Gabby Gilliam, a fellow member of the collective who like myself lives in the Greater Washington D.C. region which encompasses Northern Virginia and Maryland, recently posted a link on social media about the Second Annual Short Poem Edition just published by the nonprofit Washington Writers Publishing House.
The three-line poems posted, immediately drew my attention and got me to thinking about the power of short poetry. Gabby will be the guest poetry editor for the Winter “Cooold Turkey” themed issue of the literary magazine Instant Noodles. Get more information here.
Short poetry has power. Thank you for reading and if you’d like to share a favorite short poem, please send it in via “comments.” Remember to also follow the Old Scratch Press Facebook page and check out what people are saying about our first book release A Break in the Field by Ellis Elliot.
Instant Noodles is on online literary magazine. Part of the Devil’s Party Press family, Instant Noodles is the opportunity that brought the majority of the authors to Old Scratch Press. It is ALWAYS free to read, and free to submit to.
Old Scratch Press is curating the December 2023 issue? The theme for the December edition is “Cooold Turkey.”
Please take note, we’re shortening our word count. Can you take the challenge and keep it brief by making every word count? For our Winter issue we’re asking our writers to limit their poetry submissions to 2 poems (up to a combined total of 500 words). Prose writers, we’ll be only publishing work that is 500 words or less. (If you need to finish a sentence, we’ll cut you a little slack). Remember, we only publish writers over the age of forty and it’s important to submit work that is somehow related to the theme. Guest Editors for the Winter issue include: GABBY GILLIAM: Poetry, R.DAVID FULCHER: Fiction, ALAN BERN and DIANNE PEARCE: Art, and NADJA MARIL: Memoir/Creative Nonfiction.
The issue opens for submissions August 15, 2023. Submissions close on October 15th.
Hibernaculum began life in Kindle Vella, but KV does not have the whole story. If you began reading it there, you’ll want to get your hands on the book, to see what happens at the end, when the dystopian becomes…. Orwellian.
Anthony Doyle is an amazing author, and while Hibernaculum is his first published novel, it will not be his last. I highly suggest you follow him to follow his career, especially if you like deep books that challenge our modern world. And, in his current post, he has an extra Hibernaculum story posted that you won’t want to miss!
As his publishers, we feel incredibly lucky that we are the ones to publish this book, and we’re looking forward to getting a chance to sit down with the print book and enjoy it all over again. The journey the book takes the reader on is…. unexpected, and when you think you’ve seen behind the curtain, there is more to know, and more secrets revealed. And, if you enjoy fiction that is also culturally relevant, this is the book for you. Like the best sci fi, it is a prescient book, and when you read it, and realize it was written before any hint of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you’ll think that Anthony is a seer, and it will shock you to realize exactly where tough climate choices could take our children someday. No, you will not be able to put Hibernaculum down! But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the experts:
“Thought-provoking SF delivered in an intriguingly panoramic form.” KIRKUS REVIEWS
“Doyle has hit on something rare: an original approach to climate fiction.” BOOKLIFE REVIEWS
“Gripping, revealing, and frightening.” MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW“The contrast between notes and experiences of those who navigate this world are exceptionally well done, and will lend to book club discussions and sci-fi reader delight. Libraries and readers seeking a futuristic exploration which examines sleepers of the world and the social and political truths and realities that underlie their motivations will find Hibernaculum replete with a growing horror of realization that awakens, at the end, into a nightmare of manipulation and truth. It will leave readers thinking long after the story’s final startling revelations.” DONOVAN’S BOOKSHELF
In an imploding world, time is money, time is trouble, and time is risk. For those who can neither afford or bear to exist 24/7, 365 days a year, time is also a solution.
In Anthony Doyle’s startling debut novel, you’ll step into a world where global voluntary hibernation facilities provide a way out, a chance to step off the status quo carousel. Hibernaculum takes you into the before, during, and after of this strange new process and posits the question: Do things really look better after a good, long sleep?
A compelling, unsettling glimpse into the world of tomorrow.
And see what the readers thought who read the abbreviated version on Kindle Vella:
Yes, we’ve been recommending Anthony’s book for some time now, but it’s finally here! And you know that in a few weeks you’re going to start shopping for Christmas presents or Holiday gifts, and why not give your friends and loved ones not just another “thing,” a tie, socks, etc., why not give them an entire week of great reading? People love and remember experiences more than things, and no one will be able to forget this book, or put it down.
