Our Summer Issue for 2011 features American and Russian poets, including Bill Edmondson, Alicia Fisher, Jack Hirschman, Anselm Hollo, Kendall Merriam, Alexander Mironov, Harvey Mudd, Tom Pickard, Anzhelina Polonskaya, Aleksey Porvin among others. We are also please to showcase the work of artists Kyle Bryant, Matt Grubb and Michael Johnston and reviews about Farang, Almost A Remembrance: The Selected Shorter Poems of Jack McCarthy and Bathsheba Transatlantic done by Michael Macklin, Peter Manuel, and Zara Raab.
In Memoriam
Ira Cohen
February 3, 1935 — April 25, 2011
Poems
Called Back
by Lidija Dimkovska You called me back and I had to return. On the Peter Pan bus from New York to Amherst with 50 cents change clutched in my
For Ehren Watada
by Jack Hirschman This warring government having lost its people and having exposed its lies and its twists and turns of the knife in the back of
Hrant Dink
by Jack Hirschman Here truths Hrant Dink, here braves. In our grave mouths the light of his courage pulsates like deathless hearts beating
Janine Pommy – Vega 1942 – 2010
by Jack Hirschman How many inmates are weeping in their cells tonight, having got the word: Janine Pommy Vega has died. They adore her and
Flood Stage
by Richard Jackson Sometimes we are amazed to find that we are still alive. Sometimes we reduce the world to a single street and the street to
Sitting in Peaceful Lamplight
by Anselm Hollo reading a book on how to become a better person Zophiel the cat touches my leg and asks me “Why don’t you write a book about
African Gray Parrot With Brain The Size of A Walnut Understands A Numerical Concept Akin to Zero
by Anselm Hollo Yes my dear that may well be true but I do wish this pleasant early June evening breeze would evaporate all the terrible servants
The Pika
by Anselm Hollo So aren’t we all the trembling fawn or baby rat entering re – entering this terrifying place so place is it but time
To goad my friggin peers
by Tom Pickard Fuck the sonnet, I piss upon it And those who seek to launch A sinking reputation on it As though it were some talismanic
midwinter
by Tom Pickard the house empty a gust of sun and some bird thinks it spring I’ve just seen her on a vid the river in flood in a mis –
The riddle of a piece of string
by Tom Pickard at one end; sharp, penetrating, a sliver of steel slid between ribs to stake the heart, solid as a hangman’s knot, cruelly
objet trouvé
by Tom Pickard don’t get me wrong, neighbour, I just want your dog to stop shitting on my step. I may be dissing it, it could be your bitch. I’m
High in an Alpine Café
by Tom Pickard A small isolated café with a large empty car park overlooks a range of moorland tops that drop into a lush valley. Sausage rolls,
Homage
by Tom Pickard a stripper strokes the slope of her hip; Hokusai painting mount Fuji.
New Year’s Day 2010
by Tom Pickard the blizzard blown out a snow blower goes below sun white Watch Hill a growking raven groaks, my first – foot flying past
From Fiends Fell Journals
by Tom Pickard 6th November 2003 Worked at home until 2:30 pm; it was a struggle between appetite and attainment. Read a few Border Ballads. As
The Matriarch of Big Green for Gloria Witham
by Kendall Merriam The summers were good pay, weather, catches the two of you worked hard during the winter as school teachers earned more
The Empress of China for Helen Lee – Righter
by Kendall Merriam It’s high tide on an old coast your warriors and court await your orders across the earth knowing you have faced pain
The Classicist for Susan Connelly
by Kendall Merriam She changed my mind on the way home from Shakespeare’s summer place no political stance, no food riot just how much she
One Flew Over the Rainbow’s Nest
by Wayne Atherton Gay culture co – opted the rainbow, adopted Judy Garland, bought up all the tickets to every Cher concert, left us dull
. . . Then Huncke, Then Corso, Then Janine, Then Ira, Then . . . for Laki
by Wayne Atherton What of the unseen elder Outlaw rebel death bird Gazing out from red – rimmed watery eyes Fraught with
Outtakes and Non Sequiturs from a longer work still in progress
by Wayne Atherton On puddle top at Puddle Dock, a symphony of rain rings; the whipsnap of canvas mast on Gundalow Down at the docks at
Rabbit Year, Penelope
by Laura Behr The first notes, sung upside down, in a warbler’s song. Eyes closed. Moonlight stripped, throat full of love. Relief bracing,
Ledge
by Alicia Fisher Lovely is the wild impassive rise of the sun. The day boils and sings. I lean into its cusp. I am here. This new is enough.
