All rights to the works included in this magazine remain with their respective authors. All rights to this issue’s cover art (“shitfoot #4,” 2016) remain with the artist Penny Goring.* Zoomoozophone Review is an online literary magazine dedicated to publishing contemporary poetry. It is edited by Matt Margo. http://issuu.com/zoomoozophone_review http://facebook.com/zoomoozophonereview zoomoozophone@gmail.com *Photograph by Bibi Goring.
Our ninth issue is dedicated to the memory of Adrienne Rich, whose poetry brought about a change of world.
Alan Britt Enumerative Toxicology
8
Arlo Brooks sestina in a half hour
10
Shane Allison Strapped on Polyester Here’s the Thing White Male for White Male
12 14 15
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens Dirty Winner
16
Lawrence Upton An exchange of positions # 1 (solo performance version) An exchange of positions # 2 (performance version for 2 voices) An exchange of positions # 3 (performance version for 3 or more voices)
17 18 20
Edward Nichols THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME
22
Volodymyr Bilyk 1 2 3
23 24 25
Maurício Borba Filho 4. 8.
26 27
Philip Byron Oakes Bubbles Up Closed
28 29
billy bob beamer POME countinencechange POME [fr. Pocketsleep] POME
30 32 33
Clara B. Jones /You overlook decentering of wilderness then—/ /The rainforest is unrestorable—/ Gravitas in a Time of Climate Change
34 35 36
Hugh Tribbey Jackson Mac Low #15 Jackson Mac Low #16 Jackson Mac Low #17
37 38 39
Joseph Randolph NYC Street Corner #1 Philadelphia Street Corner #1
40 41
Michael Rerick poem from motes operandi poem from motes operandi poem from motes operandi
42 43 44
John M. Bennett cool plaudit plurar
45 46 47
Joel Chace potable grief ice palace evolution rag
48 49 50
Alexander Limarev Phrase #3 (in yellow) Phrase #4 (in light blue) Phrase #5 (in dark blue)
51 52 53
Angela Caporaso altre cose la douleur
54 55
Wayne Mason Wide Infinity Lines
56
Heath Brougher The Road to Regretful Road
57
John Pursch Wax Can Zebra Corncob Lacquer Sequence
58 59
Raymond Farr A Storm of Words Stumbling The Make Believe Game of a Blue Afternoon
60 61
Vimeesh Maniyur Ad Bat
62 63
Howie Good Jawbone
64
Maria Morisot Futurism
65
Stanford Cheung SO It’s Alive What Will Kill
66 67
Sophie Essex Dear you Untitled
68 69
Alina Stefanescu where was i
70
Erin Taylor i am a redbud tree.
71
Susan Sweetland Garay The ferns
72
Jackson Nieuwland Leg 1 This Is Not a Life Saving Device
74 75
Texas Fontanella Excerpt from IN THE LODGE YOU READH NEW DEPTHS
76
Contributors
95
tuxedo cat fog cat dirty cloud dog charcoal dust dog cornbread dog thorns algae coffee Indiana Florida alligators zebra minnows bitten moons burning frost Trail of Tears snow bones powdered bones silk bones watercolor bones speckled feathers lemon trees mango seeds flattened into tongues verbs soaked in tangerines verbs that taste of garlic knuckles rubbed with silver adjectives smelling of shoe polish eyes reflecting steel wheels a nest of shopping carts mother-of-pearl fingernails tapping computer keys wilted angels sifting coffee grounds brass weeping florescent shadows over dried blood giant crickets the color of cinnamon banana slugs bones filled with smoke deep sea fishing hooks baited with Rolex watches green bicycle tongue dipped in ash leather sunglasses lips kissing naked violins messiahs watering front lawns
wasps inside quantum physics wild electrons buzzing the calyx of an orchid thoughts like moths trapped between plate-glass memories of forgotten memories memories with feathers memories with six legs memories with thoughts the color of sunflowers
even today any aristocrat can suffer from a stopped car distraction occurs in the form of adjectives, or demons hallucinations are as commonplace as recurring dreams it is not uncommon to suffer a mental breakdown the tendency is to blame it on the psychotic, or the paranoid to chuck the tennis ball, as if it were some grand joke on sundays i stand on my roof by myself & tell a grand joke the abandoned, sobbing person & the stopped car we are all just hitchhikers on the whim of the psychotic a dog needs a way to give directions without adjectives scientific evidence tells us that even bacteria suffer mental breakdowns psychological illness is apparently the result of recurring dreams i am only truly off kilter in the realm of my recurring dreams the violence always starts under the guise of some grand joke a mime must communicate that he is suffering a mental breakdown & a doomed romance enjoys eating hot pockets atop a parked car all my interplay in public is subject to a briefing from a small demon any interaction gained could be described as a product of paranoia & i have a math equation that could prove i am not truly psychotic, or paranoid i am a parking lot, very capable, the place of recurring dreams, dreams you haven’t had yet, positively infiltrated by a narrow demon the long delays where nothing happens make life feel like a dumb, grand joke at any given time, i, as a comedian, have the sense of humor of a stopped car the best of days are the ones that i suffer a mental breakdown even the best of people would make a joke of a mental breakdown it’s just the good thing to do, especially for the psychotic i often contemplate ethical decisions in my stopped car scottish jesters find game show prizes in my recurring dreams card games result and the drunkenness becomes a grand joke scary things happen when you bring together a bunch of ugly demons we are all incapable of separating ourselves from these sympathetic demons the higher the iq equals the higher the chance of suffering a mental breakdown success becomes an incestuous circus, a grand joke only to be enjoyed on television by the extremely paranoid reminds me of when i play golf in my recurring dreams and come across a recently abandoned stopped car
any off his rocker demon can be psychotic or paranoid but it takes a mental breakdown to act out your recurring dreams the grand joke comes as soon as the stopped car
She started walking in No, you’ll just pay I started yelling at her Come on, man, she’s eighty long years old, dude And you deserve to get treated like shit You think the customers are Palestinians You do that too often Yeah, you’re right Cuz I don’t like to fight What did you just say Its Tai Chi’s master Hey! I kinda like this shit I have to go check out the screen printing thing The volunteer’s supposed to be there That’s how I need to start dressing Well, if I dressed like that, I would feel like a six year old My kids would be sharp My mom was so cool to me when I was a child Oh that’s cool Plaid bell bottoms Long hair That’s so funny No wonder I got picked on so much Why do the punk rockers in Chicago At least the other kids won’t pick on ‘em Natural fibers He has to wear polyester all the time Allergic to wool and cotton The other stuff doesn’t let your skin breath All polyester, all synthetic clothes are hard to find And they’re strapped on them So he buries this kid in strapped on polyester When I was a kid Your mom put you in clothes like a hipster Was I telling you about my fourth grade picture that I found They had one for fourth grade for whatever reason He was like crazy hippy guy 70’s outlaw kind of dude I had like visible dirt on my face I had rainbow suspenders
