A WWS Publication Roundup for February

The month may be short but the list of WWS publications is long. Congratulations to everyone who had work published in February!

From Claudine Burnett‘s “A Look at Bygone Days” at Signal Tribune:

In researching a possible new book on African-Americans in our community, I came across a California State Office of Historic Preservation report (“An Ethnic Sites Survey for California”) that mentioned that most people seemed to believe that, before 1940, there were virtually no African-Americans in the state. But there were.

Also from Claudine, “Lost Love Found” at Long Beach 908:

It was a story that brought many a tear to the eyes of many Los Angeles Herald readers the morning of August 28, 1898. It appeared that Leslie Newlin, one of the crew of the on the yacht Dawn, had found a long lost wife and she a long lost husband.

Congratulations to Lauren Eggert-Crowe who had two poems published at Big Lucks. From “Estivation Offerings:”

Come at me with babies
I am the mutant by the cheese plate
Painted nails like peanut m&ms, I am your bag of gross candy
Counting all the reasons to be tired

From Stephanie Abraham‘s “Indicting the System” at Los Angeles Review of Books:

Khan-Cullors’s new book, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, co-written with author and journalist asha bandele, explains the social conditions that led to that moment and the international movement that followed. At one point, Khan-Cullors states, “I’m writing this in sentences but this unfolded over days. Over several really hard days.” Given that this ambitious book explores her experiences from childhood to adulthood, she could just as easily have said, “Over several hard decades.” As a result of the book’s extended focus, the story sometimes jumps around in unexpected ways, but the payoff is worth it.

From “Oxtail Soup” by Tanya Ko Hong at Califragile:

I look at the bruise on my left hand
dark purple

mung—holding in the pain
silence of sorrow
ashes spread on the ocean
settling in layers
palimpsest of lives
like maple leaf

From “Do You Love Me?” by Carol Anne Perini at Post Card Shorts:

She stood in the doorway leaning against the jamb. A smoldering cigarette hung from her pale lips, the lipstick having been eaten off in their kissing. The slender strap of her white slip hung off of her freckled shoulder exposing the top of her perky, altered breast. He could see the nail dust flying from her emery board in the filtered sunlight illuminating her silhouette.

From Carla Sameth‘s “If This Is So, Why Am I?” at The Nervous Breakdown:

How did I get from standing on the bimah for my son’s bar mitzvah three years ago to visiting my son at the adolescent wing of a psych ward? Raphael is here on a 72-hour hold, a “5150.” This is where a social worker from the Psychiatric Emergency Team (PET) evaluates a person under 18 to see if he is at risk to himself or others. This is the first time my son has been put on such a hold related to his escalating drug use.

From Leilani Squire‘s “Wonderland” at The Write Launch:

I stand in the middle of the bedroom and watch her slip into the darkened hallway, then around the corner and head for the back of the house to report to the big young hunk—her just moved-in lover. I’m blinded by the starkness of the white walls painted only months earlier in this newly remodeled house. The space around me shrinks and I feel trapped…. Again.

Finally, congratulations to Elline Lipkin who had three poems – “My Mother, Receding,” “My Seed, My Jewel, My Secret,” and “The Present Perfect” – published in The Cost of Paper!