DO YOU RUN A BOOKSTORE? ARE YOU A LIBRARIAN? DO YOU HAVE A PODCAST?
Anthony is a warm and engaging human, and he is free, willing, and able to Zoom with you and your guests to talk about his book, or climate change, or sci fi that predicts the future, or how to write and publish your debut novel, or any number of other topics.
As evidenced in this week’s post, constantly reading poetry helps to cultivate the poet in all of us. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been writing poetry for years, there are always new poets to discover and poets from previous centuries to rediscover!
My Favorite Poem
By Gabby Gilliam
I have a hard time picking favorites. Whenever someone asks me my favorite book or favorite song, I’m incapable of narrowing it down to only one. I’ve found the same can be said for poetry.
I try to read at least one collection of poems a month, though I catch snippets of poetry daily. I have some perennial favorites, but I have a new favorite poem every time I come across a poem that resonates with me. I recently finished Unshuttered by Patricia Smith. It’s a beautiful ekphrastic collection inspired by old photographs she has collected from thrift stores. The first poem in the collection immediately struck me and has become my current favorite, though the rest of the poems are also wonderful. The poems in Unshuttered are titled by their position in the book, so my current favorite poem is titled 1.
One of the things I enjoyed about 1 is the end rhyme. It’s rare to come across a poem with such perfect end rhyme that doesn’t feel forced. Nothing about Smith’s poem feels obvious. I also think the direct address to Anna and the speaker’s pleading make the poem feel so personal.
I don’t often read rhyming poetry, but it’s funny that both poems that immediately came to mind when thinking about favorites happen to rhyme. One of my first favorite poets was Dorothy Parker, and I’m still delighted by her poetry. She taught me that poetry doesn’t have to be lofty and difficult to interpret. That sharp words can resonate as forcefully as flowery prose (and usually more so!). Parker’s poems Resumé and One Perfect Rose both made me chuckle the first time I read them. Unlike Smith, Parker’s use of rhyme is purposefully obvious. It’s her unexpected images and phrasing that make the poems an unexpected surprise. I think poets often take themselves too seriously, and Parker wasn’t afraid to have fun with her writing.
One Perfect Rose
By Dorothy Parker 1893 – 1967
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet— One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret; “My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.” Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get One perfect rose.
From Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926) by Dorothy Parker. This poem is in the public domain.
These two poets are drastically different, but I love their work for the response their work evokes in me––which I think we can agree is what we’re all looking for in a good poem.
We are proud to announce that Old Scratch Press will be publishing Gabby’s first chapbook of poems. The working title is No Ocean Spit Me Out. Approximately 30 pages in length, the poems in No Ocean Spit Me Out explore the dynamics and evolution of family relationships. It is scheduled for release in 2024, so keep following our website as well as Gabby for more details.
When Old Scratch Poetry Collective Members were asked to write about a favorite poem, I knew my choice would be my first poem love affair. Before this poem, which I was introduced to in college, I had a healthy love of words, and a newfound interest in poetry, but it was more about my intrigue with the craft of it. I liked learning how things like rhyme and meter, form and pattern, didn’t need to hit you over the head. The tools of poetry were more like puzzle pieces that you both created, took apart, then put together again. But then came Emily.
Ample Make This Bed
by Emily Dickinson
Ample make this bed. Make this bed with awe; In it wait till judgment break Excellent and fair.
Be its mattress straight, Be its pillow round; Let no sunrise’ yellow noise Interrupt this ground.
I can’t explain exactly what alchemical combination occurred to cause me to fall for this particular poem by Emily Dickinson. I know it had to do mostly with the way the lines, “Let no sunrise’ yellow noise/Interrupt this ground” made me feel. I was blown away by two lines. The image of the “noise” of a sunrise, the choice of the word “interrupt”, the idea of this sacred “ground”. All of it. Who knows how or why such a thing speaks to you?
Much like falling in love, the factors that come together to create the feeling are a mystery. I know it was a combination of the known entity of craft mixed with the necessary ingredient of emotion. I had no need to do a critical exorcism of the poem, or analyze each syllable in every word, to know how the poem made me feel.
Dickinson scholar Marta Warner says that “she (Dickinson) is a constant summons to think about language and its preciseness. And not only its preciseness, but its power”. Dickinson was prolific, writing over 1800 poems, and while her image is as a recluse, she was actually quite social in her younger years. She lived in the mid-1800’s, and her poetry was practically unknown during her lifetime. It certainly was not a time of female literary empowerment (has that happened yet?). Dickinson would go on to become a “beacon of verbal power”, and I know her light certainly led me to a lifelong love of poetry.
