How Formal? poems by Stephanie Barbé Hammer

How Formal? is a 142-page collection of intriguing, quirky, and original — the three qualities  I look for in a book — poetry by Stephanie Barbé Hammer recently released by Spout Hill Press, an independent publisher in Southern California. How Formal? takes readers on a wild but accessible ride through sestinas, haiku, sonnets, and psalms — with some stopovers in free verse and prose poetry.

From Donna Hilbert’s review: How Formal? First thought upon opening an invitation to an intimidating, important party (white tie, black tie, beach chic, business casual). Stephanie Barbé Hammer’s poems arrive wearing high-top tennies, tiara, and tulle. But you are welcome to come as you are to these intellectually hip poems, sometimes funny, always bracing—much as we wish conversation to be at said party, but seldom is. She retells fairy tales (“hood again in 5”), makes up her own, (“Doll Defenestration”), poet as comfortable in the mall as the in temple. Put on your bathrobe, pour a glass of wine or cup of coffee, settle yourself on the sofa (why fight the traffic) and enjoy the fine company of How Formal?

Find How Formal? by Stephanie Barbé Hammer at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Descended from Norwegian plumbers on one side, and bohemian Russian aristocrats on the other, Stephanie Barbé Hammer wrote her first poem at six and has never stopped loving poems. She has published short fiction and poetry in Mosaic, The Bellevue Literary Review, Pearl, NYCBigCityLit, Rhapsoidia, CRATE, and the Hayden’s Ferry Review among other places. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times – most recently, in 2013, for her nonfiction work on converting to Judaism and her relationship with French. Her prose poem chapbook, Sex with Buildings, was published with Dancing Girl Press in May 2012. She is the recent recipient of an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts and is currently working on a series of novels about a secret branch of Anabaptists that uses puppets for rituals. A former New Yorker, Stephanie divides her time between Los Angeles, California and Coupevillle, Washington. She lives with her husband, Larry Behrendt, at least two unfinished knitting projects, and a bunch of cookbooks whose covers she has never cracked.

Leaving Pacific Grove, poem by Mark Malandra

LEAVING PACIFIC GROVE
by Marc Malandra

1.
Land’s end—
gulls on an updraft, trawlers
setting out to gather shrimp—
I had something to say.
Jade sea unsaid it.

2.
A stinkbug labors over a leaf.
Seals bake, far, furred sausages on the rocks.
An otter daydreams on a bed of kelp.
A raven’s shrill reveille, gull cries, rushing
tides sighing and crumpling over seaweed;
one last afternoon educated at my leisure.

3.
If I stay here to watch pines
twist into limbs, sap-strong
yet seeming-rotten, would I learn
language wind uses to entice
clouds into apparition?
If I strip fears like bark
from these trees will the exposed self
stand salt blasts and flood rains?
Am I less myself when divided
or more myself when less
the sum of my parts, some
of my parts tree-like, rock-
like, though less noble?

4.
I’m looking at my cloud-self
as it passes over a pool,
over chance-grasping anemones.
I’m thinking about surfaces,
how far down I have to look.

5.
A white dove arcs over the cove.
A raven scavenges among the rocks,
strutting bundle of tar with wings.
Shards of light, sand, and stone oscillate,
scenes from the life of saint
change, patron of tides. Wind
ripples the inlet into mosaic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marc Malandra grew up primarily in Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island, California. He attended and has degrees from U. C. Santa Barbara, U. C. Davis, and Cornell University, where he received both an MFA in Creative Writing and a Ph. D. in English. Over the last twenty years, he has published poetry in approximately three dozen different venues, including America, Cider Press Review, Flyway, Literature and Belief, Orange Coast Review, Poetry Northwest, Radix,South Florida Poetry Review, and Zocalo. Currently Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at Biola University.

“Leaving Pacific Grove” and other poetry by Mark Mallandra appears in the  Silver Birch Press Green Anthology — a collection of poetry and prose from over 70 authors around the world — available at Amazon.com.

