To celebrate the 119th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birth, on Thursday, September 24, 2015 the Kindle version of THE GREAT GATSBY ANTHOLOGY (Silver Birch Press, 2015) is available free all day. Get your free Kindle copy at Amazon.com (one day only — 9/24/15). If you don’t own a Kindle, you can read the book on your computer by downloading free Kindle apps at this link.
PHOTO: On August 8, 2015, poet Maria Ivana Trevisani Bach (second from right) introduces The Great Gatsby Anthology to the cultural group “Christine de Pizan” on the Italian Riviera (Albisola-Savona, Italy). Her poem “The Great Gatsby’s Dream” appears in the collection. Others pictured are (from left): Patrizia Gioia (creative artist), Angelica Lubrano (poet), and Mario Verrua (Jazz lover and music critic).
AUTHOR’S NOTE ON HER POEM: My poem “The Great Gatsby’s Dream” was inspired by the last words of The Great Gatsby. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Because seldom do we realize the Great Dream of ours!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Maria Ivana Trevisani Bach is a biologist, researcher, teacher, councilor of Beigua Park (Italy), writer (animals, nature, ecology, and the battle against pollution are the themes of her literary works). She endorses the Ecopoetry Movement whose “Italian Manifesto” she wrote in 2005. The author’s work includes scientific and literary articles, an Ecopoetry book (Ed. Serarcangeli Roma), and books on animals (Ed. Mursia, Milano). Her last book, The Feline Comedy by Mozot, was presented at the Ecocriticism Congress in Worchester University (G.B.), in the University (UFPB) Joao Pessoa (Brazil), and in 2014 in the University Castellae (Valladolid, Spain).
PHOTOGRAPH: Sherry Steiner‘s pal, Mr. Marbles, in Housatonic, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires is about to enjoy reading The Great Gatsby Anthology — especially page 129, where Sherry’s poem “Rambling” appears.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sherry Steiner is originally from New York City, and is a widely published writer of off-beat poetry, monologues, flash fiction, and musical performance pieces as well as an arts educator, exhibiting visual artist, ukulele player, and more. Visit her at sherrysteiner.com.
PHOTO: Poet Michelle Donfrio at her favorite chocolate shop — Grahams in Geneva, Illinois — with her copy of The Great Gatsby Anthology. The chairs in the shop are perfect for writing and have inspired many a poem! Michelle contributed her poem “Merging of Stories” to the collection.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michelle Donfrio works in the famous Leo Burnett building in Chicago, and is often inspired by the cityscape. She has been published in Poydra’s Review, Nolos, and has guest blogged on sites such as vegan-beautyreview.com. Her motto: Art is life, and life is beauty.
PHOTO: Poet Scott Wiggerman with his copy of The Great Gatsby Anthology outside his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He hopes the photo gives a little flavor of his town, though it was garbage day and the bins are on the street. He’d hoped to feature a hot air balloon — a common sight in his area — but his husband David just missed capturing the image. Scott’s poem “Gatsby’s Soliloquy” appears in The Great Gatsby Anthology (Silver Birch Press, 2015).
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The Great Gatsby is my favorite American novel, one which I have read over and over again. I honestly don’t think any other American novel comes close to capturing the spirit of the time (and, of course, I like the “Scott” in the author’s name!). One of my prized possessions is a copy of The Romantic Egoists about the Fitzgeralds and autographed by their only daughter Scottie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Scott Wiggerman was born in 1954 on a Marine base in North Carolina to two Chicago-born and bred parents. His formative years were spent in Chicago and a nearby suburb, McHenry, with four other siblings. Scott moved to Michigan, where he received a B.A. from Grand Valley State University (1975), and both an M.A. and an M.L.S. from Western Michigan University (1980). He moved to Texas in 1980, where he lived and worked for 35 years. Retired from the Austin I.S.D., where he served as a high school librarian, he has devoted himself full-time to writing, editing, and teaching poetry. In 2000, Vegetables and Other Relationships came out from Plain View Press, and in 2011, Presence was published by Pecan Grove Press. In between books, he edited several anthologies, including Big Land, Big Sky, Big Hair; Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga; and several editions of the annual Texas Poetry Calendar, through his small press venture, Dos Gatos Press. In 2011, he and husband David Meischen produced Wingbeats: Exercises and Practice in Poetry, followed by Wingbeats II in 2014. In 2015, shortly after Scott’s third book of poetry Leaf and Beak: Sonnets was published by Purple Flag (Chicago), he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is presently compiling poems for a Southwest Persona anthology—submissions remain open through November 30. Visit his poetry pages at this link: http://swig.tripod.com.
