The Long Dream after Richard Wright by Theodore A. Harris
WHIRLWIND STAFF+ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Founding Publisher Lamont B. Steptoe Founding Editor Sean Lynch Art Director Melissa Rothman Outreach Coordinator Courtney Gambrell Lead Designer Erin Kelly Special thanks to Larry Robin and Brandon Blake of Moonstone Arts Center for printing this publication. Thanks also to Bob Zell and The Pen and Pencil for hosting our launch parties. Cover art by Theodore Harris. Philip Kienholz’s “Poem with No Purpose,” appeared in his chapbook, Born to Rant, Coerced to Smile. Lamont B. Steptoe’s poem “Open Book of Wonder” was published in Beyond the White Stone Lions by Radical Paper Press in the summer of 2017. Copyright © Whirlwind Magazine 2017 All rights reserved to artists and authors. No work may be reproduced in any form without permission from the creator. All inquiries should be addressed to the editor at poetryandpoverty@gmail.com Printed in Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A
LETTER FROM Hello readers, welcome to Whirlwind issue #11, a collection of new poems from around the country and world on resistance. We're proud to be uplifting diverse voices by publishing for our third year as an independent literary and art journal that bears witness to injustice. The capitalist, racist, and ecocidal American Empire is alive and well in 2017, and the only way to have any hope of living in a peaceful and just world at any point in the future is resistance. The following poems resist many forms of oppression in many ways, starting with Anthony Palma's poem that tries to break into the mind of a struggling stranger on the street. Then we move to Brian Felder's critique of the American legal system in his poem that begins with a Kropotkin quote. Charles Brice focuses on the injustices of the for-profit healthcare system we Americans are so familiar with, especially right now. Kienholz, an exiled Vietnam War conscientious objector, shares a moving anti-war poem. Shannon McGill Vasile's two poems are humorous but profound, and show forms of resistance in a day to day context. Alex Pope's poem on mental health and hopelessness in resisting the patriarchal, wage/debt slavery status quo, is personal and poignant. Meanwhile, Penelope Gristelfink gives us some hope with her revelation about Tesla's "technology to save mankind." Gianni Gaudino's "Ode to Resistance" puts resistance in the context of a conversation with a conformist. Sharon Ruiz celebrates women and their strength. Abby Schreiber's poem of resistance is subtle yet strong in its imagery and has a deep message at its core. Tyra Jamison's mustread poem resurrects the memories of her African ancestors and delivers powerful torrents of language on the desire for justice. Marwa Fichera's poetry offers a thoughtful glimpse into the life of someone who knows firsthand the trials of migrants and refugees. Lynn White writes an elegy for a wounded land that still carries beauty in her lament for Gaza. Ryan Harper's fascinating poem speaks in code about those who speak in code. Stephen Mead's anxiety ridden poem strikes a chord. Amy Rubin speaks out in a workplace diatribe against cultural appropriation. Alan Catlin's poem self-confesses to be cynical while bordering on conspiratorial, but asks important questions about the intentions of the military industrial complex. Joanne Kennedy Frazier's poem criticizes the corporations who have no shame in defiling the holy lands of Native Americans. While Kenneth West reflects on the significance of his heritage and uses an umbrella as a metaphor for political resistance in his poems. As always we finish with illuminating and outstanding poetry by our friend and mentor Lamont B. Steptoe. His work epitomizes the act of resistance through language. He harks back to James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. in his first poem that transforms into a curse against oppressors. The last poem featured is a fantastical piece that journeys from the sorrowful vast graveyard waters of the Atlantic Ocean, where many thousands of enslaved Africans perished, to the inner city, where a black child is inspired by the spirits of his ancestors. We hope that this amazing poem, along with the other great poems that appear in this issue of Whirlwind Magazine, inspire readers to resist oppression and imperialism in their own ways. -Sean Lynch, Editor
1. All He’s Lost by Anthony Palma 2. Well More Than an Ass by Brian C. Felder 3. No-Go Zones by Charles Brice 4. Strange Justice by Theodore Harris 5. Remember Eric Smith by Theodore Harris 6. Poem With No Purpose by Philip Kienholz 7. Advice by Shannon McGill Vasile 8. Job Interview by Shannon McGill Vasile
10. Untitled by Melissa Rothman 11-12. Apprentice by Penelope Gristelfink 13. Resist by Erin Kelly 14. Ode to Resistance by Gianni Gaudino 15-16. Ode to my loose woman-Sandra Cisnero by Sharon Ruiz 17. Emma Kaufmann by Abby Schreiber 18. Skin Deep by Marwa Fichera 19. We Wear Our Flesh Like Flames by Theodore A. Harris 20. Collage Eulogy for Amadou Diallo by Theodore A. Harris 21-22. Out of the Atlantic/Ethiopian Ocean by Tyra Jamison 23. Child of Migrant by Marwa Fichera 24. A Rose for Gaza by Lynn White 25. Code Noir by Ryan Harper 26. Heroes by Stephen Mead 27-28. Against the Wall or the Replacement by Amy Rubin 29-30. On Hearing Two Army Rangers Are Killed by Friendly Fire in Afghanistan April, 2017 by Alan Catlin 31. Holy Grail, Holy Oil by Joanne Kennedy Frazer 32. Still Life by Kenneth West 33. Umbrella Man by Sandeep Kumar Mishra 34. Revolutionary Umbrella by Kenneth West 35. Blue Moon by Lamont B. Steptoe 36. Open Book of Wonder by Lamont B. Steptoe 37. Eden by Matthew Morpheus 38. 2002, Drowning in Bones & Flames after Sonia Sanchez by Theodore A. Harris
TABLE OF CONTENTS
9. Follow Up by Alex Pope
ALL HE’S LOST 1
I just passed a man, his eyes bloodshot with all he’s lost. He is a storm on South Broad, raging his way somewhere. A dark cloud, a reminder, among giggling girls and college students, gangbangers, and bag ladies. Swinging at smoke and striking shadows. I know why people snap. For that alone, he deserves it all, if even just to burn it to the ground.
WELL MORE THAN AN ASS
The written law that sad growth of a sad past, as Peter Kropotkin once called it hangs over the head and around the neck of all humankind, which means you and me, pal, and, lest we forget, you and you and you, casual readers. Unedited and unedified by the changing times, the law demands ever more of the police and prosecutors, but, I ask you, why do we still incarcerate petty thieves and peeping toms, ticket scalpers and check kiters, recreational drug users and hookers when those whose companies loot countries go unchallenged and unchained? Take your investor’s life savings or your union’s pension fund or your nation’s wealth and pay a fine if you get caught at all, which is to say: What’s a perp walk to a man with a lawyer in Armani but a stroll from one mansion to another with a brief stop at a courthouse? No, the Riker’s and Sing Sing’s, San Quentin’s and Leavenworth’s are for those who steal the other kind of bread, the kind you eat when there’s nothing else on your plate.
2
NO-GO ZONES 3
Insurance means never having to pay a benefit to a sick person, it means always having to say you’re sorry. It means hefty men in polo shirts and golf cleats decide who lives and dies—men whose balls are hard and clean, drivers of our economy, whose stubby putters always aim below par. Karen was born with cancer, lost a leg by the time she was ten, was given a urostomy for her birthday and couldn’t get medical insurance until Obamacare appeared. Until then, she was a pre-existing condition with one leg and a piss bag. Karen’s poems carpet the stars, live in limpid glory on every page. Still, for the Rolexed crowd, she’s a bundle of high risk who limps. Millionaire insurance execs and congressmen never pay premiums, live premium lives— purchase doctors and operations the way they shop for Mercedes or vacations on Martinique. Do they brag about the transplants they’ve aborted, the bone marrow they’ve saved, the rads they’ve stored in the No-Go zones of Wall Street?
