Tag: Poetry

Weekly Write: “Skinny Jeans” by Brianna Radke

On By mgmtIn News, Sunday Poem, Weekly WriteLeave a comment

Skinny Jeans

The checker asked my mother
Another one on the way already?
She cried the whole way home
and for a few days after that.
She started The Soup Diet.
Every meal: canned tomato, cabbage,
carrot, onion, water, sorry.

A magazine filled with women
with broken looking-limbs said to look at my
body as a whole, instead of in parts,
a drug-dealer holding a stigma seminar
on a page I tore out and taped to
my mirror and ignored forever.

She went barely-not-running
every day, all the way to Skinny.
I held a contest and decided if
I had to eat my own body,
I would start with my thighs –
I imagine they would be self-basting,
dimples melting and
barely-not-running all directions.

She bought a pair of jeans
that were Too Big for her and
asked me if I wanted them?
I did not if I recall.
I started the Potato Diet.
Morning: half a microwaved potato,
and the other half
only if you Absolutely have to.

After passing out, I remembered
a torn out page from the book on
my head saying bring a napkin
or two in your purse
so you can spit out your poison
without being rude.

 

A Pacific Northwest native, Brianna Radke now lives in the Greater Los Angeles area where she is a Director of Marketing by day and a writer and poet by night. Most recently, her work has appeared in Chaleur Magazine, Exposition Review, and (forthcoming) Haunted Waters Press.

 

 

 

“Like”, “Share”, and comment on this poem to nominate it for the Annual Swimming with Elephants Publications 2019 Anthology.

Click here check out Parade: Swimming with Elephants Publications Anthology 2018 available for only $10.95.

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Gold Writing Workshop April 28, 2019

On By mgmtIn Gold Writing Workshop

Join Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC and StrangeFlock Gallery for the first of a series of Writing Workshops scheduled for the last Sunday of each month from 12pm-4pm.

The Gallery will be open from 12pm – 4pm.  Writers of all genres are invited to be inspired by the monthly artwork in the gallery by completing Ekphrastic Writing Prompts or partake in a more constructed workshop hosted by local and national guest writers. The structured writing workshop taking place between the hours of 1pm – 3pm.

Suggestion donation for the workshop is 5$-10$. All proceeds will be split between the workshop guest host and the Gallery. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Our guest workshop host for April 28th will be Zachary Kluckman and his workshop is entitled: “Flipping the Drama Script” which will discuss the Karpman Drama Triangle and the roles we take in relationships with people, and then doing some generative writing from the thoughts produced.

The featured artwork for the month of April is by Paulina Lopez. If you do not get a chance to view her work through the month, this will be the last opportunity to enjoy her display.

About the host for Sunday, April 28th, 2019:

Zachary Kluckman, the National Poetry Awards 2015-2016 Slam Organizer of the Year and 2014 Slam Artist of the Year, is a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Medal Poetry Teacher, Red Mountain Press National Poetry Prize recipient and a founding organizer of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change program, now recognized as the largest poetry reading in history. Kluckman has appeared multiple times at the National and Individual World Poetry slams and tours the nation as a spoken word artist. Recently he was one of 3 poets invited to represent the United States at the Kistrech International Poetry Festival in Kenya. He is the former Spoken Word Editor for Pedestal magazine and has authored two poetry collections.

Weekly Write: “You Are My Symphony” by Adriana Estrada

On By mgmtIn Featured Writers, News, Weekly Write

You Are My Symphony

I hear you loud and clear
not obtrusive or ear-deafening
not at all like a three -man band

at first

just small notes
when you walked into my life
I didn’t know music could be made so easily
like every laugh, sound and noise
you made
was part of an echo.
like you made sure
that every note could only be heard
by me.
audience for one.

the chimes came in first

suddenly
your joy
and how you make the room listen to you
as if you were the concert master
and your baton was the way
for the air waves to direct music
to only my ears

then came the woodwinds

your likes
and dislikes,
the swiftness and easy-going attitude from a relationship
then came the brass
every factor that comes with new beginnings,
unexpected surprises,
and the early stages of
“look at me, love me!”

every note is different

and by what you play
and how you play it,
brings me that much closer to you

then come the strings

like a piano,
you create soothing melodies that I fall into peace
at first note

like the cello,

you show me man-made strength
that requires all of you
at all times
you don’t show me hollowness or emptiness
instead,

your music keeps playing-

in the crevices of my heart I didn’t know existed
in the most profound hallways to my soul
that I have never let anyone else walk through

last come the percussion,

with bangs
with eruption
with cymbal
and pitch
I’m here.
I love you.

