Imani Davis Wins the BMP 2016 Poetry Month Contest

by | Jan 30, 2019 | NPM 2016, Poetry

We are delighted to present the winner of April’s Brain Mill Press Celebrates Poetry Month Contest for 2016:

“Grave Robber Digs with a Pen” by Imani Davis.

We received submissions from nearly eighty individual poets of a very high caliber, from which poetry month coordinator C. Kubasta selected the winning poem, as well as short and long lists of finalists (see below).

We are grateful to C. Kubasta for her hard work in organizing our poetry month event, as well as to all of the contributors, contest entrants, and readers for making this such a rich and wonderful month. If, after reading Imani Davis’s winning poem, you’re in the mood for still more wonderful poetry, check out our editors’ choice picks for week one, week two, and week three, and investigate the full list of poetry month essays and poems.

–Ruthie Knox & Mary Ann Rivers, Brain Mill Press Publishers

***

And what an April Poetry Month it was. Here at Brain Mill we posted poems and essays, conversations between poets and lovers of poetry, and shared love far and wide. Entries for our poetry contest arrived from all over the world, keeping us nourished all month long.

I remember once when I misspelled “playwright” my teacher gave me this helpful device: It’s playwright, like wrought iron, because that’s how hard they work on their craft. (He was a theatre person. I never misspelled it again). But why don’t poets, then, have some difficult-to-predict spelling? Something that suggests red-glow-heat, twisting metal, long-handled tools and the long cool in the ashy water?

No matter. The poems I kept coming back to did just this. The tension between language and form was always there, deftly handled, turned and smoothed until the poem could not be in any form but this one. And here and there the wright left barbs for the reader to find, a moment that stops her mid-line, breathless, the body of the poem waiting with her.

–C. Kubasta, Contest Judge & Poetry Month Coordinator

Grave Robber Digs with a Pen

Imani Davis

When a Black ______ dies and they last breath is played on repeat, must we still paint the forest? I debate this with my hands.

They say Ain’t nobody else to remember the blood. I say they ain’t the ones bleeding.

I interrogate every poem about the dead. There they go, robbing the grave and settling in the boy’s place.

What do we grow with this? While I ask, the poem picks lilies off the casket.

The grief is not all (a) mine.

Vulture’s talon ( be ) artist in my hands     say look how          the skull shines in your light.

Watch: ____. _____. You ain’t flinch? How you used to forcing reincarnation?

I get it. Shut the news off and the screen’s a mirror. You don’t ask to be reflected in the black of its pause.

You here though: Dense tangle of light hostage

in God’s 3 dimensions. Or maybe not You. (the faces all blur together,

Ghost shadowed and inadequate. It’s hard to tell the difference.)

My hands mimic a bullet’s carnivorous twitch. Say it ain’tme, but it could be. It ain’t meyet.

I say the fear of the bullet is not the bullet itself.

Some folk never get the chance to flinch. I translate the body of a boy into language.

The lines will never break as clean as his bones.

After the show, the check cuts like the scalpel do.

I eat. I buy my mother something

she can never lose. It is not security.

Imani Davis is Black magic. She currently works on Urban Word NYC’s Youth Leadership Board. Her poetry has appeared in Rookie Magazine and the occasional trash can.

Poetry Month Contest Finalists

Shortlist

“There ain’t nothing like Breck for Stop n Stare Hair” by Jessica Jacobs (also an Editors’ Choice Pick)

“Brunch Plans” by Tyler Gillespie

Longlist

“Extinction” by Robin Johnstone

“psychonausea” by Catherine Chen (also an Editors’ Choice Pick)

“The Frequency of a Periodic Function” by Jen Karetnick

“Watching the Glassmakers” by Daniel Lassell

“Waves Like Breath / There Is Finally Quiet” by Meghan Sterling

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month

If “love calls us to the things of this world,” then poetry too can call us to think about challenging questions, difficult situations, and social justice, implicating and engaging the reader with the world we live in, in the hope that this engagement is a step toward wrestling with our better selves.

Sabine Holzman Wins the BMP 2017 Student Poetry Contest

by | Jan 30, 2019 | NPM 2017, Poetry

Sabine Holzman Wins the BMP 2017 Student Poetry Contest

We are delighted to present the winner of April’s Brain Mill Press Student Poetry Contest for 2017:

“self-portrait as joan of arc” by Sabine Holzman.

We received submissions from student poets of a very high caliber, from which poetry month coordinator C. Kubasta selected the winning poem, as well as a short list of finalists (see below).

We are grateful to C. Kubasta for her hard work in organizing our poetry month event, as well as to all of the contributors, contest entrants, and readers for making this such a rich and wonderful month. If, after reading Sabine Holzman’s winning poem, you’re in the mood for still more wonderful poetry, check out our editors’ choice picks for week 1 and week 2, and investigate the full list of poetry month essays and poems.

