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Road Map by Rebecca Aronson

Wind-rush, sky white, harbinger of eagles,
the tree tops enter realms and disappear
without me. Is there anything safer
than a speck? I am small as horizon’s
vanishing point. Witness to my self,
diminishing.  Nothing to calibrate
such unmapping, this ever-lasting lost.
Oh road trip, I am in the world for seeing.
Here was a man selling two apples
and a box of frozen venison. Here a rabbit
no one saw ushered babies into earth,
her tunneling the soft leaf-wet soil
inches from where you stood.
Here was a death and a meal.

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Rebecca Aronson’s first book Creature, Creature won the Main-Traveled Press poetry book contest and was published in 2007. Her poems have appeared in Tin House, the Georgia Review, Cream City Review, Mas Tequila Review, Quarterly West, and others. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she teaches writing and enjoys the mountains.

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Sudden by Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Once the moon stopped seeing me
one to one cut her light from
between my thighs, I lost sleep,
tried on the word barren,
made jokes about how glad I was
to be done, to sweat at 3 am,
and hugged my children close,
examined the aging man

in my bed as if he had already
dismayed me with another woman.
Today, an older moon, witches’ crescent,
bobs over the oak, the dogwood.
I dance, a fool, under her weather eye
No longer one with one, a sudden singular I.

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Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives in the Arkansas Ozarks and is the author of two books of poetry, Reading Berryman to the Dog and Discount Fireworks and two chapbooks. See more of her work on line at www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com

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A Hard Lesson from Hirsch by Cathryn Cofell

What did I know then
of the tenderness of poetry?
Head full of chlorine
and dripping boys in Speedos.
High school was elegy,
fashion and fractions,
spandex and goggles,
ass in the air on a starting block,
a coach who passed me in algebra
so I could rip 50 meters of watery space
in less time than it took to read Frost.
What did I know then
of the cogent of desire?
That coach should have flunked me,
left me to sulk in the library
where Eddie and I could be discovered,
flailing in the stacks.
Now, instead, I suffer the ghost,
Eddie’s rhythm a rock from a slingshot,
me a wild hare poised.
“You are a foreigner to yourself,”
he writes in chalk around me
and the young girls giggle,
this old girl too young.

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Cathryn Cofell-Appleton, publishes poems, essays and emails to bad teachers.  She has her name on six chapbooks, a CD and a forthcoming collection, but no restraining orders.  Yet.

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Be Still by Ronda Miller

It is here, among the dust, discarded
books, some read, many not, plots
remembered, most forgotten.

It is here, behind the
wall, encased through time,
held by a mind visibly gone
astray with vision blank to
the present, not to his presence.

It is here, susurration into the
night, Russian accent,
speech thick, participles
dangle heavy in air,
suspended vibrations of laughter,
tears, love, arguments,
apologies, hellos, goodbyes.

It is here, among the rafters,
rattles her breastbone,
light, musical, harsh, scolding.

“Hear me still!” he demands.

“Here, be still,” she replies,
pats the warm space next to
herself, drifts asleep to his voice
as it whispers in her ear;
her voice urgent in response.

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Ronda Miller, a Life Coach whose clients have lost someone to suicide or homocide, has poetry at The Smithsonian Art Institite, transformed as art, online, in ‘BEGIN AGAIN: 150 Kansas Poems’, ‘To The Stars Through Difficulties’, ‘Going Home: Poems from My Life’, and in documentary ‘The 150th Reride of The Pony Express’. She is a Kansas girl.

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Interview with poet Devreaux Baker

DevreauxIt is with genuine honor and pleasure that I introduce today’s featured poet, Devreaux Baker. Devreaux’s poetry came into my life when she submitted a poem for the “200 New Mexico Poems” project last year. Her poem “Red Willow People” is number 93 in the collection and was posted on June 8, 2012. In addition, it will be included in the upcoming print anthology.

Not long after posting her poem, I received a copy of Devreaux’s 2011 collection of poetry of the title. It didn’t take long for me to appreciate and understand why it was selected for the 2011 PEN Oakland Award.  Please enjoy today’s interview with Deveraux immediately following her poem.
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Recipe for Lorca’s Chocolate Cake 

I worked all night on a chocolate cake for Lorca,
filled with light that does not know what it wants,

created from chocolate so dark it sears hearts
and fills minds with dreams of moon and water.

