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Better Than Starbucks About Us Poetry Magazine

Better Than Starbucks!

February 2017 Vol. II No. II

Not your ordinary poetry magazine! If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!

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Who we are Better than Starbucks Founded 1995 as Scene, Arts of the Treasure Coast, Renamed 1998 Abundance, a Harvest of Literature, Life & the Arts Revived 2016 as Better than Starbucks Staff, listed in order of when they joined the staff. Anthony "Uplandpoet" Watkins Publisher, Founder, Editor-in-Chief Kevin McLaughlin Haiku Page Editor, Spiritual Adviser, Poetry Mentor Vera Ignatowitsch Formal &Rhyming Poetry Page Editor, Layout & Copy Editor S. Ye Laird Translations Page Editor Suzanne Robinson Poetry Main Page Editor

Why "Better than Starbucks"?

Before You Know it, the One Man Band is an Orchestra For the first four issues, this space ran on a bit about the publisher. At first, this was due to the fact that there was nobody here but the publisher. Now, as you can see, we have added several staff members so that we are a real fairly fully staffed journal. S. Ye Laird is the editor of a now regular feature, Translations, Vera Ignatowitsch is the editor of Formal & Rhyming Poetry, and Suzanne Robinson officially agreed to accepting the title of what she has been all along, the final judge of what goes on the General Poetry Page, look for a greater depth and breadth than anything I could offer when I was trying to wear all the hats!

Contact us at: [email protected]

Please continue to direct your submissions, questions and thoughts to the main [email protected], but you might want to put your work to the attention of whichever page editor seems most likely to want to see it. We will be looking for submissions of interesting translations, watch S. Ye Laid's Translations page for details. Staff we have yet to find, but are actively looking for! We are still missing a few pieces of the puzzle. At least two, maybe three or four or more. The certain two are as follows: A grant writer (we are not a non profit, except in fact, but not law), we need someone who knows how to help in gathering funding to first pay contributors, and then, possibly, though none have ever asked for a dime, to the various editors. Second, we need a tech person who can build us the mythical chat room discussion forum from Shelfari, or even something better. The maybes, let's talk: Thirdly and Fourthly, and maybe even Fifthly (is fifthly a word? It looks a lot like filthy.) We are looking for: a book reviewer, a music critic and either an art page editor or an art critic or both.

Mentors, Ghosts, and Spirtual Editors

More than a Mind Full: over a dozen chapbooks from Anthony Watkins, starting as low as $5.95

Copyright Better than Starbucks 2017, a poetry magazine

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Neither of these wonderful ladies are on our staff, as both are deceased, but they put this little muddy footed boy on the path to the love of the written word. As of December 4, 2016, we can add the ghost of my father. He never quite understood why anyone would work so hard for something that didn't make any money, but he always supported my efforts to create a place for poetry, literature and art.

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Now with Five Full Pages of Poetry! General Poetry with Suzanne Robinson Haiku with Kevin McLaughlin Formal & Rhyming Poetry with Vera Ignatowitsch Translations with S. Ye Laird ModPo & Experimental Poetry with Anthony Watkins

Better than Starbucks, the Interview,

Featured Poem of the Month Stories of My Father’s Absence I learned to dust when I was eight years old, when grief and hope were equally sensual places. I followed my mother around the house, holding a clean, cloth diaper, cool with lemony sadness. At the redwood cabinet filled with curios, I dusted the stories of my father’s absence. See how the dust settles in the lines of the ancient-faced rickshaw rider, his cart laden with miniature fruits? Between the pearls baked into the pearl diver’s lap? Around the blown glass gills of the carp? In the crannies of a bamboo tea strainer? On top of a river stone darker than midnight? On Saturdays, we polished these artifacts tugging like the tides in the Bay of Bengal. We handled them as gently as we would a newborn, a wish, a sorrow. This story, this life of my father. -Cynthia Grady Cynthia was the middle school librarian at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC for 14 years. Now she writes, gardens, sews, and makes music, in New Mexico.

Poetry Pages ..from the mad mind of the poet

...and now....

Publisher Anthony "Uplandpoet" Watkins shares his latest thoughts and/or poems about whatever crosses his mind This Month: "Hardcopies and Hard Time"

The BTS Interview with Michael R. Burch (this is a repeat of our January Interview)

Vera: What inspired or impelled you to become a poet? Was it tied to a defining event in your life? Michael: I think the first influence came very early in my life, when my mother would recite "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes to me and my two sisters. This was when I was a very young boy, perhaps six or thereabouts. I later learned that Noyes died the year I was born, an interesting synchronicity. But I didn't think much about poetry, in terms of writing it, until my early teens. I had some friends who were in a rock group, but I had no musical ability. I had, however, become a fan of poet-songwriters like Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. Then one day I started leafing through the pages of my high school Literature book, reading the poems independently, and something clicked. Some of the poems, by poets like William Blake and A. E. Housman, seemed quite magical to me. If I couldn't write songs, perhaps I could write poems. That was the beginning of my love affair with writing poetry, because it seemed to me that I did have a talent for writing poems. I remember sitting in the break room of a McDonald's where I worked to earn money for college, looking at a poem I had written, thinking, "Did I just write that?" It seemed that I had produced something a bit magical, at a fairly early age. Now that I have been published around 2,500 times, it seems that I may have had some talent for writing poetry. Vera: You are known as a Formalist, yet you also write free verse. Do you have a preference between the two? Michael: In one way no, in another way yes. I don't think that one genre is superior to the other. There are great metrical poems, and there are great free verse poems. As a reader, I simply like great writing, and it doesn't matter to me how poems are constructed. However, as a writer I find myself writing more metrical, rhyming poems. And I think most readers still enjoy meter and rhyme. For instance, most popular songs are metrical, rhyming poems set to music. Why not give readers what they like? If a poet who claims free verse is "superior" to metrical, rhymed poems is asked to name his top ten songs with words, chances are that all ten will have rhyming lyrics. And I remember reading a book called Touchstones in which a number of free verse poets discussed their favorite poems. If I remember correctly, most of the poets named rhyming poems. And the three best-known founders of English free verse -- Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot -- all wrote rhyming poems. Ironically, Walt Whitman's best-known poem may be "O Captain! My Captain!" The world is full of those sort of ironies. In short, I value both genres equally, but when I write poems they usually end up with meter and rhyme.

The BTS Interview cont'd If you know a literary sort, a poet, an author, a teacher of literature, or just a truly all around interesting character, and you think it might be fun to get their thoughts down on "paper". Let us know, if you have contact info, all the better, but we have our ways....


