Dikter

The prose poem is the literary sphinx, the literary chimera, minotaur, gryphon-part one thing, part another and at their best, they're magical, mythical. Fantastic Imaginary Creatures collects the best contemporary prose poems that demonstrate the potentiality and plasticity the form allows. Some of these poems have been previously published, and some are brand spanking new.

Through a welcome bundle of poetic correspondence with an international community of artists and poets, a seasoned North Carolina poet and spouse of a U.S. Marine (author of previous collections Uniform, Permanent Change of Station, and FORCES) shares intimate insights and observations on creating history, family, community, and art. "In her engagements with poets from Ireland to India, as well as U.S. military veterans and families, Lisa Stice is an ideal correspondent with art and history," says the publisher. "Stice introduces us to old words and new friends. With the flow and scrawl of her metaphorical pen, she delivers every poet's dream: accessible, illuminating conversations with our world-at-large-including our pasts, presents, and unfolding possibilities." Includes a special 3-prompt mini-section on how to write your own epistolary poems!

Offering brief snapshots into the author's experience growing up half black and half white, In Between My Bodies presents through screenplays, short answer questions, blog posts, and more. Uncomfortably relatable to some, an overreaction to others, In Between My Bodies interactively invites readers to examine the depth that just a few careless words, a symbol, or an expectation can hold.

"i was born from the body of a woman i have never met." DESOLATION is a look into the soul of someone who has never felt at home in their body. someone whose adoption shaped them in the worst ways. what it feels like to be misaligned with your own existence. and alienated from the concept of family. this book is for anyone who was adopted. for anyone with an ED. for anyone with body trauma. for those who don't feel like they belong anywhere, in this lifetime or in the next. for those who ache.

"Laura Isabela Amsel's Brief Campaign of Sting and Sweet explores the personal sting of a difficult father, breast cancer, and an unexpected divorce, as well as the more general sting of habitat loss and climate change, yet the sweet remains-horses and birds and flowers survive the squeeze of suburban development, and the poet's own travels and memories of travel begin to open the present up to new possibilities. Amsel distinguishes herself by her linguistic exuberance and craft, her risk-taking and her ear for nuance, for cadence and resonance. The poems in Brief Campaign achieve a complex and formal-if grief-shadowed-beauty."-Jon Davis, founder of the Institute of American Indian Arts' MFA Program and author of fourteen poetry collections, including Above the Bejeweled City and Fearless Now and Nameless"Laura Isabela Amsel's beautiful poems tap emotion like spiles in maple trunks. She knows the natural world like few do, shares her loot with us wing flutter by quiet slither before the inevitable bite. Her imagery transports the reader to a place one might only have in muscle memory. Amsel reminds us that we are all part of something larger and more layered than our self-made human boxes. An extraordinary collection worthy of rereading time and again." -Amanda Boyden, author of the international bestselling novels Pretty Little Dirty, Babylon Rolling, and the memoir I Got the Dog "In A Brief Campaign of Sting and Sweet, 'seeing sharpens / into sudden spectacle.' Laura Isabela Amsel's intrepid debut collection forages the open country of the heart, plucking out, in Auden's phrase, 'the images...that hurt and connect.' Here are poems that, 'hum in [the] mouth's hive'; that pulse with ecological attention; that search, sear, sting, supply the balm, and stitch open wounds into song. With this compelling book, Amsel claims her place as a poet in full possession of her gift." -Michael Pickard, Ph.D., Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Literature, Millsaps College

New England without winter is a blessing and a curse. ¡Gracias, El Niño!Here at Nixes Mate headquarters, graveyard for pirates, mutineers, and booze cruises, we're excited about our new books, and this issue which features fifteen new authors to Nixes Mate Review. Every year or so, we change the size of the Review and our books. Of course, we've always shunned the standard size of books and journals. This year is no exception. Who needs 6 x 9 when you can have 5.83 x 8.27! The Review is 6 5/8 x 10 1/4. Go figure.You must be asking yourself, why does that matter. It doesn't. Afterall, New England with or without winter heralds a new Spring. ¡Gracias, El Niño!

