rolling docks, found poem by Sheikha A. (F. Scott Fitzgerald Birthday Bash)

rolling docks
by Sheikha A.

in the green light, the orgastic future that year
somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond
I walked a blue lawn lined with purple clovers

the world unknown in the way of a thing known
on the brooding despairs of your paths, I walked
in the green light, the orgastic future that year

the dark fields heaved of life where she grew
where my name would become borne by the air
I walked a blue lawn lined with purple clovers

she shined in disjointed ways of a broken star
the docks rolled out luring me into her world
in the green light, the orgastic future that year

I beat my boats to fly across unlimited waters
to where my heart on her sleeves would bloom
I walked a blue lawn lined with purple clovers

each night would command me to labour on
where my youthful hope flared, I walked on
in the green light, the orgastic future that year
somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: There isn’t a single line that I would have not liked to use from the entire book, because The Great Gatsby is like passages of one memorable line after another. But I limited myself to the last paragraphs of the book and decided to do a found villanelle form – I had to literally ‘beat my boats’ on this to live up to Gatsby and his magnificent aura. The character Gatsby himself is all poetry – I think I’m happy I also limited myself to the 19 lines that is the prerequisite of a villanelle, otherwise I’d have beat on writing limitlessly about him. I realized Daisy can never be removed from Gatsby even in writing merely about Gatsby, and that is the beauty of his poetics – his character – that wore the identity of Daisy as his own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sheikha A. currently lives in Karachi, Pakistan after having moved from the United Arab Emirates and believes the transition has definitely stimulated a different tunnel of thought. She is the author of a short poetry collection titled Spaced [Hammer and Anvil Books, 2013]. Her work appears in numerous publications and anthologies, and she hopes for her poetry to be read and discussed widely. She also edits poetry for eFiction India. Her poems can be tracked via her blog sheikha82.wordpress.com.

The current, erasure poem by Patrick T. Reardon (F. Scott Fitzgerald Birthday Bash)

The current
by Patrick T. Reardon

A ferryboat.
The moon.
Inessential houses.
The old island.
Vanished trees.
This continent.
Wonder.

This blue lawn.
That vast obscurity.
The dark fields.
Night.

Green light.

SOURCE: Erasure poem from the final page of The Great Gatsby. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick T. Reardon’s five books include four of religious reflections. He has been writing newspaper articles, essays, poems, op-ed pieces and more over a writing career that began in 1962. His website is patricktreardon.com.

The Couch Bleeding, erasure poem by Christina M. Rau (F. Scott Fitzgerald Birthday Bash)

SOURCE: [an erasure poem from The Great Gatsby, Chapter 2, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200041h.html%5D

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Found poems and replacement poems have been in my repertoire as I’ve used them as a teaching method to ease self-proclaimed non-poets into poetry. “Steal!” I encourage them. However, I’ve never tried my hand at an erasure poem. Until now. Inspired by the poems I see in flipping through the pages of The Great Gatsby Anthology, I scrolled through the Gutenberg version of Fitzgerald’s novel until a phrase jumped at me. From there, I selected the surrounding passage, and read straight through, mining for the underlying poem. It kind of wrote itself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Christina M. Rau is the author of the poetry chapbooks WakeBreatheMove (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and For The Girls, I (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Founder of Poets In Nassau, a reading circuit on Long Island, New York, her poetry has appeared on gallery walls in The Ekphrastic Poster Show, on car magnets for The Living Poetry Project, most recently in the journals Redheaded Stepchild and The Main Street Rag, and in the anthologies Till The Tide: An Anthology of Mermaid Poetry (Sundress Publications, 2015) and The Great Gatsby Anthology (Silver Birch Press, 2015). In her non-writing life, she practices yoga occasionally and line dances on other occasions. Find her links on http://alifeofwe.blogspot.com.

