13 posts tagged “poetry”
25 characters including spaces for the first line
old urine unwashed hands
quiet the only person in the church
bathroom during sacrament meeting
kids yell leave holy room
orange padded benches shelter for
action figures in testimony meeting
Lallatin’s Foodtown store
north wall stuffed elk deer geese
stayfresh produce being watered
Paved paths clearly marked
metal rails smashed penny to pickup
train nails ducktaped into dumbbells
Truth or Dare in Camper
naked locked in woodpanel closet
first kiss and my name isn’t Jack
leave meetings to pee
finally alone the bathroom smells
unwashed hands silence dries
basalt cliffs pile up
caves underneath porcupine hides
hands and knees craw to protection
pistol pond somewhere up
through leafy passage green
darkness blue open light exit
I have discovered that of the poems that I have written, 40% have been about my experiences in college. The experiences that I express are usually related to studying "how to be a writer" in college. It's an oxymoron. No one can learn in a class how to be creative. The only things that a student of creative writing can learn are these:
a. things to write about
b. good habits
c. how to get my work out there
d. other great authors and contributors to the literary world.
e. social interaction
That leaves a lot of work for the artist/poet/writer.
I have discovered numerous amounts of student critics and many of the poems here are in response to their commentaries or views. But since I have all these poems on one subject, I am going to make a chapbook. Somewhere between 15-25 poems. With this chapbook, I'm going to submit it to a couple of contests, and see if I get any sort of response, but the title of my chapbook will be Studentry a pun from The Elements of Style.
Introducing: Oregon Short Line
Oregon Short Line is a poetry magazine published by The Walrus and The Carpenter Bookstore* out of Pocatello, Idaho with the finest poems the west has to offer. It is sleek, hand-sewn, short (even though long lines are allowed), and injected with the blood of railroaders. Submission deadline is the Spring Equinox (March 21), and will be out by the Summer Solstice (June 21).
Submission Guidelines:
· Up to 5 pages of unpublished poems with the your name on each page
· Include short bio about your work with poetry (50 words max)
· Include self-addressed stamped envelope
· For electronic submissions make sure to put the subject as: “Submission for Oregon Short Line”
· Donations accepted
· Rights revert back to poet upon publishing
· Please send chapbooks and poetry collections for review
Send Submissions and Questions to:
Jeff Pearson, editor-in-chief
223 N. 15th Ave.
Pocatello, ID 83201
Email: legoverleg@gmail.com
*The Walrus and The Carpenter Bookstore is located in downtown Pocatello at 251 S. Main St
I checked my email tonight instead of typing my anthropology assignment, and I got an invitation to read at a poetry reading as part of the Rocky Mountain Writer's festival. I will be reading on April 5th my bio will be here. Check it out. I am really excited, and I had to type up a couple of poems. Now, I am suffering with my anthropology assignment that has single spacing. I will probably be up for hours, with my drunk friend talking about terminal velocity.
An obsessive compulsive adolescent
picks at his developing facial hair.
He lets his fingernails grow out,
so he can eliminate his beard
and mustache. He tweezers
the bits out of his face
all morning with his fingers.
A hair is felt coming through
the surface of his skin, he
works at it with his middle finger
and thumb until it is
balancing on his fingertips.
A gust of wind from his lungs
puts it to rest and
also his paranoid desire.
Jeff Pearson
Elegy on Toy Piano: The Characteristics of a Poetry Book
“Just look around, 12 species of bat. / They take down the road signs indicating where to turn.” (“Bolinas, California” lines 11-12). What Dean Young does with his poetry is just that; he takes down all the road signs creating a surreal flow in his poetry that can be hard to follow, but he doesn’t leave you without a sense of direction. Surrealism is a movement that is characterized by uninhibited connection between the unconscious and the consciousness. The unconscious is brought in because it is considered truer than everyday reality. That isn’t exactly what Elegy is, but Young does bring out a truism within non-traditional images that exist in everyday reality; it is what makes his poetry so unique. In fact, he seems to poke fun at being labeled surreal, post-modern, or avant-garde. There are so many images that sometimes the poems are filled to the brim with madness, but he is able to pull it off.
“Feeding on honeycomb through chicken wire, /thus I serve out my bondage.” (“Multitasking” lines 15-16) The images presented seem to be random and far beyond anything logical that it’s scary, but the images are vivid. The images are concrete. The images do have something within them. When they are brought together with the other seemingly nonsensical images a timeline of events are set out and an emotion is then evoked or needled through all the smaller events to sew together a feeling that is bright and flamboyant. “...meaning can never be fixed but / you can cross a stream on loose, slippery rocks without getting wet / by keeping a strong, forward momentum.” (“True/False” lines 69-71).
