Thank you to the poets who participated in the Mythic Poetry Series

Thank you to the 102 poets from Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, and across the United States who contributed their work to the Silver Birch Press Mythic Poetry Series, which ran from October 1-November 30, 2014.

Sheikha A. (Pakistan)
Katie Aliferis (California)
Noh Anothai (Illinois)
Sue Barnard (England)
Mary Bast (Florida)
Fox B. Barrett (Minnesota)
Alessandra Bava (Italy)
Ellen Wade Beals (Illinois)
Roy J. Beckemeyer (Kansas)
Gabriella M. Belfiglio (New York)
Chrystal Berche (Iowa)
Rose Mary Boehm (Peru)
Brinda Buljore (France)
Brittany E. Burns (Ohio)
Valentina Cano (Florida )
Michael Cantin (California)
Sarah Chenoweth (Kansas)
Sarah ChristianScher (California)
Joan Colby (Illinois)
Ken Craft (Massachusetts)
Emily Cruse (Pennsylvania)
Anthony DiMatteo (New York )
Britny Cordera Doane (Nebraska)
Christina Woś Donnelly (New York)
Raven Drake (New Mexico)
Nettie Farris (Indiana)
Jamie Feldman (Canada)
Jennifer Finstrom (Illinois)
Ruth Foley (Massachusetts)
Diane Gage (California)
Anggo Genorga (United Arab Emirates)
Gail Griffin (Michigan)
Stephanie Barbé Hammer (California/Washington)
Senia Hardwick (New York)
Robert Lee Haycock (California)
Donna Hilbert (California)
Gaia Holmes (England)
Trish Hopkinson (Utah)
Robin Dawn Hudechek (California)
A.J. Huffman (Florida)
Mathias Jansson (Sweden)
Mark Allen Jenkins (Texas)
Sonja Johanson (Maine/Massachusetts)
Mary Kendall (North Carolina)
Elizabeth Kerper (Illinois)
Munia Khan (India)
Merie Kirby (North Dakota)
Daniel Klawitter (Colorado)
J.I. Kleinberg (Washington)
Melanie Knippen (Illinois)
F.X. LaChapelle (Alaska)
Paula J. Lambert (Ohio)
Janna Layton (California)
Jenna Le (New York )
Aretha Lemon (Ohio)
Susan Mahan (Massachusetts)
Consolo Mankiewicz (California)
Char March (England)
Karen Massey (Canada)
Sayuri Matsuura (Ohio)
Catfish McDaris (Wisconsin)
Daniel McGinn (California)
Jennifer A. McGowan (England)
Carrie McKay (California)
Molly Meacham (Illinois)
Emily Mischel (California)
Joseph Murphy (Michigan)
Robbi Nester (California)
Perry S. Nicholas (New York)
Alison Noble (Scotland)
Apollo Papafrangou (California)
Jimmy Pappas (New Hampshire)
Greg Patrick (Ireland)
Michael Paul (California)
Connie L. Peters (Colorado)
Patrick T. Reardon (Illinois)
Lynne Rees (Wales)
Roslyn Ross (Australia)
Lawrence Schimel (Spain)
Eric Paul Shaffer (Hawaii)
Emily Shearer (Czech Republic)
Joan Jobe Smith (California)
Massimo Soranzio (Italy)
Jan Steckel (California)
Nathan Steinman (Oklahoma)
Carol A. Stephen (Canada)
Linda Ann Suddarth (Texas)
Olive L. Sullivan (Kansas)
Debi Swim (West Virginia)
Terrence Sykes (District of Columbia)
Jeri Thompson (California)
Bunkong Tuon (New York)
Robin Turner (Texas)
Fred Voss (California)
James Walton (Australia)
Mercedes Webb-Pullman (New Zealand)
Ellen Webre (California)
Laura Madeline Wiseman (Nebraska)
Nancy Lynée Woo (California)
Ja Lorian Young (New Hampshire)
Alicia Zadrozny (New York)
Shari Zollinger (Utah)

In Vino Veritas, poem by Jan Steckel (Mythic Poetry Series)

IN VINO VERITAS
by Jan Steckel

I wasn’t conceived in vitro, but in vino,
when my young mother got tipsy
on artfully spiked fruit punch
at my father’s departmental holiday party.