PHOTO: “Pacific Grove at Sunset” by Joshua Tobash, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Misfit Magazine reviews Daniel Romo poetry collections

Congratulations to Daniel Romo, author of the poetry collection Romancing Gravity (Silver Birch Press, 2013) on the great review of his chapbook (and previous collection, When Kerosene’s Involved) at misfitmagazine.net. The review appears below.

Growing up as a decidedly Not chulo type in Southern California was not a pleasant experience for Romo.  A self-described geeky, skinning kid, shy around girls, awkward, though plucky at sports, a decidedly not Macho, he somehow manages to view his upbringing with humor and panache.  Now a teacher and a voluminous writer, as these two collections show (Kerosene is well over 200 pages of concise prose poems, while Romancing is a mere 60 odd pages of free verse). Romo’s is a voice and point of view, that grows on you the more you read.  He is both empathetic and clear eyed, but not overly sentimental. In short, Romo is the kind of role model you could  safely entrust your children with, knowing they he remembers the pitfalls of youth and what is necessary, now, to move on with life.” misfitmagazine.net

Reading with Gerald Locklin and others on Sat., 10/19/13, in Santa Monica, CA

GERALD LOCKLIN

PATRICIA CHERIN

MICHAEL C. FORD

ZACH  LOCKLIN

WENDY RAINEY

will read (and sign) their works

Saturday, October 19, 2013, 7:00 p.m.

Church in Ocean Park

235 Hill St.

Santa Monica, California, 90405

Admission by donation

but no one turned away for lack of funds.

Coyote Blues, poem by John Gardiner

COYOTE BLUES
by John Gardiner

Man keeps a razor at his cheek, scissors to his scalp
hangman’s tie around his throat,
runs on two legs plus four wheels, eats meat he hasn’t cooked
and doesn’t need, his belly’s more than full.

I pulled over in the canyon, traffic speeding by,
got out of my truck, hauled a dead coyote
off the road, people honked and screamed,
“Get out of the way!” Did they think I took its life?
I hope so — at least that would explain their hate.
“You can’t do that.” “Development might stop.” “We can’t care.”
“It’s just a mangy scavenger.” When I tried to get back on the road
no one yielded, so I got out again and lay down next to coyote.
I played dead while autos whistled by, no one stopped.

I asked coyote who would hear his cries in the night and he said,
“Only the blazing moon.”
I pledged my love to him and to the animal world.
I dreamt coyote dreams, slipped into his skin, brother of wolf,
cousin of dog.

I have run with them on four legs in a wilderness of dreams
eaten what I needed, thinned out the mice, worshipped the moon
howled with the goddess of open space and water holes
sniffed the ground and searched for my old friends, the Indians.
I wonder where they went—
they must have been hit by cars.
I am coyote, four legger, straw colored fur, survivor
so far.
***
“Coyote Blues” is found in Coyote Blues: Free Verse and Prose Poems by John Gardiner, available at Amazon.com.

John Gardiner’s poetry will whisk you from subway to sea, from Russia to Rio to Reno, through chambers of the heart, into both ocean and space and back again to the songs of four-leggers-dogs, wolves, and coyotes. These finely honed poems will wrest you from your comfortable chair and you will alight in a place where “…night stretches her arms/and balances the stars…” and you will never perceive the moon in quite the same way again.”

RICKI MANDEVILLE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Gardiner has published 10 collections of poetry and his work has appeared in numerous anthologies, journals, and magazines, including two anthologies of California Poets (Tebot Bach), Spillway, The Sacred Beverage Press, Speakeasy, Write Bloody, Moon Tide Press, Poetry Flash (Berkeley), Windflower Press, California Poetry Quarterly, Art Life, and The Comstock Journal. In addition to hundreds of featured readings in the U.S., Gardiner has also performed in Russia, The Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Ireland, and Brazil. He tours in a rock ‘n roll Shakespeare show called Shakespeare’s Fool, and has facilitated poetry readings, slams, and workshops in Laguna Beach for the past 16 years. Gardiner teachers drama, Shakespeare, and oral presentation for the Gifted Students Academy at the University of California, Irvine.

