The fall 2010 issue features poetry by Padma Thornlyre, Richard Taylor, Helene Swarts, Ethan Stebbins, Anele Rubin, Zara Raab, Glenn Morazzini, Sally Molini, Matt W. Miller, David McCann, Wade Linebaugh, Renée Hearrin, Allen Fowler, Hope Coulter, Michael Danahy, Matthew M. Cariello and David Budbill. Artwork by Rebecca Pendel and William Teunis Paarlberg. Reviews by Annie Seikonia, Mark Schorr, Megan Grumbling and Thom Dawkins.
In Memoriam
Jack Powers
1937 – 2010
Founder of Stone Soup Poetry Readings
Boston, Massachusetts nearly forty years ago
Poems
Creation
by Wade Linebaugh These are the final nights of spring. A man feels God under the hot stars, when he must take fistfuls of grass just to stay
fall fugue
by Wade Linebaugh the pebble in my mouth tastes like chalk, an acrid river-rock culled from the bed of earth’s strangest river. i sympathize with
“all the tired horses in the sun how’m i s’posed to get any riding done?”
by Wade Linebaugh Being a strange boybird, Icarus is too busy to take Mom & Dad’s calls & a little girl eats wagon wheels covered in
To Whom
by Anele Rubin To whom can you say the wind suddenly stopped, the evening clouds were tinted pink, the mare laid her heavy head on my shoulder?
Reading Your Way into the Ocean of a Book
by Hope Coulter For the first few lines of a book you’re aware of the text, the black on cream, the building of sentences out of words. The
Before Arriving
by Sally Molini Walking to my friends’ place, I know the evening will be a series of stock visuals: Humberto tossing salad, me slicing bread
Dirty Snow
by Renée Hearrin The cedar cape drips its milk-white mask, quaint boucléd roof and icicle lace, patchy wet windows, porch and walk to muddled
Take To Water
by Renée Hearrin Wilted in the heat, the limp ray petals of a Shasta daisy hang in defeat. Underneath the brittle back yard, its roots search as
The Window
by Matthew M. Cariello Then I knew one word, birthright’s rudiment uttered in hunger’s warm room. The sense of me without sense. I would have
Foundation
by Matthew M. Cariello Clutter in the vestibule where steps buckled and mortar cracked. I watched my father crawl into the dark beneath the stoop
Ashes
by Matt W. Miller Tell me the pocketknife that was left over from a dream. Tell me about black bread, pork and beans, stains of cigarettes on
Pi
by Ethan Stebbins If I could place a value on the entire coast of Maine or account in full for the people I love or even approximate my emotional
Yesterday’s War
by Helene Swarts Heat languishes, tired of teasing strength from stone. Huge birds tear at the heart of memory; every headline a crucible, every
In The Dark
by Helene Swarts My dreams are burning like cartoons on fire the characters run through the frames abandoning form calling out to me to leap
Dreaming of North Korea
by David McCann Hours, it seemed, motorcycle riding through Korea’s countryside, first time I ever spoke Korean in a dream. “Going South. Know
High Note
by David McCann “So C me,” he’d call to Judge Moon As he tried once again to tune His Greene Stradivarius, A truly hilarious Knock-off by Bobby
Climbs My Limbs
by Michael Danahy I am a tree Of blood Rooted in skin. My brain Branches blood and nerve. Touch me: touch skin to skin. We will comb The birds
The Fugitive Oil for James Wright
by Michael Danahy The Monongahela, that flammable river, for once threatened to prove its invisible light. The ghosts of sons of miners’
American Cuneiform
by Glenn Morazzini He kneels on a prayer rug of sand, in a crumpled kurta, hands tied behind his back, looking up at the lesser gods, his
Butterfly Effect: Watching The News On TV While Arguing With My Wife
by Glenn Morazzini According to chaos theory the world is in a state of dynamic flux where all things are inter–connected,
Blunted Night
by Allen Fowler Mice thwart their teeth with what wood holds in the walls, answer to a boning itch, question to a witnessing ear. Poison has been
As Might Love
by Allen Fowler Pierce and ugly caw embroider an edge which parries wind as might love, so so softly that the whole moves as if through water.