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The BTS Interview: Michael R. Burch The BTS Inteview Page 1 Vera: How do you view the marginalization of formal forms and rhyme in modern poetry? Michael: I think it has been very unfortunate. The marginalization of formal poetry created a lot of understandable bitterness on the part of poets who continued to work in meter and rhyme. They were denied publication in most of the socalled "major" journals for many years. They were denied awards and honors. It was, in my opinion, discrimination. I think things have improved in recent years, and the rise of the Internet has made things more democratic, as readers can find the kind of poems they prefer without going through discriminatory journals, if they still discriminate. Vera: What purpose do you believe poetry serves? What purpose could and should it serve in our modern culture? Michael: I think poetry can serve many purposes. I think it is true that art can be merely for the sake of art. Poetry is an art and it doesn't have to serve any other purpose, except to please readers. But in the right hands, poetry certainly can do other things. For instance, Robert Burns and William Blake spoke eloquently about social injustices, calling for real equality and justice for commoners at a time when the rich ruled everything. On the eve of the French Revolution, Burns was already writing about the rights of women. Blake was the first artist, to my knowledge, to graphically depict the horrible cruelties of the slave trade. Walt Whitman wrote about, and perhaps helped create, a more tolerant America where everyone could be embraced, whether black or white, male or female, gay or straight. Those poets had tremendous influence on songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen. They were, in my opinion, the first wave of tolerance. We have been catching their wave ever since, or we should be catching the wave! Poets and songwriters have also been powerful voices for peace, and against war. Wilfred Owen was one of the first major poets to argue against the idea that the battlefield was a place of "honor" and "glory." Sappho, the first great lyric poet that we know by name, wrote a poem many centuries ago in which she called for love, not war. She may have been the first "flower child" and she remains one of the most compelling voices for love, compassion and tolerance. Another ancient poet that I really admire in this regard is the Archpoet. He may have been the first "rogue scholar," and he wrote a blistering "Confession" in which he skewered the hypocritical priests of his day. Hell, the ancient Hebrew prophets who gave us large portions of the Bible were reform-minded poets! I think poetry can and has done a lot, in the arena of social change.

Something for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba Something inescapable is lost— lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight, vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars immeasurable and void. Something uncapturable is gone— gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn, scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass and remembrance. Something unforgettable is past— blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,

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Vera: Are you working on any new poetry projects at present? Michael: I have been writing a lot of poetry and prose that is pro-tolerance and anti-Trump these days. I never planned on being a political poet, but some of my political poems, puns and jokes have "gone viral." I may have a few years to work on other projects, until the next scourge appears! Vera: As traditional publishing declines, do you envision new ways in which poetry, and its aficionados, could interact, connect, and grow? Michael: Yes, I think the Internet has really changed things, and in many ways for the better. Poetry is no longer controlled by a few professor-poets sitting in ivory towers, favoring their peers. It is up to poets to figure out how to write poetry that other people will enjoy reading, and they must also figure out how to make their poems accessible to readers. I think I am something of a trailblazer in this regard, as my literary website, The HyperTexts (www.thehypertexts.com), is considered very "relevant" by Google, and we are currently getting around two million page views per year, a figure that keeps going up. Google is a lot more democratic than the ivory-tower sitters, so I no longer have to worry about what they are saying and doing. Vera: How large a role does The HyperTexts play in your life? Michael: I have devoted a lot of my free time to The HyperTexts over the last twenty years. I'm a writer and I want to be read. Having millions of readers is a blessing. It makes me feel that I've accomplished a lot, as a poet, editor and publisher. Hopefully, I have entertained readers, and at times I may have opened their eyes to new and better ideas. If so, I have followed in the footsteps of poets I admire, such as Sappho, the Archpoet, Blake, Burns and Whitman. It has also been my honor and pleasure to publish poets with important things to say, who said it well, such as Jack Butler, Jared Carter, the Estonian Holocaust survivor Anita Dorn, Janet Kenny, the Jewish Holocaust survivor Yala Korwin, Tom Merrill, Richard Moore, Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), Miklós Radnóti (who unfortunately did not survive the Holocaust), Harvey Stanbrough, and Luis Omar Salinas.

Observance Here the hills are old, and rolling carefully in their old age; on the horizon youthful mountains bathe themselves in windblown fountains . . . By dying leaves and falling raindrops, I have traced time's starts and stops, and I have known the years to pass almost unnoticed, whispering through treetops . . . For here the valleys fill with sunlight to the brim, then empty again, and it seems that only I notice how the years flood out, and in . . . Michael Burch: I wrote this poem as a teenager. I was working at McDonald’s at the time, and wrote it in the break room. It was the first poem that made me feel like a “real poet,” so I will always treasure it. The poem was published as “Reckoning” by Arkansas Tech University in Nebo: A Literary Journal, then by Tucumcari Literary Review. After being revised and renamed “Observance,” it was selected as a top 100 poem in the 1999 Writer’s Digest rhyming poetry contest, out of over 13,000 overall contest entries. It also won 4th place in another large

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Better Than Starbucks Interview and finality has swept into a corner where it lies in dust and cobwebs and silence. Michael Burch: This is the first poem I wrote which didn’t rhyme, and the only one for quite some time. It has been published by There is Something in the Autumn (Anthology), The Eclectic Muse, FreeXpression (an Australian writers’ magazine where I was the featured International Poet in the March 2013 issue), and Life and Legend.

poetry contest by Iliad Press. It was subsequently published in Piedmont Literary Review, Verses, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times and the anthology There is Something in the Autumn. Not too shabby for a teenage poet! Infinity Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair? Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach, then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach? Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage? Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too, have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue. Michael Burch: This is the other poem that made me feel like a "real poet" in the early days of my career. It has been published by Penny Dreadful, the Net Poetry and Art Competition, Songs of Innocence and Poetry Life & Times.

