Leslie as Leslie with a Pixie Cut, poem by Leslie Sittner (SAME NAME Poetry and Prose Series)

Leslie as Leslie with a Pixie Cut
by Leslie Sittner

She is Franco-American. Exotic.
I, plain old American.

She is a gamine, a waif, a sylph.
I, sturdy, full, solid.

She learns ballet and to sing.
I, tap dance and sing in church.

She is a film actress and dancer.
I, a kid in middle school.

Her mother prepares her for performing.
Mine, for me to have Caron’s pixie haircut.

Her pixie cut is perfect. Her shaggy bangs smooth and flat.
Mine, cowlicks and curls.

She continues to be in the public eye, appearing with various hairstyles.
I, continue. Delighted to have once tried one of hers.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The photo at right is me in junior high school with that darn pixie cut. That’s what it was called at the time. My mother adored Leslie Caron (pictured at left in the early 1960s) and was obsessed with that haircut. Since I had the cowlicks in my bangs, she would wet them down, straighten them out, clip a band of tissues to my forehead to keep them flat and a make me sleep on my back so I wouldn’t disturb the corrective set-up. I adored my mother so I really didn’t mind. The system kept the cowlicks at bay but, alas, could not correct the sideways curling.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Leslie Sittner, born in 1945 in upstate New York, is a new Creative nonfiction writer just finding her voice. While Leslie Caron published her autobiography, Thank Heaven, in 2010, Leslie S. is still working on remembering things. And oddly enough, their current hairstyles are often quite similar.

The Wrong Prince, prose poem by Jennifer Finstrom (MY SWEET WORD Series)

The Wrong Prince
by Jennifer Finstrom

               “The inside of the coach was lined with sugared pretzels, and                in the seat were fruits and gingersnaps.”
                                   —The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen

I baked gingersnaps with my ex-husband the November after we got divorced. I brought over the recipe from my apartment down the street and used the spices that had been in the cupboard when I lived there. Later, I walked home with half of the cookies, unaware that when he returned from his holiday travels, we would stop speaking for a second time.

In the fourth tale of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, Gerda befriends a crow in the forest. The crow tells of a prince who sounds like Kay, the missing neighbor boy who is her friend, but when the crow sneaks her into the castle, she sees that he isn’t Kay at all, just a boy who has managed to marry the princess by being clever and speaking well.

But the prince and princess are kind to Gerda, and if her story stopped there, she could ride away in the golden coach they provided, the crow keeping pace in the air alongside. I see her leaning back on cushions and gazing out the window, surrounded by the smell of nutmeg and allspice, a sky full of black feathers, the constant awareness that so many endings are possible.

IMAGE: “Kay and Gerda” from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, illustrated by Kay Nielsen (1886-1957).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I love writing about fairy tales and have recently been rereading The Snow Queen. I’m always fascinated by descriptions of food in fairy tales, and reading what the golden coach was filled with—the fruits and gingersnaps and sugared pretzels—made me want to write this prose poem.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jennifer Finstrom teaches in the First-Year Writing Program, tutors in writing, and facilitates writing groups at DePaul University. She is the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine, and recent publications include Escape Into Life, Extract(s), NEAT, and YEW Journal. For Silver Birch Press, she also has work appearing in the  The Great Gatsby Anthology and forthcoming in the Alice in Wonderland Anthology and Ides: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks. 

ShadowMe, prose poem by Johannes S.H. Bjerg (My Meta-morphosis Series)

ShadowMe
by Johannes S.H. Bjerg

Day 1:
Had this sinking feeling like being dragged down on the inside of my body whiles it was still standing. At the soles of my feet I leaked out as some kind of fluid and found myself lying flat across the meat counter at the super market feeling comfortably light.

This was how I turned into my own shadow.

Day 2:
Funny. It has no taste, the meat counter. Neither does asphalt, concrete, bread; the objects I float across as my body-body plods through its homey world are tasteless. Cars, bikes, windows even dog shit doesn’t taste of anything.

Day 3:
It’s no use yelling at my body-body, my former abode. It can’t hear me. I stick to my old body by the feet and is thus taken where ever “I,” my body-body, now controlled and manoeuvred by a will unknown to me, wants to go. I don’t think “I” even notice what “I” am dragging me across. As shadow I’m totally ignorable.

Day 4:
Power-out! Suddenly I’m nowhere and everywhere and see the future of the universe! I’m formless and omnipresent as I merge with the World Shadow. There’s a constant whispering of a gazillion tongues inside it. Scary. Never really gave it much thought, that World Shadow . . .

Day 5:
I don’t feel fatigue. My shadow-body doesn’t feel anything. I cannot even feel whether I have a body or not. My mucus glands aren’t irritated by pollen. I don’t even think I have mucus glands. Do I? I try to force a sneeze. Impossible.