PHOTO: Built in 1930 and housed in the former Buice’s General Store, Wilbur and Rudy’s Farmtable is a bit late for the Gatsby era. But its recent popularity in the Milton, Georgia, community has generated all the buzz of a Gatsby party. Poet Julie E. Bloemeke chose Wilbur and Rudy’s as the location for this Gatsby photo shoot because of its up-and-coming energy and dedication to promoting local artists, poets, and musicians. Also, it is one of the perfect places to write — organic coffee shop by day, wine bar by evening. Julie is grateful to fellow poet and photographer, William Walsh, for his 20s-era eye, and to her late grandmother, Geraldine Iglehart, whose vintage flapper gown and ostrich-feather fan helped recreate the roar. Her poem “Telephone” appears in The Great Gatsby Anthology.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I am fascinated by Fitzgerald’s use of the telephone as a presence in conversation. The mystery of who is on the other end of the wire lends resonance to Gatsby’s intrigue; the insistence of Fitzgerald’s shrill metallic urgency is often used to punctuate, disrupt, pause, or hijack. My current poetry manuscript—largely influenced by our deepening connection to the cell phone—offers a grateful hat tip to Fitzgerald’s adroit observations of the telephone’s importance in social dynamics.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Julie E. Bloemeke’s poetry manuscript Slide to Unlock, recently placed as a semifinalist in three book prizes: the 2015 Hudson Prize through Black Lawrence Press, the 2015 Washington Prize through the Word Works, and the 2014 Crab Orchard Poetry Series First Book Award. A graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars and a 2015 fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications including Gulf Coast, Chautauqua Literary Journal, Drunken Boat, Poet Lore, and The Great Gatsby Anthology. In May, she won the 2015 ekphrastic poetry competition at the Toledo Museum of Art, where her work will be on view with the Claude Monet collection until September.
AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPH: Here I am just catching the last of the evening sun reading my copy of The Great Gatsby Anthology with the Humber Bridge behind me. The Humber Bridge, near Kingston Upon Hull, England, is a 2,222-metre single-span suspension bridge that opened to traffic in June 1981. It spans the River Humber, and was the longest of its type in the world when it opened — and is now the seventh longest.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lin Whitehouse writes in all genres, and her short plays have been performed in theatres throughout the North East of England. She has had short stories published in The Finger and Whitby Abbey Pure Inspiration — an anthology of stories about Whitby — and her poems have been published in Writing Magazine, Turbulence Poetry Magazine, and last year she won a National Poetry competition organised by Barnardo’s. Her poem “Would you believe me” in The Great Gatsby Anthology speaks of Gatsby’s heartfelt love for Daisy.
PHOTO: Poet Ana Maria Caballero enjoys her copy of The Great Gatsby Anthology at one of Miami’s great places to read. The collection features her poem “Oh, Zelda,” based on a passage from Ernest Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The work published in The Great Gatsby Anthology is as varied and vibrant as the characters in Fitzgerald’s book. The edition itself is elegant, deliberate, reflective but also stocks a number of surprises, which, like the novel it invokes, makes for a fresh, gratifying read. It’s an honor to be included in its pages.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ana Maria Caballero won Colombia’s José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize in 2014 for her book Entre domingo y domingo (From Sunday to Sunday). Her work has appeared in over 20 publications, including Jai-Alai, Smoking Glue Gun Magazine, Red Savina Review, Big River Poetry Review, and CutBank. It is forthcoming on The Potomac and others. Every week, she writes about poetry for Zeteo Journal. Her poems and book thoughts can be read at the thedrugstorenotebook.co.
PHOTO: Poet Linda Kraus with her copy of The Great Gatsby Anthology at the end of a pier in Mount Dora, Florida — to commemorate her poem “The End of the Pier” featured in the collection.
AUTHOR’S NOTE ON HER POEM: Gatsby’s tortuous quest for love became a kind of totem for me over the years; I wished to honor its significance in my own life as well as in the lives of many generations of readers by writing “The End of the Pier.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda Kraus has taught English and Film Studies at the college and university levels. She has written film criticism, short fiction, and poetry since adolescence and has published both poetry and film criticism. Her poems appear in a variety of anthologies, and she is currently editing her first collection of poetry.
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra
PHOTOGRAPH: Author Kathryn Kulpa brought her copy of The Great Gatsby Anthology to visit an obscure Rhode Island landmark as inscrutable in its own way as the gaze of Dr.T. J. Eckleburg — the “fork in the road” where rural Adamsville, Rhode Island, meets equally rural Acoaxet Village in Westport, Massachusetts. She contributed her poem “What Daisy Knew” to the collection.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR ABOUT HER POEM: One of the most haunting moments of The Great Gatsby for me was always Daisy’s description of the birth of her daughter, how she hopes her child will be “a beautiful little fool.” There’s such a sad finality to that moment, as if she’s accepting that she will never be seen for anything but a beautiful fool in her own life. That took me back to imagining what if Daisy had chosen love instead of security? How much did she second-guess, and how much did that decision cost her? My piece “What Daisy Knew” grew out of that question.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kathryn Kulpa is the author of Pleasant Drugs (Mid-List Press) and Who’s the Skirt? (Origami Poems Project). She has published flash fiction and prose poetry in Smokelong Quarterly, KYSO Flash, Literary Orphans, and The Flexible Persona and has work forthcoming from Hyacinth Girl Press. She is teaching a summer writing workshop for teens at the Tiverton Public Library and will teach a fiction class for adults this fall at the Rogers Free Library in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Silver Birch Press 