Instant Noodles – OLD SCRATCH PRESS

Update from Alan Bern

Published on June 17, 2024 by DiannelpearceLeave a comment

Hello Friends,

If you’re in the Berkely (California) area please join us at Pegasus Books Downtown on Thursday, June 27th for an evening of music, text, and storytelling with me, Alan Bern, Berkeley-based storyteller, performer, author of IN THE PACE OF THE PATH. Bern’s reading will be accompanied by music from cellist Gael Alcock. Recently released by UnCollected Press, IN THE PACE OF THE PATH is a hybrid work of poetry, prose, and photos that charts my life in my hometown of Berkeley and my career at the Berkeley Public Library.

From 6:30-7pm, browse books and enjoy Bach’s Cello Suite #4 performed by Alcock, in memory of Larry Bensky, host of KPFA’s ‘Sunday Salon’ and ‘Piano’.” Reading and conversation with me will follow, at 7pm. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the reading.

Alan Bern’s IN THE PACE OF THE PATH walks the border between poetry and prose, between the surreal and the realism where surrealism spawns, between the past and future which is the pace of the moment by moment of a life. I have learned from Bern’s clarity in poetry and prose to walk the edges of my homeland and step out into the unknown, while carrying the life I have lived within me. This is such an important work to read now and reread as we move through our lives.

—Rusty Morrison, Co-Publisher of Omnidawn—

Enjoy a video by L. Scott Jones of Wrapped in Ruins, a gallery piece and the most recent performance of PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space, a collaboration with other artists of dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver and me:

I will also present an art piece near the end of:

FREE LIVE EVENT: INSTANT NOODLES LAUNCH AND LIVE AUTHOR READING.

DATE: June 20, 2024
TIME: 4:30 PM PT | 7:30 PM ET
Join us in celebrating the release of the newest issue of INSTANT NOODLES, the online literary magazine that features original poetry, art, and short fiction. Meet the authors and listen in as they perform their work live. This online event is open to the public. Click below to register.

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUlfumprTgsE93vS-zfSLwlM-Mf-Vvyy-KU#/registration

There is wonderful writing in this issue of Instant Noodles, and I hope you can attend!

Thanks so much for your interest in the work of the authors of Old Scratch Press!

—Alan

Poems to Read to Your Toddler

Published on March 11, 2024March 30, 2024 by Nadja Maril1 Comment

Looking for recommendations for what to read to your toddler? Poet, writer and former Children’s Librarian Alan Bern has a favorite:

“The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear, illustrated by James Marshall ; afterword by Maurice Sendak.

By Alan Bern

Edward Lear’s “classic love ballad, “The Owl and the Pussycat,” was voted the most popular British childhood poem in 2014, and has been set to music by everyone from Stravinsky to Laurie Anderson.” (”The Sense Beneath Edward Lear’s Nonsense” by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, April 16, 2018) If not as popular in the United States, “The Owl and the Pussycat” has spawned a number of illustrated picture books here. Of the many illustrated picture books of this absolutely brilliant poem for very young listeners and readers by Edward Lear, “The Owl and the Pussycat,” my top choice is the version by James Marshall. Next to Lear’s own illustrations for his poem, James Marshall’s illustrations, although he died before fully finishing them, are my favorites. Marshall creates wonderful characters that match so perfectly the sounds and voices of Lear’s poem. It is a nonsense poem, but it’s always made perfect sense to me and to so many. Young children will love the poem and the book; so will elementary school kids when they need to feel just a bit regressed. Heck, adults will love it, too. As I do.

Nonsense Suggesting Sense

As Gopnik explains later in his essay: “This gift for creating pathos without sacrificing absurdity is what makes “The Owl and the Pussycat” one of the greatest poems in the language… In “The Owl and the Pussycat,” meanings rush in:

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon…

Not even Humpty Dumpty could explain what a runcible spoon is. We know it by its verbal vibration, by its presence, by its sheer runcibleness… This gift for making something felt without having first to make it familiar is one that we later admire in Beckett. Nonsense suggesting sense is a familiar pattern. Nonsense suggesting the numinous is not.”