Paul Fericano Reads at Bird and Beckett in San Francisco on 9/8/13

Author Paul Fericano, whose poetry appeared in the Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology and will be featured in the upcoming Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology, will read and perform his work at Bird & Beckett Books and Records in San Francisco on Sunday, September 8th, with a program starting at 2 p.m.

Entitled “Italian-American Writers Read Their Work,” the event — in addition to Fericano — will feature readings by Giovanna Capone, Jennifer Lagier Fellguth, George Guida, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, and James Tracy, and will be hosted by Laura Roberto, co-chair of the Berkeley City College of Arts and Culture.

According to the Bird & Beckett website, “These writers share an Italian-American background that has had a hand in shaping their work. Several have devoted their attention largely to poetry, plays, and fiction, while Avicolli, Mecca, Tracy, and Fericano have long track records as activists as well…”

WHAT: Italian-American Writers Read Their Work

WHO: Giovanna Capone, Jennifer Lagier Fellguth, Paul Fericano, George Guida, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, and James Tracy

WHERE: Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 653 Chenery St., San Francisco, CA, 94131, 415-586-3733, birdbeckett.com.

WHEN: Sunday, September 8, 2013 at 2 p.m.

Misfit Magazine Reviews Romancing Gravity, poems by Daniel Romo

Congratulations to Daniel Romo, author of the poetry collection Romancing Gravity (Silver Birch Press, 2013) on the great review of his chapbook (and previous collection, When Kerosene’s Involved) at misfitmagazine.net. The review appears below.

Growing up as a decidedly Not chulo type in Southern California was not a pleasant experience for Romo.  A self-described geeky, skinning kid, shy around girls, awkward, though plucky at sports, a decidedly not Macho, he somehow manages to view his upbringing with humor and panache.  Now a teacher and a voluminous writer, as these two collections show (Kerosene is well over 200 pages of concise prose poems, while Romancing is a mere 60 odd pages of free verse). Romo’s is a voice and point of view, that grows on you the more you read.  He is both empathetic and clear eyed, but not overly sentimental. In short, Romo is the kind of role model you could  safely entrust your children with, knowing they he remembers the pitfalls of youth and what is necessary, now, to move on with life.” misfitmagazine.net

Crossing the Street in Laguna Beach, poem by John Gardiner

CROSSING THE STREET IN LAGUNA BEACH
by John Gardiner

Thank you for not killing me in the metal-grilled cross-hairs
of your monstrous SUV as I crossed the street
cautiously, in full view, in daylight, in the crosswalk
where I thought I had a lawful right to be
and indeed once did in a different, slower world
when I could meander and even take a peek upward
at a trail of pelicans
or outward at a glorious pod of dolphins,
but now I must deal with the likes of you
as you fight for space, wrecking the world
with anger
and the awful weight of your toys.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  John Gardiner, a teacher at the Gifted Students Academy at UC Irvine, lives in Laguna Beach, California.

Editor’s Note: “Crossing the Street in Laguna Beach” by John Gardiner was a winning entry in the recent call for Op-Ed poetry by the Los Angeles Times. Check out more of the winning poems at losangelestimes.com.

Photo: Trail of pelicans

A Bird Black as the Sun, poetry collection by Green Poet Press

In September 2001, Green Poet Press released A Bird Black as the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens, edited by Enid Osborn and Cynthia Anderson. The 162-page collection features poetry by 80 of the Golden State’s finest poets, who hold forth 
on the theme of crows and ravens — offering passionate, vivid, sometimes humorous, 
and ever-surprising views of these common yet mysterious birds, called 
”black as the sun” by Gary Snyder.

Myths and Texts (Excerpt)
by Gary Snyder

Raven
on a roosts of firs
No bird in a bird-book
Black as the sun.