Mail Payment To
by Alicia Fisher God only knows how many people leave sticky notes for their dead, Pens pressed against slump – shouldered memories. We
Where Do Sons Come From ?
by Alicia Fisher It was vengeance, hot and dove – soft, that brought you to the wide doomy edge, a lucid candle standing Godtall and
Geary and Gough — The day of the assassinations, November 27, 1978
by Bill Edmondson At St. Mary’s of the Assumption Under infrequent sun At certain times on certain days The shadow of a woman’s breast
Cupid’s Bullet
by Bill Edmondson The night I fell backward off the stool At Rancho Nicasio Bar And the owner suggested I get the hell out I gathered my bones
Harrison And Beale
by Bill Edmondson You’ve parked on the overpass Must get down to Beale Street Could take the long way around But the unmarked mouth of a
By Aleksey Porvin 5
Like March snow, you spend white until it thaws — dark patches, perhaps brightened by a pack of cigarettes — empty throw – away,
By Aleksey Porvin 4
Woods, too tired to walk into the white, did you not find a way to warm up to the blue amid the branches, wrapped round pines along a
By Aleksey Porvin 3
A storm cloud strikes a street with hail to mask despair (a passage to this earth with no choice in the air) ? The creation, liberty here,
By Aleksey Porvin 2
People roam the stalks searching for new life there, and each just talks and talks — as if all is prepared: among them all the chatter is
By Aleksey Porvin 1
It seems so far from whence it came, its two inscriptions barely made out by the eye at night — a vague sign on an avenue, hanging above the
By Andrei Sen-Senkov
00 – 00 In a black-walled museum a painting conceived. Its flowers grow with subtitles for those who don’t believe in Kandinsky’s botany.
Snow within
by Anzhelina Polonskaya But should they say that snow has fallen . . . Snow on the black battlements on the sidewalks that scream with the voices
Leaves
by Anzhelina Polonskaya Like lost children, the dry leaves on the mournful sidewalks wind around our legs. Could those fallen leaves ever find
Still Life with Potato Field
by Anzhelina Polonskaya Tell me, why is there war if not to leave buckles in lumps of clay ? The potato field sleeps. At night you can’t imagine
Alone in my room to Mother
by Anzhelina Polonskaya I’m in my room. Alone. Remnants of sleep stick to my eyelids, like flies. Window wells heave with cold snow — a
(in the middle of a conversation)
by Alexander Mironov . . . Hello, hello, I only hear you badly! — Goodness! I can’t see anything, though I’m glad to see and hear you. Change
BOA
by Alexander Mironov Horror, after many years, Will turn out to be less bitter, Like the boa constrictor embracing Your neck but feeling only
Alexander Mironov
by Alexander Mironov Do not dream of living outside language, even if the ground is so tongue – tied that everything that falls to earth
to Elena Shvarts
by Alexander Mironov Addressing You, When You in St. Peter’s Basilica Put out a candle Which is like the sword of pagan Saul, So hot a candle,
Benson, Arizona
by Harvey J. Baine barbecued emu, ostrich, pickled chicken eggs, wings and buffalo tongue at the Horse Shoe Cafe where Tammy Wynette and Nancy
Lessons in Astronomy
by Harvey J. Baine Without roses for the acrobats turning on themselves in the shape of trees at night mouths open on small spines curved hands
Astronomy 1
by Harvey Mudd I paid no mind to the wind and rain; the clouds, though, these I noticed for they drifted along the building tops, and obscured
Mortal remains
by Harvey Mudd Distant mountains, an ancient uplift of granites, snow capped, seen glancing past a woman who is silhouetted against a world that
On Disasters — After Seneca
by Harvey Mudd Disasters generally come around with a smug certainty of their place at the table. The beloved pet, the brindle cat, eaten by the
Reviews
Bathsheba Transatlantic
by Sarah Wetzel, Anhinga Press, 2010, 98 pages, paper, $17.00, ISBN: 978–1–934695–21–0 Buy the Book Reading the cover of
