Category: poetry

An Ode to your Code—How to write a ZipOde 

Published on by Beatriz F.Leave a comment
33185 Murky waters stir Toothy snout surfaces crocodile These are very rare, our Everglades guide exclaims Mostly we get gators here Beatriz Fernandez ZipOde 33185

The ZipOde, aka Zip Ode, is a fun, five-line poetry form invented by the O,Miami Poetry Festival in collaboration with WLRN Public Radio and Television.

The ZipOde celebrates the local life, the daily struggle, the beauty and ugliness, the minor and major frustrations and joys of living in a specific place.

Zip Odes – O, Miami

Here is how you can write an ode to your own zip code!

  • Write the numbers of your zip code on five separate lines.
  • Each number will determine how many words that line will have.
  • (Similar to haikus but substitute words for syllables.)
  • If you have a zero in your zip code, then you can either leave it blank, insert an emoji or image or consider it a wildcard line of 1-9 words!

WLRN celebrated the 10th anniversary of the invention of the ZipOde in 2025 and as it turns out, I was the very first person to submit a ZipOde in O, Miami’s first call for submissions back in 2015.  Always on the lookout for inspiration in unexpected places, I liked the idea of writing a place-centered short poem that celebrated my neighborhood.

You can read some stories about the 10th anniversary celebration and read some ZipOdes here.

ZipOdes | WLRN

O, Miami has produced a colorful, beautifully illustrated 10th anniversary commemorative book as well:

You can see some sample pages here:

Literally Everyone's Invited ZipOdes Book – OMiami

Cover of the book Literally everyone's invited: an Ode to South Florida 2015 to 2024. O, Miami. Poems and photos by over 450 South Floridians. Edited by Gesi Schilling and Sarah Trudgeon.

ZipOdes everywhere!

Although the ZipOde form originated in South Florida, it has been celebrated in several other cities; O, Miami and WLRN offer it as a resource to anyone who wants to try it, as long as they attribute its creation to the O, Miami Poetry Festival and WLRN.

Tips for writing a ZipOde:

  • Use impactful words
  • Work those contractions!
  • Limit your scope but remain expansive
  • Anchor it geographically

If you have a 1 in your Zip Code (as I do), use it to maximum effect by making it a memorable, impactful word. Don’t waste the limited real estate in a ZipOde by using it for a connecting word like “and,” not that there haven’t been some excellent ZipOdes that do just that!

When you’re dealing with a limited word count—make contractions your friend!  Why say “we have” when “we’ve” will work? 

My favorite ZipOdes by other writers are the funny, pithy ones, but for my own, my preference is to look around me and celebrate the beauty and mystery of the nature that surrounds us—the trees, the birds, the animals, the wide-open skies. 

ZipOde Examples

33185

Panthers’ eyes gleam
deep in the
Everglades
blinking under that kite of stars, the Pleiades.
What they’ve seen, we’ve forgotten.


33185

Hidden between hurricanes,
this city’s soul
quivers
like the flight of the Miami blue butterfly
killed by the slightest frost

It’s best to focus on one image, given the brevity of the poem, but the form lends itself to much experimentation and infinite variety.

I like to try to add a word that anchors the ZipOde to a place, since that is the whole point of the form!  Images work, but also consider evocative scents, tastes, colors. 

If you read some examples online, you will see that other poets celebrate their families, homes, neighborhoods in every way possible.  The unique qualities of South Florida life are highlighted in trenchant, wryly fond-toned odes.

ZipOdes as Memoir

You can have fun commemorating all the different places you have lived and worked by writing ZipOdes!  My workplace has two 9s in its zip code—riches!  But even if yours has 1s and 0s, consider it a challenge—similar to when composing a haiku—to express yourself so succinctly.

33199

Driving to campus,
coffee in cupholder
steaming,
the morning sun Stonehenged between skyscrapers in the east–
in my rearview mirror, a flock of ibises rises..

ZipOdes can be dedicated love notes to your birthplace (or your child’s) or your favorite vacation spot or the place you met your significant other. As a collection, they can tell the story of your life—in code!

Thank you for reading and please follow us here and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OLDSCRATCHPRESS/

Beatriz F. Fernandez is a Miami area poet and University Reference librarian. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which is Simultaneous States  (2025) by Bainbridge Island Press.  In 2025, she became a member of Old Scratch Press.