1994, Strange Justice by Theodore A. Harris
4
1999, Remember Eric Smith by Theodore A. Harris
5
For the US Presidents who patted on the head the bankers’ crimes: way to go -- good job. Their joined song the tumbling thrump of engines, phalanxes of droned missiles, bound-fasces insignia sent to ancient cities, into weddings, into the glory of feasts, into markets -- splattered blood, the pooled blood, the bloody bandages, body parts -- systemic suffering that catches us all For my grandmother whose funeral the war laws said I could not attend -- the blocked grief I hid from the heart runs tears to my chin in sobs meditating frees to wrack the breath that flows in, flows out a steady laser of breathing, steady water dripping onto stone -beloved, for you
POEM WITH NO PURPOSE
For the war immigrants seeking our refuge -the proxy armies still lurch below our neighbour’s shadow. Our un-owned repressions, denied native genocides: all that energy, balled up into just staving off anguish. Unaccepted -- unbearable it projects as unruly spikes this industrial war
6
ADVICE 7
Smash your iPhone with a hammer. Come back home to your body. Practice looking at the objects around your house that do not glow. Look at their lines and curves. Tell them, “Oh you are so beautiful, I am sorry that we’ve been out of touch.” Sit with yourself and take a deep breath. What is inside your brain? Throw the pieces of your iPhone in the trash and take a deeper breath. Blow out all the air and the pings and the pokes and the pixels and likes until your lungs are empty. Stride outside into the sunlight, a wholly new person. The next face you see will be the most beautiful face you have ever seen. Real as it is, with all its angles and ridges and flaws, right there in the actual world. Right there in front of you.
“Oh that’s easy. Sublimating my own desires in deference to the corporate monolith.” “Your biggest weakness?” (The sound of stale air pumped through vents. The whirring of office machines.) “Having desires.”
JOB INTERVIEW
“So what’s your biggest strength?”
8
FOLLOW UP It doesn't change the interest rate on my loans. It doesn't help me make it to my next paycheck— For my bloodied hands and callouses. It doesn't change the price of gas. Or the toll over the bridge. It doesn't quiet the heroin itch-whisper, perturbed in the back of my mind. It doesn't keep the old drunk men from following my sister into dark parking lots, Claiming that she asked for their attention. It doesn't stop her boss's sons from harassing her at work. It doesn't stop her boss saying that boys will just be boys. It doesn't kick Donnie out of the White House. These pills won't pay for themselves. It doesn't bring back Sean or Erika, It doesn't make their infant son any less of an orphan, It won’t stop him identifying his parents as junkies Or thinking they got what they deserved. It doesn't make hate any quieter. It doesn't make love anything more than a chemical reaction. It doesn't quiet the ring in my ears, Or steady the shake in my hand, It doesn't change the fact that you'll call me mentally ill, A pointless label, When it's the whole world around you that’s sick. But I get to work on time. So yeah, Doc, I guess these pills are working.
9
Untitled by Melissa Rothman
10
Between the wars, we lived as fleas− ignorant specks on the mad dog of the world, rabid, tail-chasing. Tesla−they’d stoppered him finally, frail genie−in Room 1819 at the Hotel Margery.
APPRENTICE
I was 14. I was a waiter there. They said he was as broke as he was gaunt, a haunt of séance parlors. They said he had ‘death ray’ scrolls in his safe, still. Warm milk and tomato soup and three spoons trembling on my tray− little cymbals. All the ceremony he craved now. They’d found him in a chilled, back alley, a raiment of his ‘rock-doves’ on him, when he should have been at a reception for an award among men of ‘science.’ Brass rays of sunset streaked the dim clutter of the room. Bird cages profunded the tight quarters. He’d been plucking the injured and infected from the clucking masses, and nursing them. Acrid, avian dust tickled my throat and stung my eyes. The simple silhouettes of pigeons schooled like flakes of dark in great, big whisks.
11
“Boy, boy, I’ve found it,” he said. “Found what, sir?” His cheeks were mock manacles. His chin jutted like a foot out of a freshly dug grave. His skin transluced with the otherworldly light of the elderly. “The technology to save mankind,” he said. “You shall be my last apprentice.” Then he taught me how to feed the pigeons, how to pick out the sick and the lame from the dumb, susurrous, gray and mottled iridescent, shell-backed shoal-crowds, the ball bearings of peace shuffling around the feet of the Bull. And, in between the wars, I tried. After the wars, after he died, I tried, to perfect Tesla’s technique, to save the world entire, with a flick of feed at a time. Kindness, he said, is all in the wrist.
