Free Kindle Version of Green Anthology through 3/18/14

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re offering a free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology – available through Tuesday, March 18th at Amazon.com. (If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can still read the book — with free reading apps, available at this link.) If you are in the UK, try Amazon.co.uk.

Featuring the work of 72 writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa, the Silver Birch Press Green Anthology includes poetry, short stories, novel excerpts, an author interview, memoirs, and poetic essays that touch on the theme of green in creative, fresh, and compelling ways.

We would appreciate any reblogs, tweets, emails, and facebook posts about this Kindle giveaway!

Happy St. Pat’s!

Dreams Gone Mad With Hope, poems by S.A. Griffin

On March 6, 2014, Punk Hostage Press released Dreams Gone Mad With Hope, a 114-page poetry collection by S.A. Griffin.

BOOK DESCRIPTION: One of the secret affinities of Griffin’s poetry, revealed in his most current volume, Dreams Gone Mad With Hope, is with Emerson and Thoreau – once celebrated poets of the American Transcendental movement, today remembered more for their philosophical prose than their rapt verse. In “Walt Whitman’s Beard,” Griffin assumes the voice of the poet-outlaw. He quickly runs past Whitman through a history of outsider poets from Rimbaud to Ted Joans, before ending in the sheer romanticism of Emerson and Thoreau. The sentiment that closes “Beard” declares the rapture of human nature by suggesting “there are no rules/except the ones you follow/now go.” Somewhere in between the intro and the benediction, Griffin takes leave of the reader with a plangent declaration of his faith in madness, dreams, and adventure

Find Dreams Gone Mad With Hope at Amazon.com.

Bluebird, poem by Charles Bukowski

BLUEBIRD
by Charles Bukowski

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

IMAGE: Portrait of Charles Bukowski by James Arguile. Prints available at redbubble.com.

Birds Appearing in a Dream, poem by Michael Collier

BIRDS APPEARING IN A DREAM
By Michael Collier

One had feathers like a blood-streaked koi,

another a tail of color-coded wires.

One was a blackbird stretching orchid wings,

another a flicker with a wounded head.
 
All flew like leaves fluttering to escape,

bright, circulating in burning air,

and all returned when the air cleared.

One was a kingfisher trapped in its bower,
 
deep in the ground, miles from water.

Everything is real and everything isn’t.

Some had names and some didn’t.

Named and nameless shapes of birds,
 
at night my hand can touch your feathers

and then I wipe the vernix from your wings,

you who have made bright things from shadows, 

you who have crossed the distances to roost in me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Collier is an American poet, teacher, creative writing program administrator and editor. He has published five books of original poetry, a translation of Euripedes‘ Medea, a book of prose pieces about poetry, and has edited three anthologies of poetry. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Poet Laureate of Maryland. As of 2011, he is the director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a professor of creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the poetry editorial consultant for Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). (Read more at Wikipedia.org.)

Painting: ”L’Homme au Chapeau Melon” (1964) by René Magritte

Night Journey, poem by Theodore Roethke

NIGHT JOURNEY
by Theodore Roethke

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) is widely regarded as among the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation. Roethke’s work is characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking, and he won the annual National Book Award for Poetry twice, in 1959 for Words for the Wind and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field. In the November 1968 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, former U.S. Poet Laurete and author James Dickey wrote Roethke was: “…in my opinion the greatest poet this country has yet produced.” In 2012, he was featured on a United States postage stamp as one of ten great 20th Century American poets. (Source: Wikipedia.org.)

Photo: Graphic based on “Sunset from a Moving Train” by Kirsten M. Lentoff, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

In a Train, poem by Robert Bly

IN A TRAIN
by Robert Bly

There has been a light snow.
Dark car tracks move in and out of the darkness.
I stare at the train window marked with soft dust.
I have awakened at Missoula, Montana, utterly happy. 

Illustration: Vintage postcard by Curt Teich & Co.

Hollywood Hills, poem by Laurel Ann Bogen

HOLLYWOOD HILLS NOIR
by Laurel Ann Bogen

Aberration of weather studs
the sloe eyed city where change
gels in ripples after due process
I could go deeper
pry open the locked vault
below, combustible fossils bubble
in tar and petroleum beneath
Wilshire Blvd. — the jacaranda’s roots
divide the house
Los Angeles
erupts in violet blossoms
each spring the profusion
is uncontained by stucco

Nature needs tending, or course
every few years the plates shift
the photogenic councilman is arrested
and somebody takes a fall
That’s how I came here — by a calling
as surely as the devil herself
cloaked in the need to be seen
in filtered light
latticed with faultlines
and an underground whirlpool
as profligate as oil.

“Hollywood Hills Noir” appears in Laurel Ann Bogen‘s collection Washing a Language (Red Hen Press, 2004), available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Laurel Ann Bogen is the author of 10 books of poetry and short fiction, and from 1996 until 2002 was literary curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has been an instructor of poetry and performance for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program since 1990 and received the Outstanding Instructor of the Year in Creative Writing in 2008. Selected “Best Female Poet/Performer” by the L.A. Weekly in their Best of L.A. issue, she is well-known for her lively readings and is a founding member of the acclaimed poetry performance troupe, Nearly Fatal Women. The recipient of the Curtis Zahn Poetry Prize from the Pacificus Foundtion and two awards from the Academy of American Poets, her work has appeared in over 100 literary magazines and anthologies.

Photo: “The Famed Hollywood Sign from Bronson Canyon” by Corey Miller, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Ode to Enchanted Light, poem by Pablo Neruda

ODE TO ENCHANTED LIGHT
by Pablo Neruda

Under the trees light
has dropped from the top of the sky,
light
like a green
latticework of branches,
shining
on every leaf,
drifting down like clean
white sand.

A cicada sends
its sawing song
high into the empty air.

The world is
a glass overflowing
with water.

PAINTING: “A Ray of Light,” watercolor by Derek Collins, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Prints available at etsy.com.

Play Time, quote by Pablo Neruda

“A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play has lost forever the child who lived in him and whom he will miss terribly.” PABLO NERUDA

Illustration: Wall Art in Valparaiso, Chile — photo by Janet Rudolph, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Ode to the Present, poem by Pablo Neruda

ODE TO THE PRESENT
by Pablo Neruda

This
present moment,
smooth
as a wooden slab,
this
immaculate hour,
this day
pure
as a new cup
from the past–
no spider web
exists–
with our fingers,
we caress
the present; we cut it
according to our magnitude
we guide
the unfolding of its blossoms.
It is living,
alive–
it contains
nothing
from the unrepairable past,
from the lost past,
it is our
infant,
growing at
this very moment, adorned with
sand, eating from
our hands.
Grab it.
Don’t let it slip away.
Don’t lose it in dreams
or words.
Clutch it.
Tie it,
and order it
to obey you.
Make it a road,
a bell,
a machine,
a kiss, a book,
a caress.
Take a saw to its delicious
wooden
perfume.
And make a chair;
braid its
back;
test it.
Or then, build
a staircase! Yes, a
staircase.
Climb
into
the present,
step
by step,
press your feet
onto the resinous wood
of this moment,
going up,
going up,
not very high,
just so
you repair
the leaky roof.
Don’t go all the way to heaven.
Reach
for apples,
not the clouds.
Let them
fluff through the sky,
skimming passage,
into the past. You
are
your present,
your own apple.
Pick it from
your tree.
Raise it
in your hand.
It’s gleaming,
rich with stars.
Claim it.
Take a luxurious bite
out of the present,
and whistle along the road
of your destiny.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was the pen name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftali Ricardo ReyesBasoalto. He chose his pseudonym after Czech poet Jan Neruda. In 1971, Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Neruda often wrote in green ink because it was his personal symbol of desire and hope. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez called him “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Illustration: “Apple Abstract” by Susana Fernandez, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.