How I miss the taste and satisfaction of good coffee and strong tobacco. Not to mention the relief of emptying a full bladder . . .

Day 6:
So that’s what it’s like being a byproduct of living in the proximity of a star, being a negative projection, an area of lesser light, phenomenon without notable mass and having absolutely no influence on anything. Bereft of a free will (in as far as free will exists) and only having a faintly continuous existence because of artificial light.

Day 7:
I found them, the tiny holes the soles of the feet through which I leaked as a fluid. My body-body slept without a cover and its feet were lit by the second-hand light from the moon. They, the holes, shone with a faint cold blue light like secret portals. I got this rising feeling and rose back into my body-body and it felt like home. I noticed “I” dreamed I was being transformed into an insect.

IMAGE: “Self-Portrait in Profile,” collage by Marcel Duchamp (1958).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Johannes S. H. Bjerg is a Dane who writes in Danish and English simultaneously and mainly haiku and haiku-related forms. He is one of the three editors of Bones:  Journal for contemporary haiku (www.bonesjournal.com), and sole editor of the other bunny – for the other kind of haibun (theotherbunny.wordpress.com). He has published 12 books — find out more here: http://january-stones.blogspot.dk/p/books.html.

Permanent Vacation, poem by Cynthia Bryant (My Perfect Vacation Series)

Permanent Vacation
by Cynthia Bryant

Someday soon
I’m gonna pick myself up
out of this rut I have fashioned
from tawdry bits of life
leave the baggage home
camp out on white sandy beaches
where aqua water laps gently
along the shoreline
sweet subtle scents float on the breeze
and everything I eat
is eaten with hands
savored to last succulent morsel
and I know
if I ever make
that first step towards the door
I will never look back

PHOTO: Southern California beach circa 1980 (Cynthia Bryant photo).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cynthia Bryant’s poetry ranges from world news, to poignant pieces closer to her heart: love, family, incest, and injustice. Cynthia has been invited to read her poetry throughout California in diverse venues including coffee shops, fairs, art galleries, schools, battered women’s shelters, and a federal prison. First published in 1997 by two important journals dealing with childhood sexual abuse, Cynthia has since been published in over 30 anthologies. Her books Sojourn, Pebbles in the Shoe, and No Time to Shoot the Poets were accepted into the Ina Coolbrith Circle section in Sacramento State Library’s Special Collections Reading Room.

Author Profile: Suzanne Rawlinson, contributor to THE GREAT GATSBY ANTHOLOGY

PHOTOGRAPH: Poet Suzanne Rawlinson with her copy of The Great Gatsby Anthology at Hammersmith Bridge in London, the borough where she lives. She picked this location as an homage to The Great Gatsby — specifically how Gatsby and Daisy live across the water from each other.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Suzanne Rawlinson is a full-time teaching assistant who also enjoys writing part time following the completion of her studies in creative writing. Suzanne writes across a variety of genres in the form of blog posts, scripts, and poetry. Occasionally she writes short stories and would love to extend the poetry into songwriting. Currently Suzanne is working on a script for TV/radio and regularly contributes to her blog — writing about real-life experiences, issues, and musings. In 2013 Suzanne had a poem published in an online magazine. Her poem “The Destruction of Desire” appears in the The Great Gatsby Anthology. Visit her at a range of social media links: suzannerawlinson.wordpress.com, saucysuesays.wordpress.com, on Twitter, Facebook, or her YouTube channel.

What’s a Little Rain?, flash fiction by G. Murray Thomas (My Perfect Vacation Series)

What’s a Little Rain?
by G. Murray Thomas

I love train travel. In 1984 I got to ride what was then the highest elevation passenger train in the world, which runs from Lima, Peru up into the Andes. In five hours it zigzagged its way from sea level to a mountain pass at 15,000 feet, then down into a valley at the relatively sedate elevation of 10,000 feet. It passed through some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen, steep cliffs, tumbling waterfalls, the river rushing far below.

One dramatic scene was a long line of trucks standing idle, waiting…I was there in the middle of Peru’s rainy season. The only road into the mountains was washed out, and wouldn’t be repaired for months. And the trucks were just waiting for that.

That night it rained again. And the train’s tracks washed out.

I eventually found a bus company, which assured me they would get me to Lima. We spent all night wandering along narrow, snowy mountain roads in near pitch-black conditions. I had visions of “Peruvian Bus Plunge Kills 50,” and didn’t get much sleep.

At dawn the bus stopped, and they hustled us all off. Steep mountain cliffs surrounded us, and they began to walk us through a field of large boulders. They were walking us around the washed out portion of the road, along the rushing river, all in the half-light of a rising sun.

After two or three miles we emerged onto a usable road, and sat down to wait for another bus to come up from Lima and pick us up. Mission accomplished (sort of).

AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPH: This is my passport photo from this trip.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My trip to Peru in 1984 was at once the most exciting and rewarding and the most disaster-filled vacation I have ever taken. This is just one of the adventures I had.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: G. Murray Thomas has been an active part of the SoCal poetry scene for over 20 years. He currently edits a monthly listing of poetry events for Poetix.net, the source for information about SoCal poetry. He has published two books of poetry, My Kidney Just Arrived (Tebot Bach 2011) and Cows on the Freeway (iUniverse 1999). He is currently working on a collection of essays about his life as a music fan. Visit him at gmurraythomas.com.

Natalie by Natalie Wallace (All About My Name Poetry Series)

Natalie
by Natalie Wallace

My name is whispered,
it is shouted and spoken,
I can hear them all.

Carried by a breeze,
through a quiet languid night,
he whispered my name.

Over the music,
and the loud singing people,
he shouted my name.

Filling in the space,
after a conversation,
he speaks my name.

PHOTOGRAPH: Natalie Wallace (taken on March 4, 2015 by Lydia Law).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Natalie Wallace is a cheerful spirit who enjoys reading, writing, and drinking Jasmine tea. She has an unhealthy obsession with no-name bands and teen romance novels. She aspires to study Media/Communications at Chapman University. You can find her work on Eskimo Pie, Leaves of Ink, Forced Entries, and the Cerritos Library Website. Follow her blog teenliterati.tumblr.com.

The 13th Sign of the Zodiac, poem by Trish Hopkinson (Mythic Poetry Series)

The 13th Sign of the Zodiac
by Trish Hopkinson

Those born under this sign
have an unknown date of birth or a different birthday
than the day upon which it is celebrated.
Ambiguus tend to be travelers,
truth-sayers, and meditators.
Often encompassed in the uncertainty
of their birth history, they are accepting,
nonjudgmental, and kind.
They have a taste for bread, seafood, and wine.
Not horribly good swimmers,
they prefer walking in open-toed shoes.
Ambiguus are luminous leaders
and are commonly followed by friends,
a dozen or so. Ambiguus love little children
and are regularly religious.
Today may be the day
to discover your birthday, but only
if you are brave enough to turn over
the dust on your tongue and slide it
along molar and fang, scraping
away your own existence.
With the new moon just past,
mystery will reveal itself beneath
your nails and tug at your hair
with unusual force, urging you toward
distant constellations and unknown worlds.
Pack lightly or pack nothing.
It’s a virtuous day for beard shaving.

IMAGE: “Theda Da” by Sasha Keen. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Trish Hopkinson loves words and digs poetry slams. Her mother tells everyone that she was born with a pen in her hand. She has been published in several journals, including The Found Poetry Review, Chagrin River Review, and Touchstones, the latter in which she won second place for poetry twice. She recently received awards in the Utah Arts Festival’s IronPen competition and from the League of Utah Writers for her poetry anthology, Emissions. She is a project manager by profession and resides in Utah with her handsome husband and two outstanding children. You can follow her poetry adventures at trishhopkinson.com.

We Only Want To Know One Thing Benedict, poem by Marija Smits (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

WE ONLY WANT TO KNOW ONE THING BENEDICT
by Marija Smits

Yep, I’m playing yet another brainy guy.

But it’s great, and I’m learning so much.

Will there be romance?

What, now I’m a movie star?

I think that would be incredible…

That is what should happen.

SOURCE: Benedict Cumberbatch interview, “I went to public school, but I’m not a public school boy,” The Big Issue (Jan 14, 2014).

IMAGE: Actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Like most middle-aged women, I have a thing for Benedict Cumberbatch. I pretend that I’m interested in his films and his acting, but really, there is only one thing worth knowing: Will there be romance?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marija Smits is a mother-of-two, a writer and poetess whose work has featured in a variety of publications. When she’s not busy with her children, or writing, she likes to draw and paint. Very late at night, when everyone else is asleep, she runs the small press Mother’s Milk Books. Her work is rather eclectic and she loves semicolons, as well as plenty of cream in her coffee. She lives in the middle of England but would like to be a bit closer to the sea. To see more of her writing and art, please visit www.marijasmits.wordpress.com.

I AM, poem by Erin Dorney (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

I AM
by Erin Dorney

I am not permanent—
I was folded.
I was made to hold things
and on the way home he cut me.
Now I am ruined,
sitting here
in this dumpster.

SOURCE: Interview with Shia LaBeouf, NPR (February 2014).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:  This source text is an interview with the paper bag that Shia LaBeouf wore on his head at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival.

IMAGE: Actor Shia LaBeouf at 2014 Berlin Film Festival (Feb. 9, 2014) by Keystone Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Erin Dorney is a founding editor of The Triangle. Her work has been published in The Newer York, The Fox Chase Review, and Potluck Mag. She can be found on Twitter.