Michael Burch with William Sykes Harris, his wife's grandfather

About the Ads you see for Kelly Writers House and Poem Talk: Two years ago I took a free class on Coursera called Modern Poetry from the University of Pennsylvania's Al Filries. Since then, I have been a Community TA. I credit Al and ModPo with recreating my need to publish again. When we first started, I thought it would look better with a few advertisements, so I asked Al if I could run a couple of free ads and he said yes. Anthony Watkins


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Better Than Starbucks General Poetry Page




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General Poetry Page with Suzanne Robinson

Use links below to connect to other poetry sections

Haiku Poetry with Kevin McLaughlin

Translations with S. Ye Laird

Formal & Rhyming Poetry with Vera Ignatowitsch

ModPo & Experimental Poetry

I am not Going to Prepare Kevun this Time (Published in the two international anthologies of poetry, “Journeys Along the Silk Road” and “Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze”) Loku Naenda sitting still on a bench watched the framed photograph of her son, my cousin, that made an exhibition of him in his army uniform and fortitude My puerile questionnaire had its flow as usual One question of mine received an answer, which obviously touched my heart “Wouldn’t you prepare some kevun for the new year? The nicest, your konde kevun.” “No putha, I am not going to prepare kevun this time, What kevun for me? I have already lost appetite.” As her speech came to an end she returned to the photograph and traced the contours of his figure with her quivering fingers. This time the koha didn't sing its ritual new year song in its seminal tone Only the strident, reedy tune of the crows hobbling in the compound Glossary Kevun, Oil-cake. It is a traditional Sri Lankan sweetmeat made of rice and sugar and is served particularly in festive occasions. The village folk are used to consider it as a taboo to cook or eat kevun in sorrowful situations especially when there is a funeral. Koha, The cuckoo bird. It announces the arrival of the New Year in the beginning of April. Konde Kevun, A type of kevun or oil-cake (See kevun) Loku Naenda, This is how somebody calls the eldest sister of their father in Sinhala. Putha, Son Indunil Madhusankha is currently an undergraduate reading for a BSc Special Degree in Mathematics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Colombo, in Sri Lanka. He is a budding young researcher, reviewer, poet and content writer. His work has been widely published.

f l o a t i n g I used to mock the ‘crazies’ who were too afraid to leave their homes and explore the world because my middle school mind couldn’t understand that the flowery walls of some people’s kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms were the world to them. their tvs were telescopes into other parallel planets and their books were backpacks that carried all the tools they needed for adventure. but I just didn’t see it that way. until I grew older and more anxious about getting good grades to get a good job to live a mediocre life full of mortgage payments and microwave meals and balancing vacation days just to go on one tiresome trip a year I just couldn’t see it that way. but time has passed and I have grown even older and now… now I am n o t h i n g. nothing but a floating parasympathetic nervous system who doesn’t even bother worrying about finding my life’s purpose anymore because I’ve already found it conveniently located within the flowery walls of my own bedroom. curled up under blankets with a novel, I am completely content with not leaving because leaving would be joining the world and the joining the world is just too scary for me right now. Patricia Grudens graduated last year from Ithaca College with a B.S. in Marketing/Communications. She also was recently diagnosed with Panic Disorder and Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder. She says, "Both of these mental illnesses have really caused an extreme disconnect between my mind and my body. In my journey to reconnect the two, the best coping mechanism for me is definitely via poetry." We find her coping mechanism has created some interesting poetry. Note: her second poem is posted below as an image to preserve formatting.

Safe Harbor

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Better Than Starbucks General Poetry Page Frozen sleet slashes the ship as it lurches back and forth right and left over violently churning water. A sailor clings to the crow’s-nest scanning the horizon now camouflaged by midnight waves. A flickering light through the gloom sparks a flicker of hope in frozen hearts. Inch by endless inch moment by crawling moment a lighthouse leads sailors to a safe harbor. When tornados tear apart homes and destroy lives a musty mouse-infested cellar doubles as a storm shelter. Amid heart-wrenching sobbing loss a loving embrace becomes an anchor. When children point and laugh at the outcast on the playground a kind word leads the way home. In a world of cruelty, darkness and blinding hatred any light is a safe harbor.

Sarah M. Prindle Lords Valley, PA


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Better Than Starbucks Haiku




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Haiku with Kevin McLaughlin Master Shogen, the Abbot of Zuigan Temple, loved teaching haiku to his monks. “Haiku,” he lectured, “is the ideal poetry form. It captures the thing-in-itself, and nothing more. There is nothing extraneous. Haiku measures both the amount of Zen in the writer and in the reader.” Shogen, a lifelong haiku devotee, read one haiku per day and seldom wrote more than five in a year. “Why is it that you only read one haiku per day, Master?” asked Daitsu, one of his most promising students. “Because reading one haiku is sublime,” replied the old Zen Master, “reading two is tedious.” -Kevin McLaughlin The above micro-fiction illustrates several conditions peculiar to haiku. Each haiku is a separate “Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus” (Om Mani Padme Hum). One good haiku should occupy the reader’s mind uncluttered, by itself, not one of twenty read in less than two minutes. Reading haiku is an art form, just like writing the verse. A distracted mind will miss the essence of the poet’s insight. The haiku reader has only seventeen syllables with which to work. He must be able to make associations, have the ability to see, hear, and smell images quite vividly. In some cases, given five syllables in a line, the reader may even have to “fill in the blanks,” know how to comprehend using only a fragment of an image. One is expected to complete in many poems what the artist has just begun. Some poems must require repeated readings before the Royal Jelly is extracted from the honey comb. This leads to another attribute of transmitting haiku. It is best read from the written page (or computer screen), not read aloud. The seventeen syllables pass by before the audience has a chance to understand the poem. As a veteran of many open mic poetry readings, I can attest to how difficult it is to sit in a theatre and focus on a chain of haiku read into a microphone to an audience that quickly loses its focus. Haiku are seldom written just for the entertainment value, and if entertainment is provided, it washes out to sea faster than sand caught in a rip tide.

Tri-colored Heron Little Estero Bay Photography by Steve Dimock

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Alan Watts has astutely written, “The haiku poet must, at great pains, acquire a certain primitivity and unfinishedness of expression which comes off only in a social context when the reader is also in the know. It is a poetry where the reader is almost as important as the poet, where deep calls unto deep, and the poem is successful to the degree that the reader shares the same poetic experience which, seldom however, is explicitly stated. This is not though the usage of literary allusion accessible only to an exclusive coterie of scholars. What the reader has to be in the know about is not literature, but rather life, places, the changing of the seasons and, above all, the utterly indescribable insight of Zen Buddhism.” After the blooms shed, The orchid’s true glory: Path of solitude. A common white moth Flutters by us unnoticed: The dead bamboo branch. (Note the use of unnoticed as a kireji, or cutting word) The gopher tortoise Rests by its burrow’s entrance, Remote from the trail. -Kevin McLaughlin Black birds in the sun Circle to become eagles: Vultures and fish hawks. Mr. Watkins’ Black bears haiku is a perfect example of the synergy that benefits both poet and reader. This poem is packed with visual images, and could easily have been the subject of an Impressionist painting. But the imagery doesn’t stop with the visual. Give this verse a few minutes. Watkins is suggesting the smell and the sounds of the creek bank to any reader who takes the time to give the haiku his full attention. The creek bank will fill the mind, and point to a greater reality that lies behind the conventional reality. Black bears catching bass From a shade darkened creek bank While flies hover near. Note also that creek bank serves as a fine cutting word setting up the third line. -Anthony Watkins Ms. Ignatowitsch’s Ghost among the leaves poem is the second example of why haiku is meant to be read one poem per reading. This is three lines so rich in sadness and haunting memories that it is worthy of a Hamlet soliloquy. Don’t hurry by this poem. There is much to be felt in its seventeen syllables, a purity of emotion worth considering and imagining in your own soul. Reading another haiku immediately after staying with this piece detracts from the poetic experience. Master Shogen from the opening micro-fiction would not have read a second haiku that day. Ghosts among the leaves Rustle sad old melodies Falling in one soul. The contrast of the heat and the dazzling shade qualify this haiku as a legitimate response to a koan, a subject we’ll address in an upcoming issue. Rose petals unfold

Thankfully, we still have more delightful haiku from Joan McNerney. This form should be enjoyable, should embrace, at least occasionally, pure delight and fun. I believe McNerney has a joyous sense of wonder about the world around her. I also admire her use of the ellipsis, a device I’ve not before seen in haiku. Yet, its usage is perfectly in line with this poetry’s strict format. Oh, and I love that fish leaping to take a bite out of heaven. Inquisitive… The gingersnap cat stares as I get undressed. Calculating… A fish leaps to capture Bite of heaven. Today’s work is done. The sun fell from the sky For a bowl of stars. -Joan McNerney Mr. Godfrey’s first poem, as well as mentioning BTS, uses a technique known as layering. The second line builds on the first, and third line shifts the reader’s focus to the comfort, mystery, and uneasiness associated with a fog. His second poem illustrates the need for the reader to be knowledgeable, as Watts put it “in the know.” The first two lines are 5-7 syllables that fully create an emotion without having to directly mention the emotion: the third line fully depends on the reader’s knowledge of Jekyll (daylight) and Hyde (night) to fulfill the haiku’s effect. Better than Starbucks A metronome of haiku Resting on a fog. The night an old cloak Charcoal scribble on the sky Jekyll is no more. -James Godfrey Ausgezeichnet! The German word for outstanding crossed my mind when I read A.M. Pattison’s haiku this morning. His work strides across every day imagery to the mystic world that lies behind what we perceive with our fives senses. Mindfulness nurtured throughout the day results in insightful haiku. Pattison’s verse result from deep awareness. We will have two more haiku from this poet next month. There is also a faint feel of the koan in this work. Voice wavers clipdress On the patio monsters Under my nightstand. Look upon the blue Striped watch slung upon her wrist Ticks incessantly. Drought upon my pond You are the mud crack That I am forced to form. We will close out this month’s column with two more haiku by American author Richard Wright, who was beset by anger much of his life, but eventually found peace in the other world that is haiku. These verse are from his published collection. A lance of spring sun Falls upon the moldy oats In a musty barn.

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Better Than Starbucks Haiku Radiating velvet heat Into dazzling shade.

I cannot find it, That very first violet Seen from the window.

-Vera Ignatowitsch

Try not to read too many haiku at one sitting, and try not to read them too rapidly. Yet once more I encourage all haiku writers to share their work, their insights into the nature of all things, with fellow poets and BTS readers. For those interested in haiku, I recommend you cast back into the BTS archives and reference the September haiku column. It provides a pretty thorough explanation of the basic format.


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Better Than Starbucks Formal & Rhyming Poetry magazine




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Formal & Rhyming Poetry with Vera Ignatowitsch A Rooster Refugee A rooster loose among suburban houses is loudly singing matins. His crowing rouses the bleary-eyed suburbanites unused to solar time who, half-asleep, confused, must squint to read their glowing bedside clocks: a quarter of five! But what do strutting cocks concede to those whose lives run clock-unwise? Without his song the sun would fail to rise, he thinks, this self-important chanticleer whose days obey the contours of the year. Before the graders flattened out his farm the beasts awoke each day at his alarm. The fields are now a parking lot; the land is smooth and paved, as featureless and bland as days that do not wax and wane year-round. This rooster refugee is losing ground but keeps on crowing, keeping time without a thought for how his time is running out. I fumble dumbly with my coffee cup; outside the rooster calls, Wake up, wake up! originally published in East of Early Winters Richard Wakefield has taught college literature for thirtyeight years and since 1985 has been Professor of Humanities at Tacoma Community College in Tacoma, Washington. For twenty-nine years he was a literary critic for the Seattle Times. His first poetry collection "East of Early Winters" (University of Evansville Press), won the Richard Wilbur Award. His second collection, "A Vertical Mile" (Able Muse Press), was short-listed for the Poets Prize.

IDS AT SUNNY LAKES yell and fling up sand, K as boneyard motors patinate with rust. A farmer’s pickup, lost beyond its dust, speeds to where murmurating starlings land. Desire pools in the blood, and lovers laid out by orgasm drift off into sleep. Impressions wither in their minds, and steep in darkness that has flooded erstwhile shade. Noisy diesel rigs redshift through their gears. In hospice care a frail heart pumps on faintly, dreaming friends and foes—some more, some less saintly. Happiness cannot recognize its tears. Rails clack under unending rolling stock. Lone souls distill the twilight’s residue, freighthopping pasts they maybe never knew. Their tuning forks tone in the ticking clock. Stephen M. Dickey lives and works in Lawrence, Kansas, and has published free and formal verse and a couple of short stories in small print and online journals. He has published many prose and poetry translations from Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.

Akhmatova

When I wait, at night, for her to come, life, it seems, hangs by a strand. Anna Akhmatova, "The Muse"

Her marriages unhappy, government condemning her and calling her a whore, banning her books, consumed by whole days spent standing in ration lines or at the door of a party office where she would implore release for friends and family sent away to gulag prison camps (they would ignore the pleading she would come with day by day). They did not like her poems or the nude sketches Modigliani made of her. They burned her books. She scraped for love and food. Whatever wrath her poetry incurred, she stood against the boorish, asinine, dim bureaucrats who toed the party line. They died. Their empire fell, her poems remain, sketches of naked truth and art’s disdain for any system or bureaucracy that would restrict a poem or nudity originally published in Scattercolors David W. Landrum lives in Western Michigan. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Measure, First Things, Evansville Review, Three Drops in a Cauldron, and Misty Mountain Review.