Personal Connections

And here’s a personal story to go with the poem. As a children’s librarian for many years, I was honored to serve on the American Library Association’s Caldecott Committee in 1992, and I suggested Marshall’s illustrations for this book as a finalist. It was not chosen, most probably because Marshall never quite finished the illustrations. I continued to love the book anyway, and I always wondered why the poem always spoke to me… when I read it or when I listened to another read it. Shortly after my Mom died, I found out why. One day while going through some letters, from my Mom to my Aunt, letters that my Aunt had kept from the early 1950s. My parents were on sabbatical leave (my Dad was a young professor) in Cambridge, England, and I was almost two. In one letter, my Mom wrote: ‘It’s wonderful to be here, Howard and I are having such a good time, and we love having our little boy with us; however, he does drive us crazy and asks over and over and over that we read “The Owl and the Pussycat” to him.’ That brought such a wide smile to my face: of course, I don’t remember it, but it now explains, in part, my continuing love for the poem. Thanks, Mom and Dad, and thank you very kindly, Mr. Edward Lear! And now I shall reach for my runcible spoon.

Thank you for reading . Remember, only a few days remain before the submission window for the spring issue of the literary magazine, curated by members of the Old Scratch Press Collective closes. Submit here –https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/instant-noodles-O0jFm

If you haven’t done so already, please follow our blog here for free and also follow us on Facebook.And coming soon is our newest chapbook release, The Song of North Mountain, by Morgan Golladay followed by chapbooks penned by Gabby Gilliam, Alan Bern, and Nadja Maril.

Instant Noodles with a Side of Love for Valentine’s Day

Published on February 14, 2024March 24, 2024 by DiannelpearceLeave a comment

Instant Noodles is an online lit magazine formerly curated by me, alone, and now curated by Old Scratch Press.

For Valentine’s Day, here are a few of my favorite poems about love from the magazine, pieces that I chose for publication.

FIRST MORNING AFTER MOVING ~ Greg Hill

My bureaus and dressers,
all crossed with blue tape,
a sea of cubed cardboard
spilling out into the hallway
and into all the other rooms.

Where is my bedside table?
Why does the morning smell
like fresh coats of paint,
and why a sound
like a parade of identical cars?

My muscles still burn
from the hours of unpacking
from yesterday’s move.

Where is my toothbrush? My comb?

Then I see you,
tranquil and sleeping
and I know
I am home.

Greg’s poem, so sweet, simple about the things that are not fireworks about love, but make us exceedingly happy all the same.

MUTUAL INTERDIGITATION ~ R. Gerry Fabian

We were linked long before we met.
We have been down the same wrong path
at different times with the same rancid rogues.
When we met, I was coming out the wrong side;
you were still there floundering hopelessly.
At first, I didn’t pay you much notice at all.
The death of a dear mutual friend
brought us together at the freshly dug gravesite.
We are good, now, together, walking that tightrope
of ‘fall off the wagon at any time’ good
that depends so much on breathing love’s balance.

Gerry’s poem, about all the ways that love connects us, adds wholeness to our lives, even as we get past the frenzy of youth.

THE BARBARIANS HAD ACTED REGRETTABLY ~ Colin James

My son found the dragon’s tooth amongst
some rocks and fine white sand. He washed
it clean in a tidal pool. A Hermit crab stole it,
scraping the tip then sucking the remnant root.
The boy threw some sand and stole it back.
He climbed up on the rocks with me to sit.
We examined the hard fire, inner blackened.
Easily sold to tourists later, paying us much more
to guarantee their safe return passage .

Colin’s poem I always took to be about parental love: how our children absolutely make us filled and absorbed and imaginative and plain old grateful to be in their magical world.

UNDER KEEL ON LITTLE DOE LAKE ~ Robert Fleming

moon over wooden hull
us under birch wood
left hand forward 4 ur bow
thwarted by ur stern pry stroke
back stroke 2 ur gunnel
seeking ur back sweep stroke
u j-stroke away
non-swimming clothes on
prefer clothes off
cross draw stroke 2 ur dock
u eskimo roll out
ur knee on deck
solo under skin
draw stroke my wood

Robert, a member of Old Scratch Press, may correct me, but I always took this to be a poem at the beginning, heady stage of love, and so much about the abandonment that I always feel in the time of transition from spring to early summer.

WISTFUL DREAM ~ Bethany A. Beeler

Betahany’s poem always seemed like lust to me, which is beefy and delicious, in my view, like biting into a huge strawberry covered in dark, dark chocolate, and certainly an important part of romantic love.

Lastly, on this hopefully gentle day that comes to you with a hug, or, perhaps a kiss, another from Greg Hill, possibly my favorite poem submitted to Instant Noodles to date. Happy Valentine’s Day. May you find love, or love find you!

