bending light into verse every picture tells a story
Jennifer L. Tomaloff
bending light into verse III every picture tells a story Photography by:
Jennifer L. Tomaloff Featuring written works by:
Andrew Zawacki BL Pawelek Claudia Lamar David Tomaloff Ed Makowski Eryk Wenziak Felino A. Soriano Helen Vitoria Howie Good J.D. Nelson John Sibley Williams Joseph Quintela Keith Higginbotham Kristina Marie Darling Mark Lamoureux Matina Stamatakis Nate Pritts Paul Scot August Prathna Lor
bending light into verse III | Copyright 2012 Jennifer L. Tomaloff | All works contained herein are owned by their individual authors | No part of this book may be used except in brief quotation without the express permission of the author(s).
bendinglightintoverse.com
Special thanks and dedication to the talented individuals whose works are contained in these pages, without whom this project would not be complete.
Every Picture Tells a Story Words and photography, photography and words: The two are almost interchangeable in terms of modern-day expression and communication, yet they don’t often overlap artistically as a means for one to complete the other. Bending Light into Verse encourages one form to do more than simply describe the other. It is often said that every picture tells a story, but surely that story is subjective and belongs to each as well as to all of us. In short, Bending Light into Verse seeks to establish an ongoing conversation between the image and the artist of the written word. The photographs included in this book were taken using a Nikon D40 or Nikon D90 with a Nikon 50mm f/1.8D, Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G, or a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX lens. bendinglightintoverse.com -Jennifer L. Tomaloff
Contributors: Andrew Zawacki is the author of the poetry books Petals of Zero Petals of One (Talisman House), Anabranch (Wesleyan), and By Reason of Breakings (Georgia). His latest volume, Videotape, is forthcoming from Counterpath. Coeditor of Verse, The Verse Book of Interviews (Verse), and Gustaf Sobin’s Collected Poems (Talisman), he edited Afterwards: Slovenian Writing 1945-1995 (White Pine). He also edited and co-translated Aleš Debeljak’s Without Anesthesia: New and Selected Poems (Persea). Zawacki teaches at the University of Georgia, where he directs the doctoral Creative Writing Program. BL Pawelek grew up on a small Japanese island (kinda true). He wonders if his master's degree in Literature was worth it (not financially). There are stories, poems and plenty of art (google search). The Equation of Constants and Ten Everywhere and the unfirm line. He tries to show mad love to everyone, especially you. Claudia Lamar is the founding editor of Phantom Kangaroo, an eerie place for poems. She lives in Sacramento in a small studio apartment with her boyfriend Sam and a dead fish named Alien. Her bucket list includes being recreated as a comic book character and time travel. David Tomaloff is a writer, photographer, musician, and all around bad influence. His work has appeared in fine publications such as Mud Luscious, >kill author, PANK, Connotation Press, HOUSEFIRE, Prick of the Spindle, DOGZPLOT, elimae, and many more. He is the author of the chapbooks 13 (Artistically Declined Press), A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF (NAP), Olifaunt (Red Ceilings Press), EXIT STRATEGIES (Gold Wake Press) and MESCAL NON-PALINDROME CINEMA (Ten Pages Press). He resides in the form of ones and zeros at: davidtomaloff.com Ed Makowski is a poet and writer who can't sit still. While working as Eddie Kilowatt he released the poetry collections Manifest Density and Carrying a Knife in to the Gunfight. Over the past year Ed became interested in radio and now curates The Lunch Counter storytelling series on Milwaukee's NPR station 89.7 WUWM. Between November 2011 and April 2012 Ed is also serving as the Pfister Hotel Narrator and in this capacity he is the hotel's resident writer and gatherer of stories.
Eryk Wenziak is a drummer, photographer, visual artist, and teaches management at the graduate level. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in: elimae; Short, Fast, and Deadly; Thunderclap Press; Used Furniture Review; Otoliths; Negative Suck; Psychic Meatloaf; Dark Chaos; Guerilla Pamphlets; Deadlier Than Thou (anthology); Phantom Kangaroo; Pipe Dream; 52|250; Long River Run. Most recently, his cover art was chosen for a chapbook of poems honoring Donald Hall titled, Olives, Now and Then, which he personally presented to Mr. Hall at the poet’s 83rd birthday celebration. Felino A. Soriano is a case manager and advocate for adults with developmental and physical disabilities. He has received the Gertrude Stein “rose” prize for creativity in poetry from Wilderness House Literary Review. Over 3,100 of his poems have appeared in print and online journals such as BlazeVOX, Otoliths, infinite space, Poetry, Yes, and Fact Simile. He has had 48 print and electronic collections of poetry accepted for publication, most recently Pathos etched, recalled: (white sky books, 2011), Divaricated, Spatial Aggregates (limit cycle press, 2011), and Abrupt Hybrids (Whale Sound Audio Chapbooks, 2011). For information regarding his published works, editorships, and interviews, please visit: felinoasoriano.info. Helen Vitoria’s work can be found in many journals: elimae, PANK, MudLuscious Press, Foundling Review, FRIGG Magazine, Dark Sky Magazine and others. She is the author of three chapbooks and a full length poetry collection: Corn Exchange forthcoming from Scrambler Books. Her poems have been nominated for Best New Poets & the Pushcart Prize. She is the Founding Editor & Editor in Chief of THRUSH Poetry Journal & THRUSH Press. Find her here: helenvitoria-lexis.blogspot.com Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011), as well as numerous print and digital poetry chapbooks, including most recently Love Dagger from Right Hand Pointing.
J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words and sound in his subterranean laboratory. More than 1,000 of his bizarre poems and experimental texts have appeared in many small press and underground publications. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including When the Sea Dies (NAP, 2011), On the Toad (The Red Ceilings Press, 2011, and Red&Deadly, 2011), Roman Meal (Ten Pages Press, 2011), Noise Difficulty Flower (Argotist Ebooks, 2010), and The Frankendelphia Experiment (Tainted Coffee Press, 2010). Visit MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published work. His audio experiments (recorded under the name Owl Brain Atlas) are online at OWLNoise.com. J. D. lives in Colorado, USA. John Sibley Williams is the author of six chapbooks, winner of the HEART Poetry Award, and finalist for the Pushcart, Rumi, and The Pinch Poetry Prizes. He has served as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and Publicist for various presses, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Book Publishing. Some of his over 200 previous or upcoming publications include: Bryant Literary Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud, Ellipsis, Flint Hills Review, and Poetry Quarterly. Joseph A. W. Quintela writes. Poems. Stories. On Post-its. Walls. Envelopes. Cocktail napkins. Twitter. Anything he gets his hands on, really. His last chapbook, This is not Poetry. #poetry, was published by The Red Ceilings Press. Other work has appeared in The Collagist, ABJECTIVE, GUD, Bartleby Snopes, and Existere. As the senior editor at Deadly Chaps Press, he publishes both an annual series of chapbooks and the weekly eReview, Short, Fast, and Deadly. His work at Sarah Lawrence College revolves around integrating the disparate yet rapidly dovetailing fields of Conceptual Poetry and EcoCriticism. As such, he is an acolyte of intra-action, hash tags, and the Oxford comma. josephquintela.com Keith Higginbotham's work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Cricket Online Review, experiential-experimental-literature, Golden Sparrow Literary Review, Mad Hatters' Review Blog, Moria, Otoliths, Stone Highway Review, and The Ten Pages Press Reader. He is the author of Carrying the Air on a Stick (The Runaway Spoon Press, 1995), Prosaic Suburban Commercial (Eratio Editions, 2010), Theme From Next Date (Ten Pages Press, 2011), and Calibration (Argotist Ebooks, 2011). He lives in Columbia, SC. Kristina Marie Darling is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Night Songs (Gold Wake Press, 2010), Compendium (Cow Heavy Books, 2011), and The Body is a Little Gilded Cage: A Story in Letters & Fragments (Gold Wake Press, 2011). Her fourth book, Melancholia (An Essay), is forthcoming from Ravenna Press.