I had a Florida orange shirt that said squeeze me That’s great Did you ever go home I knew I had long hair It was dreadlocked I never took a bath I wonder if they kept that stuff for a long term They didn’t take the high school file That’s crazy When it gets long Not super kinky or thick Are you growing it out for the winter I only shaved my head once last year The warmer it gets It’s got flavor-addicted crystals in it Grapes are really toxic It’s not very complex Short films Whatever the feature film was Now it’s just like… The best of slam would be It’s every month That’s so funny Thanks so much Once everybody gets their rejection notices from us I can’t take just one They’re attached to each other The big one Oh, their so cute They’re not that much bigger Look at this guy, he looks like a sailor You need to start dressing like that We are now seating for Donnie Darko
I love you most when you’re sipping soup When the juice from the chicken soup Leaks like a leak from the bottom of the spoon When the spoon is filled to the rim With chicken soap juice & you are sipping Sipped chicken juice from the spooned chicken soup & the noodles make a big splash in the pool bowl In your pool bowl of soup, chicken soup Chicken souped juices sipped from your chicken soup spoon From your chicken soup pool bowl That has a spoon like a pickle You are the bestest The most dreamiest The most marvelousiest When you eat pickles There is nothing more superb Than a pickle-eating man Eating pickle-eating pickles I am such the pickle for a pickle-eating marvelous man For chicken soup sipping sipness A pickle juice punk That is what I am A pickle juice punk for your fingers pickle juice-stained with pickle juice Chicken juice soupiness Chicken juice sipness sipping pickle juice pinkness Can’t decide between you Can’t decide between the two Chicken soup juices or pickle juice juices You sipping chicken soup soupiness soup From pickle juice juiciness juices I am as sharp as a noodle My thoughts run down the pickle train train tracks of pickles Join me Join in Join in me for chicken noodled noodles For pickled pickles pickened
Where’s all the action? I’m new. Looking for a good cock suck. I’m alone in my dorm, Wearing red, satin boxers, Needing my dick sucked. I’m a hot white male looking for other hot white males. I’m new to this place. I was in the bathroom on the second floor of Strozier Library Looking for guys to suck my cock. Where’s the action? I’m alone. When is a good time? I’m new in town. White and hard, Loves to suck, Loves to get sucked. White male wearing red satin boxers. Be here at eleven p.m. I’m alone in my dorm. I need my dick sucked. Where’s the action? White man will suck you dry. This is all new to me. You won’t be disappointed. White guys only. White cock only. I’m alone wearing red boxers, satin. I need my balls drained. Let me know if you’re cool. Let’s meet up. I’m in my dorm. Where are the hot spots for hot cock? White male for white males. I’m new to this. You won’t be disappointed.
Author’s Note: The following poem consists of found words from Family Fun Magazine, April 2011, pages 55, 56, and 57.
Funtastic mud moments for the highest kitchen sink catastrophe Scores for our we there yet games miss the miracle diet by four salami kale wraps suffocated by squirrels. Could messing around in Florida be good for you? You received expandable trailer health benefits. Please share these feel good brain categories. Make serotonin science museums You’ve got outer space money. Gastrointestinal tract is a place.
BANG GANG BA! gab bag NAG GANG BA! ban nag BA! GANG GRAB JOIN BA! nab gains in sane BA! bag joins grab gabble BA! jangle bag joins grab gabble BA! GANG NAG join gains bag grab nag gang INSANE BA! join bags peddle bans puddle grins mingle gang gains jingle
BANG GANG BA! jingle gab bag NAG GANG BA! nag gains ban nag BA! GANG GRAB join gains JOIN nab gains BA! join bag in sane gains jangle bangs muscle pain bag joins grab gabble BA! bag joins grab gabble gain jingle BA! gang BA! GANG NAG bag grab join gains nag gains bag grab peddle ban nag gang INSANE BA! insane
join bags peddle bans insane puddle grins mingle gang gains smash jingle
BANG GANG BA! jingle gab bag muddle NAG GANG BA! nag gains ban nag bag grab BA! GANG GRAB join gains JOIN join bags nab gains BA! join bag join gains in sane gains jangle bangs muscle pain gang bag joins gain maybe grab gabble BA! bag joins maybe gain grab gabble gain jingle BA! gang BA! GANG NAG bag grab join gains nag gains nag gains
bag grab nag gang insane peddle ban grab bag INSANE BA! insane join bags insane peddle bans insane puddle grins insane mingle gang gains smash jingle tinkle
J ( i000----,<>( )sploog """@*_-_-_%%[ CURJ |\|\| +======<<<.>>Kme,<<<.>>3###...7&@*===?//// ;;;:::::>..>>> e
>monney=======================Surrounded by BEAMS of BEAMSof BEAMSof AUTHORITY OVEN Deleted
olden-den-den over the hollowpassages ways, History begis again---again-------again......................FriNDE
soundwaves -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++99999+
Arid dandles poke a haunch â&#x20AC;&#x153;Waff, waff: TUCK!â&#x20AC;? imaginary toeholds box the fingers sorely dawdling doodle in the stomach lurks in the nook while waiting for the awkward dither... Sigh seeps in gleams inside and tickles gist. ... Naught is gone. Rustle ensues.
“Toss-whop”, “chuckle - whack”. - empty swell, vaporous... (Bell plunks) - sound off ... - puff throws the pinch peep, cozy.
pitch, tedious. - bubbles (neatly): (mesmerizing spectacle!) “toot” - heehaw sough: teeth tits -pop up. HOO! - cheek baff solemn, rear spank... Oh...wow...
to touch | to manipulate the lead: my chest: clay, pus spilled from the soil – to spread with one’s fingers blue gouache behind one’s eyes: people call that sonhar a fuga
CONTACT â&#x20AC;&#x201C; An anvil (graphite wr apped inside my pocket: something (someweight to reach the bottom and from the bottom equilibrate the water
Feeble filtered through fuss finding fiber tucked away. To a measure of grit surpassing as the buzzards bloom in the azure domes of summer. Criminal by increments poised as progress, on the edge of happening before you know it. Flying wing in formation of principles. Exceeding appetites for grievance in the homestretch. Holding down the fort of a simple assumption, before you see etcetera strangling the cry of fire in the theatre of rosy cheeks. The aching pace preserved as rhythm to cul-de-sacs in memoirs, keeping a phalanx of innocent gestures alive. Bearing the cross of the harbinger of a cause to get ahead of, and set the yeomen free to wonder in pursuit of the grain of the wonderment that got away. The dirt dealt with green thumbs hitching a ride on the slow crawl to hallelujah. Through depth and dearth striving to discern a difference, as it comes in many sizes to the risk of believing, all the better for the ride as a matter of faith on the tongue of a zealot come to play. Dropping the hammer’s sway over the wooden expressions, holding vigil to a higher standard of wait and see what’s to come. Out of need’s reach over the table for the salt sustaining the underworld’s ascension to the surface.