SATURDAY ~ Greg Hill

the day
starts in bed

we make

coffee and
something from milk

flour eggs
water

in the shower
warming us together

after breakfast

you brush
a dollop of shampoo

on my nose
as I rinse my hair

even the nothing
you do

is something
to me

Is that turkey cold, or just cool?

Published on December 24, 2023December 28, 2023 by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

Check out the holiday issue of Instant Noodles lit mag: each piece chosen by a member of the Old Scratch Press cooperative!

Submissions Still Open For Winter Issue & READ the Latest Issue of INSTANT NOODLES LITERARY Magazine

Published on October 2, 2023December 22, 2023 by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

Visit our Facebook page for Old Scratch Press to keep up with the latest news. https://www.facebook.com/OLDSCRATCHPRESS/

Publishing Opportunity for Poets and Prose Writers. Old Scratch to curate Instant Noodles.

Published on August 14, 2023December 22, 2023 by Nadja Maril1 Comment

DID YOU KNOW….

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.

DID YOU KNOW….

Instant Noodles has its own website now? https://instantnoodleslitmag.com Bookmark it!

DID YOU KNOW…

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.

You can submit here!

INDIE PUBLISHER DEVIL PARTY PRESS LAUNCHES NEW IMPRINT

Published on June 16, 2023July 12, 2023 by Nadja Maril4 Comments

IN THE NEWS

Old Scratch Press will feature original chapbooks and short-form prose

For Immediate Release

June 15, 2023 – Los Angeles: Devil’s Party Press of Los Angeles announced the launch of a new publishing imprint, Old Scratch Press. This new imprint, based in southern Delaware, will produce quality chapbooks that feature poetry and short-form prose by leading authors.

Supporting this endeavor will be ten contributing editors, members of the Old Scratch Press Short-Form Prose and Poetry Collective: poets and writers Alan Bern, Anthony Doyle, Ellis Elliott, Robert Fleming. R. David Fulcher, Gabby Gilliam, Morgan Golladay, Nadja Maril, Dianne Pearce, Janet Holmes Uchendu, and Virginia Watts who will work together to help promote the love of poems and short form prose.

Old Scratch Press’ inaugural publication is Break in the Field, a collection of verse by award-winning poet, Ellis Elliott. Ms. Elliott is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books, an editor/workshop teacher for The Dewdrop, and facilitator of the Bewilderness Writing Workshops. Her publishing credits include Signal Mountain Review, Ignation Literary Magazine, and Literary Mama.

Break in the Field addresses how human perception can change, depending on the vantage point. “I am a perennial student of nature, inner realms, and the wisdom of the body,” says Elliott, “and I write to bear witness and disentangle the world as I perceive it.” Break in the Field will be available in mid-July 2023.

November 2023 will see the publication of White Noir, a chapbook by Robert Fleming. White Noir is a black and white visual poetry exploration of human birth to death and beyond on Earth. A prize-winning poet who explores masculinity, sexual orientation, sin and virtue, and dystopia in words and graphics, Fleming is a self-described word-artist whose work has been published internationally in more than 95 print and online publications, and has appeared in art galleries and in online mic features. “The vibe is dark, Goethe, and dystopian, but I lighten it up by including humor, and it offers a hopeful ending,” notes Fleming of his upcoming collection.

Beginning in 2024, Old Scratch Press will produce three or more original titles per year, available in both print and Ebook formats. For more information visit oldscratchpress.com and devilspartypress.com.

About Devil’s Party Press
Devil’s Party Press, LLC, an independent publishing house located in Los Angeles, was founded in 2017 by Dianne Pearce, an award-winning author, editor, and publisher. The mission of Devil’s Party is to help showcase the work of unsung authors over 40 years of age. Devil’s Party publishes literary fiction while its four imprints are genre specific: Gravelight Press (horror), Hawkshaw Press (crime/cozy), Out-of-This-World Press (sci-fi), and Old Scratch Press (poetry). To date, Devil’s Party and its imprints have published over 200 authors internationally. In addition to print publications, Devil’s Party produces the award-winning online literary magazine, Instant Noodles

Introducing Collective Member Nadja Maril

Published on June 5, 2023July 12, 2023 by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

“I like a challenge,” says writer/poet Nadja Maril, “Which is why I like short-form writing. Carefully choosing just a few words to depict a scene or describe an experience is skill that requires tenacity. The process is humbling. The results gratifying.”

Ten dedicated writer poets comprise the Old Scratch Short Form Collective,
with the goal of working 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.

This week we are introducing Nadja Maril.