Smitten You are so sweet my misfit darling dear in purple fishnet, orange tights and gear hung from a hat atop a scarf of fuchsia and heels that violate the regs of OSHA*

I love the way you snort instead of laugh you're all I need and then another half you glom on me and dote the whole day through while staring out those thick rimmed glasses too What would I do without those pouting lips the awesome sight of your sashaying hips hid beneath the clothes of dorkdom's queen that pearly flesh of yours that no one's seen I'm smitten by your love, you have my heart My Kitten—you're the sweetest little tart. *OSHA – Occupational Safety and Health Administration

DE Navarro lives in Greater Los Angeles where he writes and

publishes. He is the Founder of NavWorks Press. He is an author, poet, editor, publisher, speaker, and life coach. He is the originator and owner of the We Write Poetry forums and the Pride in Poetry Prize and Publication. His work has been published in various journals and magazines. His most recent book is Dropping Ants into Poems. Visit DE's beautiful Website at http://www.de-navarro.com for a peaceful experience and to learn more about his work.

Lighthearted Verse & Limericks... The Hulk There was a big bloke called The Hulk Who was much too proud of his bulk He trained every day Til muscles gave way Then sorry and sore he did sulk. Mario Petralia

I USED TO DREAM I used to dream of flying when I was strong and tall. Now I dream of trying to not get hurt when I fall. Charles Joseph Albert


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Kenneth Rexroth 王红公 (1905 - 1982) “The Poet As Translator“ -- that the translation of poetry into poetry is an act of sympathy--the identification of another person with oneself, the transference of his utterance to one's own utterance. The ideal translator, as we all know well, is not engaged in matching the words of a text with the words of his own language. He is hardly even a proxy, but rather an all-out advocate. His job is one of the most extreme examples of special pleading. So the prime criterion of successful poetic translation is assimilability. Does it get across to the jury?

In the summer of 1951, famed writer/playwright Laoshe 老舍 (1899 - 1966) visited the home of world famous Chinese watercolor painter Qi Baishi 齐白石 (1864 - 1957). Previously, Laoshe has written to Qi a couple lines from two poets of early Qing dynasty he admired ( 查慎行 & 赵执信), to ignite Qi's artistic interest to 'translate' words into his own art form. Here's the genesis of the later most well-known watercolor work by Qi, entitled "蛙声十里出山泉". It is said that it took the master painter three days and three nights to re-create an imagery that most faithfully reflecting the given line, by the playwright/writer Laoshe. In order to see the whole picture, I located two poems and translated four lines from one for our readership here, to fathom why a masterpiece becomes a masterpiece in that oriental world of my birth country.

Fireflies chase the first rising star, by grassy river bank。 Frogs croaking miles after miles, outrun the mountain stream New verse no longer rhymes with old habits Able man with good resolve is rare, and not so easy to come up。

查慎行《次实君溪边步月䪨》

萤火一星沿岸草蛙声十里出山泉新诗未必能谐俗解事人稀莫浪传。

梁宗岱诗集《芦笛风》* -- 程家惠，程晟译水调歌头序曲人生岂局促? 与子且高歌。浩然一曲冲破地网与天罗。给我一枝芦笛，为汝星回斗转，冰海变柔波。哀乐等闲耳! 生死复如何? 浮与沉，明或暗，任予和。钓夫一笑相视，认我与同科。看取沙中世界，更见花中天国，同异尽消磨：君掌握无限，千古即刹那。

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赵执信《七夕示内一绝句》

香濃燈暗立秋庭

近月㣲茫欲辨星窺盡風情是烏鵲人間空自媚丹青。 Liang Zongdai’s "Reed Flute Breeze" -- translators：Cheng Jiahui, Cheng Sheng Water Tune Prelude Isn’t life a river slow and long? With you I sing a song, A toll to break through all woe With nets above and snares below. Give me a reed flute To make for you all stars fly off their route, And turn the icy seas Into soft waves of breeze. Why bother with joy or sorrow, And life today or death tomorrow? Up and down, day and night, Freely I fly as a swallow. Giving me a knowing smile, The fishing man sees me as his fellow. To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a flower of mallow. All will wither and fade Be it red or yellow. Hold infinity in hand, And eternity in the hollow.

*梁宗岱Liang Zongdai (1903 - 1983) was a Chinese poet and translator, developed personal friendship with Romain Rolland & Paul Valéry during his student years in France and Germany ~1924 - 1930. This collection of 50 traditional songs (ci词 ) and 6 sonnets in "Reed Flute Breeze" was first published around 1944, his coming to terms on love as sacrificial act when our poet decided to leave his second wife, a good and intellectually stimulating lady and mother of his three children, in order to offer the ultimate protection to another woman with little education and was in a deplorable domestic situation. We are fortunate to receive a manuscript with complete bilingual texts from translator Cheng Jiahui. For our coming issues, we might select a few more to reveal much dramatic truth as lived by Liang Zongdai with his passion, and also gracious understanding later on, from his second wife 沉樱, who could have taken it as a dejection but instead, transformed it into a blessing and became a prolific translator/publisher on her own in Taiwan. Our translator, Professor Cheng Jiahui 程家惠 has a dashing and daring style, most fitting to Kenneth Rexroth's remark as "an all-out advocate". I particularly love his treatment of last 3 lines in the original: "All will wither and fade, be it red or yellow. Hold infinity in hand, and eternity in the hollow"

Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot I. Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign? Because I do not hope to know again The infirm glory of the positive hour Because I do not think Because I know I shall not know The one veritable transitory power Because I cannot drink** There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice And pray to God to have mercy upon us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us. Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

《聖灰星期三》-- translator S. Ye Laird 叶澍苍释译 * I. 因为我不再乞求变卦因为我不乞求因为我不乞求变卦渴望拥有此人的天才和彼人的天赋我不再努力不再费心于這些琐事（为何老鷹必然想要展開翅膀？）為什麼我必需哀悼人权，人命与人性的自然完了？因为我不再乞望我能洞解浩渺的历史时流因为我无心思考因为我知道我永远无法领悟唯一的千变万化的神通因为我无能化缘** 在彼岸，树木开花，春泉叮咚，在彼岸，万事不复，万物皆空。因为我知道时空永远是时空故土终归只是故土事故若为真，必仅有一回也尽在一方我开心于千事依旧万物自然我不求红脸的关公也不怕黑脸的张飞因为我不再乐意改造我的本性自然而然我欣喜若狂，尽心尽意标新立异神游于我的世外桃源，怡然自乐无穷稚趣。我只求菩萨勒令道长多存怜悯之心只求我能够忘却或超脱千情百酬中的自相矛盾因为我不肯回首且让我的言语答应好事多磨，何苦无事生非，但愿裁决之甲不得以压抑我等俗人。

