Tipton Poetry Journal #57 - Summer 2023

Tipton Poetry Journal Editor’s Note

Tipton Poetry Journal, located in the heartland of the Midwest, publishes quality poetry from Indiana and around the world.

Statistics: This issue features 46 poets from the United States (22 unique states), and 4 poets from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Ukraine.

Our Featured Poem this issue is “How to Fall in Love with Robert Bly” written by Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas. Her poem, which also receives an award of $25, can be found on page 2. The featured poem was chosen by the Board of Directors of Brick Street Poetry, Inc., the Indiana non-profit organization who publishes Tipton Poetry Journal.

Barry Harris reviews The Hum in Human by William Aarnes Barry Harris reviews neverwell by Darren C. Demaree

Cover Photo: Heron Reflection by Brendan Crowley.

Barry Harris, Editor

Copyright 2023 by the Tipton Poetry Journal.

All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual contributors and may not be used without their permission.

Tipton Poetry Journal is published by Brick Street Poetry Inc., a tax-exempt non-profit organization under IRS Code 501(c)(3). Brick Street Poetry Inc. publishes the Tipton Poetry Journal, hosts the monthly poetry series Poetry on Brick Street and sponsors other poetry-related events.

Summer, unforgettable summer, BronislavaVolková

Summer, unforgettable summer, brimming over with endless green. Juicy, saturating us with its essential vitality. We fear life without it, where everyone leaves never to return. We can live even with less.

Without the love we dreamt about, without those who were with us in times when we were alive. Without those we loved in that life that is so brief. Even without us.

Bronislava Volková is a bilingual poet, semiotician, translator, collagist, essayist and Professor Emerita of Indiana University, where she was a Director of the Czech Program at the Slavic Department for thirty years. She went into exile from Czechoslovakia in 1974 and taught at several prominent universities in Germany and in the United States. She has published twelve books of existential and spiritual poetry in Czech, among which are eight bilingual editions illustrated with her own collages. She is also an author of three monographs and a large anthology of poetry translations from Czech to English. Her own poetry has been translated into fourteen languages. She currently lives in Prague, Czechoslovakia. More at www.bronislavavolkova.com

How to Fall in Love with Robert Bly

CarolLynnStevensonGrellas

Rest a book of his on the kitchen table, next to your coffee cup topped with a touch of cream. Turn on morning music and swallow

his words with each sip of breakfast blend. Raise the curtains, and watch the golden finches fly back and forth between long vines

in search of berries. Rest a book of his on the kitchen table and open it with the gentle grace of touching a child’s face.

Remember, there is company in solitude, and sometimes it’s the loneness that fills the space. Rest a book of his on the kitchen

table, and think of the cows drinking rainwater across the meadow, and the sheep grazing on high grass near the river, their bodies

warm as a mother’s breast. Cry for the world’s willingness to ignore the unknown, know that your weeping is heard by a sky teeming with stars.

Rest a book of his on the kitchen table, and open it sweetly like the midnight turndown of a coverlet on a forgiving bed—

exhaust yourself with memories of the dead until your whole being is a living ghost of all the people you’ve lost, your arms

weak from holding grief and a thousand letters written on clouds through a stream of sunlight, thin as a strand of hair

tell your children you will always be there, that you’ll never leave, though leaving is certain as suicide in silence, inevitable as men

turning away from love. Rest a book of his on the kitchen table, and imagine him reading The Untempered Soul.

Put your hand on the pages, and touch the drums. Run your fingers through unseen air in figure eights. Look up

existence in the dictionary it will say something that exists. Look up nonexistence in the dictionary it will be there, in spite of its absence. Rest a book of his on the kitchen table because no one knows what it does between

readings, on days you’ve looked away, abandoned your own heart in search of another’s his book will be waiting

for the white windowed-light, opened, and unopened, read, and unread, whether you know it or not, until his poems are part of you, have found their way home, where they’ll live and breathe, leave and enter just as the golden finch carries on, comes and goes, despite your absence.

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas lives in the Sierra Foothills of California and recently graduated from Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in writing program, where she received a Merit Scholarship. She is a twelve-time Pushcart nominee and a seventime Best of the Net nominee. She has served as Editor-in-Chief for The Orchards Poetry Journal, and according to family lore, she is a direct descendant of Robert Louis Stevenson. www.clgrellaspoetry.com

My Mind

WilliamGreenway

used to be a big room like a library, the desks and bookshelves arranged just so, books in alphabetical order, easily navigated, pick and pull, but now when I open the door, everything has been moved around, helterskelter, no more aisles, making hard, slow work to get to what I want back there in the rear.

William Greenway’s 13th collection, As Long As We’re Here, is from FutureCycle Press. He has won the Helen and Laura Krout Memorial Poetry Award, the Larry Levis Editors’ Prize from Missouri Review, the Open Voice Poetry Award from The Writer's Voice, the State Street Press Chapbook Competition, an Ohio Arts Council Grant, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and was Georgia Author of the Year. Publications include Poetry, American Poetry Review, Southern Review, Missouri Review, Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah. Greenway is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Youngstown State University, and now lives in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

Heaven’s New Kitchen

GilbertAllen

“It’s Bright,” Emily mused. “I’ll give to It that Much.”

Sylvia peered inside the microwave.

“Alas, my dear one,” Mary muttered. “It’s galvanic.”

But Edna demurred, preferring candles.

“A veritable lighthouse for us all,” Virginia revealed. “It’s a Norton.”

“Now all we need is somebody to open the door,” Aphra said.

“Now all we need is somebody to close the door,” Anne said.

“Now all we need is a goblin to goose the right button,” Christina cackled.

“Now all we need,” Flannery inferred, “is a good electrician.”

Gilbert Allen's most recent books are Believing in Two Bodies (a collection of poems) and The Beasts of Belladonna (a collection of linked stories). Since 1977 he has lived in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, with his wife, Barbara.

Late Afternoon

DanCarpenter

You’ll hate me when I tell you how long I’ve loved you. Yes, we are such crones, that this has waited . . . decades. And we're still best pals. Except now we’re in our 60s and naked on your marriage bed. As you never could have imagined. As I very much could and did. Day and night, ever since a blue-eyed English major read a poem in a bar. You were already engaged then, and would share this bed with a man I might have hated just for his having you, for his showing you a kind of loving admitting of no other. Yet of course I had to love him, to love the children you made here, to mourn his death in this bed. Six weeks, and it feels like years. I’ve never been so frightened. Touching you so soon after . . . Would it repulse you, exile me? That millionth cry together, then that kiss. Somehow O God, Something broke free, scaring the hell out of both of us.

Let’s let that be the last scare, shall we? For I must tell you, My Dear One, my heart is like his; it may fail on you in this very bed. I only pray you're ready as I am, not some old lady going gentle. Just promise, then, you won’t hate me. Aren’t we lovely, in this light?

Dan Carpenter has published poetry and fiction in Illuminations, Pearl, Poetry East, Southern Indiana Review, Maize, Flying Island, Pith, The Laurel Review, Sycamore Review, Prism International, Fiction, Hopewell Review and other journals. A collection of columns written for The Indianapolis Star, where he earned his living, was published by Indiana University Press in 1993 with the title Hard Pieces: Dan Carpenter’s Indiana. Dan has published two books of poems, The Art He’d Sell for Love (Cherry Grove, 2015) and More Than I Could See (Restoration, 2009); and two books of non-fiction.

party room GantHaverstick

she arranged the glasses on the tray in precise order and carried it into the "party room", at least that's what her new husband called it, but to her it was just the living room. the living room she grew up in. with the old tube tv. it's gone now but the memories it beamed into her childhood remained like flash burns on her brain. carol brady and june cleaver. this felt like a rerun. no one grabbed the right drinks. probably too drunk by now. who cares who made them. she took the empty tray back to the kitchen. her hands were cold. they were always cold. she turned on the hot water. letting the water run. the bliss of warmth rolling over her hands. the din of the party fading, sinking as she closed her eyes. just the running water now. white noise. calm flowed from the faucet into her toes. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

KITCHEN DOOR! MUSIC! LAUGHTER! "BRING MORE DRINKS!"

june cleaver. carol brady. test pattern.

Gant Haverstick is a video editor at the Indianapolis TV station WRTV by trade. Sometimes, he writes poetry, takes pictures and makes short films. He is a proud graduate of Indiana University and Muncie Southside High School. In 2018, he exhibited work at a solo art show titled "Words and Pictures" at the Art Bank in downtown Indianapolis. Additionally, his pieces have been displayed at Gallery 924 in Indianapolis, Nickel Plate Arts and the Birdie Gallery in Noblesville, the Sugar Creek Art Center in Thorntown and as part of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter's art show titled "Human/Nature." He currently resides in Fishers, Indiana.

Respectability Politics

FrancesKlein

You promise your firstborn. You make good. You stay pure as a gust of wind to land in the inner circle. When the attack comes you say, “I was okay, when suddenly the roof caved in.” But it wasn’t sudden, it was incremental. You were well, making decent time, but they had it out for you. There had always been the hook buried in your lip.