Mark Lamoureux lives in Astoria, NY. He is the author of thee full-length collections of poetry: Spectre (Black Radish Books 2010), Astrometry Orgonon (BlazeVOX Books 2008) and 29 Cheeseburgers / 39 Years (Pressed Wafer, Forthcoming 2012). His work has been published in print and online in Fence, miPoesias, Jubilat, Denver Quarterly, Conduit, Jacket, Fourteen Hills and many others. In 2006 he started Cy Gist Press, a micropress focusing on ekphrastic poetry. He holds an MFA from the New School and teaches in the CUNY system. Matina L. Stamatakis lives in upstate New York. Some of her works have appeared in Coconut, Free Verse, Otoliths, Word for/ Word, Moria, and others. She is the author of ek-ae:a journey into ekphrastic aesthetics (Dusie, 2007), Metempsychose (Ypolita, 2009), Eos (Oystercatcher Press, 2010), The ChongDong Misfits (Avantexte Press, 2011), and Breaking the Bird's Beak Hymen (Venereal Kittens Press, 2011). Pritts is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Sweet Nothing. POETRY Magazine called his third book, The Wonderfull Yeare, “rich, vivid, intimate, & somewhat troubled” while The Rumpus called Big Bright Sun, his fourth book, “a textual record of mistakes made and insights gleaned...[in] a voice that knows its part in self-destruction.” His poetry & prose have been widely published, both online & in print, at places like Southern Review, Columbia, Washington Square, Gulf Coast, Boston Review & Rain Taxi where he frequently contributes reviews. He is the founder & principal editor of H_NGM_N, an online journal & small press. Nate
Poet Paul Scot August is originally from the North side of Chicago but has spent half his life now in Wisconsin. He has an MA in Creative Writing from UW-Milwaukee and works these days as a software developer. He is a former poetry editor of The Cream City Review and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and once for a Best of The Net award. His poetry has appeared or is upcoming in Tygerburning, Connotations Press, Midwestern Gothic, The Los Angeles Review, Sugar House Review, Hobble Creek Review, Country Dog Review, Stone's Throw Magazine, Dunes Review, Naugatuck River Review, Passages North, Poetry Quarterly, The Cream City Review, and elsewhere. He currently lives in the Milwaukee area with his two children. Prathna Lor is the author of Ventriloquism (Future Tense Books).
bending light into verse III every picture tells a story
somewhere a childhood that was not mine i remember as my own its sudden burst of trees, its carefully planted stars just outside the frame, its chaff swirling back into uncut wheat, back into seed, back into your hands that once dug up six inches of hard earth and believed that enough to reach China. safe in the unpredictability of a tire swinging, i as your bare feet when they struck sky and toed the old gods, before they were known as lightning and climate variations, back when you asked them for nothing more than another series of childhoods, i before gravity returned your feet to the world. may I use your empty field again to call back the stars, and in my being the sky you once cherished, the trees you once climbed, fell from, and climbed again, let me stand straight as golden autumn grass before the winds and their irreversible bending.
-John Sibley Williams
how the soul moves the I unfolds in long white corridors tongued by a nondescript carpet that knows the gravity of footfall but cannot speak. dust has been cleansed from the main thoroughfare and rises in prayers to remain in the unseen corners where impossible walls meet. here, bathed in false fluorescents. here, where the freight we carry bears in nametags each origin and destination. here, bordered by thousands of matching doors, the soul reaches through a panel of missing glass and hauls out the lone extinguisher that must suffice to protect this entire structure from its inhabitants.
-John Sibley Williams
Data file recovery complete: telephone cables arranged in cedilla, icicles accent aigu. A light meter teeter-totters—overcast, the selenium shot—like a spirit level bubble, wavering. Shannon, Reykjavik, Santa Maria, on HF radio, U- or V-: “the night ark / adrift, / & water- / divided, the / stars.”
-Andrew Zawacki
originally published in Conjunctions 56: Terra Incognita: The Voyage Issue (2011).
This is how it’s going to go down: grain silos & power grids, slingshots dot the Susquehanna, belaying the phone lines in sine wave & synapse, a plat of McMansions splatter a forest, new-mown grass in lawn-brite hypergreen. Unspooled wire to the foosball palace, & a grove of bucket trucks off 81.
-Andrew Zawacki
originally published in Conjunctions 56: Terra Incognita: The Voyage Issue (2011).
exit ramp a) scientific data. tension between sleeping. b) obsession described evokes division. c) outside: a shed once facing right. d) my mother was interviewed while in Paris. e) engraved on a bronze plaque: Information is Public. f) suddenly discovering Sylvia Plath’s drawings 1. they forage 2. (like gulls) 3. for a question a) inside a statue dressed in blue.