Contributors include two poet laureates of the United States and other iconic poets 
such as Christopher Buckley, William Everson (Brother Antoninus), Lawrence 
Ferlinghetti, and Ann Stanford.

Other outstanding contributors include: Sylvia Alcon, Ron Alexander, Maureen Alsop, Len Anderson, Cathryn Andresen, Jennifer Arin, Rochelle Arellano, Lisl Auf der Heide, Bettina T. Barrett, Abigail Brandt, M. L. Brown, John F. Buckley and Martin Ott, Jeanette Clough, Constance Crawford, Patrick Daly, Carol V. Davis, Frances Pettey Davis, ellen, Roe Estep, Robert W. Evans, Joan Fallert, Paul Fericano, Molly Fisk, Mary Fitzpatrick, Dan Gerber, W. K. Gourley, Lara Gularte, Kevin Hearle, Katie Goodridge Ingram, Sheila Golburgh Johnson, Greg Karpain, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Kit Kennedy, Lois Klein, Steve Kowit, Danusha Lameris, Noreen Lawlor, Andre Levi, Ellaraine Lockie, Perie Longo, Paula C. Lowe, Friday Lubina, Glenna Luschei, Maia, devorah major, Diane Kirsten Martin, Julianna McCarthy, Kathleen McClung, Deborah A. Miranda, Charlotte Muse, Carol Muske-Dukes, Jim Natal, Ruth Nolan, David Oliveira, Melinda Palacio, Robert Peake, Connie Post, Peg Quinn, R. S. Read, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, Halie Rosenberg, Mary Rudge, Mary Kay Rummel, June Sylvester Saraceno, Edwin Shaw, Kim Shuck, Dian Sousa, Barry Spacks, David Starkey, Joseph Stroud, Patrice Vecchione, Doris Vernon, Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Jackson Wheeler, Charan Sue Wollard, and Cecilia Woloch.

 A Bird Black as the Sun is available at Amazon.com.

Hard Landing, poems by Rick Smith

From HARD LANDING
by Rick Smith

The morning air bursts

with bird conversation

dialogue and incantation
debate and invitation.

Wren is drunk with company
and sudden purpose.

Next door,

in a cottonwood,

a mockingbird
 becomes
a cell phone

ringing in the wild.
 
* * * * *
ghost wren

dreaming on a cable

posed

and still

like a shadow

about to dart

into a windless space

flesh and fiber

anticipating

the tension of wound steel

a cello in the night

an ordinary cello

still 

in a windless room
 
* * * * *
Something dangerous,

a red-tailed hawk

and coming fast,

like wind

off Lake Michigan.
 
Wren, lost in dreams,

freezes, off-guard.

The hawk

snaps a yard rat

off a clothesline

not ten feet away.
 
Motionlessness

disguises anxiety.
 
Wren breaks out

of dream time,

arguing with unruly ghosts
 
* * * * *
A grey wren

foolish enough

to believe in Indian summer

stares into a black

and gritty wind

shakes with every gust,

imagines a subtle hand

on a dimmer switch

in a night

slow descending.
 
When wren is absent

where does she go?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rick Smith began writing under the guidance of Michael Casey at Solebury School in Pennsylvania. Close family friendships and Carl Sandburg and Lenore Marshall also made a lasting impact on Rick’s life choices. He went on to study with Anthony Hecht at Bard College, George Starbuck, Marvin Bell and Frank Polite at the University of Iowa, and Sam Eisenstein at Los Angeles City College. His poems are published widely in anthologies and magazines such as New Letter, Onthebus, Blueline, Hanging Loose, Pinyon, Eclipse, Paper Street, Lummox, Rattle, Rhino and Main Street Rag. His book of poetry, Hard Landing, (Lummox Press, 2010), is a lyrical tribute to the mystical “wren,” a character with characteristics not unlike the human spirit.

Purchase HARD LANDING from Lummox Press or at Amazon.com.

Listen to Rick Smith read “Little King” from the collection at youtube.