Almost A Remembrance: The Selected Shorter Poems of Jack McCarthy
Moon Pie Press, 2011, 75 pages, $10.00, ISBN: 978–1–4507–0741–1 Buy the Book If you’ve ever heard one of Jack McCarthy’s
Farang
by Peter Blair, Autumn House Press, 2009, 64 pages, paper, $14.95, ISBN: 978–1–932870–34–3 Buy the Book “Farang,” we
Poet and Translator Biographies
Wayne Atherton
Leo Yankevich
is an American poet and Translator and is the editor of New Formalist. He is a prolific translator, having rendered into English poems by
Andrew Wachtel
is Bertha and Max Dressler Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University, where he serves as dean of the Graduate School and director of
Tony Brinkley
has taught at the University of Maine since 1983. He is a graduate of Yale University (BA) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Ph.D.).
Peggy Reid
was born in Radstock, England. She has worked on translations of a variety of texts from history and the history of art to medical papers, from
Ainsely Morse
at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, he is a Ph.D. Candidate in Slavic Languages and Literatures: 19th and
Ljubica Arsovska
born in 1950 in Macedonia, she is editor – in – chief of the quarterly Kulturen zivot, the leading cultural magazine in Macedonia.
Andrei Sen-Senkov
is a Russian poet and writer, born in Tajikistan in 1968. He received a degree in medicine from Yaroslavl State Medical Academy. He has
Aleksey Porvin
is a contemporary Russian poet born in Leningrad. His poems can be found in Fogged Clarity, World Literature Today, SUSS, Cyphers, Action Yes,
Anzhelina Polonskaya
was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. Since 1998, she has been a member of the Moscow Union of Writers and in 2003, became a member
Tom Pickard
was born in Newcastle, England in 1946, left school at 14, and in 1964 co – organized the Morden Tower poetry readings, “a Golden Bloomsday
Harvey Mudd
is an American poet, writer, and self taught painter who left the U.S. for France in 2005 after becoming disillusioned with American culture and
Alexander Mironov
is a prominent Russian poet, the author of three books of poetry, and in 1981 was awarded the Andrey Bely Prize.
Kendall Merriam
was born and lives in Rockland, Maine where he is Poet Laureate.
Richard Jackson
teaches creative writing and poetry and humanities in the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga’s interdisciplinary honors program. He is the
Jack Hirschman
born in 1933. Lives in the North Beach district of San Francisco, where he is a member of the Union of Street Poets, a group that distributes
Alicia Fisher
resides in the Portland, Maine area with her husband and two children. Most recently, she won a full scholarship to attend the Stonecoast
Bill Edmondson
continues to teach for City College of San Francisco and has had poems recently published in, Fugue Literary Journal, Field Magazine, Margie: The
Lidija Dimkovska
was born in 1971 in Skopje, Macedonia. She attained a doctoral degree in Romanian literature in Bucharest where she worked as a lecturer of
Laura Behr
lives in Montgomery, Alabama. She is a psychotherapist, partner in HKM a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Neuroscience based consulting group to
Harvey J. Baine
has spent his adult years bouncing between Mississippi, Virginia, and Florida; currently residing in St. Augustine. At the University of North
Artist Biographies
Reviewer Biographies
Zara Raab
her most recent book is The Book of Gretel. Swimming the Eel is due out later this year. Her work appears in West Branch, Arts & Letters,
Peter Manuel
has been active in Portland, Maine’s poetry scene since the 80s. For five years, he hosted the now – defunct Geno’s Live Poets Society.
Michael Macklin
is a writer living in Portland, Maine. He is a poetry editor of The Café Review and earns his bread swinging a hammer.