No Poetry Express 12/25 and 01/01 Holidays

12/25/2017 NO PE H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

01/01/2018  NO PE -- H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S !

Michael Caylo-Baradi Features Dec 18

12/18/2017 Michael Caylo-Baradi​ hosted by Bruce
(Need a prompt? "Outer" -- as in any use or thought of it -- you don't have to use those words.)

Michael Caylo-Baradi's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Galway Review, Blue Fifth Review, Blue Print Review, The Common (online), Eclectica, elimae, Eunoia Review, FORTH, Galatea Resurrects, Ink Sweat & Tears, Local Nomad, MiPOesias, Otoliths, Our Own Voice, poeticdiversity, Philippines Free Press, Poetry Pacific, Prick of the Spindle, and elsewhere.  An alumnus of The Writers’ Institute at The Graduate Center (CUNY), he has also written reviews and essays for New Pages, PopMatters, and The Latin American Review of Books. 

http://mcaylo.blogspot.com/p/poetry.html

How to purify the air

Re-align the universe in the direction of your gaze. This is
breathing unhinged from dysfunction, clawed with need,
panting for Narcissus.

A bedroom is an occlusion that sharpens visions drooling for its
prey crucified in surrender. The howling beyond the yard
intensifies the season,

feasting on rituals that clarifies the philosophy of fangs. Wings
fluttering by the window are prayers, searching for
maps away from the city,

now submerged in bodies of lights illuminating an aftermath,
of hands intertwined, gasping for morsels of God,
to resuscitate the air.

Poem URL at OTOLITHS 43: 

https://the-otolith.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/michael-caylo-baradi.html

Mary Mackey Features Dec 11

12/11/2017 Mary Mackey hosted by Jim
(Need a prompt? "Fame" or for that matter, "defame"-- as in any use or thought of it -- you don't have to use those words.)

Mary Mackey is a bestselling author who has written fourteen novels some of which have appeared on the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists. She is also the author of seven volumes of poetry including Sugar Zone winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. Mackey’s novels have been translated into twelve languages including Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, Greek, and Finnish. Her poems have been praised by Wendell Berry, Jane Hirshfield, Marge Piercy, and Dennis Nurkse for their beauty, precision, originality, and extraordinary range. Garrison Keillor has featured her poetry four times on The Writer’s Almanac. Also a screenwriter, she has sold feature-length scripts to Warner Brothers as well as to independent film companies. Mackey sometimes writes comedy under her pen name “Kate Clemens.” She has a B.A. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from The University of Michigan and is related through her father’s family to Mark Twain. At present, she lives in northern California with her husband Angus Wright. ” Lowenstein Associates recently published her novel The Village of Bones, a prequel to her bestselling Earthsong Series.

Kin

We were related to everybody in Crittenden County

literally everybody

judges and lawyers and county clerks

and barbers and druggists and soda jerks

and moonshiners and farmers and ferry boat captains

and the rich people in the big white houses

and the poor people down by the slough

Total strangers would come up

as soon as they saw you on the street

throw their arms around you and say

my great grandma is buried next to your great grandma

or I'm your cousin 17 times removed on your third uncle’s side

or

my   my   my   you look just like your daddy

has he ever got out of prison?

                  Mary Mackey

                  from The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams (coming in 2018 from Marsh Hawk Press)