Create a

原来此翼已不再是比翼双飞之翼而仅仅是落魄的苟延残喘空气稀薄又干燥 , 比意念还要渺小我们由此领悟到无所不在的关怀无念的屏息静坐。请为我等罪人祈禱, 此刻及死神降临之时请为我祈祷，此刻及临终之际。

* "Ash Wednesday" was T.S. Eliot's first long poem, composed and published during the years 1927 - 1930. "Perch' Io non Spero" (part I of "Ash-Wednesday") was published in the Spring, 1928 issue of Commerce along with a French translation. I do not know if there was ever a complete Chinese translation of Part I. I started this translation in 2012, just before the Lent. This line 'Because these wings are no longer wings to fly...' gave me a long pause. I didn't pick up the translation until recently when I encountered this writing Grasping for Grace: The Strangeness and Difficulty of Faith in T.S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday : "Without wings, there is no transcendence, no salvation. With this in mind, I read Part I of the poem as depicting the radical loss of hope that comes when we rely only on what is earthly and human. Renouncing the “blessed face” is the equivalent of clipping our wings and accepting defeat." ** here 'Drink' as the act of partaking of the consecrated elements is translated to 化缘, in buddhism, to beg for alms; to collect alms.

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Better Than Starbucks ModPo and Experimental poetry magazine




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ModPo & Experimental Poetry Neurons Within this tiny darkened space Infinitesimal myriads race Inside and out To confound about They tumble here and stumble there And to my ire aloud they shout: “He said this, she whispered that, They bumped you there and tipped your hat, What of, what if, who, what, where, when...!” And when they finally come to rest Like snowflakes from a blizzard's wrest To snowflakes wafting slowly down If I don't plow away the mass Deluging clouds will soon befall; To ice will snow be soon amassed And then come myriads racing back. Hallana Youth Deprived Observe well The very many saplings that here dwell Who with dreams of becoming trees For abundant fruition one day Grow gray, gray, gray – Before fruition, they wither away. Observe all the wrinkles The discolored leaves; Though the young sapling tries to heave His listless young limbs and broken boughs 'Tis impossible, thus his head bows. And when the sap runs down his flesh He blinks to catch a glimpse below To see what lies before him, deep and low To grasp why his roots are numb and unsound. To his astonishment and torment he found That he had been planted in barren ground. Thus did all saplings raise their voice Moaning in sorrow did they curse their growth And the day when their sowers sowed seeds of lust Without considering Where they'd been thrust. Hallana

All I can hear is Ralph McTell's Streets of London Though in this moment the stars still shine and on a distant planet aliens are listening to a conversation every child has had with his mother over the sound of warplanes en route for that very particular mission light then silence the language tossed like sand into the cosmos. Deafening dark strata irradiates the universes de-vacuuming hiss I feel relieved of this, that sentient shamanic outpouring, the puzzle that vacillates. "I'll show you something to make you change your mind." The Rubix Cubes undoing, dart boards in the attic, a hoopla hoops perished orbit I'm hoarding my own Death Star from a near/far car park this out of town urban centre the future Palmyra like Dali's timepiece eroding. Am I the Aztec gunman with my Nazca lines fuzzing north? Who will sing of "from there to here" ? I will never leave this place alive only my words on 45,the aliens with turntables, cassette and MP3 players, slack jawed like Napoleon beholding the Rosetta Stone, an unreturned lend from the library of Alexandria. Fallen drones carpet the way. Terence Doyle

18:58 my life has fallen apart tumbling imperceptibly wearing away slowly, over months and years but in these few seconds the clock stopped all my private fantasies and my gyroscopic body came in touch with the reality of the moment. Lawrence Tirino

Mi vida se cae a pedazos revolcando imperceptiblemente degastando despacito, durante meses y años Pero en éstos pocos segundos el reloj se paro todas mis fantasías privadas y mi cuerpo giroscópico vino en contacto con la realidad del momento. Lawrence Tirino

COUNT ONE— FOUR

Broken English Stormy clouds pervade Molecules of differing magma Which stem from multiple Scenarios in a fluent language That is only understood by cosmonauts Adam Brown

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Better Than Starbucks ModPo and Experimental poetry magazine

Dennis Aguinaldo *erasures of the criminal complaint of the United States of America v. Artem Vaulin. Better than Starbucks began wholly as a creation in my mind. Now the wonderful collaboration of four dedicated editors is creating a monthly magazine that I could have only dreamed about when I was starting out as a one person organization. Having said that, there are no direct connections between U Penn, Al Filreis, KWH (Kelly Writers House), ModPo (Modern & Contemporary American Poetry), or any of the actual affiliated programs to ModPo and this magazine, other than I have been a part of ModPo for several years now. There is, however, a strong spiritual and intellectual connection between BTS and ModPo. If I had not gotten involved in the larger community of ModPo, I don't think I would have restarted a literary publication. I am certain I would not have added a Formal & Rhyming Page, and probably not a Translations page. I have a pretty narrow preference for poetry, but the course and the people at ModPo have expanded my view of poetry to the point that I decided if I could find good people to help me do it, we would make BTS as broad of a source of styles and genres as possible. We have been fortunate to establish a team of talented editors and are in the process of an ever expanding quest to find poetry wherever it may be. Thus, it seems fitting that we dedicate a page to my fellow students at ModPo, and/or anyone who wants to share experimental poems. The thing about experiments is, they often fail, but as the point is to learn, not to create perfection, even failed experiments, in the lab or on this page will offer something for us, if we will find it. and when the experiment doesn't fail... well, you will see! - Anthony Watkins


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Better Than Starbucks Short Story




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"Get You Dirty" by Pamelyn Casto Hey, you're the one. You got yourself a fine little shape, looking so fresh and clean. Virginal. Unsoiled. You look like high class stuff that ought to get involved with someone like me. And I want to really get into you. Deep into you. That feel good to have me looking at you, to have me breathing on you like this? Feel good when I touch you with my hot hands? You know it does. You're coming with me. But I'm not promising you no forever shit. Might only be for one night. I got this big bed and a big desire to know you. You'll get real dirty with me too. I'll bring you down to my level and my level's pretty damned low sometimes. I'll bend that cute little uptight back of yours and I'll soil you, put my hands, my fingers, my presence, my marks all over you. And I'll take you at my leisure, slow or fast as I want. Make you mine for as long as I want you. You better know too that it ain't good, if it don't please me, you'll be out faster than a rabbit hopping on hot asphalt. And I'll have another in my bed in no time flat. There are so many who'll come home with me. Remember that. You'll have to work hard to satisfy me because I've been around. Plenty. And you'll never be the same again. When I'm through with you, you'll be damaged goods. Those who take their turn after me will be able pick you up for a few coins. Maybe even for free. You like that idea of being picked up cheap by just anyone that wants you? Or taken for free? Some do. Maybe you too. So let's really see that high class stuff you're advertising. Let's go find out what you're really like. What we're like together, mixing it up. You're mine because I want you. Bad. "Miss? I'll take this book. Can you ring it up for me?"