Nadja began her writing career as a freelance journalist and subsequently as a magazine editor, but her love has always been creative writing. “I remember reading Shirley Jackson’s short story in high school, “The Lottery,” and wanting to re-read it again, to fully digest everything it contained and thinking what a gift,” she says, “to write a story less than 10 pages long, so powerful that it calls out to be read over and over again.”

Nadja Maril’s first published books, while she was still in her twenties, were two children’s books about Molly Midnight, the artist’s cat (Stemmer House) that were short form in their own way. Inspired by her artist father Herman Maril’s paintings of the family cat, the text required brevity and the use of simple language. “The content,” Nadja says, “Needed to appeal to a child and to the adult who was reading the book to the child. A favorite children’s book is read many times, but it can’t be boring to the parent or caregiver. It has to sound pleasing to the ear, be visually appealing, and tell a story worthy of reflection.”

An expert on antique American lighting from the late 19^th and early 20^th century, Nadja’s two books on the subject (Schiffer) became mainstays in collector’s libraries as she continued to pen weekly newspaper and magazine columns about antiques.

Refocusing her efforts on further refining her creative work, in 2018, she returned to school to earn her MFA in literary fiction from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine (graduating in January 2020). Her essays, short fiction, and poetry has been published in dozens of literary magazines including; Lunch Ticket, The Journal of Compressed Literary Arts, and Invisible City Literary Journal.

“I like flash fiction,” she says, “Under 750 words. But then I discovered short memoir, which takes on the form of a prose poem.” Her working title for her chapbook, tentatively scheduled to be published by Old Scratch Press in 2024, is Recipes from My Garden: herb and memoir short prose and poetry.

“I’ve published a number of pieces about herbs, vegetables, and kitchen memories,” she says, “And I like the idea of putting them together in a small book.” One of her favorites, published last summer by Anti-Heroin Chic is “Cilantro.” Her prose piece, “Reboot,” appearing in the upcoming edition of the Devil Party’s Press literary magazine Instant Noodles, has a number of components, but the imagery of growing things play an important role in the story line.

Concurrently, working on a novel, Nadja likes to write and revise her work in the context of each short chapter or section, being complete in itself. “I like telling a long story from several points of view which means that each point of view is short story within itself, another short form, she says.

This year, in 2023, Old Scratch Press is looking forward to the upcoming releases of chapbooks by Ellis Elliot and Robert Fleming.

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.

“

Introducing Collective Member Morgan Golladay

Published on May 8, 2023July 12, 2023 by Nadja Maril1 Comment

How does one convey the feeling of a place? Twice-recognized by the Delaware Press Association for her poetry, Morgan Golladay gathers images and thoughts into a story of living in an area where rivers and mountains converge into dreams and memories.

Destination by Morgan Golladay

Ten dedicated writer poets comprise the Old Scratch Short Form Collective, with the goal of working 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.

This week we are introducing founding member Morgan Golladay

Morgan Golladay has been intrigued with words all her life. Her poetry reflects this, and she uses illusion and allusion in her writing. Much of her work focuses on her native Shenandoah Valley, as well as coastal Delaware.

Morgan says that poetry originated as an oral form, and she thinks it works best when it is heard. To that end it must be concise, simple, and tight. The poet bears the responsibility to speak old truths in new ways, to encourage the reader/listener to consider ideas from a different point of view. To do this the poet must be vulnerable, must allow their inner thoughts and fears and secrets to surface. This is particularly difficult in a society that doesn’t share its hurts, its fears, its pain. And that poetry, of love, loss, sadness, fear, and joy binds us together in our humanity and give us opportunities to grow.

Daylight in the Swamp by Morgan Golladay

Now a resident of central Delaware, Morgan ‘s latest work The Song of North Mountain is a love song to the northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Growing up in a valley nestled between the Blue Ridge and North Mountain, Morgan Golladay was greeted daily by the aura of a quiet landscape blessed by sky and rolling hills. The images in this chapbook are, for the greater part, memories of a time where all that was important was sky, mist, land, and trees. Publication is tentatively scheduled for 2024.

Above the Gap by Morgan Golladay

Morgan past work and life experiences have provided her with a diverse perspective which she brings to her writing and her visual artwork. She has worked with non-profits as a volunteer and staff member, been a librarian, a blood donor recruiter, and a customer service and purchasing agent for a residential water-well wholesaler. Her watercolor and acrylic-collage paintings have won awards, and she is a member of the Mispillion Art League in Milford, DE, where she currently lives.

Her poetry and prose has been published in the Broadkill Review, Halloween Party ’21, and Instant Noodles. She is currently editing her first novel.