“Of course we planned you,” said my mother.
“We just planned you for later.”
I’ve known since junior high I was
a diaphragm baby. It’s good to be pushy.

I’m a celebration! I’m a little Dionysius.
I’m what happens when you let down your guard.
I’m a whirlwind, slut-puppy firecracker,
a one-woman OOPS! with a radium glow.

I’m truth and beauty, a force for chaos.
If you don’t like it, kiss my assertiveness.
I’m a random accident, a tossed-off spark,
a twinkle in the conceptual storm’s eye.

If you were conceived in vitro
like my best friend’s kid,
throw all the stones you can
at the transparent walls.

Wine is truth serum, loved one,
so bottoms up, not belly-up.
Belly up to the trough
and imbibe the spiked Kool-Aid.

Maybe, if you’re lucky,
you can shatter your own chrysalis.
Shine like the Aurora Borealis.
Bathe your baby soul in real cabernet.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “In Vino Veritas” is a tribute to Dionysus, the Greek God of wine.

IMAGE: “Bacchus Dance” by André Derain (1906).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jan Steckel’s full-length poetry book, The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011), won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her story Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) won the Gertrude Press fiction chapbook award. Her chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) was voted First Place in the lesbian and bisexual poetry division of the Rainbow Awards. Her creative writing has appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, Red Rock Review, The Pedestal Magazine, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. Her short story collection Ghosts and Oceans is seeking a publisher.

The Hound of Ulster, poem by Lawrence Schimel (Mythic Poetry Series)

The Hound of Ulster
by Lawrence Schimel

The neighbor’s cat has caught a baby hare.
It’s still alive, dangling from her mouth
like a kitten while she plays with it.
As I advance she drops her prey
and disappears into the woods,
intimidated rather than guilt-stricken.
The hare, in shock, quivers
where it dropped, but as I near
it bolts. I chase after, to check
that it is not hurt, and cannot help
feeling like the hero Cuchulainn as a boy,
set to racing after rabbits until he
was fast enough to catch them, fast
enough to elude the blade of a sword.
My chase is not long. The hare
avoids me in quick, zig-zagging
bursts, but with my advantage
of cunning and height, I corner it
against the building’s implacable bricks.
And as I lift the small bundle of fur,
hold it, kicking in fear, against my chest,
I know that it is far too easy
to feel the conquering hero.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lawrence Schimel (New York, 1971) writes in both English and Spanish and has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, including two poetry chapbooks in English, Fairy Tales for Writers and Deleted Names (both from A Midsummer Night’s Press), and one poetry collection in Spanish, Desayuno en la cama (Egales). He has twice won the Lambda Literary Award (for First Person Queer and PoMoSexual: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality), as well as the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Spectrum Award, and other honors. His stories and poems have been widely anthologized in The Random House Treasury of Light Verse, The Random House Book of Science Fiction Stories, The Mammoth Book of Fairy Tales, Chicken Soup for the Horse-Lover’s Soul 2, The Incredible Sestinas Anthology, Weird Tales from Shakespeare, and many others. He lives in Madrid, Spain where he works as a Spanish->English translator.

IMAGE: “Cuchulainn, the Hound of Ulster, in Battle” by Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951).

What the Teacup Means, poem by Jennifer Finstrom (Mythic Poetry Series)

WHAT THE TEACUP MEANS
by Jennifer Finstrom

The woman my father is dating wants
to know what the teacup in a poem
I wrote ten years ago means. I don’t do
a good job of explaining it to my father.
I try to tell him how truth works in poetry
and how the speaker of the poem might
not even be the poet but might be
someone else, a fictional character or
a figure from history. I tell him that
the teacup is metaphorical, not real,
and that it is one of several details
chosen to work together to create
the world of the poem. He also asks
about the spindle, and this, I say,
alludes to Sleeping Beauty. He doesn’t
ask about the men in the poem, but I
think that if he did, I would try to lose
them in the wall of thorns gathering
around my explanation—after all,
that is where I have left them, anyway.