In a descent toward what might make our epoch sing in its most falsetto pitch, Vincenz troubles our ears by running a narrative script thru it to plumb its bottom. In a word, the theft of his own ear has felt its echo disguise upon disguise to make these poems carom off one another thence to settle into their proper end. Thieves' Canto is a return from any meta-beyond back into our world, or, "Present Patience." - t thilleman

In a wide range of lyrically rich poems, award-winning poet Jonathan Fink interrogates the perpetual mysteries and resonances at the convergence of national identity, historical influence, and personal experience.In Don’t Do It—We Love You, My Heart, Jonathan Fink interweaves a welcome range of poetic styles including expansive, narrative poems, shorter, lyrical poems, and intricate one-sentence poems that are sustained over multiple pages to deliver his most intimate collection to date. Charting changing national and personal landscapes, Fink’s writing explores such diverse subjects as growing up in West Texas at the conclusion of the Cold War; ekphrastic poems about the paintings of Goya, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art theft; the intuitive language he shares with his infant daughter on a quiet evening before she falls asleep; and the famous story of a suicide prevented on the George Washington Bridge—the jumper stayed by the man who tells him, “Don’t do it–we love you, my heart.” The imperative, urgent compassion conveyed in the stranger’s command thrums through all the poems in this collection, compelling the reader outward to deeper connections and lived empathy.

JLM Morton's Red Handed, is a remarkably original and impressive debut collection of poetry exploring the histories of cloth and dye, the natural world, and family. Morton skillfully combines personal recollections with political activism and care, her voice raw and her imagination fierce. These poems are exquisitely crafted, with a sensory language of colours and textures, Red Handed is vibrant and alive.

"Divorce isn't such a tragedy. A tragedy's staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce." Jennifer Weiner Amidst the tumult of divorce, a haven unexpectedly emerges through the tapestry of poignant poems that weave through the threads of unraveling knots. Initiated in the initial optimism of a fourteen-year marriage, the journey navigates challenges of relocation, cultural adaptation, parenting, and home-building. However, the latter seven years unveil a bleaker narrative, prompting a crucial reassessment. These verses delve into profound contemplation on the essence of love, from the exuberance of beginnings to the heartbreak of divorce, particularly when children are involved. As the decision to part ways is made, societal expectations are challenged, advocating for a nuanced understanding of separation without assigning blame. The poems encapsulate a fifteen-year odyssey, from the intoxicating allure of another's being to a profound respect for the essence of love-a commitment to an ideal rather than an inflexible reality. In the process of divorce, the author discovers solace in his poems while embarking on a journey to rediscover inner light and remain open to future relationships. This collection dismantles the fairy tale notion of happily ever after, offering a raw and honest exploration of the complexities woven into the fabric of love and marriage.

David Calogero Centorbi is from Detroit, Michigan. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and is the author of Landscapes of You and Me (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) and After Falling into Disarray (Daily Drunk Press, 2021). This book won the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2023.

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is a publisher, critic, eco-activist, impresario, puppeteer, and artist living in N.Y.C. He is author of nineteen books of verse, including Blue Lyre from Dos Madres Press, Party Everywhere from Xanadu, and Doppelgängster from MadHat Press. He is a recipient of the Kathy Acker Award for both writing and publishing. His work is included in Best American Poetry for 2023. The former publisher of Cover Magazine, The Underground National, he now publishes Live Mag! This book won the James Tate Poetry Prize 2023.

Anne Caldwell is a freelance writer, lecturer and editor. She currently works for the Open University and as an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund. Her latest collection of prose poetry, "Alice and the North", was published by Valley Press in 2020. Her three previous collections are "Slug Language" (Happenstance, 2008), "Talking with the Dead" (Cinnamon Press, 2011), and "Painting the Spiral Staircase" (Cinnamon Press, 2016). In 2022, she edited a book of essays on prose poetry (with Oz Hardwick) entitled "Prose Poetry in Theory and Practice" (Routledge, 2022). She also edited the "Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry" (Valley Press) with Oz Hardwick. Poems appear in Spelt Magazine, Poetry Wales, Ink Sweat and Tears, And Other Poems, The Rialto, Axon (Australia), and in international anthologies. This chapbook won the James Tate Poetry Prize 2023.