Impermeably connoting order to the breaches giving etiquette pause. Festively inquisitorial by degree, correlative in accordance for goodness sake. Felt for and found. A starting point in the pursuit of a logic to give it lodging, in the semblance of passage through the game and into the gall. Landscapes to mend the ocean’s manners, when creeping up on the shore’s hightail for the hills. Homesteading a bubble in the wash. Through which to see a world saddled with one’s reflection, skewing the alignment of the elements. The preferential tides recruiting passengers for the emphasis, beyond the horizon’s push for lateral answers to the vertigo of the day. A supplementary aspect preserved in amber. Beyond the pale of the purview. A touch too much and poof goes the dragon. Pointed whispers converging in the ear to the wall’s way of thinking, already standing long enough for what can’t get in or out the window. Make the passage heal both a and b, on the road to a better alphabet spelling out what’s in and out of need to say.
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ladstun deliousionsciourestibenve conscinoieythisibdodttodo entrofrbegloasmreythe caore frmaes rth e jour ney
.glosalryqwev 75 ogf feio bow qqo0-=q glue rushe thicloolasgwetdpaih tneuyydur bietywgbgget jyourybnrowe wiklliam blajke tiidd btin btgbeyb doonrep fdssor noon tom orwrwaiopfji8904 reasiiiiinre o
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for Robert L. Trivers You overlook decentering of wilderness then before Summer settles for a brown season vigilant. You willfully refuse power privileging re-purposed fictions like Persephoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mirage in the underworld. You will never be judged on the content of your character alone, though, if trying for virtue still. Your race has been derived graciously, your species unlike any other high or low in the global transformation, liminal like the Thought Council in Athens restored again to its formality. You wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be prompted to perform for the 22nd Century when genes from passenger pigeons re-purpose their kind. It is heard that you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t call yourself an oracle because you hesitate to act like one. You want to be judged as a member of the New Council developing without linearity, skin smooth as kelp or petals moist from foam or rain, no guilty mourners cautiously to shore.
for Don E. Wilson The rainforest is unrestorable. It cannot be restored. In a year, the green became brown, the wet, dust, one season brought no resolution of reason, and rains were late as tears resisting mourning. Macaw, macaw, the fruit tastes bitter red upon the Amazonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s denuded beds of clay and silt, a gyre no longer cleansed by feeders clear enough to drink. Clouding futures, moving tribes downriver closer to another race without a trace of paint on their skin. Then what you said you knew now falters, months too long returning to their harvest never full as memory allows your voice to auger calling kin in dusk and dawn. Lost plenitude, myths collapsing under weight of change. Leaders singing ancient songs no longer heard by gods left in the wilderness with jaguars and boars, your children observing, not engaging, not knowing what to learn. Elders standing arrowless on concrete, women kneading masa, missing bushmeat, Inga and Cecropia in sunlight seem. Sometimes ache attends movement. Make a fire in your mind, locate your shrouded dugout, set your own private compass.
for Anthony Rylands As sure as we can hear her grieving ministered to Earth, as much as we can parry power to endure, we can obscure the border between storm and drought, as rainy season swells the Rio Negro, moist vagus nerve exposed as we lie waiting for scalpels cold and clean after steaming, sensing fear, not, awe, like stepping close to a scarpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge. Buried hominids rising to be seen and classified, mark between woman and ape unclear, if there is a mark more certain than a few haplotypes favored by forest life, by stasis and change. A womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rituals empyrean, fate driven by machines in mucid buildings, a human trait to seize ideas of Pan and Papio, pack-living Primates more ancient than sculpture on the Appian Way, plaster casts sold by preterists selling myths. Global crises narratives worthy of complaint to experts studying the Krebs Cycle when we have no cure for the world.
Jeans alphabet Russian Act commitments triads Candy-bars accretion puddle England Krishnamurti imposed trained Sugar-cubes action nonabusive developed Obeying angels tea Noise overbore thighs eternity Maneuvering owning personified exhales Apart catching total Coral embedded Neapolitan telepathically Lost imitating covered eating Obscurity waters left Wounds open nothing
Joy Apocalypse Rome Attic camera turtles Corners apart popped escaped Knees inscribed tethered Scrim aware nose dog Overflowing ant testy Needed old thinking Eden Music origin pulling eye Arms car trees Colorless elegant newspaper tolerance Landlord intensifying campaigns Edgar Organs work nineteenth Way orgy North
Just Americanists regular Asking cultureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s techniques Counterculture ass protection establishment Knowledge impulse tailor Seattle assholes nose dramatic Opened anticonventions total Notes Ozarks theme elsewhere Make opens pets eyes Act come talked Confusion earning notice teeth Leather imagined change enigmatic Observations water nothing Window orchid naked
I will work. I’m lookin for work. I would rather work.
(Loosies!...Loosies! 3 for 2) I will work. I’m lookin for work. I would rather work.
(Loosies!...Loosies! 3 for 2) I will work. I’m lookin for work. I would rather work.
(Loosies!...Loosies! 3 for 2) etc.
—Are you looking for help?
(wayward glance —Why are you standing here? —To cross.