(ZipOde photo provided to the poet by WLRN.org. Numbers photo credit to Tara Winstead.)

What Do You Think of That “Poet Voice?” You Know the One.

Published on by diannePLeave a comment

If you’ve ever been to a poetry reading, you’ve probably heard it. The slow cadence. The dramatic pauses. The slightly mystical tone. The voice that signals: I am now doing Poetry.

In fact, when I think about that sentence read in “poetry voice” it would be read like this:

The voice
that signals
I am now
doing
poetry

And each line would end with an up tone, as if the performer was asking a question.

The recent New York Times article digs into this phenomenon, often called the “poet voice,” and asks why many poets fall into the same stylized way of reading their work aloud.

For some listeners, the article says, that way of reading feels comforting and familiar. For others, awkward, distancing, or makes the poem feel like a performance ritual rather than a piece of language meant to connect.

The article points out something important: this isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about how poetry exists in two worlds at once. On the page, poetry is quiet, private, intimate. Out loud, it becomes physical, embodied, communal. Voice, breath, pacing, silence, and tone all reshape meaning. The same poem can feel completely different depending on how it’s read.

And yet, many readings sound strangely similar.

Why?

There’s also a bigger tension here. Poetry has deep roots in oral tradition. Long before books, poetry lived in voices, memory, and storytelling. But modern literary culture often treats performance and “serious writing” as separate worlds. Spoken word, slam, and performance poetry are seen as different categories entirely, even though they’re doing what poetry has always done: using voice to create meaning. They also might sound different, as performance, when compared to how people read on the performance evenings in your MFA program.

I remember, from the first time I saw poets read aloud, at a bar in Philadelphia in the 1990s, thinking that it was weird that many of them read their work in the same way, and wondering why they did.  When I was in my MFA program, and we would read our work at student readings, us poets, fellow students, often read that way. I remember it as mainly the other white women, and that the students and teachers/established visiting poets, could be people who did it. Not that all of them did it, you understand, but that it happened at times among student readers, teacher readers, and visiting poet readers, and it was, in the main, done by my fellow white women. I don’t remember the guys reading that way. I also remember that the teachers (minus a few) and the students in the poetry track were incredibly serious about the writing and performing of poetry. I don’t know that I ever got quite that serious, which is probably a character flaw. You know I’ve got me some of those.

On Threads people are losing their minds about the article (slow news day?) so, let’s talk about it:

• When you hear poetry read aloud, does it deepen your connection to the work or pull you out of it?
• Do you think “poet voice” is a real thing, or just a stereotype we’ve internalized?
• When you hear poetry read aloud, does it deepen your connection to the work or pull you out of it?
• Have you heard “poet voice?”
• How do you read your own work aloud? Casually, dramatically, flat, musical, conversational?
• Should poetry readings sound like performance, conversation, or something else entirely?
• Is hearing the poet’s voice an added layer of meaning, or an intrusion on the reader’s imagination?

Could you….
drop your thoughts….
in the comments?

Explore Themed Writing Calls: Get Published!

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment


by Nadja Maril, a founding member of Old Scratch Press Collective

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

You’re looking for something to read and you go online and start googling. You enter words that describe what you find entertaining.

This is what editors and publishers do when they solicit submissions by selecting a theme. They try to narrow the number and types of submissions to zero in on what they’re seeking, based on what they think their readers will enjoy.

They choose a word, WATER, for example, and they announce their next issue theme will be WATER.  Or maybe they choose a more specific description such as CHILDHOOD MEMORIES ABOUT BASEBALL. They request that writers submit pieces specifically related to the theme. If you send something outside the theme, it will be automatically rejected

                Seize the Opportunity   

The call out can be very specific. For example, this month Screams and Wails Anthology( deadline  2/28/2026) Screams and Wails Anthology is looking for “Horror stories with music or music culture as a predominant theme.”

A part of you may be thinking, I love the music scene but I don’t write horror stories. Or maybe you write horror stories but you have very little inside information on music culture. Are you going to give up that easily? A call out for a specific theme narrows the competition, if you are willing to do the homework. Plus, you may learn something new and have fun.

Here’s another theme call-out. Tokyo Poetry Journal https://www.topojo.com/

is looking for submissions for Volume 18 for their “Gather ‘Round Children—a special issue celebrating oral-tradition poetry and the timeless power of stories carried by the human voice. Specifically they ask for poems that “feel as if they could be shared around a fire: lyrical, narrative, rooted in memory or myth, and crafted to live strongly on the page.”