How do you summarize poetry? How do you summarize a life? Ducker explores these questions in this moving ode to the human experience. Divided into five parts and themes, with each part exploring a different stage in life, this is a poetry collection with a distinctive voice. Ducker has a nostalgic and witty style that will resonate with readers from all walks of life.

"Luis Miguel Aguilar's work is a conversation, between the past and the present, between the educated and the lay person, between useless details and essentials, between erudite data and vital impulses. It is not a spur of the moment conversation, but one that arises from the serenity of an extended, long-term approach, tying up loose ends and giving rise to complete, complex and exalted theories." -Juan Manuel Gómez "Aguilar's poetry is unlike any other from Mexico in recent decades. Perhaps such a deliberately isolated position is even arrogant. It is a superior option in contemporary Mexican literature." -José Joaquín Blanco"There are poets who are born mature, broad-browed and clear of vision. Luis Miguel Aguilar is one of them. Each book is a gift full of surprises, riddles and enigmas that invite the reader to reread, piece by piece, to savour them: there is an erudite, cultured, referential voice; then there is a more melodic, simple voice that recites ballads and popular songs; and finally there is the intimate monologue, which deals with the familiar terroir and tries to decipher the meaning of life, with all its furies and its sorrows." -Arturo Dávila"His is a work and a voice that, as part of contemporary Mexican poetry, gives it weight and horizons that cannot be refuted. As a reader, I am grateful for this 'difficult minute' that Luis Miguel Aguilar has had to live through, which he says is between the vehement minute and the cowardly minute, adding: 'poetry is the difficult minute'." -José Javier Villarreal

With a new cover design, Haiku is an expert introduction and celebration of one of the most beautiful and accessible forms of poetry in the world. Haiku--seventeen-syllable poems that evoke worlds despite their brevity--have captivated Japanese readers since the seventeenth century. Today the form is practiced worldwide and has become established as part of our common global heritage. This beautiful traditionally hand-bound volume presents new English translations of classic poems by the four great masters of Japanese haiku--Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki--accompanied by both the original Japanese and a phonetic transcription.

all things small is a book of poems that speak to marriage, divorce, dementia, grief and all the small treasures that mark a life. Divided into five parts, the collection takes its readers on an emotional journey that reverberates with honesty, depth and familiarity. Sticky with the juice of jealousy, fragrant with lust, tasting of sorrow, and aching with tenderness, these poems invite the reader into the speaker's home, gardens, and dinner table to rejoice in the beauty within.

Fusing a Fragmented Soul is a transformational memoir about the return to wholeness after trauma. Honest, raw and inspirational, it's a poetic retelling of abuse spanning from childhood to early adulthood - and the liberating journey through recovery.Shayleen Muzi brings awareness to what happens behind closed doors - the things people often don't want to see. Through poetry, she openly shares the pain of abuse, self-loathing, anxiety, bullying and addiction. If you currently feel alone in your suffering, you will feel understood, hopeful and inspired to follow the path to self-healing. Fusing a Fragmented Soul is a beautiful and loving invitation to take back your power, self-love and self-worth.This poetry book for self-healing explores topics including: Getting over childhood traumaCultivating self-love for your inner childEmotional abuse self-helpLeaving abusive relationshipsShadow work self-carePersonal transformation

'When the Mask Slips...' by Emma Veilwood is a heartfelt dive into the silent battles against loneliness and self-doubt. It's a book of poems for anyone who's felt the weight of the world, offering a hand to hold on the road to healing. Here, we celebrate the brave moments of showing our true selves and finding strength. These pages whisper a simple, powerful message: you're not alone, your story matters, and your mental health is important.