–Ruthie Knox & Mary Ann Rivers, Brain Mill Press Publishers

***

During the month of April, we read poems that arrived from around the country — from Texas and California and New York, from Indiana and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, from Oregon and Alabama and Connecticut. We read poems that winged their way to us from Singapore. These voices clamored: a variety of forms & images & words called out to be heard, to be read aloud, to be spoken softly and proclaimed, their peculiar musics sweet and salt on the tongue.

I’ve just come back from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets spring conference, where poetry filled the air too, and where we were blessed to listen to Mark Doty read his poetry. Poems like “In Two Seconds” speak of the two seconds between when the police cruiser ground to a halt and Tamir Rice’s life did too. Poems like “Atlantis” where Doty weaves a symphony of memory and love: the human desire to hold on — to each other and this life, to save the things we can, to impetus to write of the things that pass from our hands, whether cities submerged or the hurt loon we hope to nurse so that it will leave us. Between poems, Doty spoke of how the poet must nurse a poem in uncertainty, giving it space to surprise both the poet and the reader.

In selecting the below poems, I choose poems that surprised me. The winning and finalist poets are willing to let poems develop, to follow where the poem wishes to go — to understand poetry as a collaboration between the poet, the moment, and the language available at that moment. Since I read Sabine Holzman’s “Self-Portrait as Joan of Arc,” those final lines ring in me, sing in me. The speaker’s question is a question that perhaps cannot be asked (except in a poem). The answer cannot be given, except in a future unwritten poem. May we all stay “hungry / & lonely & sometimes lethal” if it leads to poems like this.

—C. Kubasta, BMP Assistant Poetry Editor and Contest Judge

self-portrait as joan of arc

Sabine Holzman

i go into / the living room

not to pray not to recite scripture

but because i am thinking about dying or

possibly living like this like a thing

with teeth for a heart

joan you were 19 when you burned at stake

17 when you ended the siege of orleans

& i am just now 17, not leading armies or

fighting a war or delivering god’s word

i’ve got no armor on my breast / no angels in my ears

i don’t know holiness i don’t know how to live a legend,

die a martyr

joan i’m not a saint like you not a story like you

i’m 17 and i’m just trying to survive but i don’t

know how to survive i’m just a girl who’s hungry

& lonely & sometimes lethal, i’m no joan of arc

not something that knows how to be soft

my mother tells me i’m something violent

did your mother too, joan / did your mother too

Poetry Month Contest Finalists

Valerie Wu, “This Land of Color of Mine”

Courtney Felle, “A Reckoning”

Topaz Winters, “Dream Sequence”*

Sully Pujol, “Islamophobia”**

***

*Topaz Winters’s poem “When My First Boyfriend Learned I Was on Anti-Psychotics, He Laughed and Told Me He Always Suspected I Was Crazier Than I Let On” was an editors’ choice pick. Read it here.

** Sully Pujol’s poem “Admission” was an editors’ choice pick. Read it here.

About Sabine Holzman

Sabine Holzman is a poet and student from Southern California. She attends Orange County School of the Arts for creative writing. Her writing has been recognized by numerous contests, including Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Chapman’s Annual Holocaust Art and Writing Contest, From the Bow Seat’s Ocean Awareness Contest, and been published in numerous small lit mags. In her free time, she enjoys linguistics, Iceland, exilliteratur, and horror movies. You can find her at sabineholzman.weebly.com.

National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month 2017

The theme of teaching and learning poetry, and our emphasis on student poets, speaks directly to the action of poetry in our country and global community. Never has the education of our students been so threatened, and never has truth been more challenged than in the current political climate. The truth emerges through education and the resistance and questions of our youngest generation, and it is their lead we absolutely must follow if they are to live in a society that fosters their achievements, liberation, and justice. Truth emerges through poetry as well — poetry bears witness to what truths seem impossible to speak any other way. Its constraints limit the temptation to misconstrue, obscure, and bury.

2017 Editors’ Choice Poems: Week 2

by | Jan 30, 2019 | NPM 2017, Poetry

2017 Editors' Choice Poems: Week 2

Topaz Winters

We are delighted to present this week’s selections from the Brain Mill Press 2017 Poetry Month Contest. We received many outstanding entries, from which this piece by Topaz Winters stood out. We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.