Maybe you do not consider yourself a poet but you love to sing to your children. Perhaps this call-out might inspire you to try writing a poem that you imagine as a song.

The quarterly online journal Way Words https://www.writersworkout.net/waywords

Is looking for stories, essays and poems that associate with the theme Habits. The Editor’s tip: Habits are things you do the same way every time, usually with the hope of a positive outcome.

We all have habits. Some we do to make us healthier, for example, I take a walk each morning. What is a habit you’d enjoy writing about? As a bonus you could write about someone else’s habit that you admire and your poem or could be a special gift to them, even if it doesn’t get published.

Taking a walk each morning is a habit you might want to write about.

Dragon Soul Press https://dragonsoulpress.com/shortstorycalls

is putting together an anthology of short stories and the theme is
Splash. The word splash provides a good deal of latitude. I can think of stories related to swimming, waterfalls, and jumping into puddles as well as the use of the word as a term for making an impressive and immediate impact. If you enjoy word puzzles, the challenge of all the different ways the word Splash can be used should yield impressive results.

Instant Noodles Literary Magazine https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/instant-noodles-O0jFm

has a theme call out: Planes, Boats, Cars, Trains. The request is for poems, short essays, memoir and fiction (under 500 words). The pieces are for publication online in Issue One of Volume 6 (Deadline 3/15/2026). The ideas one could conceive of  that one could submit are fairly wide ranging. So if you are a writer, how are you going to make you piece of writing stand out from the crowd?

 As one of the editors on the project, I thought I’d share what attracted me to this particular theme.

Most humans live a fairly frenetic life, often on the move. In the famous ancient Greek stories surrounding Oedipus, he is asked a riddle by the sphinx in exchange for safe passage and his life, “Who walks on four legs in the morning, ​ two legs at noon and  three feet in the evening? The answer “Man” has humans crawling as babies in the morning, walking on two legs as adults and needing a cane ( the 3rd leg) in the evening. Mankind is always on the go. If not walking, we’re in the car, on a train, plane, or boat. (Feel free to include buses, helicopters, and subways).

Many of the best stories and poems involve getting from point A to point B via a car, train, boat, or plane. Are you up to the challenge? LET’S START WRITING….

WRITING PROMPT

        Planes, Boats, Cars, Trains

Looking out the window, inside at the passengers or thinking about something? What happens when you’re on the move?

Interesting things can happen when you’re on the move and in a confined space. Plenty of murder mysteries take place on a boat or a train. The number of passengers are limited and there are places to hide.

The passenger looks out a window and see images that may bring joy or dread. They may be stuck sitting next to a stranger they find fascinating or an acquaintance they’d prefer to avoid. Create a scene, write down a memory, convey your feelings about a brief journey.

Then think: What if? What happens if the protagonist has lost their ticket or the car breaks down? Maybe it happened, Maybe you’re imagining it happening.

Here’s the hard part. Make it short. Every word should count. Read what you’ve written out loud. Each phrase/ and/or sentence should provide something essential. Whatever you can eliminate, start crossing stuff out.

Read it again. Let it sit for a week. Do another revision and make certain whatever and whenever you submit to Instant Noodles  Literary Magazine or any other publication, you have carefully reviewed your work and it is ready for publication. Check over carefully for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Thank you for reading and please follow us here and on Facebook.https://www.facebook.com/OLDSCRATCHPRESS/

Nadja Maril is an award winning writer and poet who has been published in dozens of online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, Instant Noodles and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, published by Old Scratch Press (September 2024), a Midwest Review California Book Watch Reviewer’s Choice. An Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/recipes-from-my-garden-nadja-maril/1145598579

Collaboration with Who?

Published on by wyn001100Leave a comment

by ROBERT FLEMING, Founding member of OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

In January, 2024 I wrote a blog on Hybrid Poetry which is an integration of two or more art forms, where one form is text.

If you create a hybrid work, who should you collaborate with? If you choose another person you will have to coordinate with them and all their peculiarities. Such a Drag! Why not collaborate with yourself? Only have to deal with when you are in a good or bad mood.

My hybrid blog showed my first visual poem, at age 11, I integrated poetry and visual drawing with crayons.

Figure 1.

Do you have two or more skills that can be integrated? Pick them from this list.