Heshmat Tayeb, a poet deeply rooted in the rich cultural and natural landscape of Baghlan, Afghanistan, presents his latest poetic collection, "Nardbane Mozha" written in Persian. Born in 1950, Tayeb's poetry is a reflection of his intimate connection with the land, its people, and the diverse dialects and ideas that have shaped his artistic expression. Influenced by his father, Ibrahim Hairat, a renowned poet of the constitutional era, Tayeb's poetry is a testament to his lifelong dedication to the craft."Nardbane Mozha" is a journey through the imaginative and artistic realms of Tayeb's mind. The book is divided into two parts, with the first featuring a selection of "Ghazal" poems that showcase Tayeb's mastery in weaving together vivid imagery, proverbs, and unique linguistic elements. His use of uncommon words and phrases adds a fresh dimension to the poetic landscape, inviting readers to explore new terrains of expression.The second part of the book is dedicated to "Couplets," highlighting the condensed energy and creativity that characterize Tayeb's work. His precise and beautiful use of proverbs and similes in the semantic decoration of his compositions demonstrates his skill as a poet. The style of equation, an artistic combination of allegory is prominently featured, showcasing the elegance of Tayeb's poetic perceptions.Published by Barmakids Press, "Nardbane Mozha" is a must-read for anyone seeking to immerse themselves in the world of Afghan poetry and experience the lyrical beauty of Heshmat Tayeb's work.

In Glass Shadows, B. A. Mazur invites readers on a journey through the tapestry of human emotion, exploring the themes of longing, loss, and the transformative power of hope. With a unique blend of eloquence and vulnerability, Mazur weaves together poetry that resonate deeply with the complexities of the human experience.This collection is a poignant exploration of the shadows that linger in the corridors of the heart. Through carefully crafted verses, Mazur delves into the intricate dance of emotions, capturing the essence of yearning, the ache of separation, and the inevitable fractures that time can impose.Glass Shadows is a testament to the enduring power of faith and the transformative nature of hope, reminding us that even in the midst of shattered dreams, there is the potential for a beautiful mosaic of new beginnings. This book will resonate with anyone who has grappled with the complexities of love, loss, and the unwavering hope that emerges from the shadows.

This is a delightful book, one as quirkily insightful as it is entertaining.- Kirkus Reviews Little Data turns like an Alfa Romeo racing Formula One. Here, says the title, take a nut of an idea then squeeze it until the juice comes out. Each bit of data here is extracted, transformed, crushed, then palpated back to life. Who knew so much love could be drawn from airports and backpacks, obstacle courses and salami? Schaberg and Yakich are excellent drivers and take the turns with mad skill - a high-speed Dickinson, an autobahn Basho, a freeway Rimbaud.- NICOLE WALKER, author of Processed Meats In this glossary of contemporary terms and concepts, deftly and delightfully defamiliarized, the authors reveal an uncanny ability to zoom in on the details of modernity and consider them in such a way that the everyday becomes once again miraculous.- MATTHEW VOLLMER, author of All of Us Together in the End Against certainty and smug quantification, Little Data resists the banal commodification of contemporary parenting manuals. By exploring the humility of being human, the sordid failures of our idealisms, and the insoluble paradox of choice, these mini-essays remind us that although test results and quizzes haven't made people more legible to one another, children still can.- ALINA STEFANESCU, author of Every Mask I Tried On CHRISTOPHER SCHABERG is the Director of Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis. His most recent books are Adventure: An Argument for Limits (Bloomsbury, 2023), Fly-Fishing (Duke University Press, 2023), and Pedagogy of the Depressed (Bloomsbury, 2022). MARK YAKICH is the Gregory F. Curtin S.J., Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans. His most recent books are Poetry: A Survivor's Guide (Bloomsbury, 2022), Football: An Object Lesson(Bloomsbury, 2022), and Spiritual Exercises (Penguin, 2019). Product Details: Copyright: Christopher Schaberg & Mark Yakich (Standard Copyright License)Publisher: Red Flag PressPublished: March 2024Language: EnglishPages: 108Binding: Perfect BoundInterior Ink: Black & white textDimensions (inches): 8.5x5.5ISBN: 978-1-73781-642-3

Poetry In Motion Vol.1 leaves the door ajar to enter into the creative of Neal Sellers. With poetry, rhyme, and song, the Author elicits the gamut of emotions and feelings with musings of love, desire, acrimony, hope, happiness, sadness, surprise, guilt, and pride.