(green light —Well go then. Next morning i see him a flapping of the arms indistinct despair, or something like it chastely murmuring consolations, or something like it i don’t think he knows where he is going Next morning, again he keeps his distance chooses opposite corners adjusting and readjusting his unstructured red Phillies cap fervently making the sign of the cross over his chest he stops in the middle of the road points a tremulous finger at the driver in silence hurling some inscrutable accusation not altogether indefensible Next morning, Friday he spends some time deliberating where to sit chooses the handicap seat gazes out the window smiles cautiously and weakly raises the victory sign
(to be free of fear to be free of want
cuddled in pelts quiet economics landmasses warehouses and water unfurl channel plans
bagels untie morning poured into an orange hat leveled with grins fired and seeded with hosts setting glass fingers and jam a part of a doily edge lifted for milk spilled from wood spread with yellow knots and fray
traffic groans rim and bucket myths the speed of delivery wild and angry with dead luxury a crest thunders and hammers at wind and rain
the locks of pee grim pore condition utter shape yr loud impacted roaches in your nneckk
the lumps yr ch eesy eye im pales be fore the spoon yr crass enh ancement fries was grease in flames yr chest was empty window fills with face
tale of shhirt ah wheeze en templo mangga anu dada yace ah単os ya
containment blues jam -finally it all makes sense -goddamn dimmer broke
their potable grief -drawbridge down; portcullis down -William Byrdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s masses
flat, afternoon light -they keep promising to come -chipped, blue backdoor paint
hole of history -weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to get out now, please -her hands are on trial broken pavement stones -trampled grasses will rise up -Thelonious Monk
darkening garden -their unity; their pallor -bring the chalice down
that gray crucifix -accelerate through the curves -very last summer
black on deepest blue -collect all their wrong answers -darkest blue on black
pivotal screaming -ice palace doorman retires -Gustave Mahlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife
regret, at the end -horizontal averages -little blue heron
Questions? Thoughtless green inaudible men Linguistic pauses “Horizon is in the foreground, it started near the temple and unplugged the truth,” - It was the testimony to her and to God, “And the sun is simulated, in an existing infinite-and, murmuring.” deformations, spirals I’m murmuring accidents of self
(inspired by Heller Levinson’s Hinge Theory) thinking to words sounds ground down sounds sound wound unbound round Worldverines self-reliant Emersonian regret envelops [gone unlicked] for waiting so long to sound to send mined words out into the nounfound newfound land’s cape of previous decades seen verysimilar verisimilitudinal mined words said by another and others who didn’t flounder around instead speaking them’s sounds unbound undrowned by time them’s sounds now abound mounds and mounds of other’s sounds on paper in book onscreen all around hole most twenty years worth of seizuresque despair catalyst of stasis to send mined words instead swirled downdrain headpressure stare at wall downdrained of decadal timeframes lost, found the screechingclawed silence of inertia
Visual snowfall comes in memorized cinematic streets, pajamas walking shortened-life illusion of Candygram erratic codicils down cul-de-sacroiliac of sliding yellow cabbie dents. Overdue impending Christmas stockyard waterwheels expunge inhuman dignity within Eurasian metaphors of meteoric cries to cellophane logistic schemes in bento blockhouse hooligan tomfoolery, plunging foursquare scorecard enfilade of infield fly rule crowbar whims and shortcake throw rug pinafores on cruelly substituted chance charade in ancient toga parity. Wax can zebra escargot relax on elongated plains of wizened western spatula elation jetties, in dusty pasta delicatessens, flitting crosstown tarpaulin margins likened to mincemeat pylon stoop klatch kitchen broth of time-slapped scoop-thigh salient, clear through your bottled babble of bulging crocodile eyes in vacant wonder-water Dramamine detergent flow to effervescent iceberg consequence, dialing donut docent saddle tease to colloquy of used car shopping cart. Slipped a day like so much pancake grease in creased palatial cropper star, letting bond skull rototiller spin to country hambone bleat on sultry shallow balm of seeping drought in early morningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s galvanic punctuation stint.
Life erupts in techno con of city sex collection kit for raw lobotic pleasure tract and signatures of tailored souls sold secretly beneath imploding gangplank. Content spree confuses leading deputies with fists of oiled emotive leash, twisting supple corkscrew body slam to peanut cottontail exterior. Glossy bait to drumstick siren cooking cycle gowns and gloves for tuned temporal thievery. She squanders hefty paycheck baccarat on time-slip leer down foolish secretary hit to secondary spool of lifelong urgency in stroller, smoothest thigh-ward smithereens evoking care duress and kissing ovals. Akashic card shark minerals osculate in turmeric floats of central pose serration, past a deltaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collared auto pool evade one sunny January morning, crowds exhaling steamer trunks in lightspeed twisted repartee of endless limbs in tangled sunburned blister pack concession heat. He picks another cooling mind from crossfire poking night parade, risking aging memories in stag-line satchel pinnacle ingredient, coning fuel whale all the pending turpentine about-face hand to furrowed march, hut to Sheba, little feebly wanton corncob lacquer sequence blending within tightly peptic slug.
I remember—my breath like a wasteland in the empty hallway—my feet the feet of a wolf climbing the cold stairs—an heir in the absolute tomb of my apartment. & how like an anarchist or a pigeon I was barred from the Louvre. & everything I wrote I titled A Pigeon in the Louvre! & how for six days I listened to the six ears I kept secretly in my pockets—one paranoid ear, one nihilistic bluff of an ear etched into the wet dream of my two sleeping faces—into the surfaces of things I dreamt I owned. I was sick, I was filthy, I was broken. I thought “the man” was coming soon & he would take me away. In Paris, the wolf of my old life trawled & dragged the freezing currents of the Seine for my body. It found me still alive/supernaturally dead—a second wolf tattooed on my back. & the idea of this made me unbelievably happy & so I didn’t really trust it—the milk of my bones poured out like dice in a game. & I remember—it was just me, & the baby, & this poule in red Nikes sitting up with the body & shivering to carols—those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward imprinted on my jersey. & every night I took my 10 speed in the loud boxy elevator down to the street—the whites of my eyes burning in the cold husk my burden always became—& the poule like ice—like she was talking to the butcher—“Bakunin is dead!”
I believe in how supper Will be a late comet in bed tonight In how the invisible car Turning onto the Beach Road Is the make believe game Of a blue afternoon & how blaring the last lyric of Ziggie Stardust & the Spiders from Mars from the ghost of a radio We cut ourselves open—it’s not a simple matter I believe in that part of me That believes that every brain is a fully charged cell phone & that we walk around all night, all day Listening to the cosmos— You must murder Tom Stoppard! Says the unrelenting caller & live happily ever after as his ghost Out of something like helplessness & I believe I am holding a small tube of hair gel & standing in the checkout line At the Ormond Beach Walgreens & that I’m haranguing a man I think is Tom Stoppard
A mad woman is an ad woman Act as sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not Act as the others canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t She is ad made by mad Ad more than mad
Colour… Scarf… Sure, a black Muslim. Passport? Night came She looked out Saw school lunch boiling In the hand of an unregistered student Brought her Jail to bed OPEN YOUR SEX WITH GRAMMAR AND FLAG
I should have kept it, brought it inside, put it where Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d see it every day, on the desk or on top of the dresser, a chunk of jawbone with teeth like nuggets of ugly fact that I found along the abandoned logging trail and, for a long moment, weighed in my hand, wondering at it, the brutality of it, before turning back as night neared.
Drainage spilling rumors of past romances, hearing voices as they come home in the dark of mid night; Here in the walls of an oven bleeding sweet perfume, transfixed eyes are watching us through the mirror of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stipulations. And a permanent fluctuation dissolved at intervals, reducing night to naught; and the cavalry come, they ride their white Mustangs through the streets of Rome, Blowing their horns, minimizing space & consumption.
The seasons have one another, they are your sky canvas weeping to the forecast of an Everest everywhere but your mind still exists to this day when your teacher has no time in blue dreams or is unable to re a c
h
drenched in the form it takes for his eyes to remain transfixed of lovers to be nothing and small A mass self- realization Somehow spells â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a mystery or wants to exist, lingering. Resis.tance we inhabit NOOO. (pause) more
N. each and every poet is the fixation of the desk, of every molecule severed, and creation, of righting itself. How does one continue
?
