Tag: Swimming with Elephants
Weekly Write: “Blue” by Katie Karnehm-Esh
Blue
I think of the soft blue sweatsuit you were wearing that warm day in May. Then I think of the way you stared through the bars of the crib, and us. You must be a teenager by now; do you still sleep in a crib? I have a photo of you in my office that one of the students took—do you remember the boy with the red hair?—as I clipped your fingernails through the bars. I can’t look at it very often, and I am grateful that in this photo I cannot see your face. Sometimes my heart still twists up when I think of you, lying on your side staring into a dark tiled room, making occasional noises in neither English nor Mandarin.
Did you know I thought you were a boy the whole afternoon? Blame it on the bowl haircut or the blue sweatsuit. After two weeks in China, I should have known so many of you become androgynous in the orphanage. But I knew the gender of the tiny girl in pink who grinned and stole food. We brought snacks for all the children, and she grabbed the largest hoard. Everyone but you and the infants had a stash, curled their bodies around their plastic-wrapped food. Midway through washing our hands, the water stopped. The German nurse told us the director often turns off the water, that at mealtimes the workers put out food and let the children fend for themselves. Fewer diapers this way. We thought of this when they served us a private cafeteria feast. So much broccoli and pork. So many noodles choking in our throats. The German nurse said, “Eat. If you get upset. I can’t come back to help them.”
I picked you up to help you eat the smashed bananas. The nurses said you would choke and throw up if you ate; they said you only ate milk. I offered a spoonful, slow. Then another, praying it wouldn’t make you sick later.
After I picked you up, there was no reason to put you down. They told me later you were nine years old, but I could not believe you were more than five. You were stiff and quiet in my arms, sometimes seizing into fast shallow breaths. It’s OK, I would tell you, rocking back and forth. We swayed down the green-gray hallway, stopping in the bathroom where two children sat on the floor in a shower stall. One kept laughing and laughing as the water gurgled. The other sat as silent as you. “They protect each other,” one of the nurses told me. The tiny pink grinning girl ran up to me and demanded more snacks. When you started to hyperventilate again, I patted your back. Your spine was like the ridges of a rock wall.
When the German nurse told us we had twenty more minutes, and went back to checking vital signs and bruises, I stepped outside into the courtyard with you. You blinked; so much green and sun. The guard dog in the courtyard barked at us, asking who are you? We walked over to answer. He stared at us from behind a circular fence surrounding a tall tree, and you stared back at him, that furry black thing. Then you leaned your head on my shoulder and sighed.
Something inside me didn’t so much crack as give way. I looked at the white van we’d ridden in from Shenyang, and thought about our flight on Sunday, your crib in the big tiled room, the bananas the workers said you couldn’t eat. If I made a run for the van with you, the German nurse could never come back to feed you.
When she said it was time to go, she didn’t seem angry that it took me a long time to walk you back to your crib and lay you down. You stared out into the room, like you had when I found you. I don’t know what I said. Maybe nothing. I speak English after all. This was not the right place to say I love you or I’ll come back because maybe lying is worse than never having been here. So I whispered goodbye; it’s OK; goodbye; it’s OK while I put you back in your bed and walked away.
Did you know that for months afterwards, I sent emails to check on you? I asked as casually as I could, in a way that someone who is voluntarily childless and in a bad marriage will ask after a child thousands of miles away in an orphanage that does not give up children or feed them. You would never be coming home with me. So when I prayed, it was that you had food. That you had green afternoons and sunshine and a dog barking hello! And that sometimes, when someone rubbed your back and clipped your fingernails and told you it was OK, this would feel like a happy, reoccurring dream you couldn’t quite place.
Katie Karnehm-Esh’s background is in creative nonfiction and poetry, with a Ph.D in creative writing from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her writing has been published in Whale Road Review, Barren Magazine, The Cresset, The Other Journal, and Windhover. Additionally, she writes a monthly blog for Annesley Writers Forum. Her writing often centers around holistic health, travel, and faith as well as social justice, and she welcomes the opportunity to learn from fellow writers.
“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.
New Release: Thalassophile by Abigayle Goldstein
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of Thalassophile: a chapbook of poetry by Abigayle Goldstein.
thalassophile, (n.) lover of the sea
With a collection as breathtaking as a calm beach side view, and as striking as a storm at sea, Abigayle Goldstein has perfected the art of this modern-era “diary/dictionary entry” style of writing. From the table of contents, which reads as an introductory poem itself, and onward through each “definition” that follows, there is an undeniable ocean’s flow in the progress of this collection. A story that paints a vivid picture: of tumultuous change, like crashing waves, and perhaps…the eventual calm, and the acceptance of the constant ebb and flow of the sea within us. This collection awakened a new love for the seas of change for me, and I hope it speaks to the thalassophile in each reader. And perhaps in reading, you will find a renewed and empowered love of self.
This beautiful collection, featuring cover art Sima Ijadi, is the first release by Goldstein.
Join Abigayle Goldstein 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 Thalassophile today from Amazon or other major book distributors.
Now Available: Trauma Carnival by SaraEve Fermin
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of Trauma Carnival by SaraEve Fermin.
“Some write for the love of language, its music and images, its journey of discovery. Others write because there is that which must be stated, which must be extracted from the body and documented outside the author as a proof and a lesson. SaraEve Fermin’s third collection, Trauma Carnival, does both. Its relentless honesty is an ode to love and self-possession in a world that wishes to refuse both. For those who long for the answer to SaraEve’s question, “What is magic but to live without shame?” this is a must-have collection you will return to, over and over, for the deep relief of compassionate witness, for the grace of space made around the heart, for the addition of years to your life.”