Frances Klein is a poet and teacher writing at the intersection of disability and gender. She is the 2022 winner of the Robert Golden Poetry Prize, and the author of the chapbooks New and Permanent (Blanket Sea 2022) and The Best Secret (Bottlecap Press 2022). Klein lives in Ketchikan, Alaska and currently serves as assistant editor of Southern Humanities Review. Readers can find more of her work at https://kleinpoetryblog.wordpress.com/

Echo Chamber

BruceRobinson

Despair tunnels like the reports of pistols through the night, percussive symphony, staccato streets where weapons brush a stained erasure. If only you, or you, or she, if they were here to lend a voice and give the world a reason not too soon, to rejoice.

Or will we this evening forget the palpable pain, if only to carve space for the next report, pistols, not our chambers, make the news.

Recent work by Bruce Robinson appears or is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Spoon River, Rattle, Mantis, Two Hawks Quarterly, Berkeley Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Last Stanza, and Aji. He has raced whippets in the midwest, and is part of that stubborn undercurrent in Brooklyn that continues to root for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Straight Jacket AdamDay

A vote would come that would busy teeth, whir at midnight. Moonless barracudas hang at river rest. All them admired –mouths sewn shut like the steadiest senator whose filibustered spirit knocks against tranquilized regret.

Adam Day lives in Louisville and is the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press), and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN Award. His work has appeared in the APR, Boston Review, The Progressive, Volt, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He is the publisher of Action, Spectacle.

O Lord Let Me Love Him

ClaireScott

Why take twenty minutes to write a two line text as though he were writing Moby Dick why slosh maple syrup on his oatmeal and eat four brownies after dinner diabetes lurking around the corner like a malevolent dybbuk I nag about yoga, pilates, tai chi as he lurches into walls or trips over curbs like an inebriated walrus

His favorite walk takes twice as long he comes home dripping wet as though he has slogged through the sands of Sahara instead of ambling twice around the block his hands shake, tea slops on the morning table I grab twenty paper towels, like it’s a tsunami he forgets the word for avocado, for doughnut or the date of his dentist appointment which I have dutifully circled on my calendar sometimes he looks at me with pleading eyes like a child who has peed his pants Oh Lord, forgive me

Why doesn’t he scream fuck you!! I am eighty-six for god’s sake! But I am also struggling here, Lord I do watch his every word, his every move and I must seem like a hawk waiting to pierce its prey and carry it off in unpitying claws but understand, it is not to belittle him this man I have lived and loved for forty years it is because I am afraid of losing him help me here, O Lord let my love last

On the Corner of Eigth and Vine

ClaireScott

There is only one heart in my body, have mercy on me – from Franz Wright, One Heart

. . . and she is still there on the corner and is still holding her sign only her arms are bruised and one eye is swollen and her dangly heartshaped earrings are gone, her infant looks smaller than before, smaller than my fist, whimpering into her wasting body so thin, so terribly thin, yearning to have a decent meal, a moment of mercy just one or two please, on this stone-hearted morning she smiles up at me

Claire Scott is an award winning poet in Oakland, California who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t.

Monday at the Pool

PatriciaJoslin

Empty deck chairs, red-bikinied blond my only companion in the midday sun. Cloudless sky. Concrete reflected heat. She flips to tan backside, smooth cheeks mock my navy one-piece. I cover my loose veined limbs, shade eyes, nose. My body reveals more than hers– motherhood, decades of labor. Aged skin toasts, tightens. I slip into cool water, transform into sleek speckled trout, green with want of tight ass, taut nipples, mauvy days of youth. Yet, I surface refreshed, my breasts heavy-fruited flesh, soft damp underbelly, grateful for this able-bodied phenomenon.

Patricia Joslin is a retired educator, an avid (but not athletic) golfer and an active volunteer in the Charlotte, North Carolina community. She recently completed a chapbook collection, I’ll Buy Flowers Again Tomorrow: Poems of Loss and Healing which was published by Charlotte Lit Press this spring. Two of her poems have appeared in Kakalak 2021 and 2022.

Thoughts of Polar Bears

DavidLenna

I think out all the possible roads, no road back. Thinking out all my ways, nowhere to go. Hard to sleep when the world shows its back. In a caster of doubt, that dreaming has no worth. And Marx was wrong, planning doesn't help. Haha, burns my skin, burns under the skin. So, I guess, again have to have a goodbye for myself.

David Lenna is nothing and everything in the universe. Not in yours, of course. His poems have appeared in Adelaide Magazine, The Blotter, and Jokes Literary Review, among others. David lives in Prague, but you can send him some regards @hehasanaccount.

Time is a Terrible Friend

JenniferL.McClellan

You time stamped me and injected cement into my bloodstream upon my entrance to this world. You claimed me as yours with a pair hands intended for me to follow, but you’re no guiding compass, just a glorified thief chasing me down a spiral into my thirty fifth year. Fatigue is a trembling fog in my veins. The core of my past self has been drained and there’s not enough caffeine

or acetaminophen to fill the space, but I must keep moving, for a stagnant heart void of passion will tighten before its time. You watch me push through the rust stained ache caused by the nail of worry in my jaw, but you show no care. How’d I go from clever jumping ropes during blacktop recesses to running on ice with ropes of unease wrapped around my feet? It’s besetting, but I’m not a figure painted into an Impressionistic scene, eternally hooked on the idea of a dream. I am not The Woman with a Parasol. I can scream! Regretfully, the urge to scream will not wane, so long as I fight for my right to be here on this earth, wounded by bullet hole footprints. She owes me nothing, but I try to prove myself worthy by letting this life flow through me, listen and create rather than consume and destroy.

The steadfast quick, tick, quick, tick, of your bastard whispers inflames me through another decade, and then how you love to point out all that’s changed! I search for a connection to the world I know, but find handfuls of thin, crispy minutes, charred from a bolt of youth, misspent with blank stares out my bedroom window. But I was young, so it can’t all be my fault. What have you done with all that you’ve stolen from me? I’ve found only remnants of my missing pieces trapped beneath the paper weight clouds that shade my once wide eyes, now bloodshot and prudent. The best is yet to co… but I can’t stop the opaque tomorrows from spilling out like blank slips of paper from my keepsake tin that I fumble to grab before they blow away in the sighs of your Winter.

Your chilling breath rests at the top of my mind like my highest clenched fist. I’m ready to punch the gravity of being human to the sun so it can sizzle and burn, but your icy lasso tongue is my most persistent enemy, and I can’t let myself sleep when I crave movement. Tomorrow is here so I drive at highway speed along the streets of my hometown, a vacant passenger seat gives me that after party loneliness, this song gives me that searching for clarity feeling both of which recede once my eyes meet the rear view, and I notice I’ve passed my turn three times now; a circle is no way to live, so I write toward a straighter path to my ending. I’m late to pick up my son, my strongest hope to make it to the other side of this. I hope one day he finds these words stuffed in my old window as a filler for the drafty gap, so he might then understand my quarrel with the universe’s pendulum.

Jennifer L. McClellan is an Evansville, Indiana based poet whose poems have been published in the Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, Stirring: A Literary Collection, The Green Hills Literacy Lantern and The Round Table Literary Journal

When Oklahoma City Went Numb

PhilipC.Kolin

April 1995

Patriot. A word that McVeigh twisted into the lexicon of terror. Not the Iwo Jima type, but rather it described a vile traitor and mass murderer. A member of a crazed militia, he parked his truck with ammonium nitrate fertilizer outside the Murrah Federal Building then brought it down, and with it 168 lives and 450 more injured. Oklahoma City went deaf and dumb. 300 other buildings felt the blast of his hate.

Today 168 empty chairs sit on the site of the old Murrah and are occupied by a jury of ghosts handing down McVeigh's verdict every day. No one has ever claimed his ashes.

Philip C. Kolin is the Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus and Editor Emeritus of the Southern Quarterly at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published over 40 books on Tennessee Wiliams, Shakespeare, and contemporary African American women playwrights and including fifteen collections of poetry, among the most recent being Delta Tears: Poems (Main Street Mag, 2020), Americorona: Poems about the Pandemic (Wipf and Stock, 2021), and Mapping Trauma: Poems about Black History (Third World Press, 2023).

The Myth of Mozart’s Common Grave R.NikolasMacioci

Wrapped in cheesecloth, the cheapest kind of shroud, trundled to the cemetery by a horse-drawn hearse, his corpse slides from an unpainted box into a muddy grave. The thud it makes as it lands atop the pile of other anonymous bodies is absorbed by relentless rain. A gravedigger throws a few shovelfuls of quick lime into the hole, sky's lingering darkness the only benediction. Perfect pitch, still in the brain, has been turned upside down, washed of passion, in what was previously a cornfield.

R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University. OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named Nik Macioci the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio. Nik is the author of two chapbooks as well as seven books: More than two hundred of his poems have been published here and abroad, including The Society of Classic Poets Journal, Chiron, The Comstock Review, Concho River Review, and Blue Unicorn. Forthcoming books are Rough and Why Dance?

Iced Tea

CameronMorse

Morning piles its clouds against the sun, the pillow fort we fell asleep in, awoke in strangely these bodies stretch out. My friend at 50% kidney function relinquishes iced tea. Terrifying. Worse still, my father’s heart stops five times during the triple bypass. At last a sound I can’t place signals real rain, skyrockets and I have to check the screen for snapbacks.

Cameron Morse holds an MFA from the University of Kansas City-Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife and three children. He is the author of nine collections of poetry and serves as Senior Reviews editor at Harbor Review and a reader at Small Harbor Publishing. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. Visit his website here: https://cameronmorsepoems.wordpress.com/

Bittersweet

LylanneMusselman

You remember riding in the backseat, of that ’66 Bonneville, Mom telling Dad to pull over, she’s spotted some bittersweet twining around a wiry fence on that drab rural road. You watch as she puts on gloves and runs over to cut some blooming vines with those funky looking scissors, never understanding why she always was on the lookout for those treasured orange pods, growing along the countryside, Dad always a willing accomplice. Decades later, curious about those fiery bright berries, you Google them to find they’re aggressive, and considered obnoxious weeds.

Mom and Dad no longer around to ask the motive, now you’ve grown bittersweet.

Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist, living in Indiana. Her work has appeared in Pank, Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Indianapolis Review, among others, and many anthologies. Musselman is the author of seven chapbooks, and author of the full-length poetry collection, It’s Not Love, Unfortunately (Chatter House Press, 2018). Her seventh chapbook, Staring Dementia in the Face from Finishing Line Press was published in July 2023.

MykytaRyzhykh

Copper night knocks

On the back of the head, asks: "What street is this?"

And this is not a street, This is the whole life.

Here at the age

Of 4 I drank sleeping pills, At 14 I lost my virginity, At 24 I lost my family, At 34 my father died (thank God, my father died).

Now I'm free like the cry of a newborn. I'm single, like when I was born. A lonely body without everything

Meaningful, invented, composed. The body, by its movement forward, Has reached the very beginning. Ashes close to dust.

And suddenly the night opens its Lunar hood, and now death looks At me with its bony eyes.

"Come on, friend," I said to death, "I hope you don't turn me into a zombie." The door of cast iron milk opened. And I started drinking. My teeth turned black and fell out. Birds pecked out my eyes. My body fell off me. Copper night, Pig-iron milk, golden memory. And suddenly: emptiness.

[This poem was first published by the Crank, May 2023]

Mykyta Ryzhykh lives in Ukraine and was a finalist of the Crimean ginger competition and Pushcart Nominee (Tipton Poetry Journal). Mykyta has been published in the journals White Mammoth, Soloneba, Litсentr, Plumbum Press, Ukrainian Literary Gazette, Bukovynskyi Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, Alternate route, dyst journal, Better than Starbucks poetry & Fiction Journal, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Littoral Press, Acorn haiku Journal, Book of Matches, Ice Floe Press and Literary Chernihiv.

Walking Home A Little Slower

StephenR.Clark

“How did old age catch up with me so quickly?” he speaks to the tree, shaken by the wind. Its limbs shuddered and its bark sighed under his hand as he steadied himself. “I know,” he says. “It was with me all the time. I never outran it.” He looks up at the radiant blue sky, out at the field swathed in cool sun. Spring was beginning to show itself green against the broad brown a little early since winter had mostly stayed away. He thought, “Age fermented inside me, pushed me forward, even when I wanted to stand still, just a moment, and catch my breath, just rest a little. Soon, I guess.” He breathed in the crisp air, smiled up at the bare, slightly budded tree, patted the bark and moved on, moved forward toward home.

Stephen R. Clark, originally from New Castle, Indiana, is a writer who lives in Lansdale, Pennsylvania with his wife, BethAnn, and their two rescue cats, Watson and Sherlock. His website is www.StephenRayClark.com. He has published three books of poetry, and his writing has appeared in Agape Review, Amethyst Review, Arkenstone, Christianity & Literature, Christian Century, Midwest Poetry Review, Wellspring, and others. He also walked on fire. Once.

Ars Poetica StevenOwenShields

I was sitting in church before the service reading a book of poems

Tony Hoagland’s Donkey Gospel since you asked. An older man sat down beside me, noticed what I was reading and quietly whispered, “Son, why aren’t you reading the Bible?” “I am,” I said.

Steven Owen Shields, Johns Creek, Georgia. Most recent: Creation Story (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2019). His previous work can be found at the pedestal, Measure, Penwood Review, and Tipton Poetry Journal, among others. Originally from Indiana, he is a former all-night FM radio announcer and present-day professor of mass communication at the University of North Georgia. www.stevenowenshields.com. Twitter: @napjox.

Lakshmi Puja UjjvalaBagalRahn

For Carol Kawecka

As she does every day, a village housewife in India squats on the swept courtyard of her small house. She sifts tiny hills of white rice powder arrayed in a grid. With her index finger she drags the powder into a design she sees in her mind.

Her fingertip pulls the breeze which tugs golden ginkgo leaves past the window of a clothing store in Japan, as the manager watches. He thinks about dropping sales numbers since the pandemic, how the company let more of his sales staff go. Will he be next? His sigh drives the spoon which cracks the glassy surface of caramelized sugar on a crème brulee in a kitchen in the United States. The mother who made the dessert for dinner cries, “It’s perfect!” Beneath her honeyed contralto, uterine cancer awaits.

Her words pull up smoke from the reed of incense the housewife in India waves to extinguish the flame, then inserts into the holder her brass icon of Lakshmi, on the most important night of Diwali, as fireworks and glowing oil lamps fight the encroaching darkness of the new moon.

Ujjvala Bagal Rahn’s Red Silk Sari (Red Silk Press, 2013) is her first collection of poems. Her work has most recently appeared in The Threepenny Review, Illuminations, Möbius: The Journal of Social Justice and Bangalore Review. She lives in Savannah, Georgia.

At a Certain Age

Kurt Olsson

This poem keeps me here living, today, another day. Just as the next will and one after that.

And so on, not for infinity of course but for some days beyond which it’s thankfully still difficult to calculate.

I’m old enough to believe, but not so old, and believing I know now, in itself, is enough.

And even if wrong, and I may be, grant me this kindness. Just as the old hand unspools line after the rainbow bites, gives it some run for a while. Lets its big wild heart wear its ragged self out.

Nobody’s KurtOlsson

I didn’t know shit. I knew I didn’t know shit. Sad thing I didn’t care I didn’t know shit.

They sent me places. Sometimes I’d leave the hotel and walk. Didn’t know where just walk.

I liked being in places where I didn’t know the lingo, where I could be alive and never own a word.

When a local looked at me, maybe I’d smile. Most times not. Just walked. A little dangerous, mine being the only face didn’t look like it was from somewhere. Didn’t know shit a face should.

Kurt Olsson has published two poetry collections. His second, Burning Down Disneyland (Gunpowder Press), won the Barry Spacks Prize. Of the book, contest judge Thomas Lux wrote, “I love the title of this book . . . and I love the innovative mischief of its poems. Let it be known: a true poetic intelligence and imagination live between its covers.” Olsson’s first collection, What Kills What Kills Us (Silverfish Review Press), won the Gerald Cable Book and was subsequently awarded the Towson University Prize for Literature, given to the best book published the previous year by a Maryland writer. Olsson’s poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The New Republic, Southern Review, and The Threepenny Review.

Contrasting Notions of Self WilliamGoulet

0. David Hume

My pupil reflects a red gash of dawn, Retained, but belonging to no one. Howling coyotes locked up in my blood, Sentenced to sheer apperception. Like that lick of persimmon, that whiff of the pine, Her lips on the small of my back, Just impulses bounding along to the brain, But with nobody there to become, Quickly diffuse in the vast mental flux, Which spirals this axis of nought. A vortex, precisely what passes for me, Nonentity that I am.

My pupil reflects a red gash of dawn. Both sides of the eye am I on.

William Goulet resides in Cornwall Connecticut. His play filler was produced at Paradise Factory 64E4, New York City.

Poetry Warning HopeCoulter

The poetry sirens went off all night. A poem was spotted in the far precincts of the county. One farmer who heard it while checking his pumps said it really did sound like a freight train. He lay in a ditch while the poem picked up his truck

1. Gaudapada

and set it backwards on a haystack, then passed on. Meanwhile, in our remote suburb, verses rained like hail from the sky. We stood in them ankle-deep, marveling at their frigid glitter. By morning they were totally gone.

Still Happens HopeCoulter

There’s something you’ll get a kick out of, new album, new outrage, new band in town blown up here by some new storm

Lady on a talk show tells the host her doctor prescribed her some pills for paranoia She doesn’t want to take them cause she thinks he’s trying to kill her

I reach for my phone but quick as the plan flares up, I remember your un-thereness, the

lack of you: how you’re now dirt and bone bits, not knowing presidents, plagues, what blew up and what blew over, who married and who had babies (how things came out) unable to turn up the volume or guess my punch line, unable to hit Reply.

Hope Coulter teaches and directs the HendrixMurphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. She is the author of The Wheel of Light (BrickHouse Books 2015), and her work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Yale Review, Southwest Review, Literary Matters, and Tipton Poetry Journal. Awards for her writing include Meringoff Awards in poetry and nonfiction and the Porter Prize for Literary Excellence. She lives in Little Rock.

Nuremberg DavidLeeGarrison

No one in the Nazi stadium tonight, no one but the dead who mill around or sit in the grandstands, in the silence, in the millions.

A naked breeze files through the huge gloom locked in by walls of stone. The podium dominates what was once a meadow, where dandelions parade with their tiny yellow torches and the leathery echo of clicking boot heels, like a metronome, keeps time.

The poetry of David Lee Garrison has been published widely, read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac, and featured by Ted Kooser in his blog, American Life in Poetry. He was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. His most recent book is Light in the River (Dos Madres Press).

Rift

DavidFlynn

Making merry money. There

Alliteration’s alienated ailerons. Language is a burka.

I, a male, see the world through the slit in a black cloth. You are a shadow in the middle of a brightly lit room. Standing. Puzzled.

I walk away because I don’t want new contact. I don’t even want old contact. I want my apartment walls.

Let the phone ring. I want sleep with the parallel universe of dreams making no sense. India and me trying to skateboard up a steep street filled with white cows, men, shouting men, a shuffling woman or two in saris. I awake in America.

Back to sleep.

This time I’m in a car that drives itself from the news. I want to go to the grocery store; it wants to go downtown. I buy the gas; it argues with me. It wins.

I sigh.

Dreams are no solution to the steel cacti of modern life. There is nowhere to escape except death

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Maybe men from small towns wearing cowboy hats are everywhere, Every universe, Ever dimension. In death.

Maybe I should just take the 20 percent I like and let the 80 percent I don’t like flow by, me stuck on a good log in a bad flood of brown water.

David Flynn was born in the textile mill company town of Bemis, Tennessee. His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor and university teacher. He has five degrees and is both a Fulbright Senior Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist with a recent grant in Indonesia. His literary publications total more than 240. He lives in Nashville.

The day we became birds

M.K.Greer

I can’t recall the exact moment when our fingers sprouted feathers and our hollowed bones took flight, but we fly in circles around each other now –vultures in strange orbit searching for something we can smell, but no longer see.

My wings are wide and reaching, but all I feel is the ripple of the wind cut by your wing.

You say I love you but your voice is the mimicking cry of a mockingbird –something borrowed.

Something blue.

Failed subdivision

PatrickT.Reardon

The houses, empty as burned-out Volkswagens, display-floor dressers, exam pages waiting.

Dockweed tall where lawns planned, and wild carrot, pig weed, milk thistle, dandelion, bindweed, leafy spurge.

Lost down idle curves of Susannah Street,

M.K. Greer lives in Maryland with her family. Previous publications include Whale Road Review, Kissing Dynamite, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Rust + Moth. You can find her on Twitter: @MKGreerPoetry.

intersected with Judith Lane, Miriam Court, Leah Drive, Hannah Way and Esther Avenue, no off ramp.

From Susannah down Miriam and back at Susannah again. And Judith, Leah, Hannah, Esther, same, I was prisoned.

They were named I would never learn for the daughters of developer Kevin Chimers, who were named their mother would never learn for his chorus girls.

He’d look at Hannah and think Hannah.

The houses, eyeless, locked tight with nothing to protect.

Tree of heaven, slow rocket lifting off from edge of property line.

I sat on virgin asphalt.

Patrick T. Reardon lives in Chicago and is the author of fourteen books, including the poetry collections Requiem for David, Darkness on the Face of the Deep, The Lost Tribes and Let the Baby Sleep. His memoir in prose poems Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby was published by Third World Press with an introduction by Haki Madhubuti. His poetry collection Salt of the Earth: Doubts and Faith is forthcoming from Kelsay Books.

Photo credit: Steve Kagan

April 2023 TimothyRobbins

The Ramadan moon is waning. Spring is waxing cheered on by passerines, those emblems of fidelity. Soon Aquil and Eshrahim, my Afghan students, will regale their tightened bellies. Soon I and my fellow teachers will unwind into the long break, globes of yarn rolling to rest. On the streets (around whose corner?)

an army of military-grade weapons a guerrilla army gathers.

Timothy Robbins has published six volumes of poetry: Three New Poets (Hanging Loose Press), Denny’s Arbor Vitae (Adelaide Books), Carrying Bodies (Main Street Rag Press) Mother Wheel (Cholla Needles Press) and This Night I Sup in Your House and Florida and Other Waters (Cyberwit.net). He lives in Wisconsin with his husband of 26 years.

The Level of Importance

MichaelKeshigian

He was never sure how it was misplaced, a silver token with his initials engraved, attached on a ring with a collection of keys that he carried in his pocket, gone missing without a clue, noticed when he went to start the car, all keys, no token. It used to follow him everywhere, the symphony, the outdoor mall, dimly lit clubs where vodka kindled his spirits,

even jogged with him on long and short jaunts in rain or snow, summer and winter, an aid to alleviate hangovers. It had a quiet existence, stuffed endlessly in his pocket, like a chipmunk in its burrow, out when necessary, but then it disappeared. He looked for years, every time he revisited the familiar places until one day a woman approached in an ancient setting with a gleam in her eye and between her fingers, I’ve been waiting, remember, she said, you gave it to me to hold until our next rendezvous, my promise token! And fool that he was, had forgotten it all, except the token.

Michael Keshigian lives in New Hampshire and is the author of 14 poetry collections. Most recent poems have appeared in Muddy River Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Blue Pepper, San Pedro River Review, Comstock Review, Young Ravens Literary Review, and Jerry Jazz Musician. Published in numerous national and international journals, he has 7 Pushcart Prize and 3 Best Of The Net nominations.

Midland

AlanElyshevitz

Mornings unmask a case-by-case horizon. In a region known for cornflakes and kilowatts, carcinogens drip from an unlabeled tower. The creek, in a valley of poor drainage, moves like an eel from science fiction. Working the fields of fiber, stakeholders badger the soil to excel. At a dipteran market, women have to correct their money. The tradition is: boys smoke everything. In lazy slang, catechism girls gossip on a pommel horse. No man here will trust a commercial pilot with his life. They mark the time by ingestion, from eggs over easy to a beer after dark. Back taxes influence sleep, persist in the twitch of a quiet night. Sunday is when the shoes come out and even the children tighten. Sunday is when they flip through the psalms, jiggle the doorknob of Heaven.

[This poem first appeared in The Hollins Critic]

Living in the Car AlanElyshevitz

Your home is the world’s most affordable biome, a region of outgassing and shock-resistant glass whose hard atmosphere keeps mosquitoes out. Here, where footwear seems extraneous, you retire at night to the upholstered backcountry to sleep on polyester moss. By the end of the week, the gulches are emptied of snacks. If you find a coupon for devil’s food cake in a sediment of receipts, you reorient the panorama from junk pines at the edge of town to a half-shuttered strip mall with scant resources. Since your wheels and levers function, you choose a southern exposure facing deeded lands with fences to prove their modesty. Bathing, in particular, is a problem. Life in the wild requires you to live near a river but never come clean.

[This poem was first published by Little Patuxent Review]

Alan Elyshevitz is the author of a collection of stories, The Widows and Orphans Fund (SFA Press), a full-length poetry collection, Generous Peril (Cyberwit), and five poetry chapbooks, most recently Approximate Sonnets (Orchard Street). Winner of the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review, he is a two-time recipient of a fellowship in fiction writing from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Monkey Business: A Fable

GerrySloan

(after Jack Butler)

Shoreline monkeys have learned to use stone axes for cracking oyster shells, a technique they teach their offspring. Whereas inland monkeys have not yet acquired the use of tools, though females have been observed tossing pebbles at males as a means of flirting, of getting attention, another example of transmissible behavior.

It may take a million years for the necessary mutation, for the inland monkeys to grasp, for the proverbial lightbulb to flash on. Meanwhile their species is scheduled for extinction, the oyster population dwindling due to over-harvesting, the rising ocean ever encroaching on this outcrop littered with pearls.

Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He has published four chapbooks (one translated into Mandarin) and two poetry collections: Paper Lanterns (Half-Acre Press, 2011) and Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (Rollston Press, 2017). Recent publication includes Slant, Cave Region Review, and Elder Mountain, among others.

The Walking Wounded NoloSegundo

I see us everywhere anymore, at the supermarket or the mall, moving slowly, often cane-less (old folks can be vain too) along a sidewalk like lost zombies, and of course every time I visit one

of the plethora of doctors I rely upon to keep my cracking body and creaking heart working….

Why did I not see old people when I was young? They must have been there, in my world of swiftness and sex, of sprawling on a beach or dancing under the boardwalk or driving fast enough to challenge death itself but when I saw old people and it seemed rare back then it was like watching a scene from an old black-and-white movie, not quite real, even quaint

I liked old people and I loved my Nana and Pop-Pop, but only now in my 8th decade do I know how much they had to put up with in living a long life, how time has a tendency to whittle away your strength and confidence and grace, shrinking your bones, drying out your joints, slowing your brain and poking holes--oh, so many holes in your memory….

I am not as fond of old people now I am one it is the young I now see fondly but they can’t see me….

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L. J. Carber, became a published poet in his 70's in 99 literary journals in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Romania, India, and in 2 trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020] and Of Ether and Earth [2021]. Both titles reflect the awareness he's had for over 50 years since having an NDE whilst almost drowning in a Vermont river: that he has is a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets once called a soul. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2022, he's a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] living in New Jersey who's been married 42 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.

40

Metempsychosis VyarkaKozareva

She was waiting and waiting

In the rain

Her mind jumped

From anacoluthon to anacoluthon

With hope that The gold coin in her hand

Though bitten to prove its purity

Would be the lutron

For a lucky death

A kind of absolution

For things such as Misused infinity symbol

Stolen pieces of prosphora

Rummaged drawers of morals.

She wouldn’t regard it as a penance

To change her limbs

For tamarisk tree branches and roots.

Sirens Howling Overhead DavidA.Goodrum

the house suddenly empty wife and children running down the basement steps escaping fleeting pockets of sheering high and low pressure

one last glimpse of home from the door cracked ajar

the slash of maroon coat caught in the shuddering closet door

Vyarka Kozareva lives in Bulgaria.

through torn window screens

clouds change like ivy from green to rose to brown

uprooted when the deafening local train of violence touches down afterwards blossoms still on the branches the chickens survived though stripped of feathers

overturned couches and chairs

the cat food still in the bowl

four steak knives in a perfect square pattern driven into the mom-van’s radiator

the truck’s disappeared and up through the trees slices of blue through the foliage

the ground soft and sunken flecks of roofing glittering beneath puddles

the rain dripping down stunned faces

and the hail of chaotic debris of cancelled checks curling

photographs dirty magazines loose change torn

t-shirts cracked tv and a favorite recliner landing in dad’s new apartment eighty miles away

[This poem was first published in The Write Launch]

David A. Goodrum, writer/photographer, was born, raised, and educated in Indiana and now lives in Oregon. His poems are forthcoming or have been published in Tar River Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Passengers Journal, Scapegoat Review, Wild Roof Journal, Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Additional work (poetry and photography) can be viewed at www.davidgoodrum.com

Across the pond, the bird sounds split the quiet from the trees PhilipJason

I. and out of some murky paradox, the children return seeking a cure for who they are

how do we sit them down and tell them that we loved before they were born and broke ourselves how do we tell them that we made them as part of a larger search for meaning, that we were hoping they’d arrive with a notice from God declaring us complete and that their empty little hands broke us further in the second heart

II. how do we share these things with anyone?

the only thought we hear anymore tells us that the objects we own have seen more of the world than we have.

III. all damn day, the first heart aches. we look our children in the television of their eyes and change the channel. when that doesn’t work, we sit them in front of the couch and watch them like they’re reruns of ourselves.

Philip Jason's poetry can be found in magazines such as Spillway, Lake Effect, Hawaii Pacific Review, The Indianapolis Review Pallette, and Canary. He is the author of the novel Window Eyes (Unsolicited Press, 2023). His first collection of poetry, I Don't Understand Why It's Crazy to Hear the Beautiful Songs of Nonexistent Birds, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. For more info: www.philipjason.com

Liz Lies ErikMoyer

After Berryman’s Dream Song 4

Liz lies to me lying in her bed where I too lay.

Cigarette holes

freckling satin chartreuse she says she’s grown afraid of her shadow how it could become someone else or worse, me.

I imagine space is better to give than to be so I play fifty-two pickup and go fish.

Still I wonder what wonders she’s been lying on over there.

In time, she falls victim to memory an exponential fate.

Swiss sheets her body compacted the chicken paprika there’s a half-life.

Erik Moyer is from Hillsborough, New Jersey. He holds a BS from the University of Virginia, an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and is currently a creative writing PhD student and graduate instructor at the University of North Texas. His work has been featured in Apricity, Bluestem, Constellations, Euphony, Hawaii Pacific Review, and Little Patuxent Review, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Outside of school, he works as a data engineer.

If You Stay StacyReich

If you come inside, you might see my personality in the wallpaper, and the books on the shelf might whisper my secrets in your ear.

If you stay for tea, you might catch a glimpse of my regrets just behind the cornflakes in the pantry, or my ‘what ifs’ pressed between the fancy plates in the cupboard.

If you stay the afternoon, you might notice that a fine dusting of wishful thinking covers the furniture, and the spider in the garden has used my worries to weave her woolly web.

If you stay the night, you might trip over my fears in the dark, or hear my inner voice echo down the hallway.

Only in the blackest hours might you learn my heart, as grief settles into his favorite chair and I quietly listen to his familiar stories.

If you stay till morning, the white linen curtain on the kitchen window will conceal a view of the robin in the oak, but not her song, nor the light that awakens her.

At the beginning of her seventh decade of life, Stacy Reich, from Brooklyn, New York, is grateful that it isn’t too late for her to use her words, some of which have appeared in The New York Times (Metropolitan Diary), Crow’s Feet (https://medium.com/@ssr24689), and Thanatos.

Shots in jars

TracyAhrens

We crawled in sand like children, eyeing objects high and low, observing overlooked beauty, securing it on film, silent, focused, free.

Imaginations ignited, we paused side-by-side studying our shots like fireflies in jars.

Secretly, we examined each other, smiling.

Two curious kids crawling, carefree, seizing memories in our souls.

Tracy Ahrens lives in Illinois and has been a journalist/writer for over 30 years. She has published eight books, including two non-fiction works, four children’s books and two books of poetry. As of 2023 she had earned 105 writing awards. See her website at www.tracyahrens.weebly.com.

Sonnet Broken by Gunfire

CecilMorris

I know. I know. It is not the gun that kills or the bullet, or the maker that turns out guns faster than baby formula or body armor. It’s not the man who sells the gun, the bullets, the interchangeable, high-capacity magazine that stands the bullets neat and ready. It’s the man who aims and pulls the trigger who kills, unless, of course, the man wears uniform and badge. Then it’s the man who stands before the gun and bullet, who calls exploding death unto himself. It’s the target invites the gun, the bullet, the man who decides he must shoot and shoot ‘til the world complies.

What I wished on the first star I saw tonight: CecilMorris

To have a dog’s abundant, panting heart, intrepid, steadfast, strong and true in love, betrayal notwithstanding. To feel the constant wag of joy rewarded easily the shortest word, the slightest touch. To be satisfied by presence alone, by warmth and scent across the room, the comfort of beloved breathing in hearing range. To curl and sleep untroubled by doubt or fear of potential future losses. To be. To announce all feelings with clarity and conviction. To believe in romp and run, in absolute obedience of limb and nose. To go always boldly wherever desire leads on each new day. To wag with joy at even meager food.

Cecil Morris, living in California and retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, now tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (he hopes) enjoy. He has had a handful of poems published in English Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Evening Street Review, Hole in the Head Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Poem, Sugar House Review and others.

Therapy at the DVA

RichardHartwell

Sitting here at the VA listening, more than ten wars’ worth of lives and lies told by veterans, wondering sometimes how much of what I hear is really the composing by memory-makers from years ago, or how much is merely ego-composting, oft-told tales in hopes of remembrance.

Crawling back to group therapy, creatures of habit in the same seats, same postures, same problems unchanged by weekly expectation of different outcomes from repetition; waves of emotion, nausea breaking on shoals of shared self-centeredness.

For so many of them, their service, whether combat or not, forms the Continental Divide of existence.

What is the highpoint of life, a watershed peak, one side to your back where you came from, another facing forward hoping for a long, soft ride to the distant sea?

How many various shades of green can I recall limited by fading memory?

Waves of jungled mountains, undulating hills of concealment, lush foliage offering no cover, smooth eddies of tilled fields, thatched huts, concrete bunkers, lapping sands with family graves, bordering the South China Sea.

Losing count, I’m stuck just short of infinity, hoping that therapy won’t let me down.

[This poem was first published by The Literary Yard in 2013]

Richard Hartwell is a retired middle school teacher (remember the hormonallychallenged?) living in California with his wife of forty-seven years, Sally (upon whom he is emotionally, physically, and spiritually dependent), two grown children, two granddaughters, and fifteen cats! Like Blake, Thoreau and Merton, he believes that the instant contains eternity.

50

The Stillness Room

KimSalinasSilva

Sun dress on, I’m looking in the mirror, skirt barely covering me. My legs are big and white, they’re columns of anger. And I’m standing here, shoulders back, like I’m the dominant strain. I’ve got wide arms, they’re like the fangs of a moth. And the furniture. Clunky chairs and tables, the cluttered commitment of a fish’s mouth a tower of bowls piled upon bowls, a sad candelabra that’s sliding off a table.

And my feet are big like blind puppies, but my head is a thumbprint rising from between my shoulders. Ha! A bar code for selling myself for the price of praise.

Someone said use mindfulness meditation for your anxiety. So, I’ll mind a few decapitated roses in these bowls. They’re wingless angels, blood red, mouthing in tones hard to hear. Pale ghost, they say, the night pulls you to oblivion. But in the morning rise, fly without fear in the sun’s opaque eye.

In death, my ghost would glide through the unmarked door where strange little holy men greet me, feed me clouds and sugar. We’d smoke the hashish hookah, drift away our afternoons on lavender mountains. Skirting any semblance of the earthly plane. But they’ll sleep for me. I’ll be here. Amongst the paralyzed chairs, raising my head to the milky mirror.

Kim Salinas Silva lives in Rhode Island with her musician husband and their dog, Zelda. She loves nature and all animals. She started writing poetry in 2022 and has so far been accepted in several literary journals. Writing poetry is a way to add color and playfulness with a societal undertone to her world. Accepted work and/or artwork has appeared in or is forthcoming to The Literary Review, Litbreak, Poor Yorick, BarBar, MONO Literary, Unbroken, Gone Lawn, South Florida Poetry Journal, Meniscus, The Disappointed Housewife, Rhode Island Bard’s Anthology and elsewhere.

A Good Heart JimTilley

My cardiac surgeon, dead now for many years, left his mark on my world, white scar clearly visible running down the center of my chest to the sternum, sliced open for the procedure to replace a defective aortic valve. True, my knees have since worn out, yet my heart is still good. That’s the easy part, a life prolonged; the harder is the succor you provide someone who has nowhere else to turn, that calling from within you don’t second-guess. You’d like to think you can feel it when it’s there inside you, the joy written on the face of the person you help who can’t otherwise pay the rent or handle the anguish of having the vet put down her favorite pet.

Jim Tilley has published three full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. His poem, On the Art of Patience, was selected by Billy Collins to win Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize for Poetry. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His next poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, will be published in June 2024.

So We Can Be As One MarkVogel

Overlooking the Bay of Naples at a round table a retired British officer, blazer pressed and sharp, sips lemon liqueur with Susan’s grandmother elegant in an hand-stitched rose-colored dress as the sun sparkles on white china remnants of focaccia, eggplant, salmon arranged as art in this bright milieu where expectations are not denied. The waiter approaches and laughter ripples, the afternoon promising to be crisp and clean with cards and talk, maybe a nap beneath paintings of these jostling boats, this idyllic blue water. A continent away on a rocky farm above the Mississippi, my grandma peels potatoes at the sink, then wipes hands on an apron as she waits on the apple pie in the oven. The smells are rich and growing, kohlrabi, citron, onions, earthiness distilled, evolving like the compost pile outside where methane rises as evidence of hands-on habits. Not far beyond the mulberry tree, a well-used hatchet is deep in a bloodied stump, ready for another mindless chicken. The Missouri mid-afternoon sun grows hot, and Grandma twitches, eyes closed in her quilt-covered chair as soap opera voices assault. Her snore shakes her awake, and she pulls her bulk upright, moving back into action kneading biscuits. No dreams of gentle coastlines with sweet breezes free of mosquitoes and humidity, where Susan and I today are tourists under a pastel blue sky, breathing deep the unreal flowering lemons. Already for us evening tables are reserved, the white-clad staff collected, preparing to meet our needs. In limoncello love we play out roles as the young unearthing the future, our worlds folded together as one, content to wait to understand what we have become.

Mark Vogel lives at the back of a Blue Ridge holler with his wife, Susan Weinberg, an accomplished fiction and creative non-fiction writer, and two foster sons. He currently is an Emeritus Professor of English at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Poems and short stories have appeared in several dozen literary journals.

Let It Shine

StephenColley

This lamp I light, this luminosity, is more than just the agent of my sight. It is the light itself that I would see, a world within itself, complete and right, a tiny touch of immortality, this globe that at my touch from dark turns bright to shine for life, however brief that be. And as I fill its emptiness with light, I’d fill my soul, I’d shine continually. So come, my lamp, to star the inner night! And let my time, whatever waits for me, be now and not to come. However slight, may some small star be there that I call mine, may some small star within be still to shine.

Stephen Colley is a retired software engineer/manager living in Californiwhose poems are always metered, usually rhymed, typically sonnets or triple limericks. He’s also written three screenplays and a good deal of music, including a stage play based on "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", a song cycle on "The Lord of the Rings" poems and settings of 13 Robert Frost poems.

Fireflies and Children

MikeNierste

Sparks of life shine their lights at night, announcing summer, briefly, briefly, briefly.

Sometimes captured, they illuminate evenings from old ball jars with punctured lids like smiles of children who capture moments.

Set them free after the lantern glow show. Their lights and lives, measured in so few flights, shine briefly.

Mike Nierste’s poetry is listed in Indiana Arts Council’s online collection INverse, and published in poetry journals and anthologies including; Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, frogpond, Polk Street Review, Cowboys &Cocktails - Poetry from the True Grit Saloon, Haiku for Hikers, Reflections on Little Eagle Creek, Introspective Voices, The Polaris Trilogy and Fathers. Mike lives in Zionsville, Indiana, and is the author of a book of contradictory quotes and contranyms titled ContraDiction. He is also the author of poetry chap books Savor, Discoveries, and Still Waters .

Review: The Hum in Human by William Aarnes

ReviewedbyBarryHarris

Title: The Hum in Human

Author: William Aarnes

Year: 2022

Publisher: Main Street Rag

In The Hum in Human, William Aarnes weaves a collection of poems that delve into the nuances of human experience, blending the familiar with the enigmatic, the poignant with the contemplative. Aarnes takes well-known tales, mundane moments, and personal reflections, and transforms them into meditations that resonate long after the pages are turned.

Aarnes has an uncanny ability to extract profound meaning from seemingly ordinary occurrences. His poems often uncover hidden layers of emotion beneath the surface. In "Reading Little Red Riding Hood," Aarnes revisits the infamous fairy tale, exposing the grim realities that sometimes underlie our cherished narratives. He navigates the dark corners of the story, showing us how innocence can coexist with the macabre.

The swallowed girl rescued, the villain’s sliced open belly weighted with stones,

the father can now twist the knob on the bedside lap and kiss his daughter good night…

The father knows that in an earlier version the wolf lopes away –

the gobbled grandmother and the tender young girl left as red-flecked feces on the forest floor.

The collection spans themes from introspection to nostalgia to human connection. "Weekend Retreat" captures the essence of companionship through the silence shared among friends, while "The Poet No Longer a Poet" contemplates the struggle of creativity and the desire to unburden oneself from the weight of artistic expression.

"Task" presents a striking exploration of ritual and survival, as a sister undertakes the solemn duty of discerning sustenance from the world around her. This poem, like many others in the collection, showcases Aarnes' talent for blending the personal with the universal, creating a sense of shared humanity and empathy.

… She’d choose whether to chew and swallow, spitting out most things. Even so, she’d retch more often than not. Addled, scowling, she wandered off. So it is now my lot, my mouth puckered by buds that sting.

Aarnes' language is spare yet evocative, with each word carefully chosen to deliver maximum impact. His poems carry readers through the narrative, often culminating in a thought-provoking twist. The intimacy in his writing invites readers to engage deeply with the emotions and reflections he presents.

In “Grief,” Aarnes portrays Grief as a constant companion:

Grief shuts the drapes, turns out the bedside lamp, and gets in with you between the sheets, the two of you awake for hours.

In the morning Grief dilutes your coffee… You want to say you’ve had enough but Grief sticks around and makes you wonder.

The Hum in Human invites reflection and contemplation. Aarnes' ability to find the extraordinary within the ordinary, to juxtapose light and darkness, and to capture the essence of our complex human experience sets this book apart. With keen observation and a mastery of language, Aarnes has crafted a collection that lingers in the mind.

William Aarnes was born in Columbia, Missouri and raised in Fargo, North Dakota. He currently lives with his wife in Clemson, South Carolina, having retired from a career as a high school and college teacher. His poems have appeared in print and online journals such as FIELD, The Southern Review, Poetry, and New Verse News. He has published two collections with Ninety-Six Press Learning to Dance and Predicaments and a third collection, Do in Dour, with Aldrich Press.

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and four anthologies by Brick Street Poetry. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center.

Married and father of two grown sons, Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company.

His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, Silver Birch Press, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers‘ Bloc, Red-Headed Stepchild and Laureate: The Literary Journal of Arts for Lawrence.

He graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University\

Review: neverwell by Darren C. Demaree

ReviewedbyBarryHarris

Title: neverwell

Author: Darren C. Demaree

Year: 2023

Publisher: Harbor Editions

In neverwell, Darren C. Demaree skillfully explores the depths of addiction and recovery through a collection of poignant and raw poems. Demaree's words paint a picture of how addiction feels to the addicted.

In a poetry collection without titles or stanza breaks, Demaree presents us with almost a journal-like experience of what addiction looks like from the inside. Some few examples:

I am dry all the time because my only other option is to be wet all the time.

A car skids onto our front lawn & I rush out to make sure I’m not in it.

I trust my tongue. It never let me swallow it completely. I tried.

One of the remarkable aspects of this collection is its unflinching honesty. Demaree rejects the conventional metaphors often associated with addiction, instead opting for an honest portrayal of recovery. He walks away from a typical recovery story and delves into the emotional details of a life lived in the daily grip of addiction.

Demaree's writing is deeply personal and introspective. The poems reflect his own experiences and inner battles, laying bare the internal conflicts he faces on his journey towards sobriety. His words carry a weight that is both haunting and profound. Through his precise use of language, Demaree captures the essence of addiction, its grip on the soul, and the constant fight for redemption.

The collection is a testament to the author's courage and vulnerability. He confronts his past without reservation, addressing the trauma, guilt, and the immense struggle to rebuild a life shattered by addiction. While the subject matter is heavy, there is a glimmer of hope that shines through, reminding the reader that recovery is possible, even in the face of immense challenges.

neverwell is a remarkable and powerful collection that offers an unvarnished look at addiction and recovery. Darren C. Demaree's mastery of language and his ability to convey the complexities of the human experience make this collection a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of addiction, resilience, and the human capacity for transformation.

Darren C. Demaree grew up in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He is a graduate of the College of Wooster, Miami University, and Kent State University. He is the author of nineteen poetry collections, most recently neverwell (Harbor Editions, 2023). He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently working in the Columbus Metropolitan Library system and living in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and children.

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and four anthologies by Brick Street Poetry. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center.

Married and father of two grown sons, Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company.

His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, Silver Birch Press, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers‘ Bloc, Red-Headed Stepchild and Laureate: The Literary Journal of Arts for Lawrence.

He graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University.

Contributor Biographies

Tracy Ahrens lives in Illinois and has been a journalist/writer for over 30 years. She has published eight books, including two non-fiction works, four children’s books and two books of poetry. As of 2023 she had earned 105 writing awards. See her website at www.tracyahrens.weebly.com.

Gilbert Allen's most recent books are Believing in Two Bodies (a collection of poems) and The Beasts of Belladonna (a collection of linked stories). Since 1977 he has lived in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, with his wife, Barbara.

Dan Carpenter has published poetry and fiction in Illuminations, Pearl, Poetry East, Southern Indiana Review, Maize, Flying Island, Pith, The Laurel Review, Sycamore Review, Prism International, Fiction, Hopewell Review and other journals. A collection of columns written for The Indianapolis Star, where he earned his living, was published by Indiana University Press in 1993 with the title Hard Pieces: Dan Carpenter’s Indiana. Dan has published two books of poems, The Art He’d Sell for Love (Cherry Grove, 2015) and More Than I Could See (Restoration, 2009); and two books of non-fiction

Stephen R. Clark, originally from New Castle, Indiana, is a writer who lives in Lansdale, Pennsylvania with his wife, BethAnn, and their two rescue cats, Watson and Sherlock. His website is www.StephenRayClark.com. He has published three books of poetry, and his writing has appeared in Agape Review, Amethyst Review, Arkenstone, Christianity & Literature, Christian Century, Midwest Poetry Review, Wellspring, and others. He also walked on fire. Once.

Stephen Colley is a retired software engineer/manager living in Californiwhose poems are always metered, usually rhymed, typically sonnets or triple limericks. He’s also written three screenplays and a good deal of music, including a stage play based on "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", a song cycle on "The Lord of the Rings" poems and settings of 13 Robert Frost poems.

Hope Coulter teaches and directs the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. She is the author of The Wheel of Light (BrickHouse Books 2015), and her work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Yale Review, Southwest Review, Literary Matters, and Tipton Poetry Journal. Awards for her writing include Meringoff Awards in poetry and nonfiction and the Porter Prize for Literary Excellence. She lives in Little Rock.

After 34 years with Eli Lilly and Company, Brendan Crowley set up his own consulting and executive coaching business, Brendan Crowley Advisors LLC. He helps executives grow in their roles and careers. Brendan is originally from Ireland and lives with his wife Rosaleen in Zionsville, Indiana. He has a passion for photography and loves taking photographs of his home country, Ireland, and here in Indiana.

Adam Day lives in Louisville and is the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press), and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN Award. His work has appeared in the APR, Boston Review, The Progressive, Volt, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He is the publisher of Action, Spectacle.

Alan Elyshevitz is the author of a collection of stories, The Widows and Orphans Fund (SFA Press), a full-length poetry collection, Generous Peril (Cyberwit), and five poetry chapbooks, most recently Approximate Sonnets (Orchard Street). Winner of the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review, he is a two-time recipient of a fellowship in fiction writing from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

David Flynn was born in the textile mill company town of Bemis, Tennessee. His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor and university teacher. He has five degrees and is both a Fulbright Senior Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist with a recent grant in Indonesia. His literary publications total more than 240. He lives in Nashville

The poetry of David Lee Garrison has been published widely, read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac, and featured by Ted Kooser in his blog, American Life in Poetry. He was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. His most recent book is Light in the River (Dos Madres Press).

David A. Goodrum, writer/photographer, was born, raised, and educated in Indiana and now lives in Oregon. His poems are forthcoming or have been published in Tar River Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Passengers Journal, Scapegoat Review, Wild Roof Journal, Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Additional work (poetry and photography) can be viewed at www.davidgoodrum.com.

William Goulet resides in Cornwall Connecticut. His play filler was produced at Paradise Factory 64E4, New York City.

William Greenway’s 13th collection, As Long As We’re Here, is from FutureCycle Press. He has won the Helen and Laura Krout Memorial Poetry Award, the Larry Levis Editors’ Prize from Missouri Review, the Open Voice Poetry Award from The Writer's Voice, the State Street Press Chapbook Competition, an Ohio Arts Council Grant, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and was Georgia Author of the Year. Publications include Poetry, American Poetry Review, Southern Review, Missouri Review, Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah. Greenway is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Youngstown State University, and now lives in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

M.K. Greer lives in Maryland with her family. Previous publications include Whale Road Review, Kissing Dynamite, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Rust + Moth. You can find her on Twitter: @MKGreerPoetry.

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas lives in the Sierra Foothills of California and recently graduated from Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in writing program, where she received a Merit Scholarship. She is a twelve-time Pushcart nominee and a seven-time Best of the Net nominee. She has served as Editor-in-Chief for The Orchards Poetry Journal, and according to family lore, she is a direct descendant of Robert Louis Stevenson. www.clgrellaspoetry.com

Richard Hartwell is a retired middle school teacher (remember the hormonallychallenged?) living in California with his wife of forty-seven years, Sally (upon whom he is emotionally, physically, and spiritually dependent), two grown children, two granddaughters, and fifteen cats! Like Blake, Thoreau and Merton, he believes that the instant contains eternity.

Gant Haverstick is a video editor at the Indianapolis TV station WRTV by trade. Sometimes, he writes poetry, takes pictures and makes short films. He is a proud graduate of Indiana University and Muncie Southside High School. In 2018, he exhibited work at a solo art show titled "Words and Pictures" at the Art Bank in downtown Indianapolis. Additionally, his pieces have been displayed at Gallery 924 in Indianapolis, Nickel Plate Arts and the Birdie Gallery in Noblesville, the Sugar Creek Art Center in Thorntown and as part of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter's art show titled "Human/Nature." He currently resides in Fishers, Indiana.

Philip Jason's poetry can be found in magazines such as Spillway, Lake Effect, Hawaii Pacific Review, The Indianapolis Review Pallette, and Canary. He is the author of the novel Window Eyes (Unsolicited Press, 2023). His first collection of poetry, I Don't Understand Why It's Crazy to Hear the Beautiful Songs of Nonexistent Birds, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. For more info: www.philipjason.com.

Patricia Joslin is a retired educator, an avid (but not athletic) golfer and an active volunteer in the Charlotte, North Carolina community. She recently completed a chapbook collection, I’ll Buy Flowers Again Tomorrow: Poems of Loss and Healing which was published by Charlotte Lit Press this spring. Two of her poems have appeared in Kakalak 2021 and 2022.

Michael Keshigian lives in New Hampshire and is the author of 14 poetry collections. Most recent poems have appeared in Muddy River Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Blue Pepper, San Pedro River Review, Comstock Review, Young Ravens Literary Review, and Jerry Jazz Musician. Published in numerous national and international journals, he has 7 Pushcart Prize and 3 Best Of The Net nominations.

Frances Klein is a poet and teacher writing at the intersection of disability and gender. She is the 2022 winner of the Robert Golden Poetry Prize, and the author of the chapbooks New and Permanent (Blanket Sea 2022) and The Best Secret (Bottlecap Press 2022). Klein lives in Ketchikan, Alaska and currently serves as assistant editor of Southern Humanities Review. Readers can find more of her work at https://kleinpoetryblog.wordpress.com/

Philip C. Kolin is the Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus and Editor Emeritus of the Southern Quarterly at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published over 40 books on Tennessee Wiliams, Shakespeare, and contemporary African American women playwrights and including fifteen collections of poetry, among the most recent being Delta Tears: Poems (Main Street Mag, 2020), Americorona: Poems about the Pandemic (Wipf and Stock, 2021), and Mapping Trauma: Poems about Black History (Third World Press, 2023).

Vyarka Kozareva lives in Bulgaria.

David Lenna is nothing and everything in the universe. Not in yours, of course. His poems have appeared in Adelaide Magazine, The Blotter, and Jokes Literary Review, among others. David lives in Prague, but you can send him some regards @hehasanaccount.

R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University. OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named Nik Macioci the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio. Nik is the author of two chapbooks as well as seven books: More than two hundred of his poems have been published here and abroad, including The Society of Classic Poets Journal, Chiron, The Comstock Review, Concho River Review, and Blue Unicorn. Forthcoming books are Rough and Why Dance?

Jennifer L. McClellan is an Evansville, Indiana based poet whose poems have been published in the Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, Stirring: A Literary Collection, The Green Hills Literacy Lantern and The Round Table Literary Journal.

Cecil Morris, living in California and retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, now tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (he hopes) enjoy. He has had a handful of poems published in English Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Evening Street Review, Hole in the Head Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Poem, Sugar House Review and others.

Cameron Morse holds an MFA from the University of Kansas City-Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife and three children. He is the author of nine collections of poetry and serves as Senior Reviews editor at Harbor Review and a reader at Small Harbor Publishing. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. Visit his website here: https://cameronmorsepoems.wordpress.com/

Erik Moyer is from Hillsborough, New Jersey. He holds a BS from the University of Virginia, an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and is currently a creative writing PhD student and graduate instructor at the University of North Texas. His work has been featured in Apricity, Bluestem, Constellations, Euphony, Hawaii Pacific Review, and Little Patuxent Review, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Outside of school, he works as a data engineer.

Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist, living in Indiana. Her work has appeared in Pank, Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Indianapolis Review, among others, and many anthologies. Musselman is the author of seven chapbooks, and author of the full-length poetry collection, It’s Not Love, Unfortunately (Chatter House Press, 2018). Her seventh chapbook, Staring Dementia in the Face from Finishing Line Press was published in July 2023.

Mike Nierste’s poetry is listed in Indiana Arts Council’s online collection INverse, and published in poetry journals and anthologies including; Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, frogpond, Polk Street Review, Cowboys &Cocktails - Poetry from the True Grit Saloon, Haiku for Hikers, Reflections on Little Eagle Creek, Introspective Voices, The Polaris Trilogy and Fathers. Mike lives in Zionsville, Indiana, and is the author of a book of contradictory quotes and contranyms titled Contra-Diction. He is also the author of poetry chap books Savor, Discoveries, and Still Waters .

Kurt Olsson has published two poetry collections. His second, Burning Down Disneyland (Gunpowder Press), won the Barry Spacks Prize. Of the book, contest judge Thomas Lux wrote, “I love the title of this book . . . and I love the innovative mischief of its poems. Let it be known: a true poetic intelligence and imagination live between its covers.” Olsson’s first collection, What Kills What Kills Us (Silverfish Review Press), won the Gerald Cable Book and was subsequently awarded the Towson University Prize for Literature, given to the best book published the previous year by a Maryland writer. Olsson’s poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The New Republic, Southern Review, and The Threepenny Review.

Ujjvala Bagal Rahn’s Red Silk Sari (Red Silk Press, 2013) is her first collection of poems. Her work has most recently appeared in The Threepenny Review, Illuminations, Möbius: The Journal of Social Justice and Bangalore Review. She lives in Savannah, Georgia.

Patrick T. Reardon lives in Chicago and is the author of fourteen books, including the poetry collections Requiem for David, Darkness on the Face of the Deep, The Lost Tribes and Let the Baby Sleep. His memoir in prose poems Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby was published by Third World Press with an introduction by Haki Madhubuti. His poetry collection Salt of the Earth: Doubts and Faith is forthcoming from Kelsay Books.

At the beginning of her seventh decade of life, Stacy Reich, from Brooklyn, New York, is grateful that it isn’t too late for her to use her words, some of which have appeared in The New York Times (Metropolitan Diary), Crow’s Feet (https://medium.com/@ssr24689), and Thanatos.

Timothy Robbins has published six volumes of poetry: Three New Poets (Hanging Loose Press), Denny’s Arbor Vitae (Adelaide Books), Carrying Bodies (Main Street Rag Press) Mother Wheel (Cholla Needles Press) and This Night I Sup in Your House and Florida and Other Waters (Cyberwit.net). He lives in Wisconsin with his husband of 26 years.

Recent work by Bruce Robinson appears or is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Spoon River, Rattle, Mantis, Two Hawks Quarterly, Berkeley Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Last Stanza, and Aji. He has raced whippets in the midwest, and is part of that stubborn undercurrent in Brooklyn that continues to root for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Mykyta Ryzhykh lives in Ukraine and was a finalist of the Crimean ginger competition and Pushcart Nominee (Tipton Poetry Journal). Mykyta has been published in the journals White Mammoth, Soloneba, Litсentr, Plumbum Press, Ukrainian Literary Gazette, Bukovynskyi Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, Alternate route, dyst journal, Better than Starbucks poetry & Fiction Journal, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Littoral Press, Acorn haiku Journal, Book of Matches, Ice Floe Press and Literary Chernihiv.

Claire Scott is an award winning poet in Oakland, California who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L. J. Carber, became a published poet in his 70's in 99 literary journals in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Romania, India, and in 2 trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020] and Of Ether and Earth [2021]. Both titles reflect the awareness he's had for over 50 years since having an NDE whilst almost drowning in a Vermont river: that he has is a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets once called a soul. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2022, he's a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] living in New Jersey who's been married 42 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.

Steven Owen Shields, Johns Creek, Georgia. Most recent: Creation Story (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2019). His previous work can be found at the pedestal, Measure, Penwood Review, and Tipton Poetry Journal, among others. Originally from Indiana, he is a former all-night FM radio announcer and present-day professor of mass communication at the University of North Georgia. www.stevenowenshields.com. Twitter: @napjox.

Kim Salinas Silva lives in Rhode Island with her musician husband and their dog, Zelda. She loves nature and all animals. She started writing poetry in 2022 and has so far been accepted in several literary journals. Writing poetry is a way to add color and playfulness with a societal undertone to her world. Accepted work and/or artwork has appeared in or is forthcoming to The Literary Review, Litbreak, Poor Yorick, BarBar, MONO Literary, Unbroken, Gone Lawn, South Florida Poetry Journal, Meniscus, The Disappointed Housewife, Rhode Island Bard’s Anthology and elsewhere.

Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He has published four chapbooks (one translated into Mandarin) and two poetry collections: Paper Lanterns (Half-Acre Press, 2011) and Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (Rollston Press, 2017). Recent publication includes Slant, Cave Region Review, and Elder Mountain, among others.

Jim Tilley has published three full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. His poem, On the Art of Patience, was selected by Billy Collins to win Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize for Poetry. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His next poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, will be published in June 2024.

Mark Vogel lives at the back of a Blue Ridge holler with his wife, Susan Weinberg, an accomplished fiction and creative non-fiction writer, and two foster sons. He currently is an Emeritus Professor of English at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Poems and short stories have appeared in several dozen literary journals.

Bronislava Volková is a bilingual poet, semiotician, translator, collagist, essayist and Professor Emerita of Indiana University, where she was a Director of the Czech Program at the Slavic Department for thirty years. She went into exile from Czechoslovakia in 1974 and taught at several prominent universities in Germany and in the United States. She has published twelve books of existential and spiritual poetry in Czech, among which are eight bilingual editions illustrated with her own collages. She is also an author of three monographs and a large anthology of poetry translations from Czech to English. Her own poetry has been translated into fourteen languages. She currently lives in Prague, Czechoslovakia. More at www.bronislavavolkova.com

Editor

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and four anthologies by Brick Street Poetry: Mapping the Muse: A Bicentennial Look at Indiana Poetry; Words and Other Wild Things and Cowboys & Cocktails:Poems from the True Grit Saloon, and Reflections on Little Eagle Creek. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center.

Married and father of two grown sons, Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company.

His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, Silver Birch Press, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers‘ Bloc, Red-Headed Stepchild and Laureate: The Literary Journal of Arts for Lawrence. One of his poems was on display at the National Museum of Sport and another is painted on a barn in Boone County, Indiana as part of Brick Street Poetry‘s Word Hunger public art project. His poems are also included in these anthologies: From the Edge of the Prairie; Motif 3: All the Livelong Day; and Twin Muses: Art and Poetry.

He graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University.