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Yes, Poetry
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Yes, Poetry Vol. 3, Issue 8: August 2012
yespoetry.com twitter.com/yespoetry facebook.com/yespoetry editor@yespoetry.com Editor-in-Chief Joanna C. Valente Assistant Editor Stephanie Valente Managing Editor G. Taylor Davis, Jr. Cover Image: Eleanor Leonne Bennett
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Contents 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21
Eric Kim Howie Good Robert Laughlin Christopher Prewitt Andrew Hamilton Gregory Gunn Oliver Rice Nahshon Cook Hallie Steiner Amy Kitchell-Leighty Justin Robinson Parker Tettleton Ciara Sanker Contributor's Notes Editor Biographies Submission Guidelines
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ERIC KIM MAY I BUILD A TELESCOPE FOR MY GRANDMOTHER Professor Némethy erases the blackboard, white clouds coating behind yellow chalk gas, accent Hungarian glasses tilted down and suspicious. 750 E&M equations or 4 Maxwellian— simple is beautiful. It is an aesthetic choice to describe energy. Speed of light is not infinite; or, speed of light is finite. 3 times—I don’t tsink that number is right. Chalk clouds, plain girl raises her hand: Then with a negative velocity, can we look into the future? Tilts his head: No. But build better and better telescopes to see further into the past, hands chalked with yellow gas. In the beginning everything was high: temperature, energy, people. If you tsink about it. Questions we ask pertain to the before or the after, never the during. A localized burst of energy and careful language.
CHAPTER 1 after Steinbeck To the umber country and part of the yellow country of Royton, the sun scarred the earth, and it did not burn the peach trees. The boy Cody bit into a nectarine, found a worm desiccated, fed it to his red-capped oranda, whose water had sunk to half the bowl. Those days even the rich swam in partial lakes. In the last part of July the sky darkened over and the county was watered red in rivulets down the dirt roads, the top of the Ridge standing blue almost black with rain. The men rushed to the store for plastic buckets to catch the bounty, drink for the month and corn and Vidalias.
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HOWIE GOOD Man with the Getaway Face With the moon by day a bereft pasture, industry had stepped up efforts to weaponize kitchen appliances. I stood over the bed watching her sleep. Black-and-white movies from the forties convulsed in my head. The best advice I ever received? Begin in the middle. The engine was already running when I jumped in the car and drove and drove and drove.
AFTER BRAUTIGAN Ever since I met her, I’ve wanted to write a poem & call it “Fuck, Yes!” This isn’t it.
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ROBERT LAUGHLIN Approval The polls ask if our vote’s to be For Democrat or GOP. Approval’s highest for a brand. And when the primaries are done, We see the candidates who’ve won— Approval ratings come to land, Generic outperforms the real. Our friends and spouses often boast Those qualities that chafe us most: A stubborn truth that never bends. That loved ones disappoint is known. But somehow could we make our own Generic family and friends, Who’d claim that as a better deal?
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CHRISTOPHER PREWITT Girl in a Bright Purple Sweater, Smoking I like biting into a strong onion. Sometimes I’m barely through the kitchen door, kicking my purple flats towards the corner, into the dog’s tin bowl of water, my arms heavy with a brown bag of groceries, eager to peel off the pink brown skin and get into the business of teeth canyoning this bitter, green veined doll’s head. No one knows pleasure like mine; lovers share a cigarette in bed afterwards, but I’ll wait at the bus stop in a strong wind with newly procured groceries, trying to light a cigarette for the pleasure that’s to follow. Don’t look at me like that, Mother. A boy dressed in gray heels and eye shadow is true heroism to someone. Only give me a ripe onion, a truly good reason to cry.
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ANDREW HAMILTON Marriage After Divorce She lodged a new organ in my ribs, metal and shaped like a spade, it chips into my bone marrow, crystallizing icicles that hang over my veins like curtains, blood warming only in sleep— when neurons reel film tape, flashing our memories on movie panels in my skull, where body heat melts the spade in my gut, soft voice echoes I love you, from the side of the bed no body sleeps anymore.
Neurons The folds of his brain branch like tributaries in the Mississippi delta. Metal fork tines bending different directions when pressed firmly on marble. Pointing to satellite images of empty driveways, swing sets, schoolyards. He wants to pull out the pixels, examine them for traces of scents, sounds, textures— then bottle them inside a vase atop his mantle.