12
Resist by Erin Kelly
13
I’m imagining eugenics and what the definition of best really is. How you said oppression leads to all the crime doers’ eventual elimination. I’m imagining you whispering into the rich man’s ear. I probably don’t know what you are saying, but I’m imagining a price tag forever stapled into my skin. I’m imagining the boy prior to the explosion. I know if you could sell his body too you would. I’m imagining Castro and Che handing me a rifle, but I still feel somewhat tender from that time I slammed Kyle to the ground, and while he lay there his eyes did that half-open half-closed thing– but I’m imagining your system suspended on the world’s tree branch that’s bent and bending, and it’s me under you, arms shaking–it’s me holding you up.
ODE TO RESISTANCE
I’m imagining myself as a conformist, staying home from school because of the hole in the middle of the chalkboard.
14
15
ODE TO MY LOOSE WOMANSANDRA CISNEROS
Exuberant, a glorious adamant presence I found my younger self browsing through the metaphors an imagery of a loose woman, undressing right before my eyes, Layer after layer she showed me the most infamous judgmentsWoman, my loose woman, I carry your blooden epithets announcing the rebirth of my clandestine cavalry-you said We are the ladies of Kalo; machas, unhitched from truismLittle by little I watched you crown in my entrailsthe roots of my revolution carving themselves, aloneAs I fell in love with the untested, precarious womb, of herWoman, my loose womanVolatile and unguided, erratic to loveAnd to be loved-genderless, promiscuousYou said-upset the natural order, I will guide youAs the roots entangle me, I surely made love to you-perhaps I still amAs I orgasmically rise from your arms, I've now becomeA loose woman, my own loose woman
16
EMMA KAUFMANN 17
for 14 summers I watched the moon from a tent in West Virginia, where roller skate rinks have holes in the floor and confederate flags. I’d touch my necklace, opal, and think about the meaning of blood, the stains it leaves on carpets and birth certificates. the passing of the torch always lands in my left palm, my right grabbing for a lack of scales. sing prayers. feel nothing. I sat in an amphitheater full of teal and turned turquoise, the adopted daughter of Solomon who just wanted to read a book and feel the warmth of acceptance, and if religion is just a fancy word for unity, carve it into my chest so I can lay, a crack in the red sea, with nothing but opals and water.
woman of colour. the birth of your people, mother of land, teacher of life. woman of colour. mind and fierce, flesh and bones, powerful weapons. woman of colour. you are beautiful, you are forever
SKIN DEEP
woman of colour. a reality, a voice, a truth.
a wonderful creation.
18
1998, We Wear Our Flesh Like Flames by Theodore A. Harris
19
1999, Collage Eulogy for Amadou Diallo by Theodore A. Harris
20
OUT OF THE ATLANTIC/ ETHIOPIAN OCEAN Do not confuse my silence for consent. You see, this wait has gone on for centuries, maybe eons. Time tends to blend itself up when you get this old. I’ve been listening for a while, I’ve been listening for a long time. It's been a long time since the Creator last "troubled" me. I’ve been troubled for centuries, maybe eons, found my movements to be slow, learned to speak low, focus on stomaching tongues that cannot taste salt, felt my seaweed stutter/screams/stutter/screams/stutter SCREAMS/ from lips that were once/dusted in gold, now/cut by the rusty horse's bit, from sun-bathed bodies stacked inside ships, dragging across me like the last breath to escape splintered ribs. You see, they started by sinking into me, drifting, arms that stretched into centuries, maybe eons, of spiritual wealth, because charity lives in circles, in movement that bows Black backs to the bounty of life, in Black wombs that grew wide from carrying basket weavers and warriors, in Black women whose laughter lingered from carrying divinity, in Black men whose mouths grew full from carrying stories. I've been listening for a while. My currents cannot carry all of the languages you cast into me. I have collected all the corpses you cast out, all of blood-crusted bodies you cast into me. I’ve been listening, to the drowning babies with brown bellies swollen by my seas I've been listening. to the wailing of mothers/their breasts hanging
21
with milk that will never mix /with their child's first breath, I've been listening. I’ve been listening, listening for centuries, maybe eons. I know my body will never sleep, I know my body will never swallow. I’ve been listening, to bones sinking further to the floor, further into me. I’ve been listening, to funeral songs that have caused the taste of my own salt to repulse me. I’ve been listening, to you, who longs to live like mountains, to you, who is arrogant enough to attempt to eliminate your roots, to you, who has fallen so far past the point of inhumanity, I've been listening. I’ve been listening cause when the Creator calls on me, there will be no more Titans to protect you, there will be no more soil sick enough to soak up your blood, there will be no more empathy for you to exploit. When He calls on me, my vengeance will consume you/ 'till you beg for the right to take your last breath.