  • writing poetry
  • writing prose
  • creating visual art
  • music: playing an instrument
  • singing

When you join two skills, it might have been given a name:

  • prose poetry = writing prose and writing poetry
  • visual poetry = writing poetry and creating visual art
  • performance poetry = (playing an instrument or singing) and writing poetry

If you have integrated two skills before:

  • How did it go?
  • Would you do it again?
  • Consider not just the quality of your work but did you enjoy it?

In deciding whether to collaborate with yourself:

  • Comparatively at what skill level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) are your two skills? Are they at the same skill level or different? My two skills of writing poetry and creating visual art are at the same level.
    • If your skills levels are not at the same level (e.g. intermediate in writing poetry, beginner in playing an instrument), can you accept that your work produced is likely to be at the lower skill level?
    • What will you do with your work: celebrate it and share it with others, share it with yourself, or trash it?
Mem So CA / Hole in Head Cover – seesaw 2
  • Cycling between genres: At the current time, what is your inspiration for creating different types of work? I cycle through different time periods where I am motivated to spend a different percent of time on each genre (25% poetry, 50% visual art, 25% visual poetry). In 2022, when I was producing my visual poetry book, White Noir, 75% of my time was in visual poetry.

What’s it going to be?

Collaborate with yourself?

  • No: stick to one genre
  • Yes: try it as an experiment

Collaborate with others? Read Robert’s upcoming blog.

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press

OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

About – INSTANT NOODLES

Recent Robert Fleming publications and art

visual poetry

visual art

text poetry

Follow Robert on Facebook

Thank you for reading. Please sign up to follow us on Facebook and to follow us here on WordPress to expand your knowledge about poetry and short form writing as well as to receive the latest news about publication opportunities.

Pop Star Poets

Published on by virginiawattsLeave a comment


Bob Dylan famously called himself a poet first, then a musician. It’s often been said that every poem is a song. Many famous musicians also published poetry including Patti Smith, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed. More recent examples are Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Drake, Halsey, Tupac Shakur, Kelsea Ballerini, Alicia Keys.

Jewel published her first book of poems in 1998 A Night without Armor. She sold over 2 million copies, and her book remains one of American’s best-selling poetry collections of all time. The poems were inspired by the journals Jewel kept throughout her life. She has talked about writing poems since childhood, that it’s not music she needs, but “poetry.” That poetry reflects who she really is and unlike pop music, it allows people to get her. There are poems in the collection about human life, family, her Alaskan childhood, heartbreak, healing, divorce. It’s one of those collections that feels brave as an open heart. Here is Jewel talking about her poetry and her process with Charlie Rose.

I focus on Jewel here because when I first heard her music, I immediately thought of it more as words on a page. The words led for me, and the tune came after. The images were so clear and inspiring. Poets should listen to music, because music can teach us about cadence and rhythm. Music helps with pacing. Sound is important in poems. Music also has structures that help with poetic structures such as refrain and verse. Also, listening to songs can be inspire us. Music evokes emotion. Boosts mood and creativity. Music takes our minds from where we are into another space and that often leads to words on a page. Here is a song by Jewel that demonstrates why songs are poems and poems are songs and why poets need music. We wouldn’t be at our best without it. We were meant for each other. 

Virginia Watts is the author of poetry and stories found in The MacGuffin, Epiphany, CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Eclectica Magazine among others. She has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House was short listed for 2024 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, selected as one of the Best Indie Books of 2023 by Kirkus Book Reviews, and won third place in the 2024 Feathered Quill Book Awards. Please visit her.

Virginia’s new book is now available from Old Scratch Press:

Her prior poetry chapbooks Shot Full of Holes and The Werewolves of Elk Creek 

 are available from Moonstone Press. And her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House is not to be missed!

A Poem Through the Ages

Published on by virginiawattsLeave a comment

My grandfather was a schoolteacher, a school principal, and a child psychologist. He was an advocate for the idea that children should memorize poems. I believe he thought it would improve language skills, help with understanding rhythm in speech, and show children the joy of becoming emotionally attached to words and stories. There were five grandchildren. I was the youngest. I didn’t really want to memorize a poem. I remember it was summertime, and it felt too much like schoolwork, but I did. I chose the poem “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” published in 1889 by Eugene Field. The original title of the poem was “Dutch Lullaby.” Field was known for his humorous newspaper columns and light verse for children. When I look back over my lifetime, I think my grandfather was onto something.

