I am pleased to announce that my poem, “Away with the Bitterness” will be published in Peeking Cat Poetry‘s ninth issue, coming out just in time for Christmas. Check them out! Will post more when it debuts!
Tag / poetry
Throwback Thusday/Happy Thanksgiving!
This one was published back in August by the Eunoia Review. Ah, the old creative writing work shop days.
A happy poem
about desertion
and hypocrisy, it was.
Finally, a happy poem, she says,
her eyes crinkled in a smile.
My workshop mates groaned,
although a few of them had
remarked more or less the same.
I had been a poet for less than nine months,
and I had yet to workshop a sentimental piece
about some lost love,
some childhood play place or
some lost pet or friend.
No, I chose to pull them into
my bottomless cauldron of
sales clerks prostituting for commissions,
pretentious people airing their tortured souls
for art, among other things,
but nothing pretty or happy
until now,
or,
at least not as biting as the others she had seen.
When the groaners ask what is so
happy about an affluent man who
after criticizing the local crowd, finds
himself stuck in a dirty
cafe after dark in an unknown town,
she stays by her word,
asks me for a copy to keep,
before folding it into a square
she can keep in her pocket.
Alaska Women Speak
I am pleased to announce that my first nonfiction work is going to be published in Alaska Women Speak’s Winter issue. They have accepted my work “The Important Things.”
Eunoia Review Publication
Eunoia Review has published another one of my poems, “Three Times My Baby’s Stoller Passes By.” Check them out!
Throwback Thursday
A poem published in Cirque this summer. Enjoy and check them out!
Femininity
With my femininity under my arm,
we hustled down the dusty
shell of a broken college town,
past the crooked props
that used to sell feed
and pens to students, where
I offered my femininity to my fiancé.
He refused it.
Passersby frowned and jeered:
The wrinkled grape thought it was
best suited for a child;
Her charge thought that I was just too old.
A fluffy pink, the doll’s dress was
–with pink bows, of course.
Blonde with pigtails, the hair was
–with tight curls, of course.
Shattered sidewalks failed
to absorb the shame,
as my femininity receded
into my ragged college jacket along
with my spent youth
and thrift store receipt,
only to allow patches of its plastic
head and feet to emerge
when I least wanted it.
My Poem “Da!”
Check out Peeking Cat Poetry. My poem “Da!” has been included. A little poem about my daughter and the Russian language. It’s free to get a copy here!
Alaska Women Speak publication
I’m so pleased to announce that three (yes 3!) of my poems will be featured in Alaska Women Speak fall issue! Subject is fireweed. I feel so honored to be with such great local writers! Will post more details when it comes out!
First Poem Published
My first publication.
This is the one that started it all. Although I’ve always considered myself a fiction writer, I’ve published mostly poetry. Of course, I have just returned to writing and publishing after a 10 year sabbatical of sorts, so we will see if I can get some fiction published.
In the meantime, this is the first poem I published. The funny thing is, I never intended to write poetry; poetry found me. This is the second poem I had ever written. It was for Jon Tribble’s beginning poetry class at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. I struggled every week for something to turn in, while it seemed, everyone else had a workbook of material to pull from each week. After that class ended, I took a gamble and sent this poem in with two others to Grassroots for its Fall 1999 issue (yes, that long ago!). This one was accepted. Enjoy!
Sara
Cool September breeze ruffles
the cheap, tattered peach color hair tie.
Lovely off-white recital gown
laced with light pink ribbon lays loosely on your skin.
A dull plastic pearl necklace—
perfect for the performance.
Luscious cantaloupe colored gloss,
fuchsia nails as possible finishing accessories
The stage cages you with its cheap metal.
There is no release.
Death is the only null in your contact.
But, even death would never redeem
your torture whether it be in heaven or hell.
That never mattered—
they still wanted more.
They went ahead.
Poked your side.
Yanked your tail.
Batted your head.
You are not human.
You just wear the dress
your owner gave you.
Feelings are not yours to feel.
You are incapable of it.
They said so.
What happens when you are the monkey in the cage?
J.L. Smith 