***
Old Scratch Press is delighted to be publishing Ellis’s first chapbook, a collection of poems entitled A Break in the Field. In her poetic statement about herself on her Bewilderness Writing website, Ellis says,
“I am a perennial student of nature, inner realms, and the wisdom of the body, and write to bear witness and disentangle the world as I perceive it.”
Approximately fifty pages in length, the poems in A Break in the Field grapple with the concept of how human perception can change, depending on the vantage point. You can pre-order the book by clicking on the link in the previous sentence.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ellis Elliott is a writer, ballet teacher, and facilitator of online writing groups called Bewilderness Writing. She has a blended family of six grown sons and splits her time between Juno Beach, FL., and the mountains of Crozet, VA. She has an MFA from Queens University, is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books, and an editor/workshop teacher for The Dewdrop contemplative journal. She has been published in Signal Mountain Review, Ignation Literary Magazine, Literary Mama, OPEN: Journal of Arts and Letter, Plainsongs Poetry Magazine/Award Poem, Sierra Nevada Review, Women of Appalachia Project Anthology, Delmarva Review, The Rail, Spotlong Review, Euphony Journal, and others.
Old Scratch Press (OSP) is pleased to announce that our contributing editor Robert Fleming is one of just six poets who were short-listed for 2023 the Blood Rag Poet of the Year and we couldn’t be prouder.
In Blood Rag Editor Matt Wall’s audio blog, three of Robert’s poems, previously published in the Blood Rag, were featured
And for your reading pleasure, here is one of Robert’s published poems.
Included in Issue #8 of Blood Rag 6-word flash fiction
Madame chopstick walker trips on kabuki.
Melt Marilyn Monroe into a pizza.
The hungry poisoner fed a pear.
Praying the tea will be strong.
I unbrick to Annabel Lee’s silence.
Five bullets left in the barrel.
My vocal cords speak for silence.
Matt Wall says: “I like how weird and strange Robert is; he describes himself as a word-artist; Robert is out there, not what others are doing; unique voice distinct as shit.
In the meantime, you may want to check out Robert’s 12-page poetry chapbook, Con-Way, a tribute to P.T. Barnum, published 7/9/2023 as part of Four Feathers Press: 4 in 1 November, 2023.
You too can support poets and writers by 1) commenting on the work you admire when you read it online 2) purchasing their books and supporting the publications where their work is featured 3) Contacting editors and publishers directly to suggest nominations for various awards 4) Voting, when you are able, if awards ask for reader participation. THANK YOU.
Our series on “Favorite Poems” and why we think about them over and over again, continues with a post by Contributing Editor Virginia Watts.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
by Joy Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
I love this poem because as much as the kitchen table is metaphor, it is not. I remember both of my grandmother’s kitchen tables, one had a well-worn aquamarine Formica top and the other was round and oak.
I remember the things I ate there, tea sandwiches, lemon sponge pie, fresh caught rainbow trout from the mountain creek tumbling by. I remember the smell of coffee. I remember listening to the adults, learning about life.
The table in Harjo’s poem can be seen as a metaphor for a human lifetime. Within it, childhood, adulthood, love, births, old age, war, joy, sorrow, death. Throughout what it means to live a human life we can always return to the feeling a being surrounded by those who nurture us, believe in us, where we were shaped and where we dreamed. We are never alone at this table and if you think about it, our kitchen table is with us always.
Do you have a favorite poem you’d like to share? We’d be happy to publish your comments here. Part of the mission of Old Scratch Press is to promote the love of poetry.
Poetry Practice:
Twice a week, says Virginia Watts, I listen to the podcast Poetry Unbound where Irish poet Padraig O Tuama unpacks one poem in his uniquely contemplative, conversational, kind and down to earth way. Each podcast is less than fifteen minutes. Like his recent book “50 Poems to Open Your World” his podcast opens hearts and minds to poems and poets from around the world. It feels like an invaluable gift each and every time I listen.
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Congratulations to OLD SCRATCH PRESS founding member Robert Fleming, whose poem “we were before waring,” featured in impspired was a Delaware Press Award winner.