22
I am sitting on luxurious carpets and the room is dark and warm.
CHILD OF MIGRANT
a candle twinkles in the background, where my mother sits. I listen to the tales of my ancestry, surrounded by a number of humming heads covered by see-through cloth and shadowed by hands risen to the skies. women and youths far from their original homes unite for the celebration of remembrance. cracking voices narrate the past stories of many. many of us. I feel a sense of both closeness and detachment, as my heart aches from the memories it has never lived. yet, us children of migrants are considered broken lines in the history of tribe, born on a remote ground and speaking unknown tongues. I constantly search for the symbols and meanings that have shaped my people, but question their significance in this foreign life of mine. I look at my mother's eyes as the candle flame brightens them; they reflect the dream of the return to her mother’s land. 23
So I shall plant a rose for Gaza in my green space, in my tranquil garden. I won’t bruise it, just gently sniff its fragrance and hope that one day fragrant roses will bloom again in the garden of Gaza. What else can I do?
A ROSE FOR GAZA
Gaza is a garden full of roses. Stone roses. Rock roses. No petals to crush and bruise to release their fragrance. Only dust. Dust and the stench of death. No green space left. No sweet tranquillity, peace or quiet. No escape. No garden of Eden here. No gateway to paradise. Rubble and rock roses.
24
CODE NOIR
Y’all know what a cipher is? —Erykah Badu
25
O that my words were now written! O that They were printed in a book! Instead: diacritics walking, crescent moon bracketing, catching select characters, releasing by studied turn the hoopoe in full delta span over the crossroads. Instead: the hailing figure, a fist of hearty, enlarged peace, knobby and coarse in the admitting dusk —the clarity of light in retreat, relief of a bullet-riddled land— singing the body asiatic above the burnt and burning timber, scabbed and bleeding substance in occidence. Instead: woman typing, mapping failures. I have found out a thing that thou apprehendest not The writers of code did not reckon the cipher much— that behind the letter of the law someone could make something else out.
A crisis gave birth to us: the moss of toxic waste beneath a jigsaw flourishing between pieces, this topographical map of the planet.
Heroines then, working the strip for some pool hall redemption, the wilderness ethereal, a banshee’s. It’s not such a drag. Moths flit up from manicured lawns, skirt beer bottles, used rubbers, & our tigress faces are still excited with some small hope,
HEROES
To get good sleep walk all night, every block a whiskey shot, needles’ sluice finding the vein…
smoldering.
26
27
AGAINST THE WALL OR THE REPLACEMENT
I didn’t know I would become the white replacement.
I didn’t know I would feel how even museums water down ideas.
It was my first job. She was the first and only Native American.
That I would work under the auspices of Cubist Sitting Bull.
I didn’t know I would witness my first KKK rally. Snipers were posted at the Statehouse. It was 1995. I didn’t know I needed words that didn’t exist. Implicit bias was old white-skinned privilege. It kept getting erased. I didn’t know I would experience insidiousness unseen. The replacement was real authentic certified token classified Iroquois Indian.
