Monthly Archives: July 2019

Zingara Poetry Review – Call for Submissions

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Submissions are open for Zingara Poetry Review. 

ZPR will feature particular groups of individuals in the upcoming months, so please take a look at the following preferences. If none of the categories below feel like a good fit for you, please submit your work for National Poetry Month when ZPR will be publishing a poem every day of the month.

August: Work by undergraduate students who are currently enrolled in an undergraduate program (any discipline) or who have graduated within two years. CLOSED

September: Work by graduate students currently in a writing-related graduate program, including MFA, MA in English, etc.

October: Work by indigenous people, particularly Native Americans.

November: International Writers (anyone who isn’t living, or wasn’t born, in the United States).

December: Poets over 50

January: New and unpublished poets (0-3 single publications, no books or chapbooks)

February: African American/Black American Poets

March: Women only please!

April: Poetry Month – a poem will be published every day this month so send your best work early!

May: Poets who live WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

June: LGBTQ

July: Editor Favorites

Guidelines:

  • Send 1-3 previously unpublished poems of 40 lines of fewer in the body of an email, any style, any subject, to ZingaraPoet@gmail.com with the submission category (e.g. Undergraduate Student) as the subject of your email.
  • Include a cover letter and brief professional biography of 50 words or fewer, also in the body of your email.
  • Submissions are accepted year round.
  • Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let me know immediately if submitted work is accepted elsewhere.
  • Published poets receive bragging rights and the chance to share their work with a diverse and ever-growing audience.
  • Submissions which do not follow these guidelines will be disregarded.
  • If accepted work is later published elsewhere, please acknowledge that the piece first appeared in Zingara Poetry Review.
  • There are no fees to submit, though you will be subscribed to the Zingara Poetry Review newsletter.
  • Check Zingara Poetry Review every week to read new poems, which are normally published by 9:00am Eastern Time.
  •  Zingara Poetry Review retains first digital rights, though rights revert back to the poet upon publication.

What I look for in a poem:

Like all editors, I like to see interesting poems that do what they do well. Whether traditional, conceptual, lyrical, or formal, they should exhibit the poet’s clear understanding of craft and, just as importantly, revision. Very elemental poems that have not undergone effective revision will probably not make the cut. Likewise, poems which are contrived, sacrifice meaning for the sake of rhyme, feel incomplete, do not risk sentimentality (or are too sentimental), or lack tension when tension is needed, will also be dismissed. I am a fan of rich, vivid imagery, cohesive discursiveness, and surprising metaphors. Finally, poems which perpetuate harmful stereotypes of gender, race, or class will most certainly not be considered.

For a very good discussion on the elements of effective poetry, take a look at Slushpile Musings by James Swingle, publisher and editor of Noneucildean Cafe’

Response time is 2 days to 6 months

Of the Palm by Toti O’Brien

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I admire the naivety
How she stands among fellow trees
sporting nothing
but a scanty cluster of leaves
in guise of a canopy
as if going to a Victorian ball
in flapper attire
also wearing of course
a feathered hat
Of the palm
I admire the frail nakedness
delicately osé
like a dancer’s shaved leg
sheathed by nylon hoses
If she dares
intruding the arboreal crowd
without blinking
while so shamefully alien
uncaring of uniforms
she reveals
among sister specimens
exceptional
skills of discipline
How they march in orderly rows
tracing parallels
with their trunks
fastening earth and sky
with thin stitches
How concertedly
at the first puff of wind
they tickle the horizon
as if playing a keyboard
with soft, even touch
whole steps half steps
hand in hand
up and down the scale
facilement

 

Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She was born in Rome then moved to Los Angeles, where she makes a living as a self-employed artist, performing musician and professional dancer. Her work has most recently appeared in Gyroscope, Pebble Poetry, Independent Noise, and Lotus-eaters.

 

Neighborhoods I’ve Yearned For by Michelle Grue

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Prince Albert town homes
Trees so beautiful I can live with their
pollen that makes me sneeze
Museums of purloined art and the
heights (and depths) of science
Posh crêperie on the street corner

Creaking porch swings
Acres of grass perfect for the active
imaginings of my little black kids
Creek down the way filled with
pollywogs and crawfish
Trees with moss hanging down
obscuring the strange fruit they once hung

Tip-top walking score
Mom and pop flower shop
Ethnic food not yet gentrified,
A brewery that is
Black that don’t crack still
sitting on the stoop and
spilling tea like they been
doing since their double-dutch days
Miss Mary Mack still dressed in black

—

Michelle Grue is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She studies higher education pedagogy and writing studies through the lenses of intersectionality and critical digital literacies. She has previously published in the fantasy journal Astral Waters Review, The Expressionists Magazine of the Arts, and DASH Literary Journal. Feeding her creative energies and making space during motherhood and graduate school life has been a challenging pleasure.

 

Elegy with Ice Cream by Kathy Nelson

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            ―Travis Leon Hawk

A man fits a contraption
onto a wooden pail, fills it with ice.
The child turns the handle as easily

as her Jack-in-the-box but soon
grows bored and runs to play
in the dappled shade of July.

This the man who, as a boy, teased
white fluff from the knife-edges
of cotton bolls under summer sun

till his fingers bled. Once, he spied
a rattler coiled between his feet.
He wants her to understand how

hardship built this good life, how
readily dust could blow again, how
quickly flak jackets could come back.

He calls her to him, teaches―add salt
to the ice, keep the drain clear, turn
the crank without haste, without desire.

Her small shoulder stiffens. He grips,
labors with his own broad forearm,
churns the peach-strewn cream.

—

Kathy Nelson (Fairview, North Carolina) is the author of two chapbooks―Cattails (Main Street Rag, 2013) and Whose Names Have Slipped Away (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Asheville Poetry Review, The Cortland Review, Tar River Poetry, Broad River Review, and Southern Poetry Review.

Homage to the Horny Toad by Chuck Taylor

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Friend Montrose says Why don’t you play the lead
in my next horror film? I’m filming in
Junction where the motel rents are low. The
Monster’s going to be the horny toad.

I’ll film him close and blow the image up
So on screen the horny toad looks large and
Scary what with all that horny skin.

That ought to work I say. We had them in
The backyard down in Deadwood. They can squish
Down flat or blow up big to scare away
The wolves, the foxes, and the coyotes.

You think you know these toads? Why they can squirt
Bright red blood out of their eyes. That’s why I
Am shooting the film in Technicolor.

They’re tiny guys, but not scared of people.
They’ll sit quiet on the palm of your hand.

Carolyn’s said she’ll play the heroine. She’ll
Be chased by what seems to be a giant
Evil monster. Its sticky tongue will flick
Out as if it’s going to swallow her
Whole. A developer’s out to buy her
Land and has trained the beast to chase her.
Good thing you’re using the horn toad. No one

Will recognize little guy made big on
The screen. When I was a kid growing up
I’d see them everywhere, but haven’t seen
The horny toad in more than twenty years.

—

Chuck Taylor’s first book of poems was published by Daisy Aldan’s Folder Press in 1975. He worked as a poet-in-the-schools and as Ceta Poet in Residence for Salt Lake City.