It has been a pleasure doing this publication roundup for the last 4.5 years. It’s allowed me to stay connected to this amazing community and inspired me to keep trying to publish. Though this will be my last roundup, I look forward to seeing all of you virtually and in the real world soon. Happy writing! Laura
Congratulations to T.M. Semrad who had 4 poems published at isacoustic! From “Absent Affirmation, a selfie, my mother’s doppelganger, deleted:”
I celebrate father, hold up
his present, my face an aching grin
to give him a gift who gifted me. Later,
when I am grown,
he and I will walk together
alone
From Lituo Huang‘s “Lake View” at Malarkey Books:
I had heard other trains on other nights—as a child in Indiana when the house our rented room was in abutted the track, I’d be jolted awake by the train passing by the open window until the child I was grew used to the sound and added it to a dream—a black crow overhead would open its beak and out came the shriek of the train, first louder and louder and then diminishing with a distorted pitch as it taxied away on the physics of the air.
Check out Lituo‘s poem, “The 101 at Benton” at Dust Poetry!
From Janel Pineda‘s “Rain” at LitHub:
the first time I ask Tana why she left El Salvador,
me dice: porque allá llueve mucho. its waters too vast and devious,
too quick to wash away everything she’s worked for.
From Cybele Garcia Kohel‘s “Acknowledgement: On Race and Land” at Cultural Weekly:
Our country is burning. Again. There is so much happening, it is difficult to find a place to start. The news is constantly turning, cycling. The protests, which give me hope, illuminate the stories of America we have for too long denied. Perhaps I could begin with the election of a tyrant, the subsequent wave (or resurgence) of fascism and racism, and finally a pandemic, which instead of becoming a great equalizer or unifying force, has served to magnify the inequities in America.
From “June 24, 2010” by S. Evan Stubblefield at Past Ten:
The hills I drive past are as red as heat. The sky is muddy, and there are few cars on the road. The coolant in my air conditioning is low and my windows have to be cranked down by hand. That was my dad’s idea. “If your car ever ends up in the water,” he said. “You can just roll down the glass and get out.” But I-5 is all almond trees, citrus groves, gas stations, and cows. No ocean anywhere.
From Hazel Kight Witham‘s “The Power of Story:” Interview with Jared Seide On How Listening To Each Other Can Restore Our Humanity at The Sun:
Seide: We knew the twenty-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide was going to be a big one, so Bernie Glassman [co-founder of Zen Peacemakers] asked me to help support a Bearing Witness retreat, which would be an opportunity for people from Europe and the U.S., as well as Rwanda and other African nations, to come and participate in five days of bearing witness to the atrocities. Bernie had been leading similar retreats to Auschwitz for two decades.
From Elline Lipkin‘s “Remembering Eavan Boland: ‘I Was a Voice’” at The Los Angeles Review:
When I picked up Boland’s first book of prose, Object Lessons: The Life of The Woman and the Poet in Our Times, I didn’t devour this book so much as I inhaled it. Here was a woman writing eloquently about unnamed issues I knew were real, articulating the ambitions of many other female poets who were also stymied by invisible barriers, the press of tradition, and the need to know their voices mattered.
From “For All the Girls: On Jaquira Díaz’s Ordinary Girls,” a book review by Anita Gill at Entropy:
Memoirs play with time. Through narration and reflection, the past meets up with the present, allowing the writer to give a closer eye to why what happened still remains so vivid. Díaz utilizes this manipulation of time and takes artistic license. She identifies several moments and brings them together like an accordion. “There was a time, before my mother’s illness, before my parents divorced, before we left Puerto Rico for Miami Beach, when we were happy. It was after Alaina was born, after Mami had gone back to work at the factory, after I’d started school and learned to read.” In an equal amount of befores and afters, she uses just the right moments to capture a lifetime.
Congratulations to Tanya Ko Hong who translated 4 poems by Na Hye-Sok at Lunch Ticket! From “The Doll’s House:”
Playing with my doll
makes me happy and later
I become my father’s doll
and later my husband’s
I make them happy
I become their comfort
Congratulations to Dinah Berland whose Fugue for a New Life came out in June!
Congratulations to Desiree Kannel whose book Lucky John was released this month!
Check out Ann Tweedy‘s 3 poems published in Golden Handcuffs Review!