Nick Carraway Contemplates Global Warming, found poem by Kathryn Kulpa (F. Scott Fitzgerald Birthday Bash)

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I’ve always thought of the ending of The Great Gatsby as one of the perfect endings in literature, and rereading it in the age of climate change, I wondered how much of Fitzgerald’s “green breast of the new world” would be left above water if the oceans continue to rise. I imagined Nick Caraway as the rueful, elegiac recorder of the last days of humanity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kathryn Kulpa has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pen — actually, a crayon. She has work featured or forthcoming in The Great Gatsby Anthology, Smokelong Quarterly, KYSO Flash, and Saranac Review. She is flash fiction editor for Cleaver magazine and she teaches fiction workshops for teens and adults in the smallest state in the union.

Photo: Kathryn Kulpa at age 13 in Massachusetts with her dog Toto.

stop failure, found poem by Laurie Kolp (F. Scott Fitzgerald Birthday Bash

stop failure
by Laurie Kolp

scrawl, draw stone, sprawl out
              a rose, melt
green trees pander, whisper
dreams of contemplation

I brood on blue obscurity,
the dark fields under night—
the light will stretch arms farther
              into the past

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I let the words lead me through darkness until a poem was born. I scrolled to the end of the book and selected words that I felt sounded good together. Then I worked on creating a poem from them, deleting some of the words from my original poem until I was satisfied with the finished product.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Laurie Kolp, author of Upon the Blue Couch (Winter Goose Publishing, 2014) and Hello It’s Your Mother (Finishing Line Press, October 2015), has poems appearing in Concho River Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Red River Review, and more. She lives by a river, but much prefers the beach. You can find out more about her at http://lauriekolp.com.

the great gone, erasure poem by Diane Castiglioni (F. Scott Fitzgerald Birthday Bash)

the great gone
by Diane Castiglioni

I lightly at later
stood side by side
peremptorily called “Wait!”
opening up again
in a flower-like way
even vaguely
on account of
being rumored
less remotely
confused and disgusted
less surprising
than depressed
by a book making him
nibble at the edge of
his peremptory heart.

out in pools of light
while on an abandoned
loud bright night
beating in the trees
full bellows of the earth
blew the frogs
across the moonlight
I was not alone
the shadow of silver
leisurely suggested
our local heavens.

a sudden intimation
stretched out
in a curious way
sworn trembling
Involuntarily seaward
–and distinguished
a single green light
that might have
looked vanished
in the unquiet darkness.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This is an erasure poem made from the last two pages of Chapter 1 of The Great Gatsby.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Diane Castiglioni is a contributing author to the French work Dictionnaire Universel du Pain (Bouquin Laffont, 2011), and an editor of the International Cooperation for the Development of Space (ATWG, 2012). She works as collaborative consultant, hosts poetry events, and has poems published by various small presses, as well as poems and stories published in two anthologies.

I Grow Old…poem by Marsha Schuh (My Meta-morphosis Series)

I Grow Old, I Grow Old
by Marsha Schuh

“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.”
                                                                                    –George Burns

One morning,
woke from dreams
transformed into a horrible
back and head
belly, slightly domed,
stiff sections ready to slide
any moment, legs
pitifully helpless.
What’s happened to me,
A lady fit, who sat upright?

Dull, quite sad,
unable in present,
floundering legs,
pain never felt before.
Oh, God, what a day!

Much more effort
doing your business,
worries about bad people
all the time, covered
with lots of little spots,
cold, always sitting,
my parents a long time gone,
hard of hearing, still
hope.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I love erasure poems and Found Poetry in general, and as I read [Kafka’s] The Metamorphosis again, certain words stood out for me and suggested this poem. One of the changes that affects all of us sooner or later is growing old—the transformation from being a “schoolboy with satchel and shining morning face” to “slippered pantaloon” and eventually “second childishness.” And yet, perhaps we need to adopt Twain’s philosophy: “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE PHOTO: This photo was taken in Monterey Park, California, in 1947 when there were rolling hills there covered with California poppies and lupines instead of houses. Much has changed in the community (just as in me) in the intervening years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marsha Schuh grows older every day, but then again, don’t we all? She earned her MFA in Poetry at California State University, San Bernardino, where she taught English. She is now retired, and that allows her to spend more time with her family, and to enjoy reading, writing, traveling, and long-arm quilting. Other perks of aging include getting into theaters at reduced rates, receiving discounts at restaurants and stores, and, most of all, having grandchildren. Since we’re on our way down, might as well enjoy the ride (James Taylor). Her poetry has appeared in Inlandia Journal, Sand Canyon Review, Carnival, Found Poetry Review, and several other publications.

Falling by Shloka Shankar (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

IMAGE: Found poem based on “I Am Waiting” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer residing in India. Her work appears in over two dozen international anthologies including The Traversal of Lines, Eastern Voices, The Living Haiku Anthology, Butterfly Dream Anthology, and publications by Paragram, Minor Arcana Press, and Harbinger Asylum, among others. Her poems, erasures, haiku & tanka have appeared in numerous online and print journals. She is also the founder and editor of the literary and arts journal, Sonic Boom.

The Castle, erasure poem by Mathias Jansson (Mythic Poetry Series)

THE CASTLE
by Mathias Jansson

She walked there alone;
Dull dreary and lonesome
A Troll
A candle asleep in her bosom
The old story over again
Dead night
She struck a light,
Lit the candle,
And let the light shine
She woke up
Bewitched by night
Now I must live in a Castle
which stands East of the Sun
and West of the Moon

SOURCE: East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North by Kay Nielsen (Doubleday, 1976).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:  I remember the collection East of the Sun and West of the Moon from my childhood. As a child, I interpreted these fairytales as adventures and a battle between the good and the evil. As an adult, I see new layers in the tales — as stories about hard tests and challenges for the main characters, often fighting alone with difficult moral questions, and as tales about growing up and taking responsibility for their own lives. This poem describes a young girl fighting with her inner darkness, but also addresses her hopes and dreams, symbolized by the candle she carries inside her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mathias Jansson is a Swedish art critic and poet. He has contributed with visual poetry to magazines as Lex-ICON, Anatematiskpress, Quarter After #4 and Maintenant 8: A Journal of Contemporary Dada. He has also published a chapbook at this is visual poetry and contributed with erasure poetry to anthologies from Silver Birch Press. Visit him at his homepage and Amazon author page.

New release: Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology

Silver Birch Press is pleased to announce our latest release — the Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology, a collection of erasure poems based on the novels, letters, and poetry of Charles Bukowski. The 41 poets who contributed to the  108-page collection have high regard for Bukowski’s work and approached this exercise with respect and even awe. So, with love and appreciation, we dedicate this collection to Charles Bukowski, who has inspired so many writers to keep writing and so many people to keep living.

Contributors include:

Suzanna Anderson
Tara R. Andrews
Beth Ayer
Jenni B. Baker
David Barker
Mary Bast
Alessandra Bava
Brinda Buljore
Kathy Burkett
Tobi Cogswell
Subhankar Das
Melissa Eleftherion
Mark Erickson
Alexis Rhone Fancher
Jeffrey Graessley
S.A. Griffin
Jack Habegger
Mark Habegger
Ara Harris
Mitch Hicks
Wm. Todd King
Laurie Kolp
Paula J. Lambert
Alexander Limarev
Karen Massey
Catfish McDaris
George McKim
DE Navarro
Kelly Nelson
Richard O’Brien
Winston Plowes
David S. Pointer
Sheikha A.
Scott Stoller
Keyna Thomas
Melanie Villines
Mercedes Webb-Pullman
Zachary Weber
Theresa Williams
Birgit Zartl
Ali Znaidi.

The Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology is available at Amazon.com.

Cover art by Loren Kantor (woodcuttingfool.blogspot.com).