shutters out all offenses, It winks at junkets to Merry Lagos, Watering down its shock at such expenses.

But should they even think to dump the Negus Problem is, what you vote ain’t what you get; Our ballot box is stuffed—old Cold War threat Cyber-wise realized to come back and break us— Active Measures, comrade. This candidate Is echt Manchu, mind you, he knows no nyet.

He’ll yell: Look! Here comes a caliphate, Then auction off our rivers and our shale. Think we won’t deal to return the Kodiak State? Magilla’s taken the shop: we’re all on sale.

 

About Uche Ogbuji

Uche Ogbuji, more properly Úchèńnà Ogbújí, was born in Calabar, Nigeria. He lived in Egypt, England, and elsewhere before settling near Boulder, Colorado. A computer engineer and entrepreneur by trade, his poetry chapbook, Ndewo, Colorado (Aldrich Press) is a Colorado Book Award Winner and a Westword Award Winner (“Best Environmental Poetry”). His poems, published worldwide, fuse Igbo culture, European classicism, American Mountain West setting, and Hip-Hop. He co-hosts the Poetry Voice podcast and featured in the Best New African Poets anthology.

On Twitter as @uogbuji.

 

National Poetry Month
National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month 2018

Maybe you have lines living in you. Maybe you’ve been walking around like the speaker in Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones”: “This place could be beautiful, / right? You could make this place beautiful.” Maybe you’ve been inspired by Isobel O’Hare’s erasures, and have an urge to address some things. Maybe you’ve woken up in the spiked night, with a line swimming out of the deep. Maybe you have a story to tell. Or, maybe you memorized Jericho Brown’s “Colosseum” and have been repeating to yourself: “I cannot locate the origin / Of slaughter, but I know / How my own feels, that I live with it / And sometimes use it / To get the living done . . .”

These poetic efforts have touched me in the last few months, in that strange trigonometry of language, chance, and seeking, that we readers and writers do. Brown’s lines resonated with me, brought me low, and offered something – if not quite comfort, then a kind of recognition.