-Eryk Wenziak
white noise i pick up the flag trace a figureeight into the high sky like a child burning his name with a sparkler. the figureeight will fall on its side— become infinity‌
-Eryk Wenziak
Ink Milk
Halftime. I’m on the woof. : • : • :
• : • : •
: • : • :
Three nights from never, when water tasted like dirt. “Wow,” said Dangerous Lou of the third floor. I weep for black-and-white spiders. • : • : •
: • : • :
• : • : •
Today is safe: x
A moon in my room. -J.D. Nelson
Weekend Brunch 100 years after Star Wars. Down here in the spider hole, we recycle.
my blood neon & when crickets
✂ – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Bonus: To land on Mars at night!
-J.D. Nelson
blue gum
Laser Floyd X. Elfwrench {o zerö} {ø zero} {ö zerø} ∑. (:::) - - : - - (:::) Room 68 ooooooooooooo
❀. Hack into a flower [my little spider]
-J.D. Nelson
agenda I will prick my finger on the last pine, spread the stick juice that never comes off. It will seep into me, and I will branch. I will gather the barn swallow in two hands, pulling feathers until one shows blood. I will slide that into my holed arm, mix the blood. I will climb the rocks, jetting and sharp, and lean into the strong wind. Farther and farther, loosing the touch of feet on solid. I will wade into the back lake, knife in hand, and under the dark water. When the breath is done, I will cut and build gills on the sides of my neck. Force my body to learn the new way. I will steal dry sticks and leaves, gather them in left hand and light a match. The fire, small and nurtured, will heat in palm as a reminder: there is new life after the burn. I will create it all in six days, a son and sin. I will demand sacrifices and enforce commandments. Preach active love but stay inactive. I will tell you that I am no longer a god.
-BL Pawelek
dismas and gestas the right the brighter the first to meet at the gates to rub fingers along cool metal the first to feel full sun warmth on shy cheeks no safety net strong enough to cast shadows and blast the due reward for deeds as the ground opens for dismas whispering ‘remember me remember me remember me’ staring and prayers in the left shadows cold and scowling red anger coats the mouth the impenitent gestas screams and collapse fading and fading, remembering attacks and easy blood the final flight to egypt the lights fade and fade and continue the saved the sinner and the other
-BL Pawelek
the girls of crow they darted with the new plants the old rocks catching sunlight and smiling jumping rocks higher and higher asking great spirit for more above the clouds with the crows he smelled them innocent girls and easy closer and closer the hunger of so long the growl running clamoring and frantic prayers the girls on the rock tower rising grinding marks broken bear claws through rising stone of his blood cries of hunger cries of relief the bones sleeping below the tower old women still above singing and crying
-BL Pawelek
what is it that bridles me? something subtle & made out of your shadow. it has the confidence of an unfound planet & the tone of a forgotten language. but it is a dull suffering. & it hates it when i leave & i leave often. because it has to follow & all becomes anonymous & that can be sobering. so i always come back to the ache/to be moored - to live with this weight of familiar ghosts that refuse to travel.
-Claudia Lamar
A method for time travel (for children ages 3 and up) We swore we were bigger than monsters hiding kisses underneath our sleeves while our mothers spoke in tongues on the front porch I told you the truth about echoes our palms inked in stars all the planets in blues moaning like street musicians and begging for childrens' hearts but we were never young we met our fate like dinosaurs taught ourselves the rites of bones we stole chairs and sheets and built a shrine to all our secrets and we lived there below a canopy of ghosts we laughed at the myth of grownups and traveled through time in our heads falling in love in other dimensions until mother said it was time to go and head down I would follow her each step on the concrete imprinted a confession
-Claudia Lamar
From the series BECKETT 1 You weren’t cold. You just shivered sometimes. 2 The sleeping pills that knocked you out at night also kept you in a daze during the day. You moved as through a dream of fair to middling women. 3
All poetry . . . is prayer, you said to hoots of derisive laughter. Being damned was the same as being saved. Your old wounds flared like the pink and green sunsets you found only in Ireland. 4 Ezra Pound declared himself the only sane writer left in Europe. The lines on the map ruptured. You passed long stretches of empty time in the no man’s land between perceiver and the thing perceived, where people were just blobs of color. 5 You could read three languages and, of course, grieve well in each. In late spring, you visited a mental hospital out of curiosity. Jesus wiped the dribble from patients’ chins. 6 Something terrible was about to happen, but even you couldn’t divine what. The only stage direction was (silence).
