Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology 12/5-12/9/16 – Happy Holidays!

To celebrate the holiday season, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology – available Monday, 12/5 through Friday, 12/9/16 at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk. The free offer also appears on all the international Amazon sites.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Happy Holidays!

End of the Week, poem by Ivon Prefontaine

END OF THE WEEK

by Ivon Prefontaine

Turn the soil

Plant the seeds

Offer precious food

Sustaining liquid

Nourish the spirit

 A soul grows,

Buoyed –

A light shines

Reveals the path

With each step taken.

Breathe

Barely audible

Life giving

End of week arrives

I wait quietly,

I pause patiently,

I till tenderly,

Turn the soil

Plant the seeds

Take care.

SOURCE: “End of the Week” and other poetry by Ivon Prefontaine appears in the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — a collection of poetry and prose by over 70 authors living in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa — available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ivon Prefontaine is a junior high teacher in a small satellite community of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He regained an appreciation for poetry and found his way back to it after many years. Poetry has reemerged as an integral aspect of his personal expression and complements a growing meditative practice.

Visit Ivon Prefontaine at his blog, Teacher as Transformer here.

Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology through 3/18/14

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology – available through Tuesday, March 18th at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk. The free offer also appears on all the international Amazon sites.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Shades of Green, poem by Tere Sievers

SHADES OF GREEN
by TERE SIEVERS

Dusty taste of pistachio
summons the desert,
after the bite
green like the Palo Verde.
Creamy avocado
so smooth on the tongue,
soft in the hand but
hard in the heart.
A sting of Chartreuse
in a sip of the tongue,
burning bite from a bottle.
Now, breathe eucalyptus
inhale mint grass pine
swallow apple olive
drink in green.
 
Electric, asparagus, yellow, blue
forest, bright, marine and pine
Harlequin, honeydew, India, lawn
camouflage, citrine, emerald, jade
Paris, army, avocado, pear
verdigris, chlorine, office, sky
hunter, Persian, pigment, teal
turquoise, Kelly, moss and sap
Eucalyptus, grass, viridian, green.

“Shades of Green” by Tere Sievers appears in the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology, a collection of Poetry and prose by 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Europe, and Africa —  available at Amazon.com. (Free Kindle version until 3/18/14!)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tere Sievers, originally a Jersey girl, lives in Long Beach, California, and works as a Marriage and Family Therapist.  She began writing poetry at CSULB and Beyond Baroque back in the late 70s.  For the enjoyment of the children in her life, she has published a book of children’s poems, Blueberry Pancakes and Monkey Pajamas.  She received third place in the Your Daily Poem Apocalypse Poetry Contest.

Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology through 3/18/14

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology – available through Tuesday, March 18th at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Happy St. Pat’s!

Of Seeing Green, poem by Ruth Moon Kempher

OF SEEING GREEN
by Ruth Moon Kempher

The mind. . .

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade.” 

Andrew Marvell, “The Garden”

The turn on is
modest green like
the Pharaoh’s miasma
creeping in under the door

whose seeds
signal green, as
the issuing leaves will be
sunbuttered / greengroping creatures

jostled together
jolting cool static from each other—
a shock we might, accidentally, one day
between fragments of o’clock ourselves touch

whose need is glass green
as in tavern neon, or gumdrops
puddling on the floor. Spectral. No.
Wet. Like padded caterpillar feet. Green gore.

SOURCE: Originally published in Casa de los Cinco Hermanos (Pueblo, Colorado). “Of Seeing Green” is featured in the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — a collection of poetry and prose from more than 70 authors around the world — available at Amazon.com.

IMAGE: “Peaceful Understanding” by Sharon Cummings. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ruth Moon Kempher, an ex-navy brat who was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, has had her poetry and short prose appear in journals and other periodical publications since 1958, and has published many other people’s work since 1994 through her Kings Estate Press in St. Augustine, Florida. She is retired from owning a tavern and from teaching—first for Flagler College while attaining her BA and graduating with the college’s first class; and later, after achieving her MA at Emory University in Atlanta, in the English Department of St. Johns River Community College. The latest of her thirty-three (mostly small) collections is Key West Papers (Casa de Cinco Hermanos Press, Pueblo, Colorado). Her poetry appears in the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology, Green Anthology, and Summer Anthology.