Mitchell's verses guide you through the labyrinth of human emotions as you turn each page, painting vivid landscapes of introspection and self-discovery. You'll discover a delicate balance between vulnerability and strength within the lines of his poetry. Mitch navigates the complexities of existence with truth, rawness, and profound insight. He invites everyone to explore the interplay of light and shadow, love and loss, crafting verses that resonate with the flow of each life experience. This collection serves as a sanctuary where readers can find inspiration and the gentle reassurance that they are not alone in their journey. Mitch writes poems that are not just words on paper; they are windows into the depths of the human soul, inviting you to peer into the heart of shared emotions and collective experiences. Join Mitchell in this exploration of the poetic realm, where every stanza is an invitation to reflect, feel, and embrace the beauty of the written word.

This is a true book regarding the three essentials of life: faith, family, and friends. As such, my daughter as well as two of my friends have either poem and/or prose selections included. Additionally, several of my favorite passages from God's Word are shared as He calls me friend and loves me unconditionally. Value is given to the people and things that matter.

The first comprehensive English-language collection of one of the most important voices in contemporary Ukrainian literature, a collection of poems about the region's history of violence as seen through geography, myth, and city life. Yuri Andrukhovych, one of the most significant voices in contemporary Ukrainian literature, began his career as a poet, producing three collections and two separately published poem cycles in the 1980s and 1990s, the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period, a time of great political change and artistic revolution. Set Change: Selected Poems presents for the first time in English comprehensive selections from all three collections and both cycles. In modern Ukrainian letters, Andrukhovych occupies a position similar to the literary giant Nikolai Gogol. While his influence is broad and significant, he is constantly reinventing himself as a writer: his work represents everything playful, free-spirited, and new, and epitomizes all the most original aspects of Ukrainian literature. The poems collected here showcase the poet's prolonged quest for a representation of--and response to--the region's history of violence. In this quest Andrukhovych explores various settings and themes of geography, investigates the shifting borders of Eastern Europe, and invokes a gamut of myths and fantastical elements set in the territory of present-day Ukraine. The cornerstone of his poems is a deep fascination with the idea of the city. Andrukhovych's vivid descriptions lend themselves to his investigations of the carnivalesque and the grotesque, two of the city's most significant aspects. The poet's deep interest in the baroque, his obsession with verbal play and irony, the elegiac mode, the many hidden as well as overt allusions to other literary works and writers, and the poet's need for textual experimentation are those elements that make his poems arresting, timely, and perpetually fascinating. (Translated by the award-winning duo of John Hennessy and Ostap Kin, whose work on this project has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts.)

I never thought about writing a book. One day, while in my LLV, God instructed me to take out my pen and paper and begin writing. That was the beginning. From then on, I write the words He tells me to, none are my own. This book is a collection of poems about personal experiences in my life and some that are written for others. These poems are about hope, forgiveness, kindness, understanding and love. They are also about fears and failures yet always coming back to God's love and forgiveness. I hope this affects everyone who reads this as it has the friends, family and strangers that I have read these to. I may not know until I reach heaven who these words have helped, but I know that I wrote all of them because God told me to. May the love and peace of our God and Almighty Savior bless and keep you forever. I have been a mail carrier in the New Mexico Permian Basin for over six years. I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic Faith and was taught to serve God above all else. I was blessed with the perfect parents for me. I have received more blessings than I can count and deserve. Going to heaven is my only goal. My pen name was bestowed upon by Scott from KLOVE's Scott and Kelli Show.