-Howie Good
WHO KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS NOW Gulls have a third eyelid. I lost my sunglasses. Blue-eyed people are supposed to wear sunglasses. I shield my eyes with one hand and point darkly with the other. Gulls crouch like doubts among the rocks, the psst of waves withdrawing.
-Howie Good
originally published in Rain Dogs
A SPELLING BEE IN STEREO FOR WHICH THERE WILL BE A QUIZ We barricade ourselves under snow where, as we say, the streetlights will never
think to look. Still, we dream we hear the laughter of angry, passing cars. A windsock waves from a radio tower in Brooklyn. Seems to be saying, I think they
went that way. Spring pops its flares, implies with a series of codes &dogs: It’s only a matter time. +strange shapes become us / huddle, we, in dust / &move by fog
-David Tomaloff
AMONG THE WRECKAGE, WE We filled our bags with special powders &linens, &with the pictures of supposed loved ones we had cut from magazines on living room floors. We knew nothing of the ocean. We played soldiers on television. It didn’t hurt us when we died. Every animal in the place was a small bird, &all of us, how we felt the same back then. The songs of our ancestors were built of radio signals &rouge. The elevator groaned—floor, by floor, by fast approaching floor. We reached the city in our work clothes. A man suggested we’d FINALLY ARRIVED. Nothing here looked as it had in the moving pictures. The birds carried on in contempt.
+a windless oregon / the shuffling of boots &limbs / the laying of iron &rust
-David Tomaloff
A DIVE INTO A HALF-SWALLOW , OR THE COMING OF SONGS UNDONE the cages utter words like arsenic , &sentencia you reach to touch my street gang , &the park fills w/ the vowels of promises it could never hope to contain
-David Tomaloff
Peanut Portrait Gallery In the frenzy to inflict trophies and christen all else failure from smug armchairs we neglect noticing that the “also rans�
Ran -Ed Makowski
originally published in BlazeVOX
G'night sometimes it's nice to walk home alone sometimes, it's walking home alone
-Ed Makowski
Gradation of the Artificial Apparition Absent sequences of the serial collocations:
corporeal| |contaminations
questioning whom among antiquated broken variances
ascends simulated functions of angled origami sans shadowy possessions of the body’s resembling
hearsay.
-Felino A. Soriano
Within __________, yes Numerical postulation upon missing nuances, spheres deliver (separated halos engage though weary against abstract limning of __________)
mobile area, awaiting touch of breathing blurs to analyze distances of inaudible tongues braiding confiscations.
-Felino A. Soriano
What the Devil will say in Spring: Entomb me in your garden, next to the sound of water. Tie blue filament around me, hang me from a bridge. And sing.
-Helen Vitoria
originally published in The Cartier Street Review
Isabelle, the summer before you died, I rode a Ferris wheel warped by heat− in the old baseball field rain sheets, raised dirt, floated bases while I smoked Marlboros with your brother in his ’83 Corvette, watched him juggle knives in the sun, in the distance horses grazed near the cattails, till dark
-Helen Vitoria
Rooted That rock loosening inside—the one whose pollen utters swallowing all kempt crisscrossing dusty furrows. Always this and distance. Whisperers— stringings; beyond tracks arrogant: eye: vigils fraying tiny as polished tunnels.
-Keith Higginbotham
Grass of Leaves Dinner of enamels, mark handle in (could your wire hands love lidless things?). We are on an arthritic breeze. Replicas force our words now, words once bottles breaking. Those things. They painted the gardener's face [brown]—so this is for you.
-Keith Higginbotham
She imagined her heart as a white bird in a silver cage.
-Kristina Marie Darling
SONNET ON THE SEVERED HEAD OF DON DRAPER Right speech, right angle. Mirror mirror of the boardroom door. Detective chromium was the dream of the mid-century clusterfuck. Fugazi for this—bad scotch in a tumbler. Marlowe’s rye really spit up in a freight elevator. Depression glass dish of calcifying allsorts, Miss Whatever & millennial fishnets of the insipid general ledger. Lonelyhearts & bad minds shorted out by the aluminum Christmas tree. Staccato of the Hueys for your pacemaker, whoosh of napalm for your iron lung. I’m staring at the sun while all the rest slough off into sodium chloride.