 The poem is a charming, soothing rhyme about three children who go on a journey. They sail on a “river of crystal light” and “into a sea of dew.” They fish for stars and the moon sings to them, encouraging them as a friend and companion. Later, it becomes clear that the story is really about one child, his eyes are Wynken and Blynken, and his head is Nod. His mother is singing to him in his trundle bed of the, “…wonderful sights he’ll see.” 

 The poem was written at a time when people were fascinated with dreams. While it describes sleep, and falling asleep, and dreaming, it’s also about what you can do with your own imagination. It’s a lesson in fantasy. I have recited the poem in my head many times in my lifetime. I recited it to my children at bedtime. Like any good lullaby, it has comforted me and reminded me of hope, beauty, magic and that dreams can still come true. It is a piece of work that makes me feel safe. It has been my trusty companion. So perhaps it is true that all children should memorize at least one poem. I am not the only one who fell in love with “Wynken, Blynken and Nod” and stayed that way. Mankind in general has. It was made into a song in 1890 by Ethelbert Woodbridge. It was recorded as a song again in 1930 and later by the Doobie Brothers. The song was also performed on the television shows Barney & Friends and Sesame Street. In 1938, Walt Disney released an adorable cartoon on the poem featuring three pajama-wearing children. (You can watch this below.)  In 1993, Mrs. Wilson recited the poem to Dennis in the movie Dennis the Menace. The poem is in the public domain and available to read from numerous sources, but here is the text:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
'Where are you going, and what do you wish?'
The old moon asked the three.
'We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!'
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in the beautiful sea–
'Now cast your nets wherever you wish—
Never afeard are we';
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea–
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is the wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

May you find it soothes you to sleep too!
Sweet dreams!

Virginia Watts is the author of poetry and stories found in The MacGuffin, Epiphany, CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Eclectica Magazine among others. She has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House was short listed for 2024 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, selected as one of the Best Indie Books of 2023 by Kirkus Book Reviews, and won third place in the 2024 Feathered Quill Book Awards. Please visit her.

Virginia’s new book is now available from Old Scratch Press:

Her prior poetry chapbooks Shot Full of Holes and The Werewolves of Elk Creek 

 are available from Moonstone Press. And her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House is not to be missed!

Current Words and Old Scratch Press congratulate 2025 Best of the Net and Pushcart Nominees

Published on by wyn001100Leave a comment

by Robert Fleming

Best of the Net Nominees

Visual Art selections by Robert Fleming and Alan Bern

Janina Karpinska, VENUS

Jordan Veres, LASTLY DELIRIUM AND ON THE NEXT OCCASION

Edward Supranowicz, THE WALTX OF LIFE AND DEATH

Creative Non-Fiction selections by Nadja Maril

Fendy Tulodo, Time and Tide

story / flash fiction selections by Dianne Pearce

GABBY GILLIAM, AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION

JAN LEE, THE REPAIR SHOP

poetry selections by Dianne Pearce

RYAN LACANILAO, SNOW DEVIL

Robert Fleming, HAMLET AT THE DRIVE-THROUGH WINDOW

PIXIE BRUNER, THE COOKIES WE ALWAYS MAKE FROM OLD SCRATCH

PAUL HOSTOVSKY, NEW YEAR’S EVE SPAGHETTI

GEORGE SHUSTER, Mahicanituk

GABBY GILLIAM, ON THIS 823RD DAY OF JANUARY WE’VE BOTH GOT WORK TO DO

********************************************************************************************

2025 Pushcart Nominees selections by Dianne Pearce, Robert Fleming, and Nadja Maril

Benjamin Talbot, Periscope City: chapter-Poor Advice

Fendy Tulodo, Time and Tide

GEORGE SHUSTER, Mahicanituk

GABBY GILLIAM, ON THIS 823RD DAY OF JANUARY WE’VE BOTH GOT WORK TO DO

Alexander Penney, Bedroom Curtains

Pat Roe, Love me Some Gravy

********************************************************************************************

Yours Truly is:

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press

who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

Thank you for reading. Please sign up to follow us on Facebook and to follow us here on WordPress to expand your knowledge about poetry and short form writing as well as to receive the latest news about publication opportunities.

The Year’s Not Over Yet!

Published on by gilliampoet1 Comment

Looking to get some final submissions in before we say good-bye to 2025? Here are some places that are open for submissions! Click the link to be taken to their submission guidelines.

