These fruits are mine-Ani Ilkov,
translated from the Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger:
Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry
(Accents Publishing)
These trees scrub the winter sky—–Martha Gehringer,
Bigger Than They Appear:
Anthology of Very Short Poems
(Accents Publishing)
In 2012, the Lexington Public Library recorded and produced a reading held at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. This event featured readings from Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems.
For the full list of videos, click here.
The poets were asked to read one of their poems as well as someone else’s. Below are the poets, the time stamp where they appear in the video, and the poems they read. The emcee is Katerina Stoykova-Klemer.
NOTE: The anthology was dedicated to the Memory of Mark Russell Brown. In this video, Katerina discusses who he was at 08:59 and a poem of his is read by K. Nicole Brown.
Inside of one potato
there are mountains and rivers.—Shinkichi Takahashi (trans. Harold Wright)
But how to find that one potato
among all the others?
Patience, my friend.
Put your ear to the ground.
Dig where you hear thunder.
–Andrew Merton,
Bigger Than They Appear:
Anthology of Very Short Poems
(Accents Publishing)
Check out this piece about Andrew Merton from the Portland Press Herald.
Andrew Merton is a journalist, essayist, and poet. Publications in which his nonfiction has appeared include Esquire, Ms. Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Boston Magazine, and The Boston Globe. His book Enemies of Choice: The Right-To-Life Movement and Its Threat to Abortion, was published by Beacon Press in 1980. His poetry has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Rialto (U.K.), Comstock Review, Louisville Review, Vine Leaves, the American Journal of Nursing, and elsewhere. His book of poetry, Evidence that We Are Descended from Chairs, with a foreword by Charles Simic (Accents Publishing, 2012) was named Outstanding Book of Poetry for 2013–2014 by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project. He is a professor emeritus of English at the University of New Hampshire. His website is available here.
Trotting the hour lulls me past the day’s soldier persona,
past sun-time and ego, to a day a thousand years ago
when I was a brave riding bareback, carrying a spear
fringed with dyed strips of buffalo hide, blessings
for hunting and battle. Once I was that native born warrior
watching muscle under shoulder ripple sunlight
from the horse’s slick coat. Lift me up, straighten me
in the saddle, we have a long way to go.
NL
–Nana Lampton
Wash the Dust from My Eyes
(Accents Publishing)
NEWS: On January 20th, Nana Lampton will be hosting a reading from Wash the Dust from My Eyes at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, KY. Click here for the Facebook Event page.
Nana Lampton is a lifelong resident of Louisville, Kentucky and leads the company her grandfather Lampton founded in 1906. She graduated from Wellesley College and worked under May Sarton. She earned an M.A. from the University of Virginia where she studied with George Garrett. In 2004, she received an MFA in writing from Spalding University. An Honorary Consul to the Kingdom of Morocco, she is an active business woman whose interests include community development, historic preservation, land conservation, and the arts. She serves on the Boards of Yaddo and Fons Vitae, and on the Advisory Board of Sarabande Books. Her books of poetry include The Moon with the Sun in Her Eye, published by Fleur-de-Lis Press, Snowy Owl Gathers in Her Trove, published by Chapman Friedman Gallery, and Bloom on a Split Board, published by Accents Publishing.
A woman touches her stomach,arms of a boy. Swooping bats sound
out the bodies. One. No, two. Details
that will carry across years: his wet breath
on her sun sore neck, the unwhole
moon, crisp kiss
of air on her face, her heart
pounding, pounding,
on the window, her mother’s
fists. In the cave of dark
water bodies fly apart, too soon
the mother says, too soon
for men and their bladed hands.
–Patty Paine,
The Sounding Machine
Accents Publishing
Patty Paine is the author of Feral (Imaginary Friend Press), Elegy & Collapse (Finishing Line Press), and co-editor of Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry (Garnet Publishing & Ithaca Press). Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts, The Atlanta Review, Gulf Stream, The Journal and many other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal, and is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar where she teaches writing and literature, and is assistant director of Liberal Arts & Sciences.