I didn’t know I had to function in a corporate workplace lie. It would take years to recover knowledge learned in graduate school. I didn’t know I was Manifest Destiny in a marketplace of mean ideas. That I would be paid in the disguised anachronisms of a philanthropist’s dream. I didn’t know I’d be required to suppress leadership’s ignorance. How deep inside I’d battle against the kind museum of cognitive dissonance. I never imagined I’d be used just like the Native American. His art, just him standing against a wall without artifice.
28
29
ON HEARING TWO ARMY RANGERS ARE KILLED BY FRIENDLY FIRE IN AFGHANISTAN APRIL 2017
I was working the bar when I heard that pro footballer Pat Tillman had enlisted in the Army out of sense of patriotic duty following 9-11. The regulars thought I was cynical, brutal even, saying “He’s a dead man.” “Why do you say that?” “He’s worth more to the Dick Cheneys of the world dead, than he is alive. There’s nothing better than a good looking, accomplished, patriotic white guy dead in combat. Every war needs a martyr and Pat Tillman is it. Dead, he can’t say things that might embarrass the brass the way that Susan Lynch did.” A little over a year later he was dead in the mountains of Afghanistan, killed by friendly fire, though they lied about it at the time. Said he was killed in an enemy ambush and then they threw a silver star at his body as if that somehow compensated the people who loved him for their loss. As we watched the lies surrounding his death, and cover up after, unfold on the same news program that announced his enlistment, I said to the regulars, who’s the cynic now? They had lots to say when I made my initial observation, but they had nothing to say now.
30
HOLY GRAIL, HOLY OIL 31
How is it fitting that outsized oil pipes demoralize landscapes designated sacred by modern ancients, sites venerated through eons of religious tradition?
Over millennia animals and plants metamorphosed into black gold so to be pumped and consumed (in fewer than seven generations) for the comfort and commerce of energy-eating peoples.
For didn’t God provide new frontiers to be exploited by cunning conquerors?
For generations the newly-settled have deemed the culture and spirit of Native Americans to be of no consequence, transcendent connection between humans and the natural world primitive, irritatingly primordial.
in the middle of the night my stomach wakes me, gnawing my innards with beaver teeth, a hunger so sharp it thrives on disregard for consequence. when my babcia arrived from the motherland, buoyed she brought six bronze coins and a mind carefully cataloged with recipes. she could feed five boys on four eggs and a radish. we relished the soup in which she held us enchained with exotic flavors.
STILL LIFE
on a quilt of enormous dreams
our lives seasoned with her sorrow. the old woman is long gone, and in her stead i remain. gone is her lush language of sibilant syllables, gone is her tone of exuberant description.
32
33
Umbrella Man by Sandeep Kumar Mishra
standing outside i grip the metal handle as rain falls like perseids on those exceptional summer nights, or wicked angels and the thunder’s rhythmic bellowing as god hammers our convictions clean through the board and pockets of lightning streak the sky, a flurry of broken streetlights flickering across the heavens. isn’t it extraordinary?…that when the virgin weeps she makes earth tremble the way a peacock’s posterior must quiver before a hormonal tidal wave forces the bright feathers upward, the backside a beaming palette of green and azure eyes, how unlike my umbrella…my revolutionary umbrella, my umbrella which has surely devoured marx and imbibed engels, my umbrella which will not open with a forceful push or a calculated touch, gentle, along the lever, my civilly disobedient umbrella, refusing to open at my behest, stoic as the everlasting duckies stitched upon its very canvas, product of fabrication, of dreams forgotten in the discomfort of soaked khakis as a strong wind billows through your jacket and the umbrella flies
REVOLUTIONARY UMBRELLA
siphoned from their spheres,
from your numb fingers as you stand there in the sleet, your resolve thaws, but the jammed umbrella skids away. 34
BLUE MOON 35
Jimmy Baldwin wounded in the cross fires of history Malcolm and Martin shot down ‘cuz of what they said I want to hear the blues played by the moon I want the sun to sing gospel and the sky to turn red I want to call back the dead I’m writing chicken bone history on an empire’s skull Brewing batwing soup with a hog maul I’m dressed in rags and got bloodshot eyes Headed to the crossroads to curse those I despise