I LOVE YOU.

with that much intensity
with that much passion
I don’t know how you manage to play them all
I didn’t even know you could.
not that I underestimated your talents
but when you show me
how your love is just for me

I found myself without words.

I didn’t have a ticket to enter
I didn’t even have a reserved seat
yet you gave me the entire room
to hear you play
I managed to book a concierto that bears my love
in its entirety

I only came in to hear the first note
and I was given the whole symphony.

 

Adriana Estrada is a writer (poet) who uses her craft and poetry to create recollections of poetry that illustrate experiences. She is currently enrolled as a second-year graduate student at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota under their MFA Low-Residency Creative Writing program. She is from Texas.

 

 

 

“Like”, “Share”, and comment on this poem to nominate it for the Annual Swimming with Elephants Publications 2019 Anthology.

Click here check out Parade: Swimming with Elephants Publications Anthology 2018 available for only $10.95.

Now Available: Shorn by Benjamin Bormann

On By mgmtIn Authors, Featured Writers, News, Publications
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of Shorn: apologies & vows, a chapbook of poetry by Benjamin Bormann.
 
“I loved this collection from the title onward, and the spirituality connected me instantly. I am in metaphor heaven. I think the speaker is whispering these poems to me. I have my eyes closed and revel in the metaphor and imagery, in simple, quiet words and lines. I am spiritual and I feel some of the poems are spiritual for me. Perfect words placed in exact space. Strong syntax and enjambment. Love lines like this:
 
“The empty lung prayers
sent off when words become
foreign. The long drawn
timeline whittled
 
into a wisp, a joke, the crush
of understanding just how little
potential we were ever allowed
to show.”
 
As the theme of loneliness emerges, again, this is very applicable and connectable to any person. I ache with love for this collection. The entire collection is ready to print. Time and energy went into this to create a beautiful collection to test time to the fullest. “
 
Review by Gina Marselle

Join Benjamin Bormann for the release of the publication on April 27, 2019 from 11-12pm at the Title Wave Book Revised (2318 Wisconsin St NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110).

This is a free event.

Copies of the publication will be available for purchase and signing.

Order your copy of Shorn: apologies & vows today from Amazon or other major book distributors.

Weekly Write: “Colic Weather” by Gary Beaumier

On By mgmtIn News, Sunday Poem, Weekly Write

Colic Weather

The wind was a bombardment
of ice and snow
that morning when
you returned from the barn
to say your old gelding
had died of colic.

Later I winched him
out of his stall
and carefully dragged him
behind the tractor
to a clearing beyond the pasture.

His plush winters coat
could not conceal
the articulated bone over
his once muscled flank
We knew his last days
we’re nearing.

As you cut off a portion
of his tail with
your pocket knife
for a remembrance
you say to me
“ I never partnered better
on any horse then him.
Too bad humans aren’t
that easy.”
You gave me a hard look
as you snapped the knife shut
and walked toward the house.

The ground
yet unfrozen
yields to the back hoe
and I pack
the earth down over him
so coyotes won’t
dig him up.

When I return to the house
you make me tea
as a peace offering
but that night I hear
the yip and cry
of a pack
over your restless sleep
and I worry things
won’t stay buried
…but then I worry
things will.

 

In his later years Gary Beaumier has become something of a beachcomber and has self diagnosed with “compulsive walking disorder.” On a number of occasions he has cobbled together wooden sailboats.

He is a finalist and semi finalist for the Luminaire Award for several of his poems.
He has had three poems published in Flumes Winter 2017 and one poem in Third Wednesday as well as one poem in Chaleur Magazine, The Piltdown Review, The Esthetic Apostle, The Internet Void, an upcoming issue of Raw Arts Review and a recording in Lit_Tapes. He taught poetry in a women’s prison.

 

 

 

“Like”, “Share”, and comment on this poem to nominate it for the Annual Swimming with Elephants Publications 2019 Anthology.

Click here check out Parade: Swimming with Elephants Publications Anthology 2018 available for only $10.95.