The Rise and Fall of LIfe, poem by Margaret Towner

THE RISE AND FALL OF LIFE
by Margaret Towner

The three-tiered plant hanger
is on the patio where my mother
could see it from her chair
when she was still living
in the house. Barb hung it high
last year and placed three
bright pots of graduated size:
one white flowering plant
at the top, in constant bloom,
a jade plant in the middle
always pale green, and finally
a red blooming succulent
with flowers that come and go.

“The Rise and Fall of Life” and other poetry by Margaret Towner appears in the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — a collection of poetry and prose by over 70 authors living in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa — available at Amazon.com (Kindle version free until 12/21/13).

On the River, poem by Marcia Meara

ON THE RIVER (Excerpt)
by Marcia Meara

Crystal green flows beneath me,
Leafy arches rise above.
  Dip, glide.
     Dip, glide.
          Slide.
 
Duckweed parts as I float by.
I wonder where they went,
Those ducks.
Gone overnight, it seems.
Another parting, another loss,
And I slide by,
Under all that green.
  Dip, glide.
     Dip, glide.
 
Just there, in deepest shade,
Sleeping emeralds cling.
Tree frogs rest in their
Smooth, damp skins
Waiting for the silver moon.
They’ll open their eyes for the silver moon.
Sleeping now,
As I pass by.
  Dip, glide.
     Dip, glide.
 
With arms raised to that same moon,
I once danced along the shore,
Young and wild and full of joy.
Moving to music
That stirred my soul,
And washed in that pale light,
I danced.
Years ago, in that pale, pale light.
I remember it all,
And so much more,
As I slide by.
  Dip, glide.
     Dip, glide.

Poetry by Marcia Meara appears in the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — a collection of poetry and prose by over 70 authors living in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa — available at Amazon.com (Kindle version free until 12/21/13).

Visit Marcia Meara at her blog Bookin’ It, where she posts reviews and other book-related articles.

Photo by Tony Hisgett

Little Mythologies, poem by Paul Kareem Tayyar

LITTLE MYTHOLOGIES
by Paul Kareem Tayyar

This is the hour of the sundial,
The green lake and the lady who defends it,
This is the hour of the rose and the watercolor clouds,
This is the hour when the angels,
Long crippled by an absence of faith in those they have been sent to protect,
Awake to find that the children are holding their arms out to them,
And the white rain warms its hands by the slow fire of an emerging sun.

Here is where your life becomes a silent film,
Where your life becomes a long poem filled with lovely metaphors,
Where you no longer have to dream about what the days before you will become.

This is the hour that you had been promised,
See your dreams sitting like starlings upon the telephone wires
Across the street from where you stand.

###
“Little Mythologies” and other poetry by Paul Kareem Tayyar appears in the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — a collection of poetry and prose by over 70 authors living in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa — available at Amazon.com (Kindle version free until 12/21/13).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Paul Kareem Tayyar, a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, is the author of four collections of poetry: Everyday Magic (West-Coast Bias Press), Scenes From A Good Life (Tebot Bach), Postmark Atlantis (Level 4 Press), and Follow the Sun: Poems, Stories, and Reflections (Aortic Books). Paul’s most recent book of prose is the novella In the Footsteps of the Silver King (Spout Hill Press). He is the Founding Director of World Parade Books, an independent press that has published works by Edward Field, Clifton Snider, and Donna Hilbert. He is one of the organizers of Beside the City of Angels: A Long Beach Poetry Festival.

Painting: “Birds on Wire” by Jodi Leigh. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

Okauchee, poem by Dirk Velvet

OKAUCHEE
by Dirk Velvet

The
Blue Jays
woke us
at dawn
with their
jeering
calling to the cottage
from
weeping willows
whose roots
reached as far into the lake
as onto the land
The water was
cool green
at its best
and gray-black at its worst
Okauchee
nothing else mattered
Not
tangling weeds
floating fish
sinking rafts
Okauchee
it was all we ever knew
or
wanted
of summer
At dusk we piled into the attic
Strewed across mattresses
no longer wanted at home
we listened to
the bats chatter
as it lulled us
to
sleep

( Okauchee Lake — Okauchee, Wisconsin )

Dirk Velvet’s poetry appears in the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — a collection of poetry and prose by over 70 authors living in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa — available at Amazon.com (Kindle version free until 12/21/13).

Photo: Ken Blackwell, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED