Month / January 2016

by J.L. Smith

Throwback Thursday: High Tea and Fancy Things

This poem was published in Alaska Women Speak’s 2015 Winter Issue.  Written especially for their “talking over coffee or tea” issue, this one is “High Tea and Fancy Things.”

 

High Tea and Fancy Things

You choose Assam for your mother,

because you think it best resembles her tastes:

simple but brisk, a taste familiar

but bolder than her usual Lipton.

For yourself, you choose the Chinese Green Flowering Jasmine

because its fancy green leaves and rosy petals,

hand-sewn to resemble a closed flower that

open when steeped in hot water,

makes you feel sophisticated,

well-traveled and grown up in her presence.

 

She looks around in the unfamiliar Alaskan tea shop,

many miles from her small, Midwestern hometown,

its fine china teapots with matching blue and white willow

pattern tea cups and silver demitasse spoons.

You both act normal despite the delicate

three-tiered glass tower of French treats and food:

the tomato bisque, petit fours, and purple macaroons.

 

When her hand reaches for the scone.

she contemplates the small, silver knife,

the one with the curved handle

for spreading the clotted cream,

when the knife drops to the table,

a soft landing on the cloth napkin.

She looks to you and shrugs her shoulders,

grabbing the scone, dipping it into the clotted cream bowl.

 

Some things are just too fancy, she says.

And, some things need not be, you reply.

You both laugh as you shared in a moment

much prepared for, but made simple as can be.

 

by J.L. Smith

The Devil and the White Room

My story “The Devil and the White Room” is up at Down in the Dirt.  The print version will come out in August, but you can read the web version here.  Click on my name, Jennifer L. Smith.  This story, although fictional, draws on my real estate selling days.  It is a story that proves the old saying “the truth is stranger than fiction.”  Enjoy!

by J.L. Smith

Throwback Thursday: If I May Speak

This poem was also published in Alaska Women Speak’s winter issue 2015.  Enjoy!

If I May Speak

over my mother’s teaspoon as
it scrapes the teacup like a child
who discovers an annoying sound
it finds joyful only to do it again and again.
The words that spill over her tea,
the steam that comes off the cup,
have little meaning.
They are the same things we have talked about
each time we have tea:
the weather,
the people who have died
and the people who have not.
Each time we speak
we pretend that there is nothing
else to discuss or confess.

If I may speak,
if I could say what I wanted to say,
ask for the secrets she hides,
tell her the feelings I have inside,
would she hear me?
Would she listen?
Or would it all drown
in the liquid in her cup,
in a whirlpool of sugar
that distorts all voices,
including mine?
 

by J.L. Smith

Throwback Thursday: Alaska Women Speak

This poem was published in Alaska Women Speak‘s winter issue 2015.  The theme was “talking over coffee or tea.”

Babushka’s Samovar

The samovar placed on the kitchen table
is a poor replica of babushka’s samovar,
the silver one with the tiny teapot at the top
that held the strongest tea,
the tea she cautioned your tiny hand
not to touch,
not to hold.
Just watch, my devochka,
she would say,
as she poured the concentrated tea
into tiny china cups:
for you a little; for her a lot.

She would exhale the steam off her cup
like she was blowing off a potion,
like a spell casting you both back
to the old country,
the Good Russia of the tsars,
not the bad Russia where Lenin lived,
in the stories she would tell.

She takes you to the Samara of her youth,
when the tsar still lived
and the grand duchesses were the most
beautiful girls in the world,
as her tea cakes disappear
and your tea runs cold.

Today, your middle-aged hands fill
the teapot of your own samovar, far
less beautiful than babushka’s and made
of brass from new Russia.
You hope she doesn’t mind the cheap
imposter as you set two ceramic cups out,
and babushka’s spirit takes you to the
banks of the Volga just one more time.

by J.L. Smith

Down in the Dirt Acceptance

I am pleased to announce that my short story “The Devil and the White Room” has been accepted for publication by Down in the Dirt for its July/Aug 2016 issue.  This is a flash fiction piece I wrote for a horror-themed submissions call.  Glad to see it made its way to a home.  Will post more details when it goes up on the site!

by J.L. Smith

Throwback Thursday: Da! – Peeking Cat Poetry

OK, so this is late.  It is barely Thursday Alaska time, but hey, it is still Thursday!

This one was published in Peeking Cat Poetry in October 2015 (8th issue).  Yes, it is about my little girl.  No, really I am not turning her into a Russophile, but really, would it be a bad thing if I did? Ha ha.  Just like mama! 🙂

Da!

My ten month baby girl says “da”
like a good Russian comrade.
Her hands flap in the air, beat her chest
with the conviction of Lenin presenting
his April Theses in Petrograd in 1917.

I tell my husband “da” counts as a word,
as it means “yes” in Russian.
He shakes his head: in English
it is short for “dada” or “daddy.”
Yet, he knows his Russophile wife better:
You’ve been speaking Russian to her, he insists.
I’ve been too tired to speak to her in anything
other than English, I tell him.

But that is not true:
ne pravda.
I have read her tales of babushki and koshki—
Grandmothers and cats—
because it interests me.
Makes reading to a seemingly disinterested
audience easier, more productive.

Yet, I wonder, as she sits in my lap,
her corn silk hair thick like mine,
her lips open wide,
her hands clap patty-cake,
as I reach for the bottle.
Bringing it closer to her,
I pause before I can say khochesh and
use English instead:
want your bottle?
She smiles with her two front teeth,
“Da!”

by J.L. Smith

Happy 2016 – A look back; A look forward

Happy New Year, Everyone!

First of all, I want to thank you so much for being a part of my blog and supporting my work.  I am humbled to have my blog supporters.  Your support encourages me. It means a lot to me.  Thank you so much!

I also want to extend a great big thanks to all the editors and journals that I have worked with over the past year (and into 2016, as well!).   I have had 23 acceptances this year.  17 of which were published in 2015; 6 will be published in 2016.

If you have a moment, please check out these great editors and their journals.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your year.  I hope to share more writing with everyone in 2016!
Creative Nonfiction:
“The Important Things” – Alaska Women Speak – Winter 2015 issue

Fiction:
How to Eat a Bagel – 50-word Stories – Sept 15, 2015

Poetry:
“Femininity” – Cirque – Summer 2015
“Sitting in the Bathroom” – Yellow Chair Review – July 2015
“A Happy Poem” – Eunoia Review – August 2015
“Willow Rebuilds” “Spectators” “Fire Angels” – Alaska Women Speak– Fall 2015
“Dark Clouds Descend Low” – Three Line Poetry – Issue 33 – Sept 2015
“Da!” – Peeking Cat Poetry – 8th issue – Oct 2015
“Three times my baby’s stroller passes by” – Eunoia Review – Oct 2015
“Babushka’s Samovar”, “If I May Speak”, and “High Tea and Fancy Things” – Alaska Women Speak – Winter 2015 Issue
“Joanna’s Child” – Cirque – Winter Solstice issue 2015.
“Away with the Bitterness!” – Peeking Cat Poetry – 9th Issue – Dec 2015
“Away with the Bitterness!” – Alaska Shorts (49 Writers blog) – December 22, 2015
“The Reflex”, “The Drop Off”, and “Crossed Eyes” – Eskimo Pie – Feb 2016
“The Fragments You Carry”, “The Fireweed Dies”, and “Crabapples” – 13 Chairs – Spring 2016