-Cecily Schuler
This amazing collection, featuring cover art by Mark Sniadecki, is an complementary follow up to Fermin’s 2016 collection, You Must Be This Tall to Ride.
Order your copy of Trauma Carnival today from Amazon or other major book distributors.
Note: We encourage our audience to seek our publications through local bookstores or purchasing directly from the author, however, all of our publications are available through major distributors, such as Barnes and Nobel and Amazon.
Weekly Write: “Afternoon” by Holly Painter
Afternoon
In the afternoon, when the sun lit
the endless fall of dust particles, we
wondered if only we could see them
and kept wondering as we fell asleep,
your limbs wrapped around me,
a barnacle bigger than the boat,
and your fingers twitched
Morse code messages on my back
as you dreamed and then forgot
you were dreaming, until you woke
and the room was grey and you
remembered there is no color
without the light, except behind
my eyelids where my dreams
continued because I didn’t know
the sun had set and taken all the colors with it.
Holly Painter lives with her wife and son in Vermont, where she teaches writing and literature at the University of Vermont. Her first full-length book of poetry, Excerpts from a Natural History, was published by Titus Books (2015). Her poetry, fiction, and essays have also been published in literary journals and anthologies in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Singapore, and the UK.
“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.
Hey West Coast!
Catch Mercedez Holtry and Eva Crespin on their West Coast Tour 2019, Xicana Revolt.
Light as a Feather; an anthology of resilience is Now Available
Now Available from Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC
Light as a Feather:
an anthology of resilience
Available at Bookworks Albuquerque and all major book distributors.
Click here to order today from Amazon.
“This collection is a wrenchingly painful, honest, and ultimately beautiful depiction of what people with eating disorders struggle through. Part of the insidiousness of disordered eating is that it operates so definitively in secrecy. It is characterized by locked bathroom doors, midnight binges, furtively skipped meals, and deeply held shame. Shame thrives in darkness, and this book brings in light. It shines on all the pain that is so often hidden away, and in doing so is a message of resilience, healing, and hope.”
~Amanda Knoll, MA, LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor)
Light as a Feather, Second Edition takes the focus on eating disorders from the mere act of survival into the courageous world of resilience. The authors within, through wit, humor, and ruthless self-reflection, pull back the curtain on what is often misunderstood, even considered too taboo to discuss outside of hushed voices. Eating disorders have long been perceived as a one trick pony. The truth is far more nuanced, spreading across biological sex, gender identity, ethnic background, race, and creed. Light as a Feather feasts its truth before you like a banquet, with prose and poetry shining across the table, delicacies ready to be plucked. Each story is a peek into an individual universe unique in its own existence.
Yes, this book is about disorders, but each writer’s experience could not be more diverse. Yet all are threaded together somehow, with a gentle and raw humanity that will ring true even with the most hesitant of readers. However, do not make the mistake of believing this carefully crafted work will pull its punches. Light as a Feather, Second Edition is violent in its lack of apology. When a group of survivors gather to share their stories, they do so with shocking brutality. In fact, they wear their own flawed humanity so keenly, you cannot help feeling your own internal urgency to unburden the truth.
Let reading Light as a Feather make you brave, as brave as the contributors found within these pages.
New Release from Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC is excited to announce the release of Provocateur by Jessica Helen Lopez.
“Jessica Helen Lopez‘s poetry is viscerally vulnerable. With grace and poise she fearlessly dances with her demons returning triumphant and beautifully human.”
~Manuel González
City of Albuquerque Poet Laureate Emeritus (2016-2018)
This beautiful collection, featuring cover art by Ben Harrison, contains Lopez’s most popular pieces from 2014 to the present.
“Provocateur is the way the word ‘woman’ feels in the gut– heavy and visceral, the malleable form that is holy and so often taken for granted. These words are a weapon or a blessing, a warrior or a priestess. Lopez navigates the landscape of femininity without shying away from it’s most ferocious instincts. It is the reclamation I want my daughter to read on the days she does not feel good enough. Jessica Helen Lopez reminds us how to live without sin– one of the greatest lessons we have to offer. How to find the grace in our everyday selves. This book is church.”
~SaraEve Fermin, Author of Trauma Carnival
Join Jessica Helen Lopez and selected guests for the release of the publication on March 23, 2019 from 5-7pm at the Factory On 5th Gallery (1715 5 St NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102).
This is a free event.
Copies of the publication will be available for purchase and signing.
Order your copy of Provocateur today from Amazon or other major book distributors.
Weekly Write: “Unsuitable Terrain” by Avi-Yona Israel
Unsuitable Terrain
today I went crazy
with the feeling that I’m not meant:
my bath became the sea and I tried to have an awakening
batten down the hatches, this was a storm,
and there’s water filling the ship accompanying me down
rain got into my ears filling the back of my throat
sending bitter foamy waves up and out
trembly, frightened to face the expanse without a night sky above –
teeth and nails sawed through my sister’s abandoned pillow,
surprise!
a brief moment to ponder that the feathers are multicolored.
wispy snow softly, one inch thick, will stick
one by one I tore pages from a book about women
of no importance, ideal husbands, lies and also truth
ink, eggshell,
I lay down in my nest
asking if anyone is my mother and if she knows
why I am still here, what is wrong with me?
neck and limbs of a dusty health class mannequin – leaning,
rolling and heaving to woman-made post-mortem sighs bangs whimpers
away from things like sun and hindsight
dry storm hardened feet and knees tucked elsewhere beneath towels and coats
unable to bear the warmth of the bed I made, lie in it
I cried into the floor, mouthed sorry to the downstairs neighbor.
Avi-Yona Israel is a writer living in Chicago, IL. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Emerson Review, The Seventh Wave, Esthetic Apostle, Capulet Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, and midnight & indigo, among others.
“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.
Weekly Write: “This Body Will Not Carry” by Annie Elizabeth Cigic
This Body Will Not Carry
I go on long drives–childless–
a loud peace. An empty backseat,
ignoring seatbelts & airbags. No bodies
traveling at the same speed as mine.
No questions about the sky–why the clouds hang
low & heavy some days. No one to count the broken
white lines or ask why the roads light up
at dark. I drive until I see barren
landscapes–hurricanes won’t touch
this wasteland.
Annie Elizabeth Cigic is a poetry MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University. She teaches first-year writing and plans to pursue a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition to study how to merge creative thinking and pedagogy together. She is currently working on a poetry chapbook.
“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.
Weekly Write: “Perfection” by Andy Posner
Perfection
I had thought I lacked for time
And spent my days frantic,
As though life were a web
And death a looming spider, his
Approach inexorable, his mouth
Large enough to swallow whole
My ambitions.
I had thought I lacked for time
And arose each dawn to make up
For yesterday’s failure,
To promise that today I would be perfect;
I bribed the gatekeepers of perfection
With my promises—
“O, let me through!” I begged.
And at night I’d rub my forehead
Where the iron had held me back,
The currency of my promises
Still glistening like anxious sweat in my hand.
For years I pressed my nose to glass
And watched sun, wind, rain, snow
As they whirled past my stationary self
Like a riderless bicycle balanced
By something, someone, I couldn’t see.
I had thought I lacked for time
And raced to outrun the bell
Whose ring might rouse me from my dream,
Only to at last find I was awake and tired
And still holding coins no deity, no therapist, no poet
Would accept—a pauper with a home, a job, a six-figure net worth,
Wanting for nothing, suddenly with time to spare,
Unable to afford even a moment of calm self-reflection.
Andy Posner grew up in Los Angeles and earned an MA in Environmental Studies at Brown. While there, he founded Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial services to low-income families. He has had poems published in the Noble / Gas Qtrly, The Esthetic Apostle, and Burningword Literary Journal.
“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.
Weekly Write: “Cancer” by Ali Gowrie
Cancer
The fog pours like soup across
the highway and I fell lost but
every set of headlights I pass is
my father’s blue eyes.
He was always best at navigating
the fog, a red and green light
always finding his way through
the harbors and safely home.
And I cry. I cry for Home. I cry
for him, for his unwavering
strength, for how he has taught me
how to avoid rocks with a blind eye.
Daddy, you have been my
radar, my sail and my wind, my
captain, my anchor and line.
Now let me be yours.
Ali Gowrie
“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 $7.95.
Coming Soon From Swimming with Elephants Publications
Coming March 2019
Provocateur
Poetry by Jessica Helen Lopez
Cover Art by Ben Harrison
“Jessica Helen Lopez’ Provocateur is a revolution of words bringing to life important issues that otherwise may stay hidden inside conservative minds. Lopez is courageous in her written work. She pushes and pushes to make one feel uncomfortable enough to become informed. Her words and life are charismatic and entice one to feel. She is not threatened and is a powerful voice for the 21st century. She is gifted and energy wrapped up in fire and poetry. She does not censor—she gives us honesty and sometimes controversy, regardless of the path she is on she gives her readers life because after reading her words one feels all the feels—agree or disagree with her, you will feel, you will feel this fire that she lives and breathes each and every day. She unites women of all walks of life, choice, and color into some kind of wonderful mother, sister, daughter, witchy, powerful self—in fact, we all have many names “ancient, mighty names” and in Lopez’ Provocateur, she gives us power to sing with her loud and clear.”
Gina Marselle, M.A.Ed.
Teacher | Poet | Photographer
Author of A Fire of Prayer: A Collection of Poetry and Photography (SwEP, 2015)
Co-guest Judge, Swimming with Elephants Publications’ Poetry Chapbook Competition, 2018
Weekly Write: “The Dogs of the White Cannon” by Jonathan Andrew Perez
The Dogs of the White Canon
The land is a swash of monotone: cobwebs against yellowing barns,
seed pods off rusty fences.
Nothing to glide but the glue, the kind of setting that dulls the senses.
Give me: dog ripping leg on gravel road,
Give me: wolf on fire trail that circles the valley.
I heard dogs travel in packs, at night.
I heard undomesticated baying at the rough horizon.
They plunder the uninhabited
like hound on the trail of a hare,
or tear a shrew from its hole,
or like an Orca flip a seal pup,
head-over-heals in the light.
Buddy, the black lab,
proudly returns home, gangster, down the avenue,
jaw clenched over a wet mouse.
Buddy, listen up, predatory dogs
only mate at night and surely always disturb
any of the familiar faces that make up townsfolk.
Buddy, you are not a regular visitor. Lower your music.
Buddy, each year I have come here, you or another are here
wandering the hamlets: drinking, cheating, killing
in the back of a club, behind a high school gymnasium
near torn-up mounds north of town. Or not you.
Buddy, I saw once. You and I are a kind of undead,
washed up in some quarry
up a peak, not so bleak, because sooner or later a rumor will start
that you have will come back as a mountain lion.
Jonathan Andrew Perez is previously published in Prelude, Junto Magazine, The Write Launch and Silver Needle Press. He has a Master’s in English Literature and African American Cultural Studies from the University of Virginia, and a day job is as an Assistant District Attorney in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor.