ModPo South For those who can't make it to the mecca that is Kelly Writers House, we gather once per month, in a traveling show sort of migration around South Florida to enjoy the companionship, the intellectual stimulation and the pure exhaustion of the mental challenge of a live close read! Join Us!


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Apology Peaches by Max Luque Through the kitchen window, I watched you pull into the driveway and get out of the car. You held a paper bag in one hand and your briefcase in the other. I opened the door for you, and you stood there smiling at me as though we hadn’t argued that morning. “Hi,” you said. “How was your day?” You leaned closer to me, and I knew that you wanted me to kiss you, but I pretended not to notice. “What’s in the bag?” I asked. “They’re apology peaches.” You pulled one out and held it to my mouth. I felt the fuzz touch my lips, and I let you stand there like that, holding the peach up to me, looking stupid with your arm outstretched. I wanted you to feel stupid for a second. I wanted you to know what it felt like. Then I bit into it and took it from your hand, our fingers touching briefly. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand and stared at you, waiting for you to say something, but you didn’t. You nudged past me and walked into the kitchen, setting your briefcase on the table. You pulled out a chair with a scraping sound, and then, sitting down, you took another peach from the bag and started eating it. “I thought you got those for me,” I said. “Oh. Right.” But you kept eating it. “So. Apology peaches.” “Yeah.” You held yours up. “Usually people just bring flowers in these situations.” “But you love peaches,” you said. You smiled, and I wanted to scream at you. I couldn’t help but say, “Apologizing means, like, saying sorry and admitting wrongdoing. Understanding what you did wrong.” You looked at me, but you didn’t say anything. “You can’t just . . . you can’t just show up at the end of the day with a bag of fruit and expect me to be, like . . . happy about it. It doesn’t work that way. It takes a bit more.” “What do you want me to do, then?” “I want you to tell me you’re sorry. I feel like . . . I feel like you don’t even understand why I’m upset. You don’t even know why I was upset in the first place.” “That’s not true.” “God damn it. You can’t just shove a fucking peach in my face and make me forgive you. Why is that so hard for you to understand?” Then you were silent. You put your half-eaten peach on the table next to your briefcase. “Leo. I’m sorry.” “It takes a bit more than that,” I said, and I felt the anger pressing on my skin. “I know that I was short with you this morning,” you said. “And I’m sorry about that. I really am. I have a lot of work things on my mind and…I know it was wrong of me to take it out on you. Do you feel better now?” I wanted to throw the peach at you, but I didn’t. I said, “I just don’t like it when you treat me in a way you shouldn’t just because you’re in a bad mood. It just hurts, that’s all. I just wish you could’ve apologized for it with your words first instead of trying to use peaches to get out of it.” You stared just past me at some spot on the wall. Then you closed your eyes and said, “When are you going to stop punishing me, Leo?” “What?” “When are you going to stop punishing me?” “What do you mean?” “I know that I hurt you before. I know that I did everything wrong before, but this is different now. This is me trying to be with you properly. This is me being with you for real, and you know that. You know that I’m not leaving.” “That’s the thing, though, Daniel. I don’t know that. I don’t know anything, okay?” “Leo, come on. It’s different now. This” – you stood up, spread your arms, and pointed at different parts of the kitchen – “This is ours. This is us being together. This is our house, and these are our things. I mean…I’m not leaving again. You need to believe me.” Continued on Fiction Page 2

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Apology Peaches continued “You don’t get it.” I felt peach juice on my fingers. “I don’t know what you want me to get.” “You have no idea,” I said. “You don’t know what it was like for me.” “It’s different now.” “I know that, but . . . but you don’t get it. You just don’t get it. That type of thing . . . It really messes with me, you know? You were always like, ‘Oh, I’m back with my wife now. Oh, my wife is ending the separation and we’re not getting divorced. Oh, I can’t do this, because I can’t handle it. Oh, I love you, but I can’t be with you.’” “Leo.” “What? What do you want me to say? I’m not going to lie to you about this. It really, really fucked me up, okay? And you’ll never understand that. You’ll never know how it feels to be on the hook like that for so long, waiting and waiting around for you to be with me. I was, like, waiting for you to love me back for so fucking long.” I thought of all the times that I lay in bed and watched you get dressed and leave without looking at me. I thought of all the mornings when I woke up without you, when I didn’t know if I would see you again. You would leave me notes that told me not to call, notes that said, I can’t do this. I’m sorry. “Leo. Look at me,” you said. And I didn’t want to, but I did, because I always did what you asked. Then you said, “I always loved you.” “YOU BROKE MY HEART.” It came out of my mouth before I was aware of saying it, and it hung there in the air between us, loud and ugly. We stared at each other, a little breathless, and I wondered if you felt as scared as I did. I hadn’t yelled at you like that before. Slowly, you moved towards me, your hands out in front of you. You asked if you could touch me, and I nodded. Then you pulled me into you, wrapping your arms around me tight, until it was hard to breathe. You whispered, “You have to forgive me. Please forgive me. We can’t do this if you don’t.” “I’m trying,” I said, and it was true. “You know that I love you,” you said. You put your hands on my shoulders and made me look at you when you said it. “Of course I know that.” I let you kiss me, then I let you take the peach from my hand and throw it away.