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GREGORY GUNN Depiction IV Essentially one likeness paled Appearing weirdly photo-shopped; The objects, subjects improperly scaled, Misplaced & awkwardly hence propped, The shadows misaligned, curtailed. Perusing heyday’s altered scenes, Our midday blossoms marred by fiends Who pose us strangers flung apart, Now shudder I to witness us Beyond sweet promise fair of heart, Struck fruitlessly ridiculous. Intemperate gusts doomed crystallised Refracted phantoms realised.
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OLIVER RICE We Crowds, Gertrude, throngs, hordes, droves, random demographics, I among them, Gertrude, you among them, flowing around us, between us, the elite, the masses, euphemists, melancholics, egocentrics, conglomerate mindset, pluralistic impasse, democratic hazard, each some way a factor, Gertrude, an ingredient, an instance, whoever elsewhere signs the document, puts the lentils to soak, leaps the high bar, packs to leave, their sum whatever the consensus is, whatever the sociology, whatever the culture, we among them, Gertrude.
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NAHSHON COOK Moo-Moo we were sitting at one of the tables at 2Bar talking about how bad a sign it was that the ambulance parked across the sidewalk from the front door wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the hospital when we got word from his older brother that our friend Moo-Moo was found dead about an hour earlier upstairs in his room I hope Moo-Moo Yes, Poetry
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HALLIE STEINER If I Were in Heaven If I were in heaven I'd have hundreds and hundreds and thousands of hands so I'd never have to choose who to hold.
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AMY KITCHELL-LEIGHTY Submission & Servitude When Bill stopped by to say he was leaving for Iraq I thought I’m never going to see him again. I wondered if this was the moment in the movie when I should leap into his arms, let him carry me off to bed, or if it was the part where I start a fight to cover my emotions. I did neither. I sat on the deck—the deck Bill and I had spent so much time on at one point in our lives, but now I no longer knew the man sitting beside me. Was AC/DC still his favorite band? Did he still want lasagna on his birthday? As he talked about where he would be training and how long he would be gone, I picked at a splinter buried in the tip of my finger. He stopped talking reached for my hand and held it while he plucked out the sliver of wood. I watched our hands working together: mine limp, his laboring. It was as if our hands had somehow been pulled apart from our bodies while a camera zoomed in to show our submission and servitude. By the time Bill was about to leave I was ready for him to go off and get killed. I was ready to face his wife and children, tell them how sorry I was for their loss. I was ready for him to leave me that day, write a few letters, disappear for good.
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JUSTIN ROBINSON My Brother's Image of America was lightning-bugs jarred in an orange grove where men filled flatbeds with sweat & endless wooden crates bringing forth the light of mornings where he counted sunrays on the ceiling of our room like steps taken to a library with yellow-eyed double doors which peered into his breathless chest to see an attic of waxwork presidents dressed in candystriped suits as he lay waiting for Autumn to spark like the story of a country written in carnival lights circling a house of mirrors that multiplied his laughter.
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PARKER TETTLETON Basket I bunker carbine blood. The second sentence is presidential. You’re how it’s nothing: the playoffs are a sniper. Days armchair their loves. Night is breathing anyone else.
Beats I’m hardwood under grape cheeks. You’re third floor memory, the steps over the stops of my breath. We’re beginning where we’ve been again so-so. It’s tomorrow where-when we’ve feltleft it. There are lines & lions & lionesses & the rest. If I have bones in my body they surely end outside of my heart.
Second Or Next The first sentence comes pre-breathed & broke-stolen. There’s a soul dialed up nothing— Sunday last went for mothers. A dead anniversary ribbons new roommate. I’m quiet outside of me. Mouths are, as is never, pretty.
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CIARA SANKER Lily's Sister I am trying to starve my heart, hoping that if it learns to know hunger it will stop wanting. It has tied itself shut with a narrow ribbon and resolved to keep quiet. I can’t tell whether it will go on this way. Perhaps it will toss itself onto the fire tomorrow morning, suddenly reckless and sparking bright as metal burning blue and hot. More likely it will continue biting its idiot tongue, demure as some flower warming its pale hands over yesterday’s embers. Renouncing claim to all the old poems, it is writing itself only into villanelles, fastening itself keening to the silent page.