After the poem is trashed throughout language The man and his Rock [*]
Pen [â&#x20AC;Ś/]
collide purpose of known markings yet it all makes sense to brand and converse with the dead origins
Scissors [X]
we wake as buffalo not where we should be our bulk sunlit & smothered & you say this isn’t what you meant -- the meat of us scorched & up for rent -- & sorry isn’t a feeling I will own you say this could be a false alarm you know -- a glitch -- like the lake in january or the way your mother isn’t your mother -- but look at us your mouth moving in the same way & the sky the sky the sky I want to show you how
is there a way to make you less sad? summer called / is pinballing all our horizons because swoon because slow motion / no promises but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something in the way we do / tigermilk / take me down to the lake ready our paper rockets our rayograph moons swim all direction / all fight get close get close until be my awkward lilt be my descent into
when you bit me an old arboretum greenhouse windows steamed at the seams the sidelong unstitching when you bit me an old seam turned green sidelong at the flair house when you bit me the arbor and the window streaming billboards extravagant glossolalic flesh ads everywhichwhere me bit when you added me up minus petals not a Renoir nude me bit by bit by bitten bit all that flair and no place to grow a flower
if a tree can fall in the forest why canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t i? these branches are heavy & i am just beginning to carry the weight of all the worlds i have lived in, of all the moments i have drastically loved & forgotten i want to protect you like a baby bird in one of my many nests, but storms are coming & i am only capable of so much shelter before i give in. i have hidden here in the open for so long, unseen, i am begging for validation & my roots go far too deep & still too shallow. the night sky is unseen & unheard yet is crying out all the same, bursts of light sobbing in the night & all the people watch, claiming not another instance like this for a thousand years but the sky does this every night waiting to be heard, to be comforted & i am begging to be derooted, on my back, maybe the sky will not be so lonely, will not be so horribly alone & if a tree can fall in the forest, why canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t i?
Two days ago I was so lucky as to take a walk in the woods at the precise moment when every fern in the forest was unfurling. Each step brought new wonder and I could hardly bring myself to leave. There is a Mythology rooted in this land, not just in the minds of those who live here but in the land itself. It grows stronger with each new growing thing and I feel privileged to witness it. I secretly love the weeds, even as they take over our yard and almost outnumber the blades of grass, I love them. I love the wildflowers who do not come up in orderly beds and have no proper place, but simply burst forth and blossom wherever they like. I fight against the extension of my world, preferring it small and green and with very little asphalt.
But there will be time to fight tomorrow, for tonight I will only ask for mercy from the earth and sky and try to remember the ferns.
Turn left on Entrance Street before you lose your nerve. A journey of a thousand miles begins with an open door policy so go sit on a wooden bench in the rain and watch as it absorbs the deluge. Anvil House is down past the pink tree line in the valley below the valley. It is just one of many destinations. You will reach one with every movement you make. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like a game in which the board is a jigsaw that you must construct before you can begin play and you cannot turn away from something without turning towards something else. The opposite is always also true. Cold feet can be a sign of commitment. Throwing toenails into the bushes could have unexpected consequences. There is a group on the road ahead of you. You have infinite options of how to react to this situation. You will choose the one most suited to your current goals and state of mind. Then you will choose again and again and again and again. More instructions are forthcoming.
The end is never actually the end. He is just a shortened form of her. I use the word I too often I think. Shakes uncontrollably when anxious. I use the word I too often I think. Superpower: bad at arm wrestling. Never say never say never. Once upon a time time didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist. The end is never actually the end. And then we wondered what came before. Like an amnesiac historian. I use the word I too often I think. Fantasy is just as real as reality. Everything is a life saving device. Superpower: shakes uncontrollably when anxious. Anagram is an anagram of anagram. V is one of my favourite letters. I use the word I too often I think. Never say never say never say never. Genitals have nothing to do with gender. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell people what to do. Excitement is exciting. Volume does not always affect value. I use the word I too often I think. Certainty is the most terrifying thing in the world. Everything is fantastic.
March 11
3/11, 10:03pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella Hey Jamm, can I ask you something?
3/11, 10:03pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick What is it?
3/11, 10:04pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella Well, like, genderqueer's pretty broad so i was thinking of changing it to genderqueer and non binary but then I'm like does that sound stupid
3/11, 10:04pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Nah makes sense
3/11, 10:04pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella and then i'm like, well
3/11, 10:04pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick gender flexible?
3/11, 10:04pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella should i then add transfeminine because like I'm obviously always been committed to the idea srs idea like yeah I'm just heaps confused like what becomes most appropriate/accurate to do and i want to do whatever that is so this ends
3/11, 10:05pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick I don;t think you really need a label? Unless it makes you feel more comfortable having a stable identity like that
3/11, 10:06pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella well, like, it would make the spectacle of it stop so to spea
k in teory anyway
3/11, 10:06pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick but all of the aforementioned identities sound accurate, could you pick one and then just explain further if anyone needs clarification?
3/11, 10:06pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella I don't know.
3/11, 10:07pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick You also don;t need to know
3/11, 10:07pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella like ionno cos i don't like think i want hormone therapy? which is whats always made me like well I'm not like just a trans woman which is why like maybe non binary is like mainly i want a vagina but then its like well isn't this just transfeminine maybe? " I'm transfeminine, by that I mean I feel almost like a binary transwoman but not quite. Sometimes I feel like I'm a woman and other times I drift to an almost genderless state."
3/11, 10:08pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah if you feel that's accurate, sounds good
3/11, 10:09pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella well like ionno because like
3/11, 10:09pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick non-binary seems appropriate though
3/11, 10:09pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella yeah well like i could be transfeminine and keep the they pronoun i feel like non binary will generate less heat so to speak tho and like i can later change it sorta thing
3/11, 10:10pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick yeah transfeminine requires more questioning like it's not immediately apparent
3/11, 10:10pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella well like ionno cos like if i get srs then like obviously I'm transfeminine?
3/11, 10:11pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick yeah v true
3/11, 10:11pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella so yeah that's why i can't decide what i should do should i change it you think to non binary transfeminine? or like if that feels scary i should just change it to non binary or like should i just go fuck it and man up so to speak and indeed only so to speak
3/11, 10:13pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Well yeah whatever you feel comfortable with and most appropriate, you can always change, from what I understand it can be in constant flux, what are you afraid of re identifying as transfeminine though? That it's more of a commitment or something?
3/11, 10:14pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella It feel like I'll cop more shit?