FREE

Posit is accepting prose and poetry until December 5.

Have a good sense of humor? Defenestration is accepting short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction and visual submissions and seeking humorous pieces through December 5.

Up the Staircase Quarterly is accepting poetry and visual art until December 10. They have a tip jar option for $3.

Southern Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo) is open to poetry, essays, and flash fiction until December 14.

Fish Barrel Review is open to poetry, prose, and visual art until December 15. Submissions are free, but they do also have paid option for expedited responses or feedback.

The theme for Spectrum‘s Vol. 69 is ‘consumption.’ You can submit fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art until December 31.

Psychopomp is accepting poetry, fiction, nonfiction until December 31.

PAID

For a $3, $5, or $10 donation, Passages North is accepting fiction, poetry, short-shorts, and nonfiction until December 13.

OnlyPoems is open to both free and paid submissions for poetry until December 15.

Red Ogre Review is accepting poetry, music, and visual art until December 31 for $3 or $5 donations.

For a $3 reading fee, Five Points is accepting very short fiction until December 31.

Arc Poetry is accepting poetry submission for a fee of $2 per poem until December 31.

Calyx is accepting poetry and prose until December 31 for a $5 fee ($3 if you are a student).

These are only a handful of the journals that are currently open to submissions. There’s still time to get your writing in before the end of the year. Start 2026 off strong by submitting before December ends!

Photo by Andrew Schwark on Pexels.com

Motorcycle Betrayal Poems

Published on by diannePLeave a comment

When I was in school studying writing, I had some just lovely, encouraging professors. One of them was Christopher Buckley.

Chris was always telling me other poets I reminded him of. One of those was Charles Simic, and another was Diane Wakowski. Chris was so wonderful, in fact, that he had studied with Diane, and he helped me organize for her to come and do a reading on campus, from Michigan to West Chester, Pennsylvania. It was a little bit strange, meeting Diane, because I had imagined her to be like if Twiggy and Patti Smith were merged into a single person who wrote kick-ass poetry. In reality she was a tiny thing, and a little prickly around the edges. I was star-struck and shy. I had read (lord knows how, as we didn’t have the internet, maybe in one of her poems) that she was a huge fan of freshwater pearls, and I bought a necklace and bracelet to give to her. She didn’t open the gift in my presence, and I never heard from her to hear if she liked them. But, in my very young mind, I thought she was everything I wanted to be: full-time professor, writing poetry all the time, and just generally badass, which, I guess, included being a little prickly and unfriendly. As introverted as I am, I am also a people-pleaser, so though I don’t want to talk in situations where I don’t know everyone, I do talk, because I am worried about not being nice enough to everyone else. And then I am exhausted after. Maybe Diane had already learned the art of taking care of herself. She was born the year after my dad, so she was well into middle-age when I met her.

The book I have pictured at the start of this post is the one that made me love her: The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems. I mean, she got on motorcycles. My sister (younger than me by 8 years) once had a motorcycle boyfriend, in fact he was a sweet guy, and we’re all still friends with him, and he once let me climb on behind him so that he could drive me around Sea Isle City on his motorcycle. But, to stay on behind a rider, you have to hold on to the rider’s body, and Reuel (the boyfriend) was incredibly fit and hot, like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise hot. I felt so afraid of falling off and dying and so wrong for gripping onto his body for dear life that I cut the ride short. Diane would not have cut the ride short even if it was with her sister’s hot boyfriend. Diane has always seemed to me like a woman who knows who she is and what she wants, and gets what she wants. She might have been the Taylor Swift of the 1970s, because to date her, and to break up with her, was to have a vicious poem written about you.

Dedication in the original The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems

At that point in my life I thought I had all possibilities ahead of me, as young optimistic people do. I thought I could become a thin woman who rode on the back of motorcycles and penned vicious poems about love. Diane also seemed… horny, which, raised by a very Methodist mother who got pregnant as a teenager, I was not allowed to be, so that seemed very flash and exciting to me too.

Honestly, you may think it silly yo say, because poetry is just poems, no big deal, but being a poet was such a monumental thing to me that I’m still trying to give myself permission to do it. Permission Diane never seemed to need, but Dianne definitely needs, to this very day.

If Diane was a sort of a hero, but not the warmest or nicest hero, why bring her up to you? Why not just let her, and her work, slide into obscurity?