IMAGE: “The Tea Cup” by Jackson Pollock (1946).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Finstrom teaches in the First-Year Writing Program, tutors in writing, and facilitates a writing group, Writers Guild, at DePaul University. She has been the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine since October of 2005, and her work appears in After Hours, Cider Press Review, Midwestern Gothic, NEAT, and RHINO, among others. In addition, she has a poem forthcoming in The Silver Birch Press The Great Gatsby Anthology.

Journeybread Recipe, poem by Lawrence Schimel (Mythic Poetry Series)

Journeybread Recipe
by Lawrence Schimel

“Even in the electric kitchen there was
the smell of a journey.”
–Anne Sexton, “Little Red Riding Hood”

1. In a tupperware wood, mix child and hood. Stir slowly. Add wolf.

2. Turn out onto a lightly floured path, and begin the walk home from school.

3. Sweeten the journey with candied petals: velvet tongues of violet, a posy of roses. Soon you will crave more.

4. Knead the flowers through the dough as wolf and child converse, tasting of each others flesh, a mingling of scents.

5. Now crack the wolf and separate the whites–the large eyes, the long teeth–from the yolks.

6. Fold in the yeasty souls, fermented while none were watching. You are too young to hang out in bars.

7. Cover, and, warm and moist, let the bloated belly rise nine months.

8. Shape into a pudgy child, a dough boy, lumpy but sweet. Bake half an hour.

9. Just before the time is up–the end in sight, the water broken–split the top with a hunting knife, bone-handled and sharp.

10. Serve swaddled in a wolfskin throw, cradled in a basket and left on a grandmother’s doorstep.

11. Go to your room. You have homework to be done. You are too young to be in the kitchen, cooking.

IMAGE: Red Riding Hood and Wolf apron, available at zazzle.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lawrence Schimel (New York, 1971) writes in both English and Spanish and has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, including two poetry chapbooks in English, Fairy Tales for Writers and Deleted Names (both from A Midsummer Night’s Press), and one poetry collection in Spanish, Desayuno en la cama (Egales). He has twice won the Lambda Literary Award (for First Person Queer and PoMoSexual: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality), as well as the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Spectrum Award, and other honors. His stories and poems have been widely anthologized in The Random House Treasury of Light Verse, The Random House Book of Science Fiction Stories, The Mammoth Book of Fairy Tales, Chicken Soup for the Horse-Lover’s Soul 2, The Incredible Sestinas Anthology, Weird Tales from Shakespeare, and many others. He lives in Madrid, Spain where he works as a Spanish->English translator.

The First of February, poem by Eric Paul Shaffer (Mythic Poetry Series)

The First of February
by Eric Paul Shaffer

      The fire blazed in that cottage, summer, fall, spring, no matter
the wood within nor weather without, but for the first of February.
That day, she watched the fire burn low, beat out the gleaming embers,

and let the hearth cool. She spent the morning scraping soot from stone
      and swept a year of ashes across the floor, over the threshold,
from the steps into the yard. Noon was cold meat and bread, then back

      bent once more, she chipped and scraped till the place was clean,
carried in five fresh-split limbs for the iron frame, and arranged the tinder
      and kindling. The cottage was cold, and she donned a sweater,

then a cloak and stiff leather shoes for the frozen road before she set out
            beneath a silver sky. When evening drew on, she returned
from the village, where in the square, the bonfire had burned since dawn.

      On a bit of tinder, she cupped the spark she had carried home
and brought the flame to life with her breath. Kneeling on stone,
she coaxed fire forth once more. Gray smoke rose, the chill left the air,

walls warmed, and her home glowed with light from the same flame
            kindled anew that day on every village hearth.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “The First of February” is based on the Celtic myth of Brigid, goddess of hearth and fire, whose ceremony is celebrated every year on the first of February. The ceremony includes a ritual dousing of each house’s fire, a thorough cleaning of the hearth, and then from a newly-kindled central community fire, all of the local people carry a flame to their own hearths so that all village fires burn with warmth and light from the same source.

IMAGE: “Brigid of Candelmas” by Judith Shaw. Prints available at etsy.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Eric Paul Shaffer is author of five books of poetry, including Lāhaina Noon. His poetry appears in North American Review, Slate, and The Sun Magazine; Australia’s Going Down Swinging, Island, and Quadrant; Canada’s Dalhousie Review, Event, and Fiddlehead; Éire’s Poetry Ireland Review and Southword Journal; England’s Stand and Magma; and New Zealand’s Poetry NZ and Takahe. Shaffer received the 2002 Elliot Cades Award for Literature, a 2006 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Book Award for Lāhaina Noon, and the 2009 James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry. Burn & Learn, his first novel, was published in 2009. Shaffer teaches at Honolulu Community College.

In the Schwarzwald, poem by Lawrence Schimel (Mythic Poetry Series)

In the Schwarzwald
by Lawrence Schimel

They take her brother to break her pride.
Gretel tears splinters from the barracks bed
to still the hunger that gnaws inside.

Through the iron gate, past the words:
Arbeit Macht Frei, she watches guards
throw loaves of bread to the birds.

Not even famine can make barbed wire
seem a candy house she could devour.
The guard tells her: Child, climb into the fire.

Gretel tells the guard: Show me how.
But the witches were not fooled so
easily in the camps at Dachau.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “In the Schwarzwald” is part of a sequence I’m writing, using that same title as the title for the series, using the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm as the lens through which to explore the Holocaust, both arising from the same Dark Forests of Germany.

IMAGE: “Hansel and Gretel” by Kay Nielsen (1886-1957).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lawrence Schimel (New York, 1971) writes in both English and Spanish and has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, including two poetry chapbooks in English, Fairy Tales for Writers and Deleted Names (both from A Midsummer Night’s Press), and one poetry collection in Spanish, Desayuno en la cama (Egales). He has twice won the Lambda Literary Award (for First Person Queer and PoMoSexual: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality), as well as the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Spectrum Award, and other honors. His stories and poems have been widely anthologized in The Random House Treasury of Light Verse, The Random House Book of Science Fiction Stories, The Mammoth Book of Fairy Tales, Chicken Soup for the Horse-Lover’s Soul 2, The Incredible Sestinas Anthology, Weird Tales from Shakespeare, and many others. He lives in Madrid, Spain where he works as a Spanish->English translator.

Dancing Princess, poem by Linda Ann Suddarth (Mythic Poetry Series)

DANCING PRINCESS
by Linda Ann Suddarth

I have waited up till very late
the quiet sings to me
ice and snow cushion my defenses
the leaves have frozen in mid-air
a diamond offering.
I will forever go to the dance
wear my shoes out in the underworld
and you are invisible still.
I dare you to bring
that diamond token back
to show my Daddy.
I waited up
with a night full
of conversation
on the tip of my tongue
whispering warmth
pillowed against the cold
once again—you never show yourself.
I put the feast away
carefully covering the pies
lock the door
peeking once more
out at white and shadow
a visitation of winter
to this sunburnt land.
I feel the mist on the window
know the frozen sight
somewhere deep inside
the stars have sent
their sparkle and chill
to my very landscape.
I think of you
on your journey to me
and of the great distance
you’ve had to travel by now.
I wish for you a magic cloak.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda Ann Suddarth sees the creative life as a vital expression of the psyche. Linda has been writing poetry for 30 years, and has published in many poetry journals. She has a BFA in painting, an interdisciplinary MA in Aesthetic Studies, and a PhD in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology. Linda is on the Board of Directors for the C. G. Jung Society of North Texas, and teaches English and Art at Richland College in Dallas. For more, visit her blog: lindawordandimage.blogspot.com.

