All These Rooms

Here’s my contribution to Worsty’s monthly challenge, which I neglected to revise like I thought I was going to.
It starts how it ends,
or maybe there’s no beginning, no stopping at all.
Either way, when I walked on all fours
and my dreams at night were lifting my hands, were
faces making faces,
I don’t think I was what I […]

[Read more →]

Without it becoming complete crap? Or just something kind of absurd, surreal? Seriously, I’m trying to start a poem for the Dorothy poetry prize, because why not, but I keep writing crap.
You guys have any favorite “happy” poems that I could read for guidance?

[Read more →]

YOU CAN LIVE
7.1.06
Waiting for the sunrise
I walk down to the Hawthorne
bridge. I’ve decided. Today,
I’ll be the brother
who has died
and you can be the one
who fills his pockets
with rocks. You can throw
them at the parked cars
as you pass the open mouthed
mansions in Ladd’s addition
as their windows dart
and twitch with that last
burst of dreaming that comes
just before […]

[Read more →]

Guidelines for the 2008 Franklin-Christoph Poetry Contest
http://www.franklin-christoph.com/Writing/PoetryContest.html
We will award $2500 in total prizes, including the $1000 cash grand prize. 10 Merit
Award Winners will receive $150 writing instruments.
Submission Period
Entries accepted June 1-Nov 30 (postmark dates), 2008.

[Read more →]

EARTH’S BODY: AN ECOPOETRY ANTHOLOGY
Coeditors Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street solicit submissions for an international anthology of ecopoetry. We are looking for a wide and varied array of submissions. Our working definition of “ecopoetry” is flexible; it includes not only what might be called nature poetry, and not only poetry that focuses on environmental issues, […]

[Read more →]

Worsty has won the poetry contest for May. She gets to whomp whomever she pleases, especially those of you who have to yet to enter a challenge. Scowl. Anyway, I’m sure she’ll have a challenge for us soon!
Until then worsty, whomp away!

[Read more →]

MORTAR
Between the bricks all that mortar
was put down by men with trembling
hands with the prints rubbed
smooth at the fingertips. The mortar speaks
of tiredness, of always being in bed
with a longing between her legs, of never sleeping
but only almost. When the rain comes
she remembers being dirt and stones,
she thinks of the great grind works that crushed
her […]

[Read more →]

Here’s another interesting post from the yahoo webserve. If anyone wants to get on that list and get lots of emails about creative writing opps, just let me know and I’ll post the necessary info.
Splinter Generation anthology
http://www.splintergeneration.com/index.html
Six young people, unsatisfied with being called Generation Y, Generation 9-11, and countless other ill-fitting monikers, are launching a […]

[Read more →]

As per Natalie’s request, this month’s poetry challenge is to write an epic poem… in a month. This feat is impossible enough so there are no additional requirements. Don’t forget, whoever wins gets the coveted whomper stick and also gets to make up next month’s challenge. So bring it, I want to see the next […]

[Read more →]

SCHERZO
After I bring her home
from the shelter I move her crate
to my room, but she pushes her head
into the door and the metal squares
disect the fear on her face
into little frames. I let her out.
She runs to the mirror, catches
sight of herself and stops. She whines,
goes into the closet, then tears out,
desperately searching for her […]

[Read more →]