This book, The Lone Man Near the Window, is like an identity to the experiences of a keen family person in his/her lonesome moments. It is not only about the poet's life, lessons, thoughts rather an extension of you, me and all sensitive persons who in real face, feel and resemble such phases narrated in each individual poetry.This piece of art can't be absorbed by an one go reading. Though it is adorned with very simple words yet has deep impacting topics orchestrated with word senses and harmony.The concept and the purpose of the book can't be gulped down in a single reading. To understand the seamless process, one has to live each and every philosophy coated in words. The original book by revered Poet Dr. Bibhudatta Nayak is literally an experience manual which describes the tit bits of life tools. It enlists the ingredients and principles of life which make our lives sweet, sour, annoying, energetic, challenging, emotional, decisive, philosophical at times. Most of the experiences of daily chores in this mundane world have given a euphonious shape of distinct poetry in this book.

In her newest collection, Abundance/Diminishment, Ann E. Michael knows "the nature of memory...that we forget." At the same time, she acknowledges within nature "a place to remember and to rest." It is between these two markers-nature and the nature of memory-that her poems flourish. An avid gardener and hiker-as well as a lover of learning, language, and the arts-she names abundance and diminishment; she identifies pivotal points, "lattices of a single molecule/that balances the morning." Unsurprisingly, much of Abundance/Diminishment consists of elegies-for the earth, for being wholly present, for a father, for friends, for a mother's lost memories, for a missed daughter, and for children unborn. Here, "the floor drops out of the bottom/of our daily prayers." Here, she recites, "Empty accepts what is given. Sorrow. Joy." Here, when grief overwhelms, she remembers to "feel the cellist's breath/swell against resonant spruce"; to listen to "animals, who tell us what we won't hear." And here, she asks, "How can I teach myself...the fact of gone/during a humid night/in late summer//while crickets sing?" The answer to the reader is in these well-tended and moving poems. -Marjorie Maddox, author of In the Museum of My Daughter's Mind Abundance/Diminishment reminds us of the ethics of craft, language, diction and illuminative rhyme. Whether the topic at hand is gardening, meteor showers, or grief, the surprise of irony swerves towards the "something more" to life, a new way of experiencing the world through felt imagery. Voice, tone, and style play with and against literature that has come before this text to arrive at an understanding of a before and after in the present, wisely speaking to how love provides motivation, in spite of despair, by finding solace in connection. Ann Michael's complete and accomplished poems, through semantic sleight of hand, sensitize us to how alive a human can be, illustrating time is a thing enlivening the body, and change is not necessarily enervating: hope and perseverance, demonstrated through the workings of the natural world, show how humanity progresses and evolves. The religiosity of a lived day in these poems grounds a generosity towards the world that feels rare in this contemporary moment of poetry. These beautifully achieved poems of finality and continuance, dispassionate and humorous, represent a voice of a generation and place, a poetry not just anyone can write. -Ian Haight, author of Celadon Ann E. Michael's poems of fullness and emptiness combine keen observation, philosophical questions, and a refreshing groundedness that invite the reader into complex, cleanly crafted contemplations of ordinary moments-moments turned extraordinary through her clear-eyed vision and delicious language. Smart, surprising, and wry, these poems honor equally the losses and the gains. A rich and rewarding collection. -Hayden Saunier, author of A Cartography of Home

Marc Darnell is an online tutor and lead custodian in Omaha, Nebraska, and has also been a phlebotomist, hotel supervisor, busboy, editorial assistant, and farmhand. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa where he studied under Gerald Stern, Marvin Bell, and Pulitzer Prize winner James Tate. First published at age 15, he has published in numerous journals in the last 40 years and has been published on 4 continents. His second book, The Sower, was recently published by CyberWit Press. He has forthcoming books from Impspired Press and CyberWit Press. He twice received the Academy of American Poets Award for the state of Nebraska and once for the state of Iowa.