Wanna submit to the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for their horror book of poetry? If you are published in HALLOWEEN PARTY, you can. Gravelight Press is part of the Old Scratch Press family, and we pay every author in HALLOWEEN PARTY $25 (and give each author a free copy of the anthology), and that $25 check is enough to qualify for membership in the HWA.
The HWA is currently soliciting for a volume of poetry. Why not submit?
Here’s a little horror ditty (I’m not saying it’s very pretty…).
Little Bo Weep (by D.Pearce)
Now I lay me down to sleep and thinking ’bout dismembering sheep. No hooves to leap no baaaaahs to bleep just nightmares in the meadow’s deep. Like a tea with too much steep the blood into the wool will seep. I chopping chopping as she weeps that simpering whimpering dopey BoPeep. Then I round the herd will creep for bones and fuzz and tails to sweep And when the sheep are in a heap what will be the reap I reap? At lastly long and blissful sleep.
April is the month for poetry, and in the part of the United States where I live, I’m fortunate to have a hiking trail where years ago small signs were posted with quotes from poetry. What a delight, to only hear the sounds of my shoes crunching into the dirt and the twitter of birds and insects, blue sky overhead, surrounded by green. I pause and read the poem painted on a wooden sign. If I am with a friend, I read it to them aloud. If I am alone, I still read it out loud to myself, because poetry is meant to be heard.
National Poetry Month was established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. According to the Academy, it is the largest literary celebration in the world. Listening to a poet read their own work is a treat. Click on the previous link to see and hear Joy Harjo read one of her exquisite poems.
One of the earliest poets I was introduced to in school was William Shakespeare. Today, due to the evolution of the English language, his works are not as frequently read. Some of the words and phrasing may seem “odd” to your modern ear, but listen to the phrasing and the selection of vowel sounds and consonants. Read him aloud and his work may start to grow on you.
Discovering new poets and rediscovering forgotten favorites, is part of the fun of National Poetry Month.
Writer and Artist Morgan Golladay, a founding member of the Old Scratch Poetry and Short Form Collective, created this beautiful piece of artwork featuring a flower found in many spring gardens, Impatiens.
Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
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 Robert Fleming. His chapbook White Noir will be published in the fall of 2023. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog, as we’ll be introducing the contributing editors, member of the collective, one by one each week. You’ll also learn about poetry events, publishing opportunities, and new ways of approaching the genre of short form.
MEET ROBERT FLEMING
Robert Fleming is a word-artist born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada who emigrated to Lewes, Delaware, United States. Robert follows his mother as a visual artist and his grandfather as a poet. In his work, Fleming explores masculinity, sexual orientation, sin and virtue, and dystopia in words and graphics on earth and beyond.
Since 2017, more than 400 of his works were published internationally in more than 95 print and online publications, art galleries and online mic features. His style is influenced by the writers Robert Frost, Dr. Seuss, and the Beats and his graphics by surrealistic artists like Salvador Dali. A Member of the Rehoboth Beach and Horror Writers Association, nominated twice for the Pushcart Award and twice for Best of the Net, Robert Fleming’s is the winner of the 2022 San Gabriel Valley California Poetry Broadside Award and is in the 2021 Best of Mad Swirl.
Robert’s chapbook, White Noir, a Black and white visual poetry exploration of human birth to death and beyond on earth, is scheduled for publication in the November of 2023. He says about the book, the vibe is dark, goethe, and dystopian, but I lighten it up by including humor. And,” he adds, “ it offers a hopeful ending.”
In just four more days April will be here, and you know what that means?… National Poetry Month! If you have a favorite poem, we’d love to hear about it and possibly post it ( if it is in the public domain). Please use the comment space to get in touch, We’ll be sharing favorite poems and pieces we admire along with writing prompts, thoughts and musing about poetry, short form prose and other hybrid forms.
Do you have an idea for something you’d like to read about in this space? Let us know. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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.
To launch, we’ll be introducing the contributing editors, member of the collective, one by one each week.
MEET ELLIS ELLIOT
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 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. Target month for the book’s release will be June 2023.
And we’ll be sharing favorite poems and pieces we admire along with writing prompts, thoughts and musing about poetry, short form prose and other hybrid forms.
Have something you’d like to read about in this space, let us know. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
My name is Ellis Elliott and I am proud to be a part of the Old Scratch Poetry Collective. I recently read Ben Weakley’s first poetry collection, Heat + Pressure. Ben is an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. I am not one normally drawn to books or movies about war, because it is much easier to keep something at a safe distance, to pretend it’s not there, if we do not engage with it. But poetry has a particular way of helping us see with new eyes, and this time the writer is bringing us along with him on patrol with his infantry, at home with his young son, watching the events of Jan. 6, and back to his childhood, when war meant a game to be played. This collection is visceral as well as lyrical, and will linger long after you’ve read the last poem.
Field Dressing
The silent doe stiffened in her bed of leaves,
where moments ago she fell, panting.
Her last breath rattled.
Life passed from nutbrown eyes
into damp January morning.
The snow wrapped us in a womb of silence.
My frost-tipped fingers gripped tight
around the stained handle of a buck-knife,
the curved edge trembling.
Warm against my back, my father’s hand.
Soft against my ear, my father’s voice—
Careful, son. Cut gently.
We eat what we kill.
We honor the animal.
We honor the dead who gave us life.
Boys like me are not made with words enough for this.
Congratulations to OLD SCRATCH PRESS founding member Morgan Golladay, whose poem “The Day Arose Cold,” featured in Solstice, was a Delaware Press Award winner.
WAY TO GO MORGAN!
The Day Arose Cold
The sun rose into a pink sky, pausing to gain strength before entering this frozen day. Yesterday’s snow is untrodden by the small ones, searching for food. Even squirrels have forsaken their branches for warmth and safety in their leafy nests. Would that I, too, could stay, snug and cozy, but there is snow to move, feed to put out, animals to tend.
Old Scratch Press, specializing in poetry and short form prose is an imprint of the Devil’s Party Press, LLC family. We’ve set up this website, administered by members of the Old Scratch Short Form Collective, to share our love for poetry and short form prose with the global community.
OLD SCRATCH PRESS 