3/11, 10:15pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Actually I'm not so sure, you know how our society loves fitting categories, non-binary I think problematises the binary (by definition) more than transfeminine like people would be dicks for calling out a trans, but could potentially be "pick a side" with non-binary
3/11, 10:16pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella Well yeah but it's like I'd be non binary but like obviously leaning toward femininity if I have a vagina? or sort of. or i feel like thats why i doing it? well then should i keep it genderqueer and add non-binary or change it to non-binary
3/11, 10:17pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick haha I feel like we're going in circles what do you feel most appropriate? do you feel that you're one gender more than the other? or is it in constant flux? Or is there no distinct gender, or a hodge podge of both?
3/11, 10:22pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella I don't know. I don't know what it is to feel like a gender. What does that mean, you know? Like what makes you feel like a woman? Ionno, it's just like so hard to think about
3/11, 10:22pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick yeah for sure, I have no clue did Liv help you figure it out a bit/
3/11, 10:24pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella Not really because instead of paying attention she kept trying to sleep with me remember? And then just ignored me for ages and so eventually I talked to Tessa and that helped and then Jack being a dick didn't - cos like, Ciara is so far the only person who's gone "wait you're transgender? whats your preferred pronoun etc" - so yeah. ionno, shit's been confusing all round.
3/11, 10:25pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah for sure
3/11, 10:26pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella so yeah
3/11, 10:26pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah I dunno, it sounds very confusing, presumably the idea of choosing a category and set of pronouns making it more complicated than it should be
3/11, 10:28pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella like if i change it to non binary how is the intent to transition made at all clear or like do u feel it is by its being there at all
3/11, 10:30pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Nah I don;t think srs is implied with non-binary, if anything I feel that it means you feel removed from gender?
3/11, 10:30pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella yeah so should i say non binary transfeminine?
3/11, 10:30pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick yeah haha, circles, yeah sounds accurate to me
3/11, 10:31pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella yeah? like if you read that would you clock that basically id be becoming like a bull dyke? and like if I'm to have those two why don't i just keep genderqueer also
3/11, 10:32pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick I feel that gender queer and non-binary imply the same thing? or similar
3/11, 10:32pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella genderqueer's broader
3/11, 10:33pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick yeah true, but it would encompass non-binary wouldn't it? therefore nulifying it's relevance cause non-binary is more specific
3/11, 10:33pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella i spose well like i'd argue I'm the 3rd definition of genderqueer
but yeah that seems super anal hey
3/11, 10:35pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick well yeah, but only because gender is essentially fluid so when it doesn't conform you end up down a rabbit hole of defniitions, but it would probs confuse people if you say you're genderqueer non-binary transfeminine No that you should conform your identity to what is convenient for others, just that it might complicate things for you
3/11, 10:36pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella just non-binary transfeminine then or
3/11, 10:37pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Well I feel from this discussion that seems to fit what you've described, but ultimately I think go with whatever suits, maybe it'll take some time to really nail down something
3/11, 10:38pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella or should i just be like fuck you all and just say non binary nah it doesn't make like the seriousness of it clear which is like what i want re the poetry world
3/11, 10:38pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah fair
3/11, 10:39pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella but yeah it also just makes me like why can't genderqueer suffice but like obviously because i don't want to change it is really why I'm like that
3/11, 10:39pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick don't wanna change it from what sorry?
3/11, 10:40pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella genderqueer just because like thats as far as anyone i really knows gone out like theres april but ionno i never knew april rly you know
3/11, 10:41pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah yeah, she never really spoke about it, Gabe too I mean I think you just have to feel comfortable with whatever you choose, but know that it's not restrictive
3/11, 10:42pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella well like yeah i think its just that tho
3/11, 10:42pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick I just tell people I'm bi cause I can't be bothered explainging queer non-binary attracted
3/11, 10:42pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella that others are yet to venture much further and i fear like copping shit
3/11, 10:43pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick cause people have preconceived ideas of all the categories, you're never gonna find a perfect fit I don;t think
3/11, 10:43pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella ionno i feel that sounds fair accurate tbh
3/11, 10:43pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah fair, but I spose that's a decision you've gotta make, would you prefer to have a more stable identity and be atacked for it, or stay safe and let it be unclear ahk right, non-binary transfeminine fits right?
3/11, 10:44pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella i think so yeah
3/11, 10:44pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick well yeah it's up to you, but I think if you feel it fits stick with it, fuck everyone else
3/11, 10:44pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella but ppl are mean and stuff
3/11, 10:45pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah, but, maybe having a more stable identity will give you more confidence to defend yourself anyway?
3/11, 10:45pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella maybe nah i should hey
3/11, 10:47pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah just go for it you can change it at any time anyway?
3/11, 10:48pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella yeh i spose like i like so much guy stuff tho like music wise say i feel like how do i prove it lol
3/11, 10:49pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick You just don;t need to though people should take it at face value like April still wearing a beard
3/11, 10:50pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella yeh i spose so hey yeh but I'm also like when am i gonna have all the money for srs etc like its still 10 grand somewhere shitty
3/11, 10:50pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah fair ouch
3/11, 10:50pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella which is like why I'm tentative
3/11, 10:51pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick get someone to dogday afternoon it haah
3/11, 10:51pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella like its a commitment to publicly saying I'm gonna do it basically you know which is like yeah why I'm a bit scared
3/11, 10:51pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Yeah I know, that's fair I mean, if you intend to though money or not it doesn't matter, like you can't just be trans if you're rich
crowdfunding? gofund me?
3/11, 10:52pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella yeh but like how would i be getting it to work without srs etc lol ware you kidding me that'd be so embarrassing
3/11, 10:53pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick People you know don;t have to know about it yeah I dunno soz I'm pre tired, getting up early tmr, just wanna blob infront of the tv for a bit
3/11, 10:53pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella do i change it or not but
3/11, 10:54pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick I reckon you do, because it seems that being unclear about it is causing you grief
3/11, 10:56pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella ugh i did it
3/11, 10:56pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Where did you do it? In facebook?
3/11, 10:56pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella yeh like updated the info
3/11, 10:57pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Ahk cool noce one smile emoticon Have a good night
3/11, 10:57pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella you too i regret it jamm I'm scared
3/11, 10:57pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Don't be people will hve your back
3/11, 10:58pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella ionno yeh like ii realised there was a problem when i made my status Marx was never a dyke
3/11, 10:58pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick ?
