Other People's Poems Guessing Game 7/31

7/31/2017 Maverick Night  hosted by Jan 

OPPS (Other People's PoemS)   

Bring 2 of your poems, we mix all up in a bag, grab one blind, everyone tries to guess whose it is.   Always fun.

Elaine Brown features July 24th

7/24/2017  Elaine Brown    hosted by J.D
(Need a prompt? "Key" -- you don't have to use that word.)

Elaine Brown – “E Spoken”

I have been writing ever since my Mother and siblings taught me how to hold a pen. I grew up listening to the stories my Grandmother and Mother would tell me about my family and their struggles wondering how I could change things. So, history and writing became my passion. I have been writing Free Style Poetry for almost 30 years combining past and present issues that affect our daily lives; motivating people to change their mindsets.

GOING FISHING

I feel like it’s Easter Sunday

The way we have gathered here today

So Please  allow me to take you to Church

I mean I do believe that one day

Black lives will matter

But the fact of the matter

When the word Nigger

Has more status then God

Then we need to do more than just march

Concerned with all the negative

Allowing media to raise our kids

And hate has become the foundation of our lives

The truth is the farthest thing from our minds

We’re so quick to defend the lies

And our future is hooked on these lines

That we have cast out!

So I’m Going Fishing!

Rose Mark features July 17th

7/17/2017 Rose Mark hosted by Bruce 
(Need a prompt? Explore how the sunset farts -- you don't have to use those words.)

Rose Mark’s curiosity has led her into many worlds.  Food, travel, behavioral shaping, interior design and erotica are just some of topics she has explored in her writing. In her book “Tasting Life”, published by Redhead Press, readers can enter into her love life with food through stories, poems and recipes. Her poems have been included in “Oakland Neighborhoods” and “Dirty Old Women”. Her latest book, “Interior Design for Small Dwellings” published by Routledge is slated to be on the shelf in 2018.  

Nadine Lockhart features July 10th

7/10/2017  Nadine Lockhart   hosted by Jim 

Nadine Lockhart received her MA and MFA from Arizona State University. She is currently working toward her PhD; for which she received the Lattie and Elva Coor Fellowship for Building Communities toward her research on the ability of poetry to transform into continued relevancy through hybridity and cultural relativism. This is serious stuff. Lockhart is an editorial assistant for Poetry Flash, a Berkeley-based literary review and calendar.

Self-Portrait with Shakespeare

 When you come for me I’m at the bottom

of a steep drive that I will climb each day

for the next year. And I’m mouthing your name

because I can’t hold it. You don’t want me

to hold it, don’t know it’s somewhere inside

like a pattern, a template from which you

rise—your voice, you love to hear how your sound

cuts across the air, pushes all other

conversation from the room, bench-presses

my world, throws it over the balcony

where I stand in heels tossing rotten food

onto treetops while reciting Shakespeare’s

better lines, “He who steals my purse, steals trash.”

                                                --Nadine Lockhart