Imagine A thousand thousand spirits Who perished Tumbling through blue air Of the Atlantic ocean Their frantic motion dance of dying and crying Weighted with block and tackle Their spirits rising like ancient bubbles Clear and transparent Floating on the surface of waves Like jellyfish… Waiting.. For centuries Waiting for centuries… Imagine A small po’ Black child in some American city Everything against him ‘cept his Ancestors and God An open book of wonder Imagine One of those clear ancient floating bubbles Lifting off like a balloon Encoded With the DNA of that po’ Black child That open book of wonder Drifting and drifting and drifting ‘til it finds that American city That little Black boy Empties it’s silver calabash of seed wisdom Into the living chalice of his head and heart
OPEN BOOK OF WONDER
Imagine
Imagine That strange little boy Juju’d with Ancestors So holy His Momma her Momma and every Ancestor On back to the beginning had orishas Ownin’ dey lives
36
Eden by Matthew Morpheus
37
2002, Drowning in Bones & Flames after Sonia Sanchez by Theodore A. Harris
38
BIOGRAPHIES Brian C. Felder, a 48-year veteran of the American poetry scene, is delighted to be making his first appearance in WHIRLWIND. Other notable appearances include HUMANIST MAGAZINE, CHIRON REVIEW, ICONOCLAST, SHIP OF FOOLS and the PERFUME RIVER POETRY REVIEW. Charles Brice is a retired psychoanalyst living in Pittsburgh. His full length poetry collection, Flashcuts Out of Chaos, is published by WordTech Editions (2016) and his second collection, Mnemosyne’s Hand (WordTech Editions), will appear in 2018. Brice’s poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Hawaii Review, Chiron Review, The Dunes Review, SLAB, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Sport Literate, The Paterson Literary Review, VerseWrights, and elsewhere. Philip Kienholz immigrated from Minnesota to Manitoba, Canada, resisting the Vietnam war. He received a B. Arch from the University of Manitoba in 1970, and was ordained a Buddhist lay monk in 1974. He resides in Peterborough, Ontario, practicing permaculture and poetry. Shannon McGill Vasile is an educator and musician who lives with her husband in Collingswood, NJ. She received an engraved award for writing in the 8th grade and it’s been all downhill from there. Alex Pope has spent a great deal of time sleeping on transit trains and city buses and has lived in motels for stretches of time that most decent people would deem longer than any respectable person should live in a motel. He’s currently working on a chapbook full of sad and, if we’re being honest, self involved poetry that is very likely to go unfinished. Look for it wherever things you don’t want made by people you don’t know or care about are sold. Penelope Gristelfink is a former newspaper reporter. Her first novel has been accepted by Scarlet Leaf Publishing House. She is a graduate of Temple University. Her poetry, short stories and essays have appeared in Loch Raven Review, Eclectica Magazine, The Potomac, Bird’s Thumb, Foliate Oak, The Pedestal Magazine, The Seattle Review, Arlington Literary Journal and Sick Lit Magazine. Gianni Gaudino is an adjunct instructor of English at Atlantic Cape Community College. His poems appear recently in Muzzle Magazine, Public Pool, and Philadelphia Stories. He lives in South Jersey. Sharon Diaz was born and raised in Puerto Rico. She has a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and a master’s degree in English education and American literature. Currently, she is working as a full time English college professor in Orlando, Fl. Sharon is an avid spoken word writer and constantly writing. Some of her current work includes, La Tertulia 49, Pa ‘Onde Voy: Voices from the Colony and Words in Agony: PULSE. 39
Abby Schreiber is a recent graduate of Rutgers University with degrees in English and Journalism/Media Studies. She is the winner of the Julia Carley Award and Evelyn Hamilton Award in Poetry. Schreiber is a social media and marketing specialist some days, a poet most days, and a food enthusiast all days. Tyra Jamison is a writer that sits at the intersections of Black, woman, young, artist, student, Pittsburgh born, and Hill District raised. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Creative Writing at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Marwa Fichera is a young poet from Italy who’s currently undertaking a BA in Sociology in London, United Kingdom. Her work is mainly based on identity, race, gender and mental health and it is inspired by my multi-ethnic background (Italian, Somali and Eritrean) and life experiences during her previous residency in Italy and Tunisia and now in the UK. Lynn White lives in a one time industrial area in the mountains of north Wales. She has been writing since her teens. Her work is influenced by her surroundings, her past and present and the effect of the demise of industry has on the landscape and the people inhabiting it. Issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined feature in her work. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Ryan Harper is a visiting assistant professor in New York University’s Religious Studies Program. Some of his recent poems and essays have appeared in Alligator Juniper, American Journal of Poetry, bioStories, cahoodaloodaling, Mississippi Review, Appalachian Heritage, Berkeley Poetry Review, Killing the Buddha, and elsewhere. Ryan is the author of The Gaithers and Southern Gospel: Homecoming in the Twenty First Century (University Press of Mississippi, 2017), and the poetry chapbook, Memphis Left at Cairo (Finishing Line Press, 2013). A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published outsider artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. In 2014 he began a webpage to gather links of his poetry being published in such zines as Great Works, Unlikely Stories, Quill & Parchment, etc., in one place: Poetry on the Line, Stephen Mead. Amy Rubin is a writer and entrepreneur in Indianapolis. She has a master’s degree in the history and philosophy of science. Her short-form non-fiction appeared in openDemocracy and Huffington Post, and was short-listed twice for New Philosopher magazine’s Writer’s Award. Her poetry has appeared in Yellow Chair Review. Alan Catlin is a retired barman, a fact he is relieved to relate as he can now be a full time poet and editor. His most recent and forthcoming full length book and chapbook are “Walking Among Tombstones in the Fog” from Presa Press, “Blue Velvet” winner of the Slipstream Chapbook Competition and “Hollyweird” from Night Ballet Press. Another full length book will appear in 2018, “Wild Beauty” from Future Cycle Press. He is the poetry editor of misfitmagazine.net.
40
Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations. Penning her life’s passions into poetry has become the delight of her crone years. She has published in several print anthologies and online journals. She lives in Durham, NC Kenneth West is a writer from Monroe, Louisiana. He attended Louisiana Tech University where he graduated with a BA in English Literature. Lamont B. Steptoe was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of fourteen collections of poetry while also serving as editor for two books by the late South African poet, Dennis Brutus. Steptoe is the winner of an American Book Award and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He’s the founder and publisher of Whirlwind Press. His latest book of poetry, Beyond the White Stone Lions, was published by Radical Paper Press in the summer of 2017. Anthony Palma teaches writing at a couple colleges in the Philadelphia area and South Jersey. His poems have appeared in several places, including The Mad Poets’ Review, Harbinger Asylum, and Italian Americana. In addition to poetry, his creative interests include the blending of poetry with other genres, including performance, visual art, and music. He lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania with his family. Theodore A. Harris was born in 1966 in New York City and raised in Philadelphia, where his art practice is based. Harris is a collagist, poet, curator, and essayist on the intersection of art and politics. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries and museums such as The Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia Pennsylvania; NeMe in Limassol, Cyprus; The University of Chicago Center in Paris, France; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Hammonds House Museum and Resource Center of African American Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Harmony House Stanford University, Stanford, California. His work is in private and public collections including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, La Salle University Art Museum, Center for Africana Studies University of Pennsylvania, Saint Louis University Museum of Art, Du Bois College House University of Pennsylvania, and Lincoln University. He has held residences at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center (New Orleans); 40th Street A-I-R (Philadelphia); Hammonds House Museum and Resource Center of African American Art (Atlanta, GA); International Festival of Arts and Ideas (New Haven, CT). He has co authored books and appears in video with Amiri Baraka, Our Flesh of Flames (Anvil Arts Press); Youtube video: Poet, Amiri Baraka and visual artist, Theodore A. Harris (https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=gUPSiPbqn-Y); Malcolm X as Ideology, and with Fred Moten: i ran from it and was still in it (Cusp Books). He is the founding director of The Institute for Advanced Study in Black Aesthetics.
ISSUE #11