IMAGE: “Dancing Shoes” by Helene Schjerfbeck (1882).

The Broken Promise: Orpheus and Eurydice, poem by Mary Kendall (Mythic Poetry Series)

The Broken Promise: Orpheus and Eurydice
by Mary Kendall

If only he had kept his promise, she’d be there.
All it took was one glance, a quick turn,
a meeting of the eyes and then she vanished.

How long did he stand there staring at where she had been?
When did he realize that she was lost to him forever?

How sad the stars were that night,
tumbling through the black sky
in mournful arcs;
even the moon turned its face away.

As he lead her out toward the ledge,
did she gasp at her unsure footing?
She with her snake-born limp,
trying hard to keep pace through dark tunnels
winding up to the craggy precipice?
Was this what tempted him to look?

His glance came so naturally,
that of the husband who worried
his wife might stumble and fall.
His trust in her never wavered and yet
he looked back just that once.
That’s all it took.

That night the heavens froze for a minute,
the music of the planets and stars
coming to a halt: no sound, no movement
before they heard his cry.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem will appear in my upcoming chapbook, Erasing the Doubt, which will be published on February 28, 2015 by Finishing Line Press.

IMAGE: “Orpheus Returns from the Pursuit of Eurydice” by Henri Martin (1860-1943).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Kendall has a chapbook, Erasing the Doubt, coming out on February 28, 2015 by Finishing Line Press. This poem is one of the selections. Mary is also author of A Giving Garden (2009). She is delighted to find the many excellent poets here on wordpress, and her blog is: A Poet in Time found at: apoetintime.com. She is a retired teacher and using her retirement years to indulge in a good deal of reading and writing. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Little Robber Maidens, poem by Elizabeth Kerper (Mythic Poetry Series)

Little Robber Maidens
by Elizabeth Kerper

“I always sleep with the knife,” said the little robber maiden. “There is no knowing what may happen.”
—Hans Christian Andersen, “The Snow Queen”

Little robber maidens sleep with knives in hand
and make friends by force. Little robber maidens
are not lonely. The little robber maiden is my sister,
walking to the El from a midnight showing
of the Rocky Horror Picture Show—my little sister,
five-inch heels dangling from her index fingers,
fallen leaves plastering the sidewalk like open palms,
two drunk guys on the corner reaching out, asking
what party she’s going to, if they can take her home after.
The little robber maiden is my sister when she answers
Invite-only, boys, laughs, thinks, I could break your nose
with the sole of this shoe and not even feel bad.
Little robber maidens are not lonely.

Little robber maidens do not know how to be lonely,
only headstrong and fierce like the Lapland winter,
like the Chicago November when my sister is born.
The little robber maiden is me, three and half years old,
waiting until the babysitting aunts and grandmothers
are distracted before I poke my scrunched bundle of a sister hard
through the bars of the hospital basinet. She cries out, once, twice,
sharp as a shard of mirror splintering from its frame.
The little robber maiden is me, laying my hand flat
on my sister’s newborn stomach until she is calm again, palm
rising and falling with her beginner’s breaths. Little robber maidens
sleep in robber castle courtyards with laths of pigeons
overhead. Little robber maidens are not lonely.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I recently reread “The Snow Queen,” and I was struck by how much agency and personality the little robber maiden has for a character who plays a fairly minor part in the overall story. She feels like a character who continues having her own adventures even after the protagonist has moved on and taken the story with her—and possibly better adventures, too.

IMAGE: “Girl with Red Shawl” by Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Elizabeth Kerper lives in Chicago and recently graduated from DePaul University with a BA in English literature. Her work has appeared in Eclectica, NEAT, and N/A Literary Magazine, where she is a contributing editor. She can generally be found sitting quietly in the corner with her nose stuck in a book.