Chapbook Open Call 2019 Selections
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC has concluded our Open Call for Chapbook Submissions. We had literally over three times as many submissions as last year and many, many quality works to choose from. This was no easy task.
We are excited to be welcoming four new poets to our Parade.
Many thanks guest judges Maxine Peseke and Gina Marselle who did a wonderful job selecting the manuscripts. Not only did they read, discuss, and select the manuscripts, but they did an AMAZING job writing the reply letters. Like many writers, I receive lots of regret letters and many are generic and curt. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like the publisher read the submission. But these two ladies did an amazing job reaching out and giving personalized feedback to every submitter. I am grateful to have them on the team and representing Swimming with Elephants Publications.
We would like to thank everyone who submitted and all of our amazing supporters who have kept us afloat over these past five years. We are grateful and very appreciative.
Keep your eyes on the site and the Facebook page for updates on the progress of our new publications.
And now…
…without further ado, the selected manuscripts are…..
….in no particular order….
drum roll
…actually they are in alphabetical order….
drum roll
Belly-up Rosehip: a Tongue Blue with Mud Songs
by Tyler Dettloff
I’ve Been Cancelling Appointments with My Psychiatrist for Two Years Now
by Sean Dever
Shorn: apologies & vows
by Benjamin Bormann
Thalassophile
by Abigayle Goldstein
Weekly Write: ” Somnambulist” by Charles Duffie
Somnambulist
The pills knock you out, so you’re asleep when I make the rounds. That’s good. Easier. You hate that I still do this. I got into the habit when you were pregnant. It was prayer back then, pausing in each room, murmuring, “Thank you” and meaning it. Every night. Sixteen years.
So, I make the rounds, even now. Stand in the kitchen, where he picked up your love of cooking. The living room, where every Wednesday was Family Game Night, even when he got busy in high school. Our bedroom, where you fell asleep so easily, curled in contentment. The little sunroom where I pretended I was a novelist and he pretended he was a songwriter. His bedroom, where he evolved like the history of man, from neanderthal toddler to cro-magnon tween to a sometimes surly, often fine homo sapiens.
So every night I make the rounds, pause at each station, but without “Thank you” now, those clasped words slammed apart as easily as the Honda slammed through the guard rail, our boy asleep at the wheel. He just fell asleep. That’s all. Why is that the one detail I can’t accept?
The first few weeks, it hurt you, that I kept making the rounds. Your husband became a somnambulist and all you could do was sleep. I envy your hibernation. You’ll survive this long winter and wake in some unseeable spring. Meanwhile I go through the motions. I feel unmoored even from my grief. I kneel in the surf of the shag carpet; I’ve been in a shipwreck, a castaway washed ashore in my own home.
That annoying grandfather clock he loved chimes downstairs. As if summoned, I shuffle into the kitchen. This routine I do for you, while you sleep. I make the rounds for me, I make dinner for you. This was your sacred space with him. God, he was a chubby kid. That’s why you learned to cook. No more fast food, you said. All the diets the two of you started and quit.
I flip The No Meat Athlete Cookbook to the next recipe. I hated all his plant-based lectures. But I have to admit, he lost weight, got trim and fast. Watching him glide downcourt, stretch his body, pluck the ball from the air and finger-float it through the rim — he was more beautiful than anything in nature. A gazelle leaping is a graceful machine, but a boy doing that? That’s conscious grace. That has to be proof of something.
Tonight I’m making Loaded Spaghetti Squash, Garlicky Rosemary Potato Soup, Kale Salad with You-Won’t-Believe-It’s-Cashews Ranch Dressing, and No-Bake Mocha Cheesecake. The silvery sounds of new pans, ceramic plates, glass bowls, steel measuring cups — his birthday present from you, a complete set. Crisp cuts through squash, potatoes, kale stems; easy motions, pouring, whisking, scooping; distinct smells, garlic, rosemary, basil, bay leaves; stirring slow like cranking a gurney or prayer wheel. I lose myself in these mundane things until the flavors sweeten the air and pull me back.
It’s a feast. Center all the bowls on the white table, each filled with color: bright orange pasta, golden soup, blue-green salad, small black cheesecake with blanched almonds serrating the edges. Sometimes I notice there’s no silverware, sometimes I don’t.
It’s almost 3 AM. We haven’t sat together, husband and wife, at this table since the crash. But I end up here every night. Maybe I’m waiting for the day I’ll feel hungry again. I don’t know. It’s only been six weeks. Give it time, people say. I’ve lost thirty pounds. How do fathers do it? This is an old story, losing a son. How have all the fathers before me carried on? Why can’t I wake up?
My foot bumps something. His basketball rolls out from under the table, across the hardwood, taps against the front door. Yesterday when you went shopping, I played in the driveway, then hid the ball when you came home. I forgot to move it back to his room. You don’t like me doing anything we used to do with him. His death grated across us, leaving all these holes in our life. Everything is falling through.
It’s cold outside. Look at that moon. Almost full, almost there. I shoot a few hoops, the ball bouncing, hitting the rim, so loud in the silence I stop, waiting for someone to shout out their window. But if anyone’s awake, they keep it to themselves.
I should go back in, but the park is just down the block. I can’t see it, so I walk to the street lamp on the corner. From here, the jungle gym looks like a pile of empty cages; the trees are as still as a diorama. And all that night behind it. Somewhere out there is the basketball court where we played until, one day, he magically was better than me.
“What?” I say to the half park.
It’s so quiet, I hear water in the sewer flowing under my feet. Somewhere behind me, the freeway sounds like a river too. I feel like I’m being swept away.
“What?” I call. “What?!”
I throw the ball like I’m trying to hit something. It loops high into the dark, gone. A moment later I hear it bounce on the court, again, again, then gone.
It takes a long time, until the sky softens, but I turn around. There’s nothing to do but follow the curve of the earth back home, choke the food down the disposal, and clean the kitchen before you wake up.
Charles Duffie is a writer and designer from California. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and Role Reboot, and will be featured in the 2019 American Story Anthology published by New Rivers 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 $7.95.
Weekly Write: “Limit” by David Magill
Limit
Fish guts on the Sunday paper, one of my favorites,
Herman, covered by an eye and some gills.
She tells him it’s too sharp for me but
he ignores her and hands me another sunfish.
I work it under the tail and slide it along the spine,
careful of the meat under the skin.
He guts another one and shows me the eggs; I nod
and rinse the fillet in a steel bowl.
She sees blood on my hand and protests again,
but I have learned to ignore her, too, as long
as he is with me and I am busy.
The smell is acrid for a moment but it passes,
the scent of my father’s cigar cutting through
the scales and the blood and the guts.
“Will them hogs eat the heads?”
“They’ll eat anything you throw over the fence. Don’t forget
to bring them bowls back.”
I stood by the pen and looked at them.
I hadn’t given them names yet.
I wondered if they’d ever get a chance to eat
fish heads
without me.
I threw one far over their heads
so they would go away
and then dumped the rest inside the fence.
I didn’t want to see those fish die twice.
I heard the air compressor roar to life
and went and got the hose.
Summer was a short walk
away.
David Magill, born in Kansas City, Missouri, moved to Minnesota as a young boy and grew up on a hobby farm in Afton. He has been married to his wife, Patti, for 23 years. His work has recently been published in Metonym,The Esthetic Apostle, and Cagibi.
“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 $7.95.
A list of our 2018 Publications (and links to buy)
We had a busy year!
Swimming with Elephants Publications produced several books during 2018. Review this years publications and get your hands on them before we embark on our publications for 2019.
All our books are available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, BookWorks Albuquerque, and can be ordered by Independent Bookstores around the world.
Parade: A Swimming with Elephants Publications Anthology 2018
Get your hands on Swimming with Elephants Publications 2018 Anthology, Parade, featuring the poetry of Kevin Barger, SaraEve Fermin, Wil Gibson, Jessica Helen Lopez, Matthew Brown, Maxine Peseke and so many more!
Only $7.95 and free shipping with Amazon Prime. Make great gifts and are a fine sampling of the poets Swimming with Elephants represents.
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“La Diáspora de un Aztlán norteño” details the unique ‘MiChicanidad’ experience of life on the border in Michigan. This is another definition of Aztlán, as seen on a Northern Border, this time between Canada and Southwest Detroit’s predominantly Mexican American neighborhood. Growth of this Spanish speaking barrio began in the earlier part of the 20th Century due to the rise of migrant labor and employment at factories. Later, the area prospered as those immigrants began to choose to stay. Their addition to the interpretation of life on the border, as well as the community’s vibrant nature, is unparalleled especially as it is defined through creativity.
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“…this collection carries both the beauty of human resilience and the searing pain of postatomic burning carnage. The poetry, like hope, is an obstinate and sturdy survivor, for ‘what could i do but write songs.’ These verses often push the envelope, asking questions that make more sense than our grammar. ‘are you out there in the stealth night on the edge of blue? listening/ are you loving me for sending you this fix of heartbreak/ slid down metal, taut and wound. electric. are you?’…haunting, resonant odes and the rhythmic power of promises and truth, poems spread across Hiroshima and Barcelona, Laos and Albuquerque. These poems bring the world into a familial embrace, but spit out the naked power of truth, both personal and political, as if it were a well-chewed chicken bone, gnawed raw. Through it all, this mother-daughter poetic duo reminds us that, in the beauty of human hope, ‘nothing sacred can be lost.’”
-Carmen Tafolla, State Poet Laureate of Texas
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I Bloomed a Resistance From My Mouth
“Mercedez Holtry’s poetry speaks to the origin stories of her Chican@ and Mestiz@ people. It is a mixed bag of mixed blood and the celebratory songs of family, culture and the history of the la tierra that she has blossomed from. Her poems are resistance and resilience. She is a fierce page poet warrior who also casts her spells from the stage, as a true bruja does. Oppressors beware. Holtry mixes up curses, prayers and incantations with her poetic brew. This is a poet who uses her mas palabras for healing and retribution. Her collection de poesia es muy firme, a true reckoning of what is to come from a generation of woke poets who have much to say and aren’t afraid to say it. ”
-Jessica Helen Lopez, ABQ Poet Laureate, Emeritus and Author of the award winning book
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Originally written in french by Werner Lambersy, this short book serves as an homage to Pina Bausch, an extraordinary modern dancer. This English translation, by Jack Hirschman, serves as a continued remembrance to not only an amazing modern dancer but the poet whom she inspired.
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bliss in die/unbinging the underglow
“Bassam writes poems that feel like slow motion car crashes where, at every turn, you’re also reassured that it’s ok to feel like this, like even if nothing is going to be ok, there is strength to hold like a parking brake, like the axis of a planet. Bassam’s words are a gut punch, a pull to beating heart chest, a hand that holds yours in the bleak. One senses that the act of poetry for Bassam is truly one of survival. What a strength it takes to show our deepest insecurities, to not ask for forgiveness. To not be the hero of your own story. Bassam is a bright non binary voice. One that asks not for acceptance, but simply is, and tells the stories of body and mind that is so intimate and accessible to those of us who endlessly battle with our shapes, our selves. What a gift to give.”