I think because she is an unapologetic woman; she is who she is, lusty, strong, angry, successful (even if success did mean getting stuck in Michigan!), and felt no need to be mushy with a grad student who idolized her. No grad students have idolized me, but I expect it could be annoying as well as nice.

I told my sister last week that we’ve lost two Diane’s this year, Keaton and Ladd, both single Ns, unlike my double. Wakowski is up there, and also a single N. I don’t know if I can lose another one this year, so I hope she’s not on a motorcycle these days. And, then again, I kinda hope she is.

“She digs her teeth into the slaveries of woman, she cries them aloud with such fulminating energy that the chains begin to melt of themselves. Reaching into the hive of her angers, she plucks out images of fear and delight that are transparent yet loaded with the darknesses of life. Diane Wakoski is an important and moving poet.”–The New York Times

In 1971, Diane Wakoski published The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems to tremendous acclaim. Relevant, moving–at times shocking–it is Wakoski’s honesty and bravery as an artist that continues to astonish, delight, inspire, and liberate readers.

Wakoski responds to betrayal in a variety of ways including fantasies such as drilling bullet holes into the bodies of unfaithful lovers. But even her anger can be winking, as in the book’s sly dedication to “all those men who betrayed me at one time or another, in hopes they will fall off their motorcycles and break their necks.”

“The Bouquet”

“I Have Had to Learn to Live with My Face”

Have you heard of Diane Wakowski? What do you think of her? If you found any links to video of her, send it this way!

Join Us Today for Voices, Visions, and Poetry: A Live Reading & Book Launch

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Join us today for a triple poetry book launch and live reading event taking place over Zoom.

This special online event will spotlight:

  • Alan Bern, Dreams of the Return
  • Anthony Doyle, Jonah’s Map of the Whale
  • Virginia Watts, Tracing Bodies

Each author will take the mic to share selections from their work, offering an intimate glimpse into the themes, rhythms, and stories behind their collections.

📅 Date: Saturday, October 25
⏰ Time: 2:00 PM PT | 5:00 PM ET
💻 Format: Virtual meeting (Zoom)

Preregistration has ended, but you can still attend by following the link below. Meeting will start promptly at 2 PM PT.

join live meeting

We can’t wait to see you there!

Meet the Authors

Alan Bern

Alan Bern is a poet, photographer, and retired children’s librarian whose creative work often explores themes of memory, migration, and belonging. His poetry pairs evocative imagery with emotional depth, reflecting on journeys both personal and collective. Alongside his writing, Bern’s photography provides a visual dialogue with the poetic world he creates, underscoring the interplay between text and image.

In Dreams of the Return, Bern reflects upon being a teenager in the mid-sixties, living in Napoli for a year with his family, and falling in love with it as if it were his true second home. His travels through Napoli and Southern Italy are expressed in poetry, prose, and photos, offering readers verse that moves fluidly between the outer landscapes of travel and the inner landscapes of longing.

“Bern captures nuances of disparate facets of Italian life with a flair for both drama and revelation.”
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

Anthony Doyle

Anthony Doyle is an Irish writer and translator whose work bridges cultures and languages. He has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and his projects often weave together myth, history, and human experience in unexpected ways. As a translator, Doyle has brought the works of Brazilian writers to English-speaking audiences, deepening cultural exchange.

Hibernaculum, Doyle’s gripping speculative fiction tale of human hibernation, is a 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in the SF category. His new poetry collection, Jonah’s Map of the Whale, charts vast emotional and imaginative territory, drawing on his keen ear for rhythm and layered meaning. Doyle’s poetry speaks with both intimacy and universality, inviting readers to journey through mythic depths and modern consciousness alike.

“A wonderfully inspiring read.”
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

Virginia Watts

Virginia Watts is a fiction writer and poet whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Her writing frequently examines the intricacies of human connection, place, and memory, offering poignant and sharply observed narratives. With a background in both short fiction and poetry, Watts brings an attentive eye to detail and a lyrical sensibility to her storytelling.

Watts’ debut prose collection, Echoes From the Hocker House, IS a 2023 KIRKUS Best Indy Books selection and a 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Awards finalist.

Her latest collection, Tracing Bodies, reveals Watts’ skill at mapping emotional terrain—tracing the fragile lines between presence and absence, past and present. Her voice resonates with honesty and tenderness, leaving lasting impressions on her readers.

“A vulnerable, cleareyed portrait of humanity.”
KIRKUS