Break Wake Routine
by Allen Fowler Each day a question stumps us from the rich dark drama of night, what to eat mostly, what package to wear. Our constant doing
Cui Dono? after Catullus
by Richard Taylor To whom am I to give these poems, polished, erased, smoothed again and fitted into murmured line, the limb and sinew of
Carnal Knowledge
by Richard Taylor I want to see the wounds I’ve dealt and show the scars I wear. I would point out the faintest outline of a footprint on the
Mavka #6. The Kiss
by Padma Thornlyre I lie alone. Sappho And thus, under a fat moon in February, the wheel turns, our failures at last not wrong- turns,
Mavka #8.
by Padma Thornlyre I am not so full of wine and elk medallions grilled rare that I forsake utterance. Lichens, too, have filled me up, near
What You See Is What You Get
by David Budbill Thoughts never twisty. Confucius, The Analects Grace Paley said once, in a hand written note to me, We write big,
Contradictions
by David Budbill Zen monks like it quiet. Kuang-shan Lao Tzu said, Beautiful words are not true. True words are not beautiful. I think
Po Chü-i and His Poetry Karma
by David Budbill Poor Po Chü-i cursing his poetry karma while he brushes out another poem. He, the Taoist devotee, disciple of silence, seeking
Po Chü-i Believed in Idleness
by David Budbill Po Chü-i believed in idleness — we might call it “staring at the wall” — that waiting, listening for the words of the poem to
Motel Noir
by Zara Raab In one corner, a chair; near the door, another, cover in mottled blue, twin beds like box cars jutting into the room, beds crisply
Poet Biographies
Padma Thornlyre
resides in the canyon village of Kitteredge, Colorado. His long poem, Mavka, in 51 parts, will appear in 2011.
Richard Taylor
was educated at Dartmouth College, Kiel University (Germany), and Yale. He was a member of the 1964 Olympic Nordic Ski Team. For many years he
Helene Swarts
is a former teacher. She believes that poetry can help us find ourselves and each other. The idyll of Peaks Island, Maine, where she lives, is
Ethan Stebbins
his poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2008, Poetry, The Hudson Review, The Dark Horse and others. In 2007 – 08 he served as the New
Anele Rubin
poetry has appeared in Amoskeag, Great River Review, The Midwest Quarterly, River Styx, Bitter Oleander, Rhino, Potomac Review, Paterson Literary
Zara Raab
poems and reviews appear (or will soon) in Poetry Flash, West Branch, Arts & Letters, Nimrod, Spoon River Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry
Glenn Morazzini
won the 2007 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, the 2008 Paumanok Poetry Award, A Martin Dibner Poetry Fellowship, and a 2011 Amy Clampitt Residency
Sally Molini
is co-editor for Cerise Press (www.cerisepress.com), an international online journal based in the US and France. Her work has appeared or is
Matt W. Miller
is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry and has published work in Harvard Review, Memorious, Third Coast, and DMQ Review. His first book,
David McCann
is the Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and director of the Korea
Wade Linebaugh
earned his B.A. in English at the University of Southern Maine in 2009 and is currently teaching and pursuing his M.A. at Lehigh University in
Renée Hearrin
traded red clay for rocky coast eleven years ago when she moved from North Carolina to Maine. After a twenty-three year career as a professional
Allen Fowler
is an Adult Education Instructor working for a non-profit agency in Western Massachusetts where he lives with his twelve year old daughter. In
Hope Coulter
a native of New Orleans, she grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana, graduated from Harvard University, and now lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her
Michael Danahy
with the British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf of Mexico this past summer, he decided to revisit “The Fugitive Oil,” written after a mere one
Matthew M. Cariello
is a writer and teacher originally from New Jersey, currently living in Columbus, Ohio, where he is on the faculty of the English Department at
David Budbill
newest book of poems, Happy Life, will be published by Copper Canyon Press in September of 2011. He is the author of two other Copper Canyon
Artist Biographies
Reviewer Biographies
Annie Seikonia
Mark Schorr
currently serves as Executive Director of the Robert Frost Foundation in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His new manuscript is Sonnets and Songs of (I)
Megan Grumbling
serves as Reviews Editor for The Café Review. Her work is included in the 2010 edition of Best New Poets, published by the University of
Thom Dawkins
is an M.F.A. candidate at Chatham University, where he also serves as a poetry editor for The Fourth River literary journal. His poetry has been