WAY TO GO ROBERT!
we were before waring
we were before waring
we wore hair keratin like baboons & knocked our chests like gorillas
we wore skin like zebras & bent-over to water like wilder-beasts
we wore muscle like lions & paw swatted flies like bears
we wore bones like swine & dug dirt worms like robins
we wore blood like falcons & taloned on branches like pigeons
we wore fig leaves like chameleons & hide motionless like a rat out-preying an ambush snake
Ten dedicated writer poets comprise the Old Scratch Short Form Collective, with the goal of working with the Devil’sParty Press, a small independent publisher, to bring to fruition the concept of publishing chapbooks of poetry and short form prose under the imprint Old Scratch Press.
This week we are introducing founding member Janet Holmes Uchendu.
Janet Holmes Uchendu grew up in Eudora, AR, with a love of reading, writing, abstract drawing, and music. She wrote many poems and stories, created loads of colorful abstract drawings, and sang in her church and school choirs.
When she graduated from high school in 1973 she left behind her love of drawing and writing, and focused on music. She attended the University of Arkansas at Monticello with the aid of a vocal scholarship majoring in vocal performance. In 1978 she attended Henderson State University, and finally earned her BA in Music Education from Philander Smith College in 1985.
Life has taken many twists and turns, but Janet never lost her love of reading and writing. She will tell you that the dream of being a writer never died. It was simply a dream deferred. In April 2018, thirty-three years after earning her BA, she enrolled in an Introduction to Creative Writing class at the University of Central Arkansas. It took another two and a half years before she decided to apply to graduate school.
“It was always my intention to go to grad school after I retired from the workforce,” says Janet. “When Covid-19 moved my retirement date up to about two years earlier than I had planned, my deferred dream of being a writer woke up, spoke up, and said the time is now.”
She is currently studying for her master’s in creative writing through the Arkansas Writer’s MFA Workshop at UCA.
Janet is working on a poetry collection, and a memoir. She is a longtime member of a poetry writing group titled, Pens on Fire, that meets weekly via Zoom. She has been a guest contributor in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, her story, “The Color Red,” was posted on the Arkansas Heritage blog in August 2021 and you can read it here. She has also been published in Writing Our Lives, A Southern Storytellers Anthology, Volume IV, and Volume V.
Don’t forget to visit our Old Scratch Press Facebook Page and follow us on Twitter to find out what our contributors are up to and the latest poetry news. Thank You as always for your support.
For writer, poet, photographer and performer Alan Bern, pairing of images and words, what are termed photo-poems is a daily practice. As he states in his introduction to his work “next S-s-startle” published in Mercurious : “Creating photo-haiga is a central part of my daily art practice: I find it both invigorating and meditative, an often odd, but for me, happy combination. I have found that my photo-haiga can bring some readers closer to the poems. And please note that sometimes I find the photos to match poems sitting in waiting.”
One of the ten founding writer poets comprising the Old Scratch Short Form Collective, this week we introduce Alan Bern.
Alan Bern is the author of three books of poetry: : No no the saddestand Waterwalking in Berkeley, Fithian Press;greater distance and other poems, Lines & Faces press. Alan launched broadside press linesandfaces.com, with artist Robert Woods. Robert and Alan grew up together in Berkeley in the 1960s. Both men became commercial printers, but also continued to produce works that combined Woods’s prints and Bern’s writing as well as the writing of other poets, such as Robert Hass and John Anson.
A photographer and a performer with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES and with musicians from Composing Together, Alan also had a career as a children’s librarian. Drawing inspiration from his work as a librarian, he has a book forthcoming from UnCollected Press, titled IN THE PACE OF THE PATH. which is a fictionalized memoir, a hybrid of prose, poetry, and photo-images. As Alan describes it, “It is a book about homelessness as seen and understood by a librarian — I worked as a public librarian for over 25 years before retiring three years ago — and also about the town where the librarian grew up and where he still lives. “
The draft title for Alan Bern’s chapbook, to be published by Old Scratch Press is sway. The theme/content of the chapbook, says Alan, “is (loosely) my responses as an American to the Festa di Sant’Agata in Catania, Sicilia. This chap is the intertwining of my words and photo-images, a vital part of my daily art practice. ”
Members of the Old Scratch Short Form Collective work together with the Devil’s Party Press, a small independent publisher, to bring to fruition the concept of publishing chapbooks of poetry and short form prose under the imprint Old Scratch Press.
Don’t forget to visit our Old Scratch Press Facebook Page and follow us on Twitter to find out what our contributors are up to and the latest poetry news. Thank You as always for your support.
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