I used cocoa so pure it causes policemen to weep.
I filled the layers with white linen afternoons,

a hint of ginger and essence of rose creating a dancestep
that wakes your spirit to enter the souls of your feet as a whisper

and fill your body with duende, passion of the first kiss,
becoming a river of fire that ignites your thighs,

and sets loose love reflected in all the eyes of men,
women, children and dogs,

so that one bite of chocolate will rest in your belly
like the tender edge of dawn,

lifting your voice out of the dark rooms of earth
where you sleep, rising up like wind or stars

to encircle my body once again
with your words.

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How long have you been writing poetry and what set you in motion?I have been writing poetry my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of writing poems as a child and making small books of poetry. I was raised in a home where story telling was a huge part of our family tradition and poems were freely recited to us by our grandmother. I remember taking long car trips with my family and being entertained by many poetry recitations from my grandmother. I also remember being shown hand bound notebooks that had been passed down from ancestors that were filled with stories and poems and this made a huge impression on me as to the importance of poetry as well as stories within a family.—

DBaker_Red_Willow_Front (2)Tell me about the inspiration behind your collection of poetry, “Red Willow People.”

When I received the HeleneWurlitzer Writing Fellowship I thought I would concentrate on editing an existing manuscript which I took with me to Taos.  It became clear after I had been in residence for the first week that I was there to write a book of poems which reflected the inspiration of the land and the many diverse people who live there.  I did not have a car while in residence which was a huge benefit as I walked everywhere and had an opportunity to more directly engage with the environment. Early on I had the good fortune to meet Jocelyn Martinez who is an incredibly talented artist from the Taos Pueblo. I shared some poetry with her and she offered to supply the cover illustration for the book. My connection with Jocelyn was a huge impetus for bringing the book to completion. A year later I was awarded a PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award for that book.
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What, in your opinion,  is the most difficult aspect of getting a book published?I feel very lucky in finding a publisher who believes in my work and is so supportive of my vision. I think one of the hardest things about getting published is not becoming discouraged by rejection. It is so competitive and hard to get anything published these days that I think if a writer finds a small independent press that is a right match for them, they should consider themselves fortunate.
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What other creative activities do you purusue?

Some other creative outlets include performance art, radio work, and of course anything to do with being out in nature. For several years I produced a radio program of original student writing for public radio titled The Voyagers Show. Working with students of all ages to produce that show was some of the most gratifying work I have done.  I also enjoy performing poetry readings which incorporate music and have recently staged shows which use live music and masks. I will be returning to Taos      in September for a second Wurlitzer fellowship and am looking forward to producing a new book and a multi media show with several other artists (as yet unknown) from New Mexico. I love the idea of collaborating on a piece that incorporates visual art with the spoken word.
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Devreaux Baker is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the 2011 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry Prize for her book, Red Willow People. She is the recipient of the 2012 Hawaii Council of Humanities International Poetry Prize, and the Women’s Global Leadership Initiative Poetry Award. Her poetry fellowships include a MacDowell Fellowship, the Hawthornden Castle International Fellowship, three California Arts Council Awards and two Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowships. She has published three books of poetry; Red Willow People, Beyond the Circumstance of Sight, and Light at the Edge and conducted poetry workshops in France and Mexico. She has taught poetry in the schools with the CPITS Program and produced the Voyagers Radio Program of original student writing for KZYX Public Radio.

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Fleeting Life by Lola Eagle

Our days are bounded by our dream as night is bounded by the stars;
Our world expands or shrinks in size as it is seen through hopeful eyes.

Each hour of Life begins and ends in minutes that so soon are gone;
To capture one and hold it fast is but a whim and cannot last.

The golden minutes we would keep are fleeting just as all the rest;
The mournful minutes stretch and grow; yet sixty seconds each they hold.

When nighttime flees we come awake to find another chance awaits;
The morning brings us hours to use; how they are filled is ours to choose.

With hopeful hearts our days evolve from black of night to bloom of day;
And whether such is gold or bleak depends on how we act and speak.

Thus, form your day howe’er you will, for what we do reflects our soul;
Giving to others what we seek returns to us a Life unique.

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Lola R. Eagle is a free-lance writer, author and poet living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Her work has been published in national magazines, anthologies, and on-line sites, as well as her own books – From the Eye of an Eagle and More Visions in Verse.”