In the late 1940’s, polio
scowled around the public pools
with its face in shadow, melodrama
of my mother’s warnings
slinking towards tragedy. Another kid
every weekend smiled bravely
through the Sunday centerfolds
from an iron lung. Mother hung
those photos in my bedroom, overlapped
them with a painting
of the Sacred Heart. Instead of a machine,
the open chest
of Jesus,
blood and all, pumped away
for me. Okay, but
steam rose
off the streets all summer
and wasn’t Galilee even hotter
than the Bronx? Why did Jesus
walk on water
when He could have splashed around in it?
Why were the kids
with polio always grinning in the newspapers?
So I snuck
into the neighborhood pool. Floated
and paddled and kicked. Held my head
under as long as I could. Just now
thinking about coming up.
–James Doyle,
The Long View Just Keeps Treading Water
Accents Publishing
James Doyle is retired, 75 years old, and lives in Ft. Collins, Colorado. His publications include The Governor’s Office, The Sixth Day; The Silk at Her Throat, Einstein Considers a Sand Dune, and Bending Under the Yellow Police Tapes. James Doyle’s poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including Atlanta Review, Cimarron Review, The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and others. His poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s PBS radio show, The Writer’s Almanac, and on Poetry Daily. Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry has featured his work, and his poetry has appeared over a dozen times on Verse Daily. His poems have been reprinted in many anthologies, including Prentice Hall’s Literature: an Introduction to Critical Reading, used in universities across the country.
he woke up
dressed
brushed his teeth
drank a cup of coffee
and went to the church
it was his own funeral
I never saw him since
they must have buried him
–Suchoon Mo,
Frog Mantra
Accents Publishing
Suchoon Mo is a Korean War veteran and a retired academic living in the semi-arid part of Colorado. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at the University of Detroit and Colorado State University. He is the author of a number of scholarly papers and articles. His poems have been published in The Battered Suitcase, The Bitter Oleander, BlazeVOX, Dissident Editions, epiphany, Hobo Camp Review, Journal of Truth and Consequence, Lucid Rhythms, Mad Hatters’ Review, Message in a Bottle, The Muse, The Ranfurly Review, Segue, Spillway Review, The Tower Journal and others. His music compositions have also appeared in a number of publications.
the horse’s nostrils breathe.–Vanya Angelova,
Translated from Bulgarian
by Katerina-Stoykova Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger:
Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry
(Accents Publishing)
Vanya Angelova was born on November 4th, 1953 in Plovdiv. She holds a degree in Slavic philology from St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia and has specialized in pedagogy of cinema at the Krastyo Sarafov National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts. Vanya has worked as a teacher, theater dramaturg, cultural consultant, and journalist. She is the author of two poetry books, most recently Possible Travelogues of the Body (2010). Vanya currently lives and works in Thessaloniki, Greece.
All summer I tossed wheels of dough
into a sea of grease, where they browned
and crisped while I smoked half
a cigarette. By the time the owner
stopped by, the air would be humid
with sugar, the bakery cases filled with rows
of doughnuts I’d frosted and sprinkled.
He’d pull a buck from his wallet to pay
for his cruller, his cup of coffee, and show me
the photo of his son squinting into the light,
smiling like a man who didn’t know
he would die at Khe Sanh.
On my last day the boss pressed
a wad of bills into my hand and kissed me
goodbye. When he slipped
his tongue into my mouth,
I could feel the old dog
of his heart rear up and tug
at its leash. His breath tasted
like ashes. He was my father’s friend.
I was sixteen and didn’t understand
yet how life can kill you a little
at a time. Still, I kissed him back.
–Sarah Freligh,
A Brief Natural History of an American Girl
Accents Publishing
Sarah Freligh is the author of Sort of Gone (Turning Point Books, 2008). Her work has appeared in The Sun, Rattle, Brevity, Barn Owl Review, Cimarron Review, Iowa Woman, Third Coast, Tar River Poetry, and Painted Bride Quarterly and on Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac.” Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a poetry grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006, and an Artist’s Exchange grant from the New York State Council for the Arts in 1997. She is a visiting assistant professor of English and creative writing at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.