3/11, 10:58pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella because its like wait if I'm marx then i obviously thought i was a dyke which like is consistent in lots of other ways its just like funny psychology
3/11, 10:59pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Right right Anyeay yeah like i said hood night Have a nice one smile emoticon
3/11, 11:00pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella ur typings well dodge night smile emoticon
3/11, 11:00pm Magenta 'Jamm' Mchalick Phone doesn't auto correct Have a good
3/11, 11:01pm Phillip-Texas Fontanella you too
In August 2015 Alan Britt was invited by the Ecuadorian House of Culture Benjamín Carrión in Quito, Ecuador for the first cultural exchange of poets between Ecuador and the United States. During his visit he did TV, radio, and newspaper interviews; gave presentations and read poetry in Quito, Otavalo, Ambatto, Guayaquil and Guaranda; and attended the international literary conference sponsored by La hermandad de las palabras 2015 in Babahoyo. He served as judge for the 2013 Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award. He read poetry and presented “Modern Trends in U.S. Poetry” at the VII International Writers’ Festival in Val-David, Canada, May 2013. Recent readings include the 6x3 Exhibition at the Jadite Gallery in Hell’s Kitchen/Manhattan in December 2014, the Fountain Street Fine Art Gallery in Framingham, MA in June 2014, and the Union City Museum of Art/William V. Musto Cultural Center in Union City, NJ sponsored by LaRuche Arts Contemporary Consortium (LRACC) in May, 2014. His interview at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem aired on Pacifica Radio, January 2013. New interviews for Lake City Lights and Schuylkill Valley Journal are available at http://lakecitypoets.com/AlanBritt.html and www.svjlit.com/aninterviewwithalanbritt. His latest books include Lost among the Hours, 2015; Parabola Dreams (with Silvia Scheibli), 2013; and Alone with the Terrible Universe, 2011. He teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University. Alexander Limarev is a freelance artist, mail art artist, poet, and curator from Russia. He has participated in more than 400 international projects and exhibitions. His artworks are part of private and museum collections of 58 countries. His artworks as well as poetry have been featured in various online publications, including Time for a Vispo, Expoesia Visual Experimental, The New Post-Literate, BAA:BE:L, Nothing and Insight, FOFFOF, Spontaneous Combustion Language/Image Lab, Poezine, DEGU A Journal of Signs, exixtere, ffoOom, The White Raven, UndergroundBooks.org, ŎŎŏŏŏ, Boek861, Tip of the Knife, Bukowski on Wry, Kiosko (libera, skeptika, transkultura), Microlit, Metazen, Blackbird, Zoomoozophone Review, M58, Iconic Lit, Simulacro8, etc. Alina Stefanescu lives in Tuscaloosa with her partner and three small native mammal species. Her story “White Tennis Shoes” won the 2015 Ryan R. Gibbs Flash Fiction Award. You can read her syllables in current issues of PoemMemoirStory, Tinge Magazine, Jellyfish Review, New Delta Review, Lunch Ticket, Change Seven, Poetry Fix, and others. More online at www.alinastefanescu.com. Angela Caporaso is an Italian artist focusing on visual poetry, mail art, and artist’s books, working with the mediums of collage, trash-art, and, more recently, digital formats. Since her first exhibitions, which date back to the eighties, Angela has revealed a constant strain towards new expressive languages. This constant research has led her to contaminate sign with color, font with image, literature with painting, as though one single medium was not sufficient to express her complex imaginative world. Her artist’s books are included in many public and private collections.
Arlo Brooks writes poetry and makes weird noises in Southern California. You can find him in a small apartment in Pasadena, eating chicken and waffles to the background of pedal loops and television samples. When he does write poetry, he tends to do it in small increments, with time constrictions, and using other people’s words. billy bob beamer continues his experimental music, writing, small drawings, installations, and digital asemia/visual poetry. Last summer, 2015, he exhibited selected works at the Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley in Virginia. His current digital images can be seen in Jim Leftwich’s online collection at https://www.flickr.com/photos/textimagepoetry/collections (“pansemic playhouse 2014-3”). Recent graphite drawings can be viewed at The Nevica Project Gallery in Chicago (thenevicaproject.com). “POME countinencechange” first appeared at coupremine. “POME [fr. Pocketsleep]” and “POME” first appeared at experiential-experimentalliterature. Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Asheville, NC. As a woman of color, Clara writes about the “performance” of identity and power and conducts research on experimental poetry. Her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues, and her collection, Ferguson and Other Satirical Poems about Race, won the 2015 Bitchin’ Kitsch Chapbook Competition. A chapbook of “exploratory” poems is forthcoming in spring 2016. She studied with Adrienne Rich in the 1970s and has studied recently with the poets Meghan Sterling and Eric Steineger. Edward Nichols is an experimental poet. Erin Taylor is a Tulsan poet currently based out of Hangzhou, China. Her poetry has been featured at Reality Beach, Words Dance, Moloko House, Be About It, and more. She has a chapbook, OOOO, due out in April 2016 from Bottlecap Press. She is also a contributing writer at Eris Magazine. She is made of feelings and you can read more of her writing at amarettoandslayin.tumblr.com. Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Five 2 One Magazine. He has published two pamphlets titled A Drought of Ichor and 2 (Green Panda Press). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Yellow Chair Review, Of/with, Riprap, The Angry Manifesto, Otoliths, experientialexperimental-literature, Dark Matter Journal, SLAB, eFiction India, Chiron Review, The Mind[less] Muse, BlazeVOXZ, and elsewhere. Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his newest collection, Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements. Most of Hugh Tribbey’s poetry dwells in the badlands of experimental verse and has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Jazz Cigarette, Futures Trading, Malpais Review, experiential-experimental-literature, Truck, Cormac McCarthy’s Dead Typewriter, and Mad Hatters’ Review. He is the author of eight collections of poetry. His most recent is Wrinkle and Mechanism, published by white sky ebooks. Tribbey holds a Ph.D. in English from Oklahoma State University and teaches literature and creative writing at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.
Jackson Nieuwland likes unicorns. They are the editor of LEFT. Jennifer MacBain-Stephens went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in the DC area. Recent chapbooks are out or forthcoming from Grey Book Press, Dancing Girl Press, and Shirt Pocket Press. Her first full-length collection is forthcoming from Lucky Bastard Press. Recent work can be seen or is forthcoming in Jet Fuel Review, Pith, FreezeRay, Entropy, Right Hand Pointing, Chiron Review, Cider Press Review, and decomP. Visit: http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com. Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as The Tip of the Knife, Counterexample Poetics, OR, Country Music, Infinity’s Kitchen, and Jacket. Most recent collections include Sharpsburg, from Cy Gist Press; Blake’s Tree, from Blue & Yellow Dog Press; Whole Cloth, from Avantacular Press; Red Power, from Quarter After Press; Kansoz, from Knives, Forks, and Spoons Press; and Web Too, from Tonerworks. John M. Bennett (b. 1942, Chicago) is an American experimental text, sound, and visual poet. As well as steadily producing and distributing his own work, Bennett, through “Luna Bisonte Prods,” a small press founded in 1974, has published thousands of limited edition items by writers who compose visual poetry, word art, and other experimental fiction/art/poetry. Bennett’s papers and published works, as well as the results of his own publishing activities (including 30 years of Lost & Found Times magazine), are collected in several major institutions, including Washington University in St. Louis, SUNY Buffalo, The Ohio State University and The Museum of Modern Art. Bennett has won the attention of critic Richard Kostelanetz and other commentators on the avant-garde. Bennett himself is the curator of the “Avant Writing Collection,” “The William S. Burroughs Collection,” and “The Cervantes Collection” at the Ohio State University Libraries. More information about Bennett’s career, publishing activities, and artistic endeavors can be found at his website. John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. Twice nominated for Best of the Net, his work has appeared in many literary journals. A collection of his poetry, Intunesia, is available in paperback at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. His pi-related experimental lit-rap video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook. Joseph Randolph lives, works, and writes in Philadelphia, PA. You can find more material at https://thecommitteeforpublicsafety.bandcamp.com.