When My First Boyfriend Learned I Was on Anti-Psychotics, He Laughed and Told Me He Always Suspected I Was Crazier Than I Let On

Topaz Winters

I wanted to murder him,
but his body kept getting
in the way. We learn to
live with that sawtoothed
loudness, caught halfway
between the wonder &
the wanting. & how I
wanted. I wanted his eyes
blue & razed shut. Wanted
apology like unbent knee.
Pulse cold, childish. How
much can a thing whistle
before all that’s left is air?
Such a strange syntax we
live inside. Waltz through
aurora. Gulp down bullets
instead of the pills that
could make this all better.
God, I am tired of writing
poems about sickness.
When he spoke, I heard
my father: you know I only
ever wanted the best for you.
As if I were afraid of
leaning into wounded.
As if I couldn’t gut him
& run, easy as birthplace.
Easy as the voices finally
shocked into silence. A
kind of hook here, say it:
careful, darling, you’re
showing your hand. So
many times my body
has been more ache
than human. In which
direction must I search to
find a name for the curdle
in my throat? Slipping
on melting beasts, forcing
open memory’s jaws. &
how I wanted. I wanted
to snap that lovely neck
the way a gun cocks into
song. I wanted not to hurt
anymore, my kneecaps
halfway shattered, the
dark consuming itself
over & over again. Just
once, I wanted reciprocity.
I wanted not to be the
crazy one. Just once, I
wanted the sky to wake
up on time & remind us
of the little mouths with
no names except erasure.
I could have lived on that:
every angle a limb could
break. Every way his body
yawned into my grasp,
treading the bloodstream,
light going limp, his eyes
that swum & stunk of
remembering.

About Topaz Winters

Topaz Winters is a queer, neurodivergent woman of colour attending Singapore American School. Her chapbooks Heaven or This (2016) & Monsoon Dream (Platypus Press, 2016) have been downloaded over 15,000 times, & at 17, she is the youngest Singaporean ever to be nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is deeply interested in the anatomy of healing. More at topazwinters.com.

 

National Poetry Month
National Poetry Month

BMP Celebrates National Poetry Month 2017

The theme of teaching and learning poetry, and our emphasis on student poets, speaks directly to the action of poetry in our country and global community. Never has the education of our students been so threatened, and never has truth been more challenged than in the current political climate. The truth emerges through education and the resistance and questions of our youngest generation, and it is their lead we absolutely must follow if they are to live in a society that fosters their achievements, liberation, and justice. Truth emerges through poetry as well — poetry bears witness to what truths seem impossible to speak any other way. Its constraints limit the temptation to misconstrue, obscure, and bury.

BMP Voices – Because They’re a Good Doggo (or Cat, or Bird, or Snake…)

by | Oct 5, 2018 | Uncategorized

Open March 12 to May 10, 2019

Brain Mill Press is seeking short photo essays under 750 words about your relationship with your companion animal or service animal, living or deceased. As we navigate difficult times, we aim to celebrate what the relationships with our animals mean to us. Your submission can be funny, tender, a piece about grief, educating others, or other topics related to self-care, friendship, justice, and more. Please include photos of your companion/service animal or you with your companion/service animal. Submitted pieces should be complete.

Essays will be reviewed for suitability by Brain Mill Press staff. You will receive editorial development and feedback on your submitted piece, a contract granting Brain Mill Press the limited right to reproduce your piece on Voices, and payment $40.00 upon publication. You will retain all other rights to your work. Your essay and profile will be promoted on our social media outlets. Your essay will contain your headshot and bio, as well as information you may wish to include about recent work and your website and social media links.

Brain Mill Press strongly encourages submissions from people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.

Contact Brain Mill Press at inquiries@brainmillpress.com with questions.

Submit Your Pitch

Top photo by Tookapic on Pexels

Anger

by | Oct 5, 2018 | Activism, disability, Feminism, grief, Identity, latinx, LGBTQIA+, Racism, Representation, Resist, sexism, Voices, writer's life

Open October 5-19, 2018

“We are constantly being told not to be angry. As a black woman especially, I hear it from all corners. To be angry is to give in to stereotypes of the shrill feminist, the mad black woman. To be angry is to trade intellect for emotion. To be angry is to be irrational and violent. To be angry is to be like them. To be angry is to lose. But none of that is true. I am angry because I love. I am angry because what I love is being harmed. I know why my people matter, why the environment matters, why human rights matter, why justice matters. And I know that this all deserves love. I know that it deserves protection. And I know who is fighting to deny it what it deserves. I know that when that which we love is being harmed — to not be angry would be unconscionable. […]

What if we took that anger beyond the internet? What if we took it into the streets more than once every two years? Into our boycotts? Into our strikes? Into the voting booth? What if we took that anger to our city council meetings? What if we took it to their campaign events and press conferences? What if we took it to our school boards and our workplaces? What if we took all this anger born of righteous love and aimed it?”

—Ijeoma Olou, “We women can be anything. But can we be angry?” Medium.com

We are seeking essays and poetry on the theme of ANGER for Voices, Brain Mill Press’s digital magazine platform.

Don’t pull punches.

Essay pitches will be reviewed and responded to within 24 hours by Brain Mill Press staff.

This call is for femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers.

If your pitch is selected, you will be given a mutually-agreed period of time to write your essay. You will receive editorial feedback on your submitted piece, a negotiable contract granting Brain Mill Press the limited right to reproduce your piece on Voices, and payment at industry-standard rates upon publication. You will retain all other rights to your work.

Contact Brain Mill Press at inquiries@brainmillpress.com with questions.

Submit Your Pitch

top photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash