Tipton Poetry Journal #64 (Spring 2025)

Tipton Poetry Journal

Tipton Poetry Journal

Tipton Poetry Journal

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 35 poets from the United States (23 unique states), and 5 poets from Australia, Canada, Poland, Ukraine and United Kingdom.

Our Featured Poem this issue is “Keeper of the Clock” written by Arvilla Fee. Arvilla's poem, which also receives an award of $25, can be found on page 1. The featured poem was chosen by the Board of Directors of Brick Street Poetry, Inc., the Indiana nonprofit organization who publishes Tipton Poetry Journal.

Barry Harris reviews Arvilla Fee's Mosaic and Kathleen Latham's The Ones.

Cover Photo: Mourning Dove by Brendan Crowley Barry Harris, Editor

Copyright 2025 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.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Contents

Arvilla Fee ..................................................................1 Lorne Mook ............................................................... 2 Jim Tilley ................................................................... 3 Carol Hamilton.......................................................... 4 Kenton K. Yee ............................................................ 5 Charles Grosel ........................................................... 6 Paweł Markiewicz ..................................................... 7 Dave Malone .............................................................. 8 Rachel Dacus ........................................................... 10 Nancy K. Jentsch ...................................................... 11 Britta Adams ............................................................ 12 William Heath .......................................................... 14 John Grey ................................................................. 16 Richard Dinges, Jr. ...................................................18 Charlene Langfur ..................................................... 19 Timothy Robbins ..................................................... 20 Mark Vogel .............................................................. 22 Matthew Brennan.................................................... 24 George Moore .......................................................... 24 Mark MacAllister .................................................... 26 Dorothy Brooks ....................................................... 28 George Korolog ....................................................... 29 rose auslander ......................................................... 30 Bruce Levine ............................................................ 30 Philip C. Kolin.......................................................... 32

Tipton Poetry Journal

Claire Scott .............................................................. 33 James Keane ............................................................ 34 Richard Krohn ......................................................... 36 Duane Anderson ...................................................... 38 Mykyta Ryzhykh ..................................................... 38 Diane Webster ......................................................... 40 Gene Twaronite ....................................................... 40 Walter Biskupski ..................................................... 42 Dominik Slusarczyk ................................................ 44 Michael Keshigian ................................................... 44 Lindsay McLeod ...................................................... 46 Nolo Segundo .......................................................... 46 Timothy Pilgrim ...................................................... 48 Karen L. George....................................................... 49 Review: Mosaic by Arvilla Fee ................................. 50 Review: The Ones by Kathleen Latham .................... 53 Brendan Crowley .................................................... 56

Tipton Poetry Journal

Tipton Poetry Journal

Keeper of the Clock Arvilla Fee I kept schedules, itineraries, calendars— dates and times stood at attention when I entered a room; to-do lists shrank against the grating edge of my black pen then there was you—reveling in spontaneity, going with the flow, a casual flip of your braid eye rolls, long sighs warring against my watch, always two steps behind, ten minutes too late— until you weren’t—until I answered a knock, and two officers solemnly stood, hats in hands, until the words we regret to inform you pierced my brain, wrenched a scream from my throat; numbers and hands exploded from the face of the clock, every shard cutting my tender feet; how could the sun and moon continue to trade places now that time lay perpetually stagnant, now that I lay prone on top of your yellow quilt wishing you hadn’t swallowed the calendar whole Arvilla Fee lives in Dayton, Ohio and teaches English for Clark State College. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side, This is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling and never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). Arvilla’s favorite quote in the whole word is: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. To learn more, visit her website and check out her new poetry magazine: https://soulpoetry7.com/

1

Tipton Poetry Journal

I Have, I Will, I May Lorne Mook I have a body, a border, and what’s within that border is me, and some of what’s beyond that border is also me. I will stretch my neck, let my mind atop that neck and under this hat, this ceiling, this sky, look out, around; think in, about.

I will break down what I find, make small borders to hold pencils for writing what I have found to be true, erasers for rubbing out what I have found to be true but not to the point or not true anymore, paper clips for binding what I have put into words for now.

Later I may change my words, trying again to get them right.

Later I may change my mind, which is what a mind is for.

Lorne Mook grew up on a farm in northwest Pennsylvania; went to school in Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio; and has lived in Upland, Indiana, for the past 24 years. His publications (in addition to his own poems) include translations of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.

2

Tipton Poetry Journal

Manifest Destiny Jim Tilley It is alive and well, thriving south of the 49th parallel, merely a straight line drawn with a rule, so claims the master whose ridicule is divinely inspired. But sir, a solemn treaty, not some marker-scrawled graffiti— it’s formally concluded, a ratified agreement between countries, solidified by longstanding practice, until broken, then renegotiated with malice, thus practically without standing, the two parties soon landing at the doorstep of war. Whether trade or sovereignty, the matter will never be laid to rest until ripped to shreds by one or other heads of state, with or without support of fellow politicians and against retort from opposition forces. Instead, laid to waste in knee-jerk haste, one party fair game to be maligned, says he—only its predecessor signed.

And so a man who’s lost his mind thinks of rubbing out the boundary line with a wave of his imagined wand to annex everything that lies beyond.

Jim Tilley lives in New York State and has published four fulllength 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.

Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems was published in 2024. His forthcoming collection, When Godot Arrived, will be published in the Fall of 2026.

3

Tipton Poetry Journal

Ethnic Cookbooks Carol Hamilton Those fleeing for their lives take little with them.

The Nicaraguan girlfriend told my son her family grabbed poetry books

by Antonio Machado.

The English woman, her children grown, traveled the Middle East alone, was invited into kitchens by strangers.

They shared the treasures hidden in their heads, how they mixed the spices.

Anxious and unsure, I stir a roux to bind new days together with words of all I have left behind.

Carol Hamilton has retired from teaching 2nd grade through graduate school in Connecticut, Indiana and Oklahoma, from storytelling and volunteer medical translating. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 19 books and chapbooks:children's novels, legends and poetry. She has been nominated ten times for a Pushcart Prize. She has won a Southwest Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award, David Ray Poetry Prize, Byline Magazine literary awards in both short story and poetry, Warren Keith Poetry Award, Pegasus Award and a Chiron Review Chapbook Award.

4

Tipton Poetry Journal

S Is for Keeps Kenton K. Yee High school students are encouraged to get licensed whether they intend to drive or not. Most take buses while a few have parents who buy them E Vs. Imagine teens in self-drive, zero-emission cars, lost in Swift, thinking that diesel is green because Wikipedia says it comes from plankton. One hops on a hawg, donates his heart. You played it safe, saved up to visit El Aye and, feeling out of place, tattooed up to look risqué.

Now, however, you hide the slime green S slithering between your nipples, slippery with plankton jelly.

Whenever you scratch, it squiggles. S could stand for SAP or SUPER. You adore it, you despise it, you haven’t a clue why, like the time you poked fork holes all over your superintendent’s plaster of Paris.

Kenton K. Yee's recent poems appear in Kenyon Review, Threepenny Review, Cincinnati Review, RHINO, Quarterly West, Tipton Poetry Journal, I-70 Review, Poetry Northwest, Constellations, Cortland Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. Kenton writes from Northern California.

5

Tipton Poetry Journal

Beloved Charles Grosel I could say I’m reverting to childhood, but even my mother, who may have loved me too much, said I was born an old man, that I should loosen up, learn to let go.

She meant let go with her, not of her, But I’ve had to do that all my life, let her go, first as a sour teen, unequipped for the rigors of anything but school, then as a young man with the gall to move out of orbit, and when I married, you get the picture, until that last great letting go when I didn’t throw myself to the ground, tear my hair, smudge ashes on my cheeks, rend even a single garment.

An editor, writer, and poet, Charles Grosel grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio.

After stints on both the West and East Coasts, he now lives in Arizona with his wife and their Chiweenie. He studied English literature at Yale University and fiction writing at the University of California, Davis, where he was a Regent’s Fellow. Grosel has published stories in journals such as Western Humanities Review, Fiction Southeast, Water-Stone, and The MacGuffin, as well as poems in The Threepenny Review, Nimrod, Cream City Review, and Harpur Palate. His chapbook of poems is The Sound of Rain Without Water.

6

Tipton Poetry Journal

Germany in the nighttime Paweł Markiewicz 1961 – the wall has been built once sixty-one stars glowed over the native land the East Germany rife with butterflies sparkled in the night the Western Germany full of west wood garlics glinted in the evening the fall of the Berlin Wall was an indulgence then shooting stars fell down at the moonglow the night reveals the policies with the most amazing dreams the dream about roses from 1935 was killed forever by the murkiness of comets that never could be blazing fiercely the night crawled the German Bundestag was light-filled by all kinds of lights of the new wizardry thousands of laws are glistering at the stars-shine the myth of Germany is an ancient legend from the emperor Otto the Great the history is a night rainbow awakened in some dreameries of a dazzling thinker Hitler wants to be forgotten forever and for sempiternity of a night sorcery

Paweł Markiewicz lives in Poland.

7

Tipton Poetry Journal

Barn Swallows I Dave Malone Our springtime guests find a beam that suits both lovers.

The male, keen on mud hair nest construction, woos her with mad skill.

Now they’ll function as parents to their first brood I’ll save from Father’s preying moods.

For ‘tis the season of treason.

8

Tipton Poetry Journal

Barn Swallows II Dave Malone Father says the south field must be baled. No time for wanderlust.

Those birds don’t teach you nothin except how to squat on another man’s property. They deceive with steel blue beauty and sweet song.

I don’t believe him—ever— though I ready the baler.

Dave Malone is a poet and playwright from the Missouri Ozarks. His poems have appeared in Plainsongs, Midwest Review, and San Pedro River Review. His most recent poetry book is Bypass (Aldrich Press, 2023). He can be found online at davemalone.net or on Instagram @dave.

9

Tipton Poetry Journal

Midday Darkness

Rachel Dacus When I saw the Biblical sky with its hushed orange haze and dark strokes as if God-finger writ, I felt time stop and brush my shoulder like a pristine canvas. I said hello to the waterless well within, drought filling up with a rain of silent commandments.

Picking up in my arms Peace, a cat, I switched on the lights at midday, and spent a sacredly inactive afternoon as the wildfires burned not far away, pillars of flame to the east and north.

Contemplated my being in this hinge of historic time, like a man who goes up into mountains and returns with vision blazed on his face.

I found myself wider than the sky and the dimmed earth. The well at my center spoke about the life beyond this small orange-hooded earth.

Past this body’s restless thoughts, and into the deepening echo of water.

From the inner well I hear a faint splash.

Rachel Dacus has published seven novels and four poetry collections, with work in journals that include Boulevard, Gargoyle, and Prairie Schooner, as well as the anthologies Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California and Nūr Mélange: A Ghazal Anthology. She enjoys the beauty of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she walks her Silky Terrier on the trails of nearby Mt. Diablo. More at www.racheldacus.net.

10

Tipton Poetry Journal

Synchronicity Nancy K. Jentsch Everyone’s family tree is a poem with lines that rhyme and others that range from enjambed to estranged.

Some stanzas never escape the prison of a pantoum and rejoice in the lack of a refrain. But there is always a bit of assonance passed down from beginning to end—subtle and sometimes skipping a line or two, hiding perhaps behind a lisp, then reappearing to awe us with the sudden understanding of synchronicity.

Nancy K. Jentsch’s poetry has appeared recently in Amethyst Review, Braided Way, and Still: The Journal.

In 2020, she received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She has published two chapbooks, Authorized Visitors (Cherry Grove Collections) and Intersecting Orbits (Bottlecap Press) in addition to her collection Between the Rows (Shanti Arts). More information is available on her website: https://jentsch8.wixsite.com/my-site.

11

Tipton Poetry Journal

Hiding Place Britta Adams I sit, legs crossed with my knees near my chin, in a kitchen cupboard.

I want to know if they notice I’m gone.

It’s been one hour, I think, and still nothing.

I expected this to go quicker, or maybe I just hoped it would. Lately my parents have not seen me past my brother’s failings in school or the convex curve of my sister’s pregnant belly. I see the pain in my father’s eye when he thinks of baby Ryan, lying still and atrophied in his car seat. We had only looked away for a moment, and I still had my hands wrapped around the pumpkin I had picked from the patch.

It is a hurt I feel, too. My mother pretends not to feel sad, though I know she does. It hurts me, too, to know my father feels for Patti, that he sees her wounds and not the way she yanks on my hair in contempt or how she pinches me with painted nails under the table or when she whispers, for the hundredth time, that I am least loved. I wish I knew why she hates me so, when all I want is to be seen as good. My mother doesn’t care to look at pain (especially when rooted in a girl) or to notice how she inflicts it with criticisms that slice at rapid speed— one blink and you could miss it. One blink from her and you could miss me hidden behind the square shoulders of my oldest brother, behind my second sister’s botherations, behind the door of the cupboard. Then I hear my father cough and waddle his way into the room to finger through the fridge—and I think this is it! Finally!

12

Tipton Poetry Journal

My cheeks redden as he settles on his standard: a whole tomato, salted with a shaker. Surely, he will sense my nervous breath, my desperation to be sought. I can picture it perfectly: the formation of a crease on his forehead, the tightening of his eyes, and the tilt of his head while he touches tongue to molars to release a loaded sigh. Maybe then he will put me on his shoulders and parade me around in a triumphant return or possibly he will cradle me to his chest and weep or perhaps he will look into my eyes, blue fixed on blue, and softly whisper “I see you, little wise one.”

I hear the vinyl floor creak.

Hours later, I emerge.

Britta Adams lives in Utah. She previously published poems in Last Leaves Magazine, Exponent II, Soft Union New Literature, and Boats Against the Current magazine.

13

Tipton Poetry Journal

Not My Country William Heath It’s always good to change, she said, sounding like a diaper salesperson.

The conversation went on from there to a place I’d never visited before and don’t wish to return.

She thought Trump would boost the economy, I replied that he belonged in the rubber room at the funny farm. We did not see eye to eye. It seems we’re not from the same spinning ball lost in space, but what can you do as you witness the demise of democracy, the end of the end, the foretold last day that had its beginning way back when our so-called founding fathers bungled the job, leaving it up to others, for better or worse, to carry on, deal with slavery, women’s rights, and so forth, to build a more perfect union, as if “perfect” had anything to do with us, the world’s last best hope.

14

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Connoisseur William Heath I make a point of standing a considerate amount of time before a painting—as if in a studio, the painter in his smock of many colors waiting for me to make pleasing comments.

If it’s a portrait I know not to say the mouth’s not quite right, if a landscape to refrain from stating that it’s just like such-and-such a place I’ve seen before.

Maybe I’ll settle for a little mood music, as in the youmake-me-feel-like song, come up with an appropriate emotion; if I don’t like the painting I do my best to leave as quickly as possible so that the gifted artist, as least in his or her own eyes, can get on with the work in progress.

William Heath has published four poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, Going Places, and Alms for Oblivion; three chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio, Leaving Seville, and Inventing the Americas; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake's Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards and the Oliver Hazard Perry Award); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Hiram College. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland. visit: www.williamheathbooks.com

15

Tipton Poetry Journal

Roger Recaps His Exciting Life John Grey I spent many a night spending many a day on the hot sands of all those exotic tropical beaches on the Travel Channel.

I lay back on my couch, underneath the broad fronds of a palm tree, sipped on a pina colada out of a beer can.

There were other evenings, feeling more adventurous, when, courtesy of Animal Planet, I donned my white explorer hat, sweat-stained khakis and headed into jungle.

I moved one leg from the footstool to avoid a hissing snake.

I hacked my way through thick vines of oncoming sleep.

I had sex in some late-night movie without ever once removing my pajama top.

And I shot it out with the bad guys while my wife just shook her head.

I was everything television wanted me to be from Harvard-educated lawyer to white-masked doctor in ER. I even had the whitest teeth, the sharpest razors, the most under control incontinence, for as long as the commercials ran.

But then I had that heart attack while singing on American Idol.

I was expecting a 10 from Simon Cowell.

I got a 4 ½ from Saint Peter.

16

Tipton Poetry Journal

What I Find on a Trip Back Home John Grey Everything has changed.

The street names, the store fronts, the beer brands on the billboards, the faces on the stamps, even the jokes kids tell each other in the playground.

The newspaper I buy bears a date that, once, I never would have imagined.

Look, there’s someone I used to know.

But who is he?

And who knew?

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident now living in Rhode Island, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly, City Brink and Tenth Muse. Latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories, and Cantos.

17

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Trial Richard Dinges, Jr. Stuttered thoughts lost in visions of broken limbs and bruises, vile color photos and shadowed videos and taped testimony laced with lies and premonitions, all encased in dry words, long lectures under fluorescent tubes that line a ceiling too low to hold enough air to catch my breath before I leave this hard wooden bench at the side of a room I cannot escape.

Richard Dinges, Jr. works on his homestead in Nebraska beside a pond, surrounded by trees and grassland, with his wife, two dogs, two cats, and five chickens. Spadina Literary Review, Stickman Review, MSU Road Runner Review, Boomer Lit, and Writer’s Block most recently accepted his poems for their publications.

18

Tipton Poetry Journal

Things That Don't Last Forever Charlene Langfur I want to say this as a purely Buddhist thought but of course, it is much bigger than that, stretching all across the universe past the black holes all the way to an asteroid or two.

I know all about this close up as I am a lesbian growing older each day, getting past what changes in a willy nilly manner and planting gardens with flowers that will take your breath away, full of lush lavender and bright yellow sunflowers opening in the winter sunlight like something right in the middle of a dream, soft easy blooms, petals in a universe of atoms and quarks, blooming because we need to have them, what stays for a moment at a time, what helps us feel we are safe, the petal’s largesse, the first green leaves, tiny plants at first, stems thin, fine, fragile, ready for more.

Charlene Langfur lives in the California desert and is an LGBTQ and green writer, an organic gardener with many poems in Poetry East, Room, Weber, and most recently in the special Monet issue of Poetry East,The Hiram Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, London’s Acumen.

19

Tipton Poetry Journal

A Sitter Timothy Robbins I sit now, a waterfall hoping to get my whole self into the pond before I freeze upright.

I try to keep the chair quiet.

Open a silent document on an especially quiet computer screen. If I make a thing so small, so quietly beautiful, the tyrants may overlook it.

20

Tipton Poetry Journal

Abandoned Thoughts Free Me Timothy Robbins Why should I worry? The Lord won’t show me his ways. There is nothing I didn’t try. I rubbed prayer dust all over my body and glowed in the night, not enough to read or write a saving message, but enough to avoid stubbing my toe on a partner or a stranger’s body. I washed my eyes in psalms. They hurt like pepper spray, branding my corneas like cows with neither rancher nor rustler. Soul strains muscles, reaching just itself, a touch abruptly devoid of intent.

Timothy Robbins is from Indiana. He has a B.A. in French, an M.A. in applied linguistics from Indiana University and has been teaching English as a second language since 1991. He has been publishing poetry since 1980 and has seven collections of poetry to his name, the most recent being Sticks. He and his husband have been together since 1998. They live in Wisconsin.

21

Tipton Poetry Journal

Become a Medium and Breathe Mark Vogel in surreal air where a body’s rhythm stalls in the awkward hiatus born out of a nightmare that medical books call Ondine’s Curse, when a heart forgets to breathe, and thus fails to spark—so the silly platelets in arteries settle into death-like inertia instead of the familiar queuing up— in the pushy humor of staying alive. A death (almost) so clearly seen, like an ancient final mask, as just at the last moment without prompting the machine jerks rudely back again in motion.

Yet, the medical text is incapable of revealing the inner panic as rutted historical trails fade.

Gone, a child’s faith that the summer sun invariably burns off fear, though thankfully, most often the heart catches again/ lungs cough alive, often with renewed purpose, eyes seeing again into seams in parallel worlds.

Yes, a death portrait lingers too, like that special recurring nightmare all about short-circuited flickering mortality/ how the lights are turned off. The doubt now that life ever was ever going to last.

22

Tipton Poetry Journal

Instead, fear’s dream loop blacking-out/ maybe a curse coming back/illusion as the old norm. Teehee humor in oblivion/ shocked again at this new shiny context / followed by the doubt. Strange how this daily sleeping/waking/blinking temporarily can cleanse a tired past, until a fresh comedy again jolts us upright, maybe back in Anaheim, aware the hint of rain will surely fail to wash away the grey haze.

Necessary, these layers of habitual waking, Gently a toe under blankets reaching to touch.

Maybe in cool late summer in the Blue Ridge fog feeling the first red hints of fall. Necessary, the melting dreams, mornings born in darkness, cleansed of what came before.

A rhythm, a rift in the murmur saying again, (without irony): I haven’t yet loved enough.

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.

23

Tipton Poetry Journal

November 6, 2024 Matthew Brennan By the time I woke the votes were counted.

It had rained late at night, and this morning no sunlight shone in the ashen sky. As I walked along the still-wet streets, my feet met layers of maples' scarlet leaves that had fallen overnight, and my eyes lit upon an evergreen I passed each day but only just now found the rash of brown amid green branches.

Besides TPJ, Matthew Brennan's poems have appeared in such journals as Poetry Ireland Review, THINK, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Notre Dame Review, and Sewanee Review. He has published nine books and chapbooks of poems, most recently The End of the Road (2023). Brennan retired after 32 years of teaching at Indiana State University and now lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Sheela na gig George Moore Shelias, they said and smiled.

The foreigner wouldn’t know the day if it broke over his head. Rain then and the purple haze that follows dull Irish winters. A ruined chapel where Columcille had visited before

24

Tipton Poetry Journal

he lay his head on a stone pillow.

And Finnian’s book, that he borrowed (but secretly copied), and words were magic after all, possessing the power of repetitions and incantations. Somewhere out there, they said: I was fit, walk and you’ll find it, the chapel, low archway, a grin with gapping orifice beneath, the dark hole of death, nuns said, carved into the mantel overhead.

They argued to keep the girls trim, like-minded, bent on scripture, not love in tremors.

All things end, they said, and begin again. The pub was full to overflowing, like a chalice, or a holy well in a stone someone had tended for a thousand years.

You’ll find your way back in plenty of time, not to worry, they said, and the nuns will bless your passage then if you must travel in the dark.

George Moore’s most recent collections are Children’s Drawings of the Universe with Salmon Poetry (2015) and Saint Agnes Outside the Walls with Future Cycle Press (2016). He has published with The Atlantic, Poetry, Orbis, and New York Quarterly, and has work forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2025 (Biblioasis). After a career teaching literature and writing with the University of Colorado, Boulder, he now lives with his wife, a Canadian author, on the south shore of Nova Scotia.

25

Tipton Poetry Journal

Born Into A Cold House Mark MacAllister Headed home from the hospital new year’s eve day seventy-two hours old dad’s car skidded on the icedover gravel he went to find a wrecker the snow as it did those days kept coming while my mom huddled in the backseat I nursed flushed and sweating intent hot stone held hard against herself already she believed something was wrong with me after fourteen years in a cold house I helped my grandfather finally lug the woodstove to the barn hooked-up a new oilburner which warmed everything even the upstairs bedrooms (except on those days when the fuel froze to syrup in the tank outside the back door) still I remained a constant one hundred point five the endocrinologist offered I guess he just runs hot as if I were my dad’s Ford

26

Tipton Poetry Journal

four years more then college in glaciated northern Ohio the second-chair bassoonist newly transferred from Tempe desert cheekbones and perfect posture informed me in October that I would be hers through winter the arrangement served us well though by December she often would kick the quilt off the bed as agreed we were finished once daffodils first appeared in the arboretum gardens

Mark MacAllister grew up in northern Illinois, spent a great deal of formative time on his grandparents' dairy farm in southwest Wisconsin's Driftless region, and learned to write at Oberlin College. Mark now lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina but travels often to the Wisconsin Northwoods and to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to hike and bike the backcountry. His poems appear in various journals, including Steam Ticket, Quiet Diamonds, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Deep Wild: Writing From the Backcountry, Moss Piglet, Flying South Passager Journal. Mark’s chapbook, Quiet Men And Their Coyotes, won the 2022 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest and was published in January 2023.

27

Tipton Poetry Journal

Pass Christian Dorothy Brooks Even the name was special, its unusual stress on the final syllable, its rhyme with Anne. My mother loved that Mississippi beach town and the memories it evoked: carefree summers with her six older siblings in the family home, later washed away by Camille.

Because she loved it we went often, Going across the lake, we called this when we were kids, though the town is actually on the Gulf, not the lake.

We formed our own childhood memories: days in the sand and warm Gulf waters, nights under ceiling fans, evenings on the seawall watching stars come out.

Setting out nets for blue crabs on our uncle's pier. Because she loved it, we loved it, the way joy is passed from one generation to the next.

It's not genetic. It's someone's raw pleasure and the contagion it spreads.

As a child you catch it, like the flu.

Dorothy Brooks lives in Florida and has previously appeared in many literary magazines, most recently in Valley Voices, California Quarterly, Broad River Review, Tampa Review, and Atlanta Review. She has published 4 poetry chapbooks as well as two full-length poetry collections: A Fine Dusting of Brightness, published in 2013 by Aldrich Press, and This Pause, Like Mist Rising, published in 2023 by Main Street Rag. Her poem “Hearing Loss” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

28

Tipton Poetry Journal

Use the Simplest Word George Korolog Annihilation.

It’s a simple word.

And it’s profound.

In the end, we leave everyone with no words of wisdom, the disintegration of thought, the failing observations.

There is no one to approve of or disapprove of anymore.

There is no one left to love or hate.

Not now.

But in that just before final moment, YOU still contains you But that will have to go as well.

It’s not even fleeting.

It’s as if it never existed.

Forgetting has a point.

That point.

Over there.

A place.

A person.

An animal.

The time we cling to so desperately, as if holding begets meaning.

George Korolog is a writer/poet who moved to the rural life in Sebastopol, California. after a forty year career in technology business in Silicon Valley. He has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has had his work published in the Los Angeles Review, Naugatuck River Review, Chiron Review, Southern Indiana Review and Tar River Review among many others. His work is also included in a number of anthologies. He has two published books of poetry, Raw String by Finishing LinePress and Collapsing Outside the Box, by Aldrich Press.

29

Tipton Poetry Journal

Speak gently to the snow rose auslander as you walk into the coldblooded, wind-driven white, boots heavy with ice, eyes caked shut, speak gently to the prophet hovering where there’d been a construction crane & to the speechless lump where your car must be, speak gently to this winter, after last year’s when the same lot was full, even the space at the end where a woman left her car until spring melt, speak gently to that woman, who waited until crocuses bloomed to find she’d parked on the lake, yes, speak gently, as by woman, I mean me, I mean the person I’d thought I was.

It was hard to see in the snow. rose auslander lives in Massachusetts and is the author of Wild Water Child, winner of the 2016 Bass River Press Poetry Contest. Her new book manuscript was a finalist for the 2024 Four Way Press Levis Prize in Poetry, and look for her poems in the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Baltimore Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, New Ohio Review, New American Writing, LEON, RHINO, Roanoke Review, Tinderbox, and Tupelo Quarterly. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Warren Wilson.

Photo Credit: Liz Hanellin

Etude in B♭ Bruce Levine Far beyond the face of the earth Sounds coalesce No one knows how or why

30

Tipton Poetry Journal

Or how they stream Into the subconscious of a composer They take no space And can’t be assembled like Legos Yet they do assemble Forming patterns and groups Phrases and sentences One after another Moving in time rather than space Until the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts And filtering in some unknown way Through all the sounds and groups and phrases into a new whole And as if by magic forming dots on a page To be interpreted and reinterpreted Reaching out to the head, heart and soul of the listener Transporting their consciousness Carried along on waves of sound Created somewhere and brought to life by a composer

Bruce Levine is a Pushcart Prize poetry nominee, a Spillwords Press Awards winner, and a WestWard Quarterly featured writer. Over 300 of his works are published on over 25 on-line journals including Literary Yard, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal and Spillwords: over 70 print anthologies including Tipton Poetry Journal, Poets’ Espresso Review, Creations Magazine and WestWard Quarterly. He’s the author of the chapbook Sweet Dreams and is also a classical composer. A native Manhattanite, he now lives in Dover, New Hampshire.

31

Tipton Poetry Journal

Pollution's Dredge Philip C. Kolin The earth’s great lungs—the rainforests-are collapsing. Razor sharp acid falls from the clouds. Small dogs and chirrups feel their fur and wings peeling away.

Years’ long droughts have leveled farm lands; vineyards are now dust bowls and crops blow away before farmers can pick them.

The oceans have become a harvest of plastic bottles, bags, and wraps that hold sea life hostage.

Orcas and otters caught in toxin Teflon.

Blessed are those who unharvest these plastic plants.

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 15 collections of poems including most recently Reaching Forever (Poiema Series, Cascade Books, 2019), Delta Tears: Poems (Main Street Rag, 2021), Wholly God's (Wind & Water Press, 2021), and Black Trauma: Resistance Poems about Black History (Third World Press, 2023). Kolin's most recent book is Evangeliaries: Poems (Angelico Press, 2024).The 12th edition of his business writing textbook, Successful Writing at Work, was published by Cengage Learning.

32

Tipton Poetry Journal

Deus Ex Machina Claire Scott Is there a happy ending to this shambolic world a random world of chaos and confusion is there even a plot a monkey with infinite time could never type War and Peace and our time is not infinite This world where children wrapped in newspapers huddle under bridges where immigrants are shackled and locked in loathsome prisons this world where a boy-king breaks toys beaming as the wheels fly off Where is the deus ex machina to tie it all up in a satin bow to make meaning where there is none no crane in sight lowering a god to the stage no cavalry riding to the rescue or phoenix rising from the ashes only guns and drones bulldozed houses and limp bodies only tariffs and terror we need to create our own god maybe an AI powered robot programmed for peace dropping from the sky arriving just in time

33

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Last Marble Claire Scott There it goes the last marble a Cat’s Eye one of my favorites rolling under the fridge no way to find Safeway or type in the password to buy TP on Amazon no way to remember the names of my four (or is it five?) grandkids but we will cuddle like spider monkeys and they will tell me stories for the first time again and again 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.

Lying Together James Keane a year and a half later, faces fixed in our narrow spaces far from any warmth or sweat. No thought of bliss, no movement

34

Tipton Poetry Journal

to kiss, yet here we are, as if nothing was ever amiss.

Should I kiss your solemn face leading with its chin. Will it push away from my lips or hazard a grin.

A year and a half younger, our bodies were faces seeking out each other; warm smiles deepened our embraces and kisses. Hidden no longer, your breasts happily lolled.

In the end, though, the room and bed were stronger, frigid; no chance of sweat within our narrow space.

Was there nothing left to recover or discover a year and a half later forty years ago

[This poem was first published in 2016 by The Bond Street Review] James Keane is the New Jersey author of two poetry chapbooks: Small Wonders (2022) and What Comes Next(2013), both published

by Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Tipton Poetry Journal, WINK: Writers IN the Know, Indiana Voice Journal, East Coast Literary Review, Out of Our, and Verse-Virtual; and in several anthologies, including Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems (Ragged Sky Press).

35

Tipton Poetry Journal

Rule of Thumb Richard Krohn When your women file by, will they stare down at eyes that no longer leer, at arms that can’t flail, fingers that trembled with age and rage, index for casting blame, middle always raised, knuckles gnarled large as an old boxers’, at hands that ached for all they used to make?

Will they still see how right hand wrung left or just thrust out, not across an aisle to shake another or pat a back, but clenched into an arthritic fist, thumb clamped like the safety of a grenade, then turned down to vote a knee-jerk No or press on scales to keep somebody under, a thumb that stuck out, forever sore, so troubled, so all-thumbs clumsy, all it could do was oppose?

36

Tipton Poetry Journal

Demolition Richard Krohn I wheeled him to the hospital’s top-floor lounge that Sunday they felled Bethlehem’s Martin Tower, its offices emptied after The Steel failed for good, and as they counted down, we looked east, sun rising over the crumbled, blackened factories yet to be replaced by more ArtsQuest or casino.

At the window we shared my binoculars, turning to crowds cordoned off by sawhorses and cruisers, their phones raised to record how the tower would tumble like a losing move at Jenga, 21 stories of cement and glass, the giant corporation’s own I-beams sucked down, dust clouds billowing, then pulled back in to show how nature abhors a vacuum, and as the rubble settled and gawkers left, the rooftops now in line with the fallen hill, we sat and gazed at the empty space, wondering what might be next.

Richard Krohn has spent most of his life up and down the East Coast, but he has also spent many years in the Midwest and in Central America. He currently teaches Economics and Spanish at Moravian University in Pennsylvania. In addition to TPJ, his poetry is most commonly found in Tar River, Poet Lore, I-70, Rio Grande, Concho River and Paterson.

37

Tipton Poetry Journal

Stillness Duane Anderson It is as if my thoughts had gotten stuck in a giant pile of mud, wanting to get out, but would not budge, waiting to be rescued by a tow truck and taken elsewhere, a new beginning.

Turn the dial from off to on, let life continue.

Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, Nebraska. He has had poems published in Fine Lines, Cholla Needles, and several other publications. He is the author of On the Corner of Walk and Dont Walk, Conquer the Mountains, Family Portraits, The Life of an Ordinary Man, and In the Eyes Of.

After all Mykyta Ryzhykh The snow is falling but do you care after all you are the night. The fire is burning but the stars do not warm and are insanely distant. After all you are the night of death. No one is born in a cemetery with a candle in their hands and this death continues simultaneously with the night. The river is endless.

After all you are water and you are one with time. And everything around is censorship or self-censorship. And the jumping recitative of fir trees drinks the smooth surface of autumn. The last sip. But the truth does not exist. Death

38

Tipton Poetry Journal

teaches after all death is our only teacher. Death learns hands and hands learn to sleep. Teacher or student? After all no one knows anything and this night an infinite amount of water has flowed into the future and all around is white and white. A black cry descends on the black snow. The ice cracks and the depth is endless. Minutes pour out. The years float by themselves like water in water.

Seagulls cry. There are no more seagulls. There have never been seagulls before. There will be no seagulls and only beaks. Sound. The sound cracks. The forest of death noisily falls asleep and only the snowy night that touches your lips like an ellipsis. The word is your name. Cut a strand of silence and share the silence with it. Your grandmother was shot with a machine gun during the German occupation more than 70 years ago. Your daughter today looks at the sky and sees military planes shooting at the stars in the continuous darkness.

Nothing has changed in the world for decades. The forest is squatting and the night shoots at the cast-iron milky back of the head at the soldiers sleeping in the barracks. The river of night floats by every second. After all. The future has never been here before. There is no future.

[This poem was first published in Ink Pantry]

Mykyta Ryzhykh lives in Ukraine, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been published any times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Rechport, Topos, Articulation, Formaslov, Literature Factory, Literary Chernihiv, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, on the portals Litсenter, Ice Floe Press and Soloneba, in the Ukrainian literary newspaper.

39

Tipton Poetry Journal

Shoulder of the Highway Diane Webster A tree limb lies on the shoulder of the highway; wind waggles its leaf stems like legs on a hit-and-run dog dying on the shoulder of the highway where leaves skip across pavement and rise in a tiny whirlwind of souls leaving the scene of the accident Diane Webster's work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Studio One and other literary magazines. She had micro-chaps published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Diane lives in Colorado and has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart. She was a featured writer in Macrame Literary Journal and WestWard.

Little Sister Gene Twaronite Eight years apart might as well be light years for the trillions of miles we’ve travelled from each other.

I watched over you and sometimes used you as errand girl the way big brothers often do.

40

I saw the bobby-soxer turn into a woman who turned heartache into devotion, self-doubt into mastery, teaching her students how to think metaphorically to see the words as something else.

Tipton Poetry Journal

But now the words have all become pleasantries, dutifully transmitted across the void, carefully chosen to avoid saying what to the other would only sound like static from the Big Bang, once thought to be some faraway alien trying to communicate, as we look back through time and stars we once knew recede

in

the

distance.

Gene Twaronite is a Tucson poet and the author of five poetry collections. His first poetry book, Trash Picker on Mars, was the winner of the 2017 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. His latest poetry collection is Death at the Mall (Kelsay Books). He leads a poetry workshop for University of Arizona OLLI. Follow more of Gene’s writing at: genetwaronitepoet.com.

41

Tipton Poetry Journal

Notre Dame: Requiem and Restoration Walter Biskupski I. In elemental fire, shaped wood sears, groaning to the bone, Notre Dame, of numbered years, monstered with gargoyled stone, A burnt offering did become.

Anchored by the imperfect, by faith and by faithlessness, surrendering to time’s verdict, kneels this day to time’s duress, with a fiery requiem.

Billowing in Parisian skies, a hurricane of swirling smoke, dismissive of all human cries, fire unfurls its mourning cloak and sounds its relentless drum.

What is lost and what is not? Fire destroys human toil, All that’s achieved can been brought, returned to unfurrowed soil, in times that are yet to come.

Memories will begin anew, ceremonies gained, others lost.

Past visions appear for some few, others unaware of the cost, but for all gathered there, a home.

42

Tipton Poetry Journal II. What chords are to be heard, even through the consuming fire of Notre Dame?

Resounding past the flames that lapped the wood is the music of centuries.

The Latinate syllables floating through sacred space, The Kyrie’s and Agnus Dei’s, are embedded in the wood and stone, in the walls, and in the art, in the windows of color and motion, that the sun, traversing daily, paints with light.

Now a new day dawns, with notes, open and inviting, Remembrance echoes, the past remains in ambience, while the present rises in hope, in the synergy of faith and creativity.

Walter Biskupski is a retired teacher living in Indianapolis. His poem, "Lament for the Children of Uvalde," was published in the June 23, 2022 edition of the Uvalde Leader-News.

He has also published poems in local and national literary journals, won several prizes in the Poetry Society of Indiana annual poetry contests, and has written poems on the Holocaust, on the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and on George Floyd. He has recorded some of his poems on his YouTube channel. Search: WALTERBISKUPSKI.

43

Tipton Poetry Journal

nothing Dominik Slusarczyk This is nothing.

You read it anyway.

We are what they called Flames before they Came up with the word flames.

Understand me: I am trying to explain Who you have to kill to be free.

Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist living in Bristol, England, who makes everything from music to painting. He was educated at The University of Nottingham where he got a degree in biochemistry. His poetry has been published in various literary magazines including California Quarterly and Taj Mahal Review. His poetry was nominated for Best of the Net

by New Pop Lit, and was a finalist in a couple of competitions. His full-length poetry collection Reaction is out now with Cyberwit.

Rebirth Michael Keshigian Mindless, aimless, devoid of harm, somehow an amoeba ingested me, wrapped its protoplasmic single cell around my world with one pseudo pod stroke and stuffed me into a vacuole where I was maintained with digestive acids that burned my skin and cleansed

44

Tipton Poetry Journal

with random enzymes that floated in front of my eyes, my psyche reduced to its lowest denominator, a fraction of the computation that was me.

I lost my arms and teeth, my laugh and travails, left with only a nucleus until mitosis, when I was born again with a gelatin brain and no definite shape. ready to ingest without prejudice.

Michael Keshigian from Londonderry, New Hampshire, had his 14th poetry collection, What to Do with Intangibles recently published by Cyberwit.net.

Published in numerous national and international journals, he is a 7- time Pushcart Prize and 3 - time Best of The Net nominee. His poetry cycle, Lunar Images was set for Clarinet, Piano, Narrator and premiered at Del Mar College in Texas. Subsequent performances occurred in Boston (Berklee College) and Moleto, Italy.

Winter Moon, a poem set for Soprano and Piano, premiered in Boston.

45

Tipton Poetry Journal

Flight Lindsay McLeod I have called out for my courage to come home but I might just as well hold forth my empty hands and expect a sparrow to make there its nest Lindsay McLeod is a South Australian poet who currently lives down the Port with his adored cattle dog, Mary. Lindsay's work has found homes this year with Ephemeral Elegies, The Human Writers, The Martello, Meniscus, Book of Matches and Literary Heist. He continues to support his poetry habit by driving a forklift.

A Child and Eternity Nolo Segundo When I was a child Eternity scared me— I was terrified when I thought of it—a long Line never ending, On and on and on It went till my mind Felt like taffy being Pulled through space.

46

Tipton Poetry Journal

Somehow I knew it Was real, Eternity, so I Lacked the mercy of Doubt to ease me, To lessen my fear of That endless road— (And now I know some Grown-ups see it so, an Unending line of time…)

But now I think time is More like a ball, past And present and future Roll around together— We call it a ‘moment’ In our world of clocks And schedules to keep: But that moment, that Ghost called time, is just Eternity visiting the world.

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L. J. Carber, became a published poet in his 70's in over 200 literary journals in 16 countries. A trade publisher has released 3 collections in paperback: The Enormity of Existence [2020]; Of Ether and Earth [2021]; and Soul Songs [2022].

These 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 since Plato have called the soul. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and thrice for Best of the Net, he's a retired English/ESL teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] who's been married 43 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.

47

Tipton Poetry Journal

Facing eighty Timothy Pilgrim I don’t recall if this place is mine, if I’m visiting or here to stay. If I took my meds, moments later, took them again.

If I had pizza for lunch — or a steak.

If I ate it all, washed the scraps, threw plate away. I don’t recall if my wife lives, if she bathes me, dresses in white. If my children write, phone or ever drop by. I do hear from a nephew I don’t recollect, send checks to the jail he’s in.

Timothy Pilgrim a Montana poet living in Bellingham, Washington, has more than six hundred acceptances from U.S. journals such as Seattle Review, Red Coyote, Toasted Cheese Tipton Poetry Journal and Santa Ana River Review, and international journals such as Windsor Review and Toasted Cheese in Canada, and Otoliths in Australia. Pilgrim is the author of Seduced by metaphor: Timothy Pilgrim collected published poems (2021) and of Mapping water (2016).

48

Tipton Poetry Journal

Raven Visit, Florida Vacation Karen L. George During my sunrise water workout, you land on the white pool cabana, pivot my way, lower your head the better to see you, my dear.

Your dark, stark body, fan tail, long curved beak gleam against the dreamy blue of sky. A few two-footed hops, you’re off, crisp slow flaps that alternate with long glides.

Later, as I raise my camera to capture ocean glaze, cloud glory, it’s you I find in the lens’ gaze.

On the porch rail cap, you strut while I freeze your black shine. Again, you eye me, and I bow to your heady excellence.

Karen L. George lives in Kentucky and is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), and Caught in the Trembling Net (2024). She won Slippery Elm’s 2022 Poetry Contest, and her award-winning short story collection, How We Fracture, was released by Minerva Rising Press in January 2024.

Her poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Lily Poetry Review, and Poet Lore. Her website is https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/

49

Tipton Poetry Journal

Review: Mosaic by Arvilla Fee

Reviewed by Barry Harris Title: Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces Author: Arvilla Fee Year: 2025

Publisher: Resource Publications Arvilla Fee’s A Million Little Pieces is a deeply personal collection that explores themes of grief, loss, resilience, and hope. This is a hefty book of poetry, spanning over two hundred pages. This work presents a mosaic of reflections drawn from Fee’s lived experiences, trauma, and observations. Through its three parts — Sorrows, Yesterdays, and Lives — readers are invited to journey with the author as she confronts pain and ultimately gestures toward healing.

One of the most compelling aspects of this collection is Fee’s ability to use poetry as a mechanism of emotional expression and catharsis. As noted in the foreword, poetry breaks things apart in a way that makes particular impressions accessible and universal, allowing both author and reader to glimpse wholeness beyond its seemingly fractured pieces.

Poems like “Not the End of My Story” demonstrate this with vivid metaphors of opening a book spine and beginning a new chapter despite the scars of a life's history.

Fee’s background as an educator and a writer is evident the varied forms her poems and stories take. The presence of personal letters, reflective narratives, and intimate memories adds layers of authenticity and invites

50

Tipton Poetry Journal

empathy, such as in the poem "Send It," where she wrestles with words unspoken to an absent father.

Mosaic presents the reader with a feeling that each poem is indeed a distinct fragment of the whole. The very metaphor of broken glass and scattered shards that the book embraces points toward the hope of healing the broken pieces in our separate lives.

Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces is ultimately a touching and inspiring read.

Fee’s dedication to illuminating the human condition, especially through the lens of trauma and healing, is deeply admirable.

This book may serve as a source of solace for anyone navigating loss or searching for hope amid brokenness.

51

Tipton Poetry Journal

Arvilla Fee teaches English Composition for Clark State College in Ohio, and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling, and she never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse).

For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and several 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, RedHeaded 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.

52

Tipton Poetry Journal

Review: The Ones by Kathleen Latham

Reviewed by Barry Harris Title: The Ones Author: Kaathleen Latham Year: 2024

Publisher: Kelsay Books Kathleen Latham’s The Ones is a poetic journey through love, loss, and human connection. As a fourthgeneration Southern Californian who now resides in Boston, Latham brings a perspective that is both intimate and universal, weaving her life experiences into lines that resonate deeply with readers.

The collection is thoughtfully structured into sections—“The Ones Who Come First,” “The Ones Who Come Next,” and “The Ones Who Come Last”—which chronicle the evolving nature of relationships and personal growth. Poems like “29 Thomas Street” vividly evoke the vulnerability and chaos of everyday life, capturing moments of quiet tension and creativity within domestic imperfection. Similarly, “In Defense of Poems About Heartbreak” reminds us that the universality of heartache does not diminish its importance, but rather affirms its place at the core of the human experience. These themes of intimacy and shared emotional experiences underscore much of the work.

Latham’s writing style is accessible yet layered, with moments of sharp imagery and poetic metaphors that invite readers to linger and reflect on poems that honor the human conditions she explores.

53

Tipton Poetry Journal This is a book of poems about love and relationships that tease it, remember it, forget it, and learn from it. As Latham writes in "In Defense of Poems About Heartbreak," she puts it this way: We have all lost something.

Ubiquity doesn't make it trite, it makes it human.

Latham's ability to capture fleeting moments grounds the collection with an authentic, lived-in feel. As an example, here is the opening line of one of the first Kathleen Latham poems published in Tipton Poetry Journal, from "Cranberry Juice:" I should have known you loved me when I got a UTI in a Motel 6 in San Diego and you went out at three in the morning to get me cranberry juice.

The Ones is a heartfelt and relatable collection that will appeal to readers drawn to personal lyricism and themes of love’s complexities. Kathleen Latham’s work offers comfort and companionship for those navigating their own emotional landscapes, with the loves in their own lives who came first, the ones who came next, or the ones who come last.

54

Tipton Poetry Journal

Kathleen Latham is a fourth generation Southern Californian who bucked the tide and relocated to Boston where she’s spent the last thirty years scraping ice off her windshield. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in multiple journals and anthologies.

A highly commended winner of the Bridport Prize for flash fiction, she’s also won the Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition, Spider Road Press’s Web Microfiction Prize for Women Writers, and a Bath Flash Fiction Award. She’s been shortlisted or a finalist for the Bevel Summers Prize, a First Pages Prize, the Welkin Writing Prize, and for contests in Fish Flash Fiction, The Masters Review, New Flash Fiction Review, and The Southeast Review.

She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from Occidental College and a master’s degree in human development from Harvard University.

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and several 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.

55

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Mourning Dove Brendan Crowley Groundhog’s day beckons, Morning breakfast awaits, Another granola cereal mix, another instant Nescafe, How long will this last?

Then you appear before my eyes, Landing on a welcoming porch rail, You know I need help, How long will you stay?

Nature is indifferent, It does not know of our pain, But you are different, you know what I want, How long do I have?

I fetch my camera, not wanting to disturb, I zoom from a distance, What a sight to behold, How long is this shoot?

Maybe you visit from the past, Sweet and strong as a saint, With no complaints and soft laughter, How long have I missed you?

Then you flutter your wings, Now I know who you are, Someone special in my life, How long have you cared?

Now its time to move on, To your next port of call, I welcomed your visit, As long as it’s been.

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 in Zionsville, Indiana. He has a passion for photography and loves taking photographs of his home country, Ireland, and here in Indiana.\

56

Tipton Poetry Journal

Contributor Biographies Britta Adams lives in Utah. She previously published poems in Last Leaves Magazine, Exponent II, Soft Union New Literature, and Boats Against the Current magazine.

Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, Nebraska. He has had poems published in Fine Lines, Cholla Needles, and several other publications. He is the author of On the Corner of Walk and Dont Walk, Conquer the Mountains, Family Portraits, The Life of an Ordinary Man, and In the Eyes Of. rose auslander lives in Massachusetts and is the author of Wild Water Child, winner of the 2016 Bass River Press Poetry Contest. Her new book manuscript was a finalist for the 2024 Four Way Press Levis Prize in Poetry, and look for her poems in the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Baltimore Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, New Ohio Review, New American Writing, LEON, RHINO, Roanoke Review, Tinderbox, and Tupelo Quarterly. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Warren Wilson.

Walter Biskupski is a retired teacher living in Indianapolis. His poem, "Lament for the Children of Uvalde," was published in the June 23, 2022 edition of the Uvalde Leader-News. He has also published poems in local and national literary journals, won several prizes in the Poetry Society of Indiana annual poetry contests, and has written poems on the Holocaust, on the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and on George Floyd. He has recorded some of his poems on his YouTube channel. Search: WALTERBISKUPSKI. Besides TPJ, Matthew Brennan's poems have appeared in such journals as Poetry Ireland Review, THINK, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Notre Dame Review, and Sewanee Review. He has published nine books and chapbooks of poems, most recently The End of the Road (2023). Brennan retired after 32 years of teaching at Indiana State University and now lives in Columbus, Ohio.

57

Tipton Poetry Journal

Dorothy Brooks lives in Florida and has previously appeared in many literary magazines, most recently in Valley Voices, California Quarterly, Broad River Review, Tampa Review, and Atlanta Review. She has published 4 poetry chapbooks as well as two full-length poetry collections: A Fine Dusting of Brightness, published in 2013 by Aldrich Press, and This Pause, Like Mist Rising, published in 2023 by Main Street Rag. Her poem “Hearing Loss” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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 in Zionsville, Indiana. He has a passion for photography and loves taking photographs of his home country, Ireland, and here in Indiana.

Rachel Dacus has published seven novels and four poetry collections, with work in journals that include Boulevard, Gargoyle, and Prairie Schooner, as well as the anthologies Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California and Nūr Mélange: A Ghazal Anthology. She enjoys the beauty of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she walks her Silky Terrier on the trails of nearby Mt. Diablo. More at www.racheldacus.net.

Richard Dinges, Jr. works on his homestead in Nebraska beside a pond, surrounded by trees and grassland, with his wife, two dogs, two cats, and five chickens. Spadina Literary Review, Stickman Review, MSU Road Runner Review, Boomer Lit, and Writer’s Block most recently accepted his poems for their publications.

Arvilla Fee lives in Dayton, Ohio and teaches English for Clark State College. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side, This is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling and never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). Arvilla’s favorite quote in the whole word is: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. To learn more, visit her website and check out her new poetry magazine: https://soulpoetry7.com/

58

Tipton Poetry Journal

Karen L. George lives in Kentucky and is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), and Caught in the Trembling Net (2024). She won Slippery Elm’s 2022 Poetry Contest, and her award-winning short story collection, How We Fracture, was released by Minerva Rising Press in January 2024. Her poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Lily Poetry Review, and Poet Lore. Her website is https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/ John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident now living in Rhode Island, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly, City Brink and Tenth Muse. Latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories, and Cantos.

An editor, writer, and poet, Charles Grosel grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. After stints on both the West and East Coasts, he now lives in Arizona with his wife and their Chiweenie. He studied English literature at Yale University and fiction writing at the University of California, Davis, where he was a Regent’s Fellow. Grosel has published stories in journals such as Western Humanities Review, Fiction Southeast, Water-Stone, and The MacGuffin, as well as poems in The Threepenny Review, Nimrod, Cream City Review, and Harpur Palate. His chapbook of poems is The Sound of Rain Without Water.

Carol Hamilton has retired from teaching 2nd grade through graduate school in Connecticut, Indiana and Oklahoma, from storytelling and volunteer medical translating. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 19 books and chapbooks:children's novels, legends and poetry. She has been nominated ten times for a Pushcart Prize. She has won a Southwest Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award, David Ray Poetry Prize, Byline Magazine literary awards in both short story and poetry, Warren Keith Poetry Award, Pegasus Award and a Chiron Review Chapbook Award.