—Charlie Petch, Spoken Word Artist, Playwright, Musician
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BEKIMI I NËNËS / A Mother’s Blessing
Within these pages, entitled “Bekimi I Nënës, A Mother’s Blessing,” Jack Hirschman and Idlir Azizaj present a translation of Jusef Gërvalla’s poetry. This is the first time this collection, originally published by the Naim Frashëri Publishing House, in Tirana, Albania in 1983, is translated in the English Language. In 1983, a year after the original publication in his native Kosovo Albanian, Jusuf Gërvalla, his brother Bardhosh, and comrade Kadri Zeka were allegedly murdered by the Serbian secret service in their exile in Germany. Gërvalla was known as a journalist and a musician as well as a poet, novelist, and founder of the Marxist-Leninist group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo. For the first time, Jusuf Gërvalla’s poetry, including selections from his three books: They Fly and Fall, Green Stork, and Sacred Marks, can be shared by the english speaking population.
“Unease at Rest” is an ‘ugly butterfly’, anatomized. It is the death’s-head moth pinning itself under glass. Every poem is another marking on the insect’s back, resembling a human skull. Each one steadfastly reminds its author that it isn’t, in fact, a skull. But each feels about that heavy. In this grossly gorgeous collection, Gibson doesn’t wrestle or toss away the bones on his back. He quietly, humbly carries them. Wil doesn’t fly straight into the lantern’s yawning flame. He stares it down, he names it, and he reaches for it. He does so for us, sparing us the discomfort. And he does it with a steady and trained hand: imperfect palms stretched perfectly. The textual body of his poems, too, flex and fold this way. Every page a ‘soft, awkward, and most authentic’ wing. Wil reaches for the fire with such an ugly human grace, that it explains the ugly human light that swallows us too, by which we are lit from inside, to which we all are bound.”
– Bill Moran – author of “Oh God Get Out Get Out”
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This collection of poems alternately pierces the reader with astute and heartbreaking observations (Good Drums is a particularly devastating musing on white, male American-ness) while at the same time using evocative language to spar with and challenge the ideas of belonging and connection and love. These poems invite the reader to contemplate what it means to come from somewhere, and how it feels to long for a place that isn’t home, but could be. They invite us to see the mundane as essential, and to see and celebrate the things that connect us to our identity. The title of this collection is apt; like a nail gun, these poems violently pierce, but do so in service to building something sturdy and sheltering, and every one is a love letter to the dance that makes us who we are.
– Sherry Frost, Educator
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Out of Denver, Colorado, Paulie comes “from below” and rises to join our parade of writers. A two time National Poetry Slam finalist, Paulie Lipman is a loud Jewish Queer poet, performer, and writer. His work has appeared in the anthology ‘We Will Be Shelter’ (Write Bloody Publishing) as well as The Emerson Review, Drunk In A Midnight Choir, Voicemail Poems, pressure gauge, and Prisma (Zeitblatt Fur Text & Sprache).
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The Promethean Clock or Love Poems of a Wooden Boy
“These poems are a way of telling you what I saw, at least the remnants of those things. My poems have codes in them. They have forms that have long since lost favor. They have rhyme schemes and syllabic structures of old and new places. They have formlessness that abides by current trends, but embraces none of them wholesale. They are, as Milton once wrote, poems that attempt to champion the unnamable and the indeterminable. Mine are the equations of empty sets and irrational numbers as much as they are of ritual and nostalgia. I have decided not to appease all critique. I am at rest, because the people I trust most have said that there is something in them, something of where I am from, what became of my home, and what is becoming in the world. And for the first time in a long time I’m not ashamed of my part in this story. With all that I am, let these poems be a part of my apology to the world and to my beloveds, an apology for each moment as it passes to the next…”
~from the preface
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Student Anthologies
Tiempo/Oolkil – Now is the Time: Voces Summer Writing Institute Anthology 2018
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Are you ready for the Weekly Write?
Starting next Sunday, January 6 2019, follow this site for a new featured work of writing every week.
The Weekly Write will post a variety of poetry and prose. Each week, read our new addition and if you like it and share it, it may be featured in the 2019 Swimming with Elephants Print Anthology.
The twenty pieces with the most “likes” and “shares” get a spot in our 2019 anthology, so don’t be shy about promoting the work you like, especially if it is your own work.
If you would like to learn more about our yearly anthology, click here to check out Parade: Swimming with Elephants Publications Anthology 2018 for the current low price of $7.95 plus free shipping through Amazon Prime. This collection features a variety of poetry from around the world and would make a great addition to any poetry lovers collection.
Tune in next Sunday and every following Sunday until October 2019, for the Weekly Write.
Get our 2018 Anthology for only $7.95
Due to a successful fundraising event during the month of December, we are able to pass on our good fortune to our amazing readers.
Our goal as a publisher of predominately poetry collections is to get the words of our writers into the hands of our readers, and what better way than to lower the price!
We have many new publications released during 2018, including chapbooks by Paulie Lipman, Bassam, and Manual Montoya, and full length poetry collections by Wil Gibson, Mary & Aja Oishi, and Beau Williams. But this particular anthology contains work by all of them and many more. Get a wonderful sampling of what Swimming with Elephants Publications does and the work we produce and then find more books by these authors from us or other small presses.
Swimming with Elephants Publications Chapbook Open Call 2018 Has Closed
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC has closed submissions for our Chapbook open call in 2018.
We had a great submission experience with more than double the submissions of previous years. Our judges are working diligently to read all the of the wonderful manuscripts and make their decisions.