That night, we made dinner together, and though we spoke as though nothing had happened before, as though I hadn’t told you that you broke my heart, something was strained and different between us. We laughed a little too loud for a little too long, and we were afraid of silence. We watched Food Network together, and not because we really liked it, but because we didn’t want to risk any kind of argument over what movie to watch. Sitting together on the couch, I rested my legs on your lap the way we both like it. You placed your hands on my knees. After two hours of watching television, you turned it off. You grabbed my legs and moved them off of you, then you took my hand and walked with me to the bedroom. It was something you hadn’t done before – taking my hand and leading me like that. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but before I could decide, we were sitting on our bed, your lips on my neck. I thought of that line from that song, the line that says, I don’t want to be your friend, I want to kiss your neck. I felt something breaking in my chest when I thought of that song, because it made me think of how it used to be. It made me think of the waiting, the waiting that seemed endless, but I still would’ve waited forever for you. And just as I began to wonder how I could’ve lost so much of myself, you were unbuttoning my shirt, and I found myself taking off your belt. “I love you,” you said when you were inside me. You made it last longer than usual, and I thought of all the things we’d never done together. We never danced together. We never went camping together. We never read to each other. We never went on vacation together – not really, not in the way that normal couples do. We never went to a wedding together. “What’s wrong?” you asked, stopping for a moment. “Nothing. I just . . . I love you, Daniel.” You smiled and started again, but you knew I was lying when I said that nothing was wrong. That’s why you held me a little closer that night when we slept. We woke up to your alarm at seven, and I felt your stubble scratch my cheek when you kissed me. I couldn’t look at you when you got up and walked into the bathroom. You closed the door, and when I heard you start the shower, I got out of bed and sat at your desk. Hands shaking, I picked up a pen and wrote you a note, then I placed it on your pillow. I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I love you. I put on some pants and a shirt, and then I went into the kitchen. The paper bag was still on the table, and I took one of the peaches. I went back into the bedroom and put it next to the note. And then I left.


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Better Than Starbucks Interviewee Book Published Poetry magazine




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BTS Interviewee's Book Published Tobi Alfier's new poetry collection, Down Anstruther Way is now available through Amazon's Create Space here. Tobi is not only an accomplished poet, but also hosts the LinkedIn Group Poetry Editors & Poets (PE&E).

Beginnings Don’t start with the dawn, start with the rise of the moon as it lights snow on mountains, and an audience of clouds, all so bright your way is lit without lantern or tired streetlight glow. Don’t start with your first sight of each other across a packed dancefloor, heartbeats matching the bass of the band, start with coming to conscious wakefulness that first morning after you marry, you twist your rings, pinch yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming. His arm wrapped around your waist, knees tucked up into the bench of your bent legs, his breath warming the back of your neck— thus begins the next thirty, forty, fifty years. Don’t start with the common car park, wander through moors and magic, past waterfalls, dreamers and dusty roads, exposed peat, nested ledges, past cottages, past memories long and lasting. Don’t start with the hunt, start with the rescue. - from Down Anstruther Way by Tobi Alfier (Red River Review, November 2015)


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Better Than Starbucks From The Mind




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Three Things, at Least January 28, 2017

One, as you may have noticed, we are featuring the interview with Michael R. Burch for a second issue in a row. This is due to a couple of reasons. One, our two potential interviews for February both were delayed, but equally as important, for we could have just remove...

This month I am actually writing about something important instead of just rambling about the human condition, as I see it. Two somethings, and as a BT...

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December 21, 2016 | Anthony Watkins

This month I am actually writing about something important instead of just rambling about the human condition, as I see it. Two somethings, and as a BTS reader, they could both directly impact your life, albeit in a small way .In 1995, when I started publishing The Scen...

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Hard Copies and Hard Times December 21, 2016

About Editing Poetry – Mine and Yours November 18, 2016

Its Not my Brother, Oh Lord (Standing in the Need) October 22, 2016

About Editing Poetry – Mine and Yours November 18, 2016

Years ago, I first started publicly reading my poetry in 1994, and in just over a year, I started publishing other people’s poetry, I had a hard rule. I almost never gave advice about how to improve a poem, and NEVER gave it unless, not only was I asked, but the person...

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A White Man Lost in America originally posted August 2, 2016 October 9, 2016

A Few Thoughts on Rules, or English as a Second Language originally posted August 30, 2016 October 9, 2016

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Its Not my Brother, Oh Lord (Standing in the Need) October 22, 2016 | Anthony Uplandpoet Watkins

Recently I was scrolling through Facebook, as I probably too often am, when I noticed a post my wife had shared from the Southern Poverty Law Center. It was actually an article in the New Yorker. It was this piece about the nightmare that is our corrupt bail system: PO...

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A White Man Lost in America August 2, 2016 | Anthony Uplandpoet Watkins No, this is not another story of an angry white man threatened by the new progressive, diverse America that doesn’t seem to have a place for him anymore. When I was a child, and my mother would hold my...

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A Few Thoughts on Rules, or English as a Second Language originally posted August 30, 2016 October 9, 2016

A Few Thoughts on Rules, or English as a Second Language August 30, 2016 | Anthony Watkins Okay, I have a few confessions to make.

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Better Than Starbucks From The Mind Have you ever noticed when you are trying to learn a new language the toughest words to learn are the ones you already know? I mean, it took yo...

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October's Rant Brought to You by Matthew... or Not October 5, 2016 | Anthony Watkins

I have scrambled, with the help of my great new staff to get an issue out on time. I have been through nearly a dozen hurricanes. Some, you go remove a couple of palm fronds from your yard and go to work the next day or the day after, some, your neighborhood gets flatt...

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I Still Love to Sing

June 19, 2016 | Anthony Uplandpoet Watkins

When I was small, and my mother was alive, and young, we had a piano. It was an upright grand her father had bought for her when she was a girl. I was about five and I would sit on the piano bench and plink one finger or to at a time, composing songs and singing along. ...

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4 comments Leave a message...

Love love this! Suzanne Robinson · 2 months ago · Reply Test message Anthonywatkins · 2 months ago · Reply Tony, could you publish a short extract or abstract of my 'ImperialAir'? I sent you an early working version ages ago. Mark Heyne · 4 days ago We have added this new feature without any really good concept of how it is going to work, but please use it as much as you like! Anthony Watkins · 2 months ago · Reply Wonderful website, I like it :) Tania Robinson · 2 months ago · Reply Thank you! Anthony Watkins · 2 months ago


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How to Submit CONTACT Due to a temporary lack of funding, we will not be able to pay for poetry or fiction until further notice. We do not keep copyright on any work by anyone in this publication. The exception being work published by the publisher, including interviews. Submit your poem or story in the body of your email. If you want to add it as a word or pdf you may, but unless the submission is in the body of the email, it will not be considered for publication. Along with your work of art, short story or poem, please send your return address and the name you would like listed for the work and the name you want to check made out to, if different from your creative name. Free Verse Poetry Page Poetry Submission Guidelines The good news is this page is not run by committee. You do not need to impress a host of readers. You just need to impress me. What I love in a poem is that it surprises me, moves me, astounds me with the thoughts edged into existence by its words. Publication credits, prizes and awards tell me a great deal and they can certainly be impressive. With that said, not having publishing credits or prizes takes no one out of the running. A great poem can come from anywhere and I don’t want to miss a single one.

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