59

Tipton Poetry Journal

William Heath has published four poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, Going Places, and Alms for Oblivion; three chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio, Leaving Seville, and Inventing the Americas; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake's Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards and the Oliver Hazard Perry Award); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Hiram College. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland. visit: www.williamheathbooks.com Nancy K. Jentsch’s poetry has appeared recently in Amethyst Review, Braided Way, and Still: The Journal. In 2020, she received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She has published two chapbooks, Authorized Visitors (Cherry Grove Collections) and Intersecting Orbits (Bottlecap Press) in addition to her collection Between the Rows (Shanti Arts). More information is available on her website: https://jentsch8.wixsite.com/my-site James Keane is the New Jersey author of two poetry chapbooks: Small Wonders (2022) and What Comes Next(2013), both published by Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Tipton Poetry Journal, WINK: Writers IN the Know, Indiana Voice Journal, East Coast Literary Review, Out of Our, and Verse-Virtual; and in several anthologies, including Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems (Ragged Sky Press).

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 15 collections of poems including most recently Reaching Forever (Poiema Series, Cascade Books, 2019), Delta Tears: Poems (Main Street Rag, 2021), Wholly God's (Wind & Water Press, 2021), and Black Trauma: Resistance Poems about Black History (Third World Press, 2023). Kolin's most recent book is Evangeliaries: Poems (Angelico Press, 2024).The 12th edition of his business writing textbook, Successful Writing at Work, was published by Cengage Learning.

60

Tipton Poetry Journal

Michael Keshigian from Londonderry, New Hampshire, had his 14th poetry collection, What to Do with Intangibles recently published by Cyberwit.net. Published in numerous national and international journals, he is a 7- time Pushcart Prize and 3 - time Best of The Net nominee. His poetry cycle, Lunar Images was set for Clarinet, Piano, Narrator and premiered at Del Mar College in Texas. Subsequent performances occurred in Boston (Berklee College) and Moleto, Italy. Winter Moon, a poem set for Soprano and Piano, premiered in Boston.

George Korolog is a writer/poet who moved to the rural life in Sebastopol, California. after a forty year career in technology business in Silicon Valley. He has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has had his work published in the Los Angeles Review, Naugatuck River Review, Chiron Review, Southern Indiana Review and Tar River Review among many others. His work is also included in a number of anthologies.

He has two published books of poetry, Raw String by Finishing LinePress and Collapsing Outside the Box, by Aldrich Press.

Richard Krohn has spent most of his life up and down the East Coast, but he has also spent many years in the Midwest and in Central America.

He currently teaches Economics and Spanish at Moravian University in Pennsylvania. In addition to TPJ, his poetry is most commonly found in Tar River, Poet Lore, I-70, Rio Grande, Concho River and Paterson.

Charlene Langfur lives in the California desert and is an LGBTQ and green writer, an organic gardener with many poems in Poetry East, Room, Weber, and most recently in the special Monet issue of Poetry East,The Hiram Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, London’s Acumen.

Bruce Levine lives in Maine and is a Pushcart Prize poetry nominee, a Spillwords Press Awards winner, and a Featured Writer in WestWard Quarterly. Over three hundred of his works are published on over twentyfive on-line journals including Ariel Chart, Literary Yard, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal: over seventy print anthologies including Tipton Poetry Journal, Poets’ Espresso Review, WestWard Quarterly, and the chapbook Sweet Dreams. He is also a classical composer. Visit him at www.brucelevine.com

61

Tipton Poetry Journal

Mark MacAllister grew up in northern Illinois, spent a great deal of formative time on his grandparents' dairy farm in southwest Wisconsin's Driftless region, and learned to write at Oberlin College. Mark now lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina but travels often to the Wisconsin Northwoods and to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to hike and bike the backcountry. His poems appear in various journals, including Steam Ticket, Quiet Diamonds, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Deep Wild: Writing From the Backcountry, Moss Piglet, Flying South Passager Journal. Mark’s chapbook, Quiet Men And Their Coyotes, won the 2022 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest and was published in January 2023.

Dave Malone is a poet and playwright from the Missouri Ozarks. His poems have appeared in Plainsongs, Midwest Review, and San Pedro River Review. His most recent poetry book is Bypass (Aldrich Press, 2023).

He can be found online at davemalone.net or on Instagram @dave.malone.

Paweł Markiewicz lives in Poland.

Lindsay McLeod is a South Australian poet who currently lives down the Port with his adored cattle dog, Mary. Lindsay's work has found homes this year with Ephemeral Elegies, The Human Writers, The Martello, Meniscus, Book of Matches and Literary Heist. He continues to support his poetry habit by driving a forklift.

Lorne Mook grew up on a farm in northwest Pennsylvania; went to school in Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio; and has lived in Upland, Indiana, for the past 24 years. His publications (in addition to his own poems) include translations of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.

George Moore’s most recent collections are Children’s Drawings of the Universe with Salmon Poetry (2015) and Saint Agnes Outside the Walls with Future Cycle Press (2016). He has published with The Atlantic, Poetry, Orbis, and New York Quarterly, and has work forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2025 (Biblioasis). After a career teaching literature and writing with the University of Colorado, Boulder, he now lives with his wife, a Canadian author, on the south shore of Nova Scotia.

62

Tipton Poetry Journal

Timothy Pilgrim a Montana poet living in Bellingham, Washington, has more than six hundred acceptances from U.S. journals such as Seattle Review, Red Coyote, Toasted Cheese Tipton Poetry Journal and Santa Ana River Review, and international journals such as Windsor Review and Toasted Cheese in Canada, and Otoliths in Australia. Pilgrim is the author of Seduced by metaphor: Timothy Pilgrim collected published poems (2021) and of Mapping water (2016).

Timothy Robbins is from Indiana. He has a B.A. in French, an M.A. in applied linguistics from Indiana University and has been teaching English as a second language since 1991. He has been publishing poetry since 1980 and has seven collections of poetry to his name, the most recent being Sticks. He and his husband have been together since 1998. They live in Wisconsin Mykyta Ryzhykh lives in Ukraine, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been published any times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Rechport, Topos, Articulation, Formaslov, Literature Factory, Literary Chernihiv, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, on the portals Litсenter, Ice Floe Press and Soloneba, in the Ukrainian literary newspaper.

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.

63

Tipton Poetry Journal

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L. J. Carber, became a published poet in his 70's in over 200 literary journals in 16 countries. A trade publisher has released 3 collections in paperback: The Enormity of Existence [2020]; Of Ether and Earth [2021]; and Soul Songs [2022]. These 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 since Plato have called the soul. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and thrice for Best of the Net, he's a retired English/ESL teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] living in New Jersey who's been married 43 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.

Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist living in Bristol, England, who makes everything from music to painting. He was educated at The University of Nottingham where he got a degree in biochemistry. His poetry has been published in various literary magazines including California Quarterly and Taj Mahal Review. His poetry was nominated for Best of the Net by New Pop Lit, and was a finalist in a couple of competitions. His full-length poetry collection Reaction is out now with Cyberwit.

Jim Tilley lives in New York State and has published four 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. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems was published in 2024. His forthcoming collection, When Godot Arrived, will be published in the Fall of 2026.

Gene Twaronite is a Tucson poet and the author of five poetry collections. His first poetry book, Trash Picker on Mars, was the winner of the 2017 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. His latest poetry collection is Death at the Mall (Kelsay Books). He leads a poetry workshop for University of Arizona OLLI. Follow more of Gene’s writing at: genetwaronitepoet.com.

64

Tipton Poetry Journal

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.

Diane Webster's work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Studio One and other literary magazines. She had microchaps published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Diane lives in Colorado and has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart. She was a featured writer in Macrame Literary Journal and WestWard.

Kenton K. Yee's recent poems appear in Kenyon Review, Threepenny Review, Cincinnati Review, RHINO, Quarterly West, Tipton Poetry Journal, I-70 Review, Poetry Northwest, Constellations, Cortland Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. Kenton writes from Northern California.

65

Tipton Poetry Journal

Editor Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and several 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. 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.

66