The three manuscripts chosen for publication in 2019 will be announced in January 2019. Please stay tuned and follow along for the announcement of our chosen manuscripts and up coming publication information.
We have an excited 2019 planned for Swimming with Elephants Publications, including the creation of the Weekly Write, new releases from our Parade of Poets (including Jessica Helen Lopez and SaraEve Fermin), and the continuation of our yearly anthology, Parade. We will once again run an Open Call for Chapbook is the fall of 2019, as well as be looking for future features for our Weekly Write and artwork submission. Keep an eye on the website for upcoming Submission Calls.
Currently, we are looking for Prose Submissions for an upcoming anthology focusing on Eating Disorders. If you have a story regarding Eating Disorders, whether it is a personal telling or an observation of another or even a commentary regarding the issue, please consider submitting it for the upcoming anthology. Find more information on our Submittable Page. Chosen submission receive publication, two contributor copies of the anthology, and the ability to purchase the anthology at publisher cost for the lifetime of the publication.
We are also seeking artwork for two upcoming publications in the Spring. We do not charge a submission fee for artwork and chosen artwork will be purchase from the artist. Please see our Submittable Page for more information on what we are looking for and how to submit.
Swimming with Elephant Soiree THIS SATURDAY!
Make your way down to Tortuga Gallery this Saturday to join us in celebrating five years of publishing under Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC.
An size donation will get you in the door, but a minimum 5$ donation will get you a SwEP Swag bag.
We will have a limited supply of books for sale at the event. All available books will be priced at 10$ each or three for 20$. Bring cash or credit card (a 1$ service charge will be added for credit card purchases). If you want to be sure to have a certain book signed by one of our performing poets, you are encouraged to purchase it prior to the event and bring it along.
Many of our poets will also be bringing their personal crafts to sell at the event so come get some shopping done for the holidays.
Poetry Performers include:
Bassam, Emily Bjustrom, Matthew Brown, Courtney Butler, SaraEve Fermin, Kat Heatherington, Zachary Kluckman, Manuel Gonzalez, Sarita Sol Gonzalez, Jessica Helen Lopez, Kristian Macaron, Gina Marselle, Manuel Montoya, Mary Oishi, Liza Wolff Francis
Musical Guests:
Kai Ocean
Marion Carrillo
Bring Food!
This is a pot luck, bring your own beverage event (Yes, alcoholic beverages are okay, just be responsible).
Please attempt to bring reusable plates/cups etc. View Tortuga’s Zero Waste Goals for more information.
Seeking Prose on the Subject of Eating Disorders
Seeking Non-Fiction Prose for the second edition of the anthology Light as a Feather which focuses on eating disorders.
Assumptions about eating disorders have historically fallen upon the shoulders of feminine presenting individuals with white skin, typically suffering from anorexia. However, the reality is much more complex, touching on people from every race, creed, socio-economic background, gender identity, sexual orientation, with each person standing at different crossroads of privilege and marginalization. We still discuss eating disorders in hushed voices, with shame and confusion cracking our words. It is the intent of this publication to shed a little more light on this subject.
This is where YOU come in!
We want to know your story. You do not have to be a professional writer to be considered for this work. We are looking specifically for nonfiction prose, with special consideration for humor, confessions, and memoir.
You can write about anything that comes to mind, as long as it is authentic to your experience. It doesn’t have to be “heavy” or overly serious, unless you want/need it to be; we are looking for raw, honest pieces and believe that you would contribute a deep and meaningful facet to the larger story of hope and resilience.
Also, different view points are welcome. Perhaps you have lived with a person experiencing an eating disorder and have a story to tell or maybe you are in the medical field and have an introspective on the disorder you would like to share.
- All submissions will be done through Submittable. Find the form by clicking here.
- Please submit 1-3 pieces of short prose (3000 words max).
- Please title your work and edit to the best of your ability for stronger consideration.
- Include a brief cover letter and bio in the space provided by Submittable.
- Writers are encouraged to use their real names. However, pen names will be accepted. No submissions will be accepted under “Anonymous.”
- Contributors will be given two contributor copies and the ability to purchase more copies at publisher cost.
- All proceeds are donated to a non-profit TBD
- We would love to broaden the view of eating disorders, so if you feel your story is unusual/atypical, it might be just want we are seeking.
The first edition of Light as a Feather was published in 2014. It’s described as- “With themes centered on eating disorders and mental health issues, many may hesitate to pick up this collection, expecting either a morose and somber compendium of struggle, or perhaps thinking there is nothing here they can relate to. They would be wrong on both counts. Light as a Feather is a potent and surprisingly gentle assemblage of voice and experience threaded together with a delicacy that almost belies the harsh, at times almost violent, brutality of body image, external perspectives and self doubt that go hand in hand with the issues being discussed.” For reference, please check out the first edition of Light as a Feather,available through all major bookstores/distributors. Click here to find it on Amazon.
Soon to be discontinued….
Every year, Swimming with Elephants Publications reviews our bookshelves for books which will be discontinued in the new year. This year, we will announce two books, with discontinuation dates of December 15, 2018.
If you would like to get your hands on either of these fantastic publications, order today or pick up a copy at the Swimming with Elephants Soiree.
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Cunt. Bomb.
A Chapbook by Jessica Helen Lopez
Available at Amazon for $10.95.