Elegy on Toy Piano has a string that pulls the reader. Not just because the poems have lines, toward the end of the poem, that lead right into the subject of the next poem in the collection, but the sections are compounded beautifully with poems that take on one healthy body. The first section has a feeling of nostalgia and memories of previous times. Youth is a recurring theme throughout it. “…Is it still 1973? / when I wasn’t getting anywhere / with my French?” (“Ghost Gust” lines 24-26) The second section is a personal course through writing that Dean takes with his development of a voice and style. “Where’s the fiancée of this parenthesis?)” (“Learn by Doing” line 26) The last section is Dean Young’s rebuttal to critics that label him and are skeptical of his work: “All nonmigrating butterflies are surrealists, ditto third graders” (“Shield of Moon Dust” line 21). The poems’ subject matter progresses towards death and the night-time, when nothing is left to be said and sleep takes over: It is fitting that the poem Elegy on Toy Piano is inserted near the end of this section along with many other poems that deal with a light-hearted death and the seriousness of life.
Traditional poets seem to think that there is something to be had with rhyme schemes and blank verse patterns, but the truth is: free verse allows the liberation of movement through conscious and unconscious themes within a poem. There still needs to be something to hold images together that allows for such freedom, otherwise it couldn’t possibly be labeled poetry. Elegy can fly with freedom, but like bats, his poems don’t fly into walls or out through the atmosphere. Many of the times, I was left in the dark with the poems flying over my head. The bats fly high but many of them fly right where I can catch them. Because of this, I am constantly tempted to continue reaching for them. I enjoyed the collection tremendously.
Tell me what you think::::::)
At Idaho State University there is a literary journal known as Black Rock & Sage. This journal is a maintained and produced by a team of students, faculty, and teachers, who all sacrifice their time to produce this literary wonder. We have been getting together once a week to plan and carry out the required preparations to accept submissions. The class in which I enroll in, that has to do with the magazine doesn't start until next semester, but we are desperately trying to get local writers, and students to submit.
The details of the magazine are on our website, which is currently being updated, but the submission guidelines are as follows:
Black Rock & Sage
literary and arts magazine
Now Accepting Submissions for
the 2007 edition
· Poetry
· Fiction
· Nonfiction
· Art
· Photography
Please send copies rather than originals
Postmarked by January 31, 2007
Include:
cover letter,
contact information,
fifty-word bio
The cover letter should list the names of works submitted. Please do not put your name on the writing or art works themselves. Art and photography will be published in black and white, so high-contrast works are preferred. Submissions are limited to not more than five poems, five photographs or works of art, or 5,000 words of prose.
Send writing, art, or photography with a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:
Black Rock & Sage
Department of English & Philosophy
Campus Box 8056
Idaho State University
Pocatello, ID 83209
The new semester has started and the deadline is set for January 30th. Please send in submissions if you haven't already. This is what exists in Pocatello Idaho, but its all I have to participate in. It would be nice to see some work from outside of Idaho, and I am looking forward to seeing some variety.
Ella Fitzgerald from a Thrift Store
The 40’s coming into the hands of modern music lovers
For the survival of incredible vinyl records,
Recycled onto new
turntables for hip-hop,
I just let my needle magnify the vibration
From her vocal orchestra.
She came as an angel.
Now, she is with angels,
Her voice is carried through the winter air.
The thin emptiness,
An audience with open ears,
Her inspiration as an angel.
She presents soothing sounds
From the Rogers and Hart
Songbook: a bible.
She saves my soul
My needle becomes a hypodermic
Injection through my ear drum.
My thoughts occur with museful notes
To remind me that I am not
A screw up, and
The day will come when,
I can rest well, like her
Record in my collection
©2006 Jeff Pearson
Many times I just puff on this cigarette without a flame or smoke, just the autumn air being shot through a tobacco straw.
My lungs are treated farely well, but I never know why I don’t just wait a little longer before that match strikes and I connect the two lovers: the flame and the cigarette. So they may produce offspring of nicotine jolts that run through my blood stream, impregnating the reds avoiding the whites. Like it should be.
Without a cigarette,
its just arson.
©2006 Jeff Pearson
My roommate’s mom is in the mental asylum and I feel really bad, because
He doesn’t need another reason to smoke more weed and
Binge drink his liver to death.
When he returns from a visit,
I ask him,
“How is she doing?”
He responds,
“Good.”
I am sure he wanted to say,
"She is in the fucking nut house!”
Good is probably the best it will ever get.
©2006 Jeff Pearson
Hearing a siren is soothing.
It reduces my chances of being killed
in a freak accident,
or burning up.
There are only a set number of disasters in a day, and the more that happen to other people, the less there are left to happen to me.
©2006 Jeff Pearson
