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Tag: poetry

What Stranger Miracles

November 14, 2023 • • 1 Comment

My chapbook What Stranger Miracles is now available in print.

First published as a free digital chapbook by White Knuckle Press in 2016, it’s a collection of 10 prose poems of 100 words or less (per White Knuckle Press’s guidelines).

I’m grateful to editors Dale Wisely and Howie Good who gave this book its first readers and designed such a nice online home for it. It also earned a nomination for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2017 Elgin Award.

Marketing copy:

What Stranger Miracles is a chapbook collection of ten short prose poems first published online by White Knuckle Press in 2016.

From the haunting imagery of plastic relics washed ashore to the enigmatic surveyors who silently observe the world’s secrets, each poem within What Stranger Miracles encapsulates a unique universe, blending the mundane with the mysterious and exploring themes of environmentalism, extinction, love, loss, and the enduring connection between humanity and the sea. 

It was a Science Fiction Poetry Association 2017 Elgin Award Nominee.

from What Stranger Miracles:

THROWN TO SEA (I)

The ocean spits out plastic: faded, thin, but whole. The great-grandchildren of those who threw it in retrieve the relics, invent stories and religions for their ancestors, singing their praises only to go home and complain bitterly that they didn’t leave behind something more useful than just the cast off detritus of their lives. Not even a boat to get off this rock. They are prisoners. The sea is the law.

—

You can order What Stranger Miracles on Amazon.

Gasolina/For Gasoline

December 6, 2016 • • 1 Comment

Here are two takes on my poem “For Gasoline” from my collection Highway Sky and made available for creative remix at the (now defunct) Poetry Storehouse.

In the first, Eduardo Yagüe translated the poem into Spanish and then made the video from the translation. The second is an English-language version (using the audio I’d provided to the Poetry Storehouse) that includes the text of Eduardo’s translation and was made by Javi Zurrón.

It’s a wonderful thing to see how other artists reinterpret one’s work in new and surprising ways. Thank you Eduardo for making this happen!

 

 

Update: 12.9.16: These videos are featured at Moving Poems today. Thank you, Dave.

Three Poems at CSHS

March 24, 2014 • • Leave a comment

The inaugural issue of CSHS (Clipper Ship Hauling Stories or Can She Hack Sonnets?) is out, and I’m honored to have three of my poems featured alongside the work of several other fine poets in this issue.  Thanks Joseph & Tessa for including my poems “The Rope Swing,” “Here Comes a Twister,” and “Flags of Convenience.”

Blown Away

March 4, 2012 • • 4 Comments

I saw the wind today
not evidence of wind
like a leaf skittering
through traffic
actual wind—just
for a moment like
glare in glasses
when you turn your head
(but I wasn’t wearing glasses)
the wind was there
and it wasn’t
like a mourning dove
disappearing into grayer
fog

///

fingers twitch
like a rattlesnake
twitch like
a harmless rat snake
fooling those who come
too close
the judgement passed
too easily by those
who say he’s just white trash
who say he deserved that bullet
behind the chicken joint

///

Prayers go mumbling to the sky
mumbling
to the graying sky
the wind answers
forgets for a moment
invisibility
just for that moment
fleeting, gone
before I even knew it was there
but I knew it was there
I knew