Available at Bookworks ABQ $10.00
A little from the foreword:
These precious jewels of epiphany continue to guide me as I uncover for myself women, gender-identified women and allies who advocate for equality, who fight against the oppression and pillage against women and of course who dive whole-heartedly into the vastness and mysterious complexity of unbridled sexuality. Yes, I love the cunt. Yes, I have one. And yes, I will continue to use the word because it is not disparaging but rather has been wrangled into submission for hundreds of years; only to be used against women and girls as a tool for abuse and means of brutal capitulation. For those who recoil at the thought of the title of this humble chapbook, I invite you to sit and listen/read for a bit. The poems included are but a small journey stitched together to create my life as a mother, daughter, sister, poet, and woman of color. Woman. Cunt.
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Light as a Feather
Available at Amazon for $12.95.
Hear what is being said about Light as a Feather:
“Light as a Feather transports readers into the bleak landscape experienced by so many of us who suffer from eating disorders and depression. We are swept into an exploration of bones clinking “like wind chimes,” “blubber like chain mail,” “nights so black,”and “making friends with bullets.” These poems are raw and revealing yet communicate hope through perseverance and love.”
Lucretia E. Penny Pence
Associate Professor of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies
“I ate today.” This simple statement, which opens the poem Falling, is the perfect embodiment of the simple necessity and stark power of the work contained in this collection. With themes centered on eating disorders and mental health issues, many may hesitate to pick up this collection, expecting either a morose and somber compendium of struggle, or perhaps thinking there is nothing here they can relate to. They would be wrong on both counts. Light as a Feather is a potent and surprisingly gentle assemblage of voice and experience threaded together with a delicacy that almost belies the harsh, at times almost violent, brutality of body image, external perspectives and self doubt that go hand in hand with the issues being discussed. The authors included herein have strewn themselves in vulnerable and fearless positions throughout these pages to speak truth, empathy and encouragement to anyone reading and frankly the result is an impressive, urgent and altogether timely message. Sometimes the simple act of feeding yourself makes you a lighthouse. There are shipwrecks within these pages, and for every one of them, there is a survivor hugging the coastline of their own body, holding a lifeline and refusing the sea’s invitation to determine their shape.
Zachary Kluckman
Author of Some of it is Muscle and Animals in Our Flesh
The writers in this collection range from poets who have published more than one book, to high school students just embarking on their writing careers, but they all write about these difficult subjects–depression, eating disorders–with passion and honesty. This book, which showcases human experience carefully crafted into poems, ends up being more uplifting than bleak, and reminds us that “everybody wears beauty exquisitely.” An important collection!
Lisa Chavez
Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico
The Haps
Save the Date: December 15, 2018
This December recognizes five years of publishing and we have a lot to celebrate: We have a new anthology, Parade, a new logo, SwEP Swag, a new commercial and a photo slideshow.
Join us for the festivities on December 15th at Tortuga Gallery from 6-9. We will incorporate music and poetry throughout the night beginning at 6pm and going until 9pm, with a toast at 7:30pm.
Any SwEP authors who would like to perform, please contact me. We really just want to have you there. You will be able to pick up your SwEP Swag and contributor copies of our anthology.
Keep your eyes on the website and facebook page for more information on our upcoming festivities.
Open Call for Chapbooks
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC (SwEP) is hosting a chapbook open call to find some fresh work and new voices from October 15-December 15, 2018. Click here for more information.
From our submissions, our guest judges will choose three for publication. All three chosen publications will receive the same award of 25 author copies. All our publications include an ISBN, Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC contract, and creative control over cover and production. For more information on what SwEP provides its authors or to see a general contract, please email us.
New Releases
- Unease at Rest by Wil Gibson
- Pina Bausch by by Werner Lambersy, Jack Hirschman (Translator), Jami Proctor-Xu (Illustrator)
- Rock Paper Scissor by Mary Oishi and Aja Oishi
- BEKIMI I NËNËS / A Mother’s Blessing by Jusuf Gërvalla (Author), Jack Hirschman (Translator), Idlir Azizaj (Translator)
Current Projects
Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC currently has its hands full with various projects:
- We are working diligently on the submission process for our Open Call for Chapbooks, creating a new edition of Light as a Feather, wrapping up two publications: Diaspora and Parade, planning our Anniversary party, and organizing and reading submissions for the Weekly Write 2019.
Support and Donations
There are many ways to support our authors: Purchase books from our poets, review books on websites and in print journals, see our poets perform when they come to a town near you, interact with our website and Facebook page, or send them compliments and applause.
Supporting our writers and events also helps support our press, but as a not for profit, growth can be difficult. Consider supporting our press by purchasing anthologies, donating through our website (via PayPal), or placing orders for multiple copies directly through us rather than a major book distributor. All our contact information is available on our website.
As always we encourage interaction with our website and Facebook page, as well as welcoming reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other book review places. Please contact us with any questions or queries.
Swimming with Elephants Publications at the NM/AZ Book Awards
We are proud to announce that two of our publications are finalist in the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards.
Kat Heatherington’s collection, the bones of this land, winner of our 2017 chapbook competition, is a finalist in the category of best Arizona Poetry Collection.
Rock Paper Scissors, a collaboration between Mary Oishi and her daughter Aja Oishi, is a finalist in the category of New Mexico Poetry Collections.
Those of us at Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC are thrilled and excited to represent these authors. We will be cheering them on at the award ceremony and wish them the best of luck in the competition.
Learn more about Kat Heatherington and her publications here.
Learn more about Mary & Aja Oishi’s collection here.
Please help support our poets by purchasing their collections. Please support our press by donating to our Paypal.
Keep your eyes peeled for our Five Year Anniversary Anthology Release Party, coming in December 2018.
All publications are available at all major book sellers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell Books.
Swimming with Elephants Publications 