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Contributor's Notes Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 16 year old internationally award winning photographer and artist who has won first places with National Geographic,The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography, Papworth Trust, Mencap, The Woodland trust and Postal Heritage. Her photography has been published in the Telegraph , The Guardian, BBC News Website and on the cover of books and magazines in the United states and Canada. Her art is globally exhibited , having shown work in London, Paris, Indonesia, Los Angeles,Florida, Washington, Scotland,Wales, Ireland,Canada,Spain,Germany, Japan, Australia and The Environmental Photographer of the year Exhibition (2011) amongst many other locations. She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010. Nahshon Cook is an American poet living in Thailand. Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to a crisis center, which you can read about here: https://sites.google.com/site/rhplanding/howie-good-dreaming-in-red. He is also the author of numerous chapbooks, including The Devil’s Fuzzy Slippers from Flutter Press and Personal Myths from Writing Knights Press. He has two other chapbooks forthcoming, Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press and The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press. Born in Windsor, Ontario in 1960, Gregory Wm. Gunn was raised in a few small towns throughout the province until finally settling in London. A graduate of Fanshawe College as an Electronics Technician in 1982, Mr. Gunn began writing earnestly during his academic tenure there. Recently he has compiled six full poetry collective works. Andrew Hamilton recently graduated the University of Tennessee with outstanding honors in English. He won the university’s Woodruff, Knickerbocker, and Bain-Swiggett creative writing awards and has poems published in BlazeVOX’s Spring 2012 issue. Born and raised in Atlanta, Eric Kim earned a B.A. in English at New York University and is a doctoral fellow at Columbia University. His poems have appeared in West 10th and A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He has published 100 short stories, 200 poems and one novel, Vow of Silence. His website is at www.pw.org/content/robert_laughlin. Amy Kitchell-Leighty's recent publications include: Bellevue Literary Review, Salamander, Main Street Rag, Unrorean, Inertia, and Coachella Review. Her MFA is from Bennington College’s Writing Seminars.
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Editor Biographies Joanna C. Valente was born in Manhattan, New York. She attends Sarah Lawrence College as a MFA candidate in poetry writing. In 2011, Joanna was the recipient of the Friends of Humanities/American Society of Poet’s Prize. She is also the founder and editor of the magazine, Yes, Poetry. Joanna is a graduate of SUNY Purchase College, where she received a BA in creative writing and a BA in literature. Her work has appeared in La Fovea, The Medulla Review, The Houston Literary Review, Owen Wister Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Uphook Press, among others. In her spare time, she is a mermaid. More can be found at her website: http://joannavalente.com Stephanie Valente lives in New York. One day, she would like to be a silent film star. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from dotdotdash, Nano Fiction, LIES/ISLE, and Uphook Press. She can be found at: http://kitschy.tumblr.com G. Taylor Davis, Jr is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College's MFA program in writing. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is currently the managing editor at Yes, Poetry. In the past, his work has appeared in The Boiler Journal and The Atlantis. He hails from the Milky Way, but currently lives in New York.
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Submission Guidelines -Please send all submissions to editor@yespoetry.com. -We consider previously unpublished work, although simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Copyrights revert back to writer upon publication. -Submissions are on a rolling basis, so we ask you not to submit more than once per month. -Don't forget to include a third-person author biography with your work. We also encourage you to link us to your website or blog. Poetry: Submit up to seven poems. In the subject line of the email, please write “Your Name_Poetry Submission.” Either copy and paste your work into the body of the email, or attach as a .doc file. We welcome all types of poetry. Photography: Only submit original work; it can be a stand-alone piece or part of an entire collection. Submit up to five photos with an artist's statement. Email us with the subject line “Your Name_Photography Submission.” Music: Please send mp3 or mp4 files only. In the subject line of the email, write “Your Name_Music Submission.” Other: If you are submitting a review or interview, please send in a .doc file. It must not exceed 2,000 words. Email us with the subject line “Your Name_Other Submission.” If you would like to be involved or have any other questions, please direct all emails to editor@yespoetry.com.
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