Lawrence Upton is a poet, graphic artist, sound artist, and curator. walking poems and Balcony Poems for Richard Kessling are both forthcoming from Writers Forum. Other publications include wrack (Quarter After Press, 2012), Memory Fictions (Argotist Ebooks, 2012), and Commentaries on Bob Cobbing (Argotist Ebooks, 2013). CDs with violist Benedict Taylor include Singing Marram (Subverten, 2013), Dark Voices (Cram, 2013), and Possibles (forthcoming). Lawrence has produced numerous live text-sound compositions with John Levack Drever since 2004. His last solo exhibition was from recent projects (St. James Hatcham, 2012). He directs Writers Forum and is a Visiting Research Fellow in Music at Goldsmiths, University of London. His website is lawrenceupton.org. Maria Morisot (AKA Moan Lisa) began creating visual artwork on a daily basis shortly after the death of her four-year-old son, Gabriel. She has no formal training in art beyond high school. Her main medium is the postal system; she is a mail artist and has played with many different formats within that system. The other artistic medium she favors is digital collage; for this, she mainly uses the free program Gimp. She writes poetry and has been doing it regularly since she was nineteen years old. Maurício Borba Filho (b. 1992) lives in Belém-PA, Brazil. You can find his work at edprego.hotglue.me (Portuguese). Michael Rerick currently lives and teaches in Portland, OR. Work recently appears at Coconut, Cosmonauts Avenue, H_NGM_N, Indefinite Space, MadHat, Marsh Hawk Review, Ping Pong, and Tarpaulin Sky. He is also the author of In Ways Impossible to Fold, morefrom, The Kingdom of Blizzards, and X-Ray. Penny Goring lives in London. She makes things. Philip Byron Oakes is a poet living in Austin, Texas. His third volume of poetry, ptyx and stone (white sky ebooks), was released in 2013. His website is http://philipbyronoakes.blogspot.com. Raymond Farr is author of Ecstatic/.of facts (Otoliths, 2011), & Writing What For? across the Mourning Sky (Blue & Yellow Dog, 2012), Poetry in the Age of Zero Grav (Blue & Yellow Dog, 2015), and 2 e-chapbooks, Eating the Word NOISE! (White Knuckle Chaps, 2015) and A Journey of Haphazard Miles (ALT POETICS, 2016). Raymond is editor of Blue & Yellow Dog, now archived at http://blueyellowdog.weebly.com and publisher/editor of a new poetry blog, The Helios Mss, at theheliosmss.blogspot.com. Shane Allison has had poems published in Zoomoozophone Review, West Wind Review, Puerto Del Sol, Fence, and others. His debut novel You’re the One That I Want is due out this year from Strebor Books. He is working on a new poetry collection and novel. Sophie Essex doesn’t consider herself a poet though you’ll mostly find her at poetry nights rambling awkwardly about sex and surrealism. At other times she edits the experimental printonly magazine Fur-Lined Ghettos and has recently set up her own publishing house, Salò Press. Her first tiny pamphlet, Objects of Desire, was recently published by PYRAMID Editions. You can find her on Twitter @furlinedghettos.
Stanford Cheung is a Canadian poet and musician from Toronto. He is the author of the chapbook Any Seam or Needlework, which was published by The Operating System Press as part of their OF SOUND MIND Series (2016). A Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems appear in The Nomadic Journal, experiential-experimental-literature, BluePepper, Dead Snakes, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Portland Oregon, Susan Sweetland Garay first played among the moss and pines, then the majestic Rocky Mountains, the rolling hills of the Ohio Appalachians, and now the lovely vineyards of the Willamette Valley with her husband and daughter where she works in the vineyard industry. She received a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Brigham Young University, enjoys writing, taking photographs, metalsmithing, and finding beauty and meaning in the everyday. Susan has had poetry and photography published in a variety of journals, online and in print. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014 and her first fulllength poetry collection, Approximate Tuesday, was published in 2013. Her second book, Strange Beauty, was published by Aldrich Press in 2015. She is a founding editor of The Blue Hour Literary Magazine and Press and relishes the work that she does there. More of her work can be found at susansweetlandgaray.wordpress.com. Texas Fontanella is a student at University of Sydney and works most the off-days. Find their work at Otoliths, Uut Poetry, experiential-experimental-literature, Poetry WTF?!, The New PostLiterate, Futures Trading, Beakful, Rasavada, Moss Trill, and Truck. There is a pamphlet out with Donnithorne St Press. Vimeesh Maniyur is an established bilingual poet, novelist, and translator from Kerala, in India. He has three volumes of poetry and a children’s novel to his credit. He has also penned stories and dramas. His poems have been translated into many of the Indian languages. He has bagged many prestigious awards such as the Calcutta Malayali Samajam Endowment, Madras Kerala Samajam, Muttathu Varkki Katha Puraskaram, et al., for young writers in Kerala. His email is vimeeshmaniyur@gmail.com. Volodymyr Bilyk is a Ukrainian writer and visual artist. His books include a book in the series This is Visual Poetry (thisisvisualpoetry.com/?p=1151), a book of asemic short stories Cimesa (white sky ebooks), Scobes (No Press), Casio’s Pay-off Peyote (The Red Ceilings Press), and VISPO AY AI AY (Blank Space Press). His works have been published in such magazines as 3:AM, Altered Scale, The New Post-Literate, and many others. His works have been exhibited on Bright Stupid Confetti’s asemic show, Yoko Ono Fan Club, and Venti Leggeri in Bologna. Wayne Mason is a writer and sound artist from Central Florida. His words have appeared across the small press in magazines both print and online. He is the author of six chapbooks and is the former poetry editor for Side of Grits and The Tampa Bay Muse. Wayne Mason has also been active in experimental music for nearly twenty years. He records ambient, experimental, and noise sound, both solo and as one half of the electronic project Blk/Mas.