-Mark Lamoureux
Killcrop
I grew up like a changeling.—Ian Curtis
Shivfisted curve of the fisheye in the drop hung from the desiccated wings. Spriggan-sprig, the taproot heart is the bruise of the gloaming: the angel is black, the angel is whip-thin, a coarse shadow in the vapor of your own breath inside the pinion-rustle of the sigh of the evergreen revels. Come away if indeed you are human; full of weeping, too, is this grove, but those tears are not for you.
-Mark Lamoureux
Resonate/Opus/Flesh : A fluster of tiny mechanisms: ‘neath the grooves, eroded bodies makes of water, or the breadth of ether. & Lethe in the wearied face, drink my body─ boldly & without sugar. :Vocabulary of desire: in the ecstasy of metal, a persuasive din— licked of needle, geometries spun-out to a jagged discord. More tongues, loosened flesh, orgasmic swan-pulp softness─ whispered incognito. : A flash of skin impulses: recreating, in space, the moons of our eyes─ an infantine lumière. This flesh of us knows no end─ as predicted.
-Matina Stamatakis
Crosshatch & Splinter Terrain, the markings pool this pulpless blood, this intricate & finite, this sucked- from- marrow, where not a sparrow has perched
-Matina Stamatakis
HORIZON PROBLEM The past is so easy to read, written on top of everything, though I know there was plenty of intervening time some of which took me away from myself. I remember every building & storefront in terms of what it used to be. I feel as if I have to be declamatory about my feelings or that I should make my simple emotions smarter. More worthy of an audience. Some people think that form is what makes things worthwhile but I like talk. Cars zip by not noticing the night. Maybe what makes them real is their spontaneous flow & not forced together with brute fists. I like things to be graceful though maybe even in that you can see the chaotic energy boiling over. Like how I traveled from low entropy to high entropy. Like how even thinking about a specific crisis moment doesn’t help me understand. Two in the morning & my power to generate change is quickly fading from my present.
-Nate Pritts
Anguish & Wolfenbarger While she waits on tables at the Dallas City Café, she glances up through the greasy front windows at the Anguish & Wolfenbarger Ford Dealership across and slightly down the street. People in town just call it The Anguish. The name still makes her wince. Today is Tuesday, so she takes her coffee break at 2:15, just like she does every Tuesday, sits at the table in the front and waits. She’ll see the Greyhound Bus as it motors down Main Street, stops at the railroad tracks, the driver looking down the rails that extend in each direction to the horizon, becoming arrows he wishes he could grab onto and use to launch himself into another life that is not this one. She’ll watch as the bus crosses the tracks and pulls over at the far end of the auto shop to either catch or release another passenger. Or more likely, no one does either, and the driver shuffles inside for a cup of vending machine coffee and a piss, before leaning against the brick wall along the alley and having a smoke, then getting back on the bus. He always leans in the exact place where her Billy did that day, where the metal plate on the wall is falling away from the bricks, where he smoked one Lucky Strike after another until the bus pulled up and he turned to her, winked, and climbed into the past.
-Paul Scot August
My Dearest Emile
--- after a letter by Van Gogh Sunset? Moonrise? Summer sunshine at all events. A mauve town, yellow star, blue-green sky. The corn is in all tones of old gold, copper, greenish or reddish gold, yellowy gold, bronzeyellow, greenish red. A size 30 canvas, and square. I painted it with the mistral at its height, my easel was pegged to the ground with iron stakes, a method I recommend. You dig in the legs of the easel, then next to them an iron spike fifty centimetres long. You tie it all together with rope. Then you can work in the wind.
-Paul Scot August
originally published in Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly Vol 2 – Issue 2/3
This is what I call a mother a mother a mother.
-Prathna Lor
I know the stain of his voice. What he needs to close his mouth completely. There was a time when I was able to call him a name and there was a time when I was able to curdle a voice. I felt the haunch and rigor of his throat. I felt the importance of him having to lie down. I knew that somewhere there was a forest and waiting.
-Prathna Lor