The Zingara Project

Author: Lisa Hase-Jackson

  • That Little Leaf by Rebecca Oet

    Sheep, grazing in the fields,
    each one’s nose following the other’s furry tail.
    We are like these cloud brained sheep, numbly following the shepherd.
    Me, I was the same, sitting at a stained, cracked desk typing away.
    My window was open,
    and a leaf drifted through,
    the type of leaf that seems to be the same as any other,
    but I saw it anyway. I got up,
    my keyboard falling,
    falling and splintering on the drab carpeted floor.
    My eyes are spinning,
    swirling now.
    The leaf goes back out the open window,
    and I chase it, right out the window.
    Now I have my quest, and I follow it diligently,
    skimming over the oceans, and soaring above the earth.
    I am carefree,
    alive.
    Until I see you. Just that one glance of you disrupts all of my work,
    you have deadened me.
    My little leaf soars away, and I do not follow.
    You, with your jacket flying in the wind, I can’t get you out of my mind.
    You are beautiful, and strong, and clever too.
    You are my highest idol, and I need to meet you, I scramble over the underbrush, desperately seeking you,
    but you are forever unattainable.
    But taking a glance in the mirror, I finally see.
    The you I was seeking, is me as I should have been.
    I cast off my wings, and plummet back to earth to join you.

    —

    Rebecca Oet is a student from Solon, Ohio, USA.  She enjoys reading, writing short stories and poetry, and of course, taking pictures. Rebecca is a national silver medalist in the 2015 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and has won multiple awards for her writing and photography. She often fantasizes about growing wings and flying through the air.

  • Discovery by Sheila Cowing                   

       (The Ardèche, France)

    DSCN3641

    What they felt beneath that cliff
    at the turn of an old mule path
    from which stretched grape vines,
    on that brushy ledge was a tiny draft
    urging them to clear grass, sticks.

    Wriggling through the hole:
    there by headlamps, translucent
    stalactites, then a rhino,
    red ochre on white rock, red
    dots like blood drops on a lion,

    owl, ibex, aurochs,
    an elegant running horse,
    these, the oldest known paintings
    on earth; bear bones strewn on the orange
    floor, Auragnacian fingerprints.

    What is rare and precious grows
    in dream light, in darkness, earth’s slave,
    the cavern of sleep. The human edge
    of holy, dreams may be packed
    with meaning, mass and presence.

    Among ancient souls the earth
    was created in dreamtime;
    sung by each telling its origin,
    its animals, plants, people,
    songs passed down and down.

    —

    Six years the editor of an award-winning children’s magazine, Sheila Cowing has also been a landscaper, a book salesperson, and hardest of all, mother of three daughters. She has published non-fiction and three collections of poetry.  She enjoys great views of two mountain ranges with her five-year-old cat and her aging hound.

  • Organ of the Soul

    Iphone Pics and Videos 007It’s cloudy and wet in Charleston today, the air swampy and pungent as is typical of August in this region. While I am still not used to it, I am less unused to it than I was three years ago when I moved here from Albuquerque. This morning, instead of taking my usual stroll around the neighborhood and down the bike path that runs through West Ashley, I opted for the treadmill at the gym where the air is at least somewhat controlled. I even followed up with 30 minutes of yoga before making a quick visit to the chiropractor for some therapeutic attention to what some call my “boulder shoulders”. I am blessed with a Tuesday/Thursday teaching schedule this semester so can look forward to spending my Mondays much in this way — at least until Midterms when grading papers will take precedence over feeling good.

    Last week marked the beginning of the fall semester and was filled with last-minute revisions to class syllabi, office hours, and lesson plans. The early semester juxtaposition of high energy and intense focus sometimes makes me feel a little schizophrenic. Though I felt exhausted by the time Friday rolled around, I was charged from meeting this year’s new crop of students. I can already tell it’s going to be a great semester.

    I opted to teach two classes this semester so that I might focus on other projects, namely submitting poems and poetry manuscript to suitable markets. Though it means tightening my belt and cutting out quite a few extras (and not so extras), I think that the trade-off will be worth it, even if it’s just more time to write and submit. Up until this year, my submission activity has been pretty light. I will be buckling down this semester and getting my work out into the world.

    Meanwhile, poems for the 2017 Zingara Poetry Picks are streaming in at a nice pace and my community Creative Writing classes are going well. It’s great to be back in full-swing again.

    I want to share with you a few of the thoughts that are running through my mind grapes this day; little odds and ends – snippets that might deserve further development or investigation:

    1. I think it is Borges who is credited with the theory that the soul is contained in the voice, at least that is what David Isay, founder of Story Corps, said in an interview by Krista Tippet in the May 12, 2016 “On Being” Podcast. When I google the phrase, I also get “the human voice is the organ of the soul” from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I like both of these ideas, especially when  thinking about, and writing, poetry. I’m going to ponder it all this week.
    2. The law of attraction suggests that like things are attracted to one another. In the physical world, this phenomenon is observable in H20 wherein polar molecules are attracted to one another like magnets: water molecules actually glob on to other water molecules. In the world of human constructs, it also seems that wealth attracts wealth, privilege attracts privilege, and power attracts more power. From these observations our culture has developed the theory that positive thinking can attract positive experiences and lifestyles; that we can manifest the life we want. It makes sense that this theory is not confined to what we consider desirable circumstances. Isn’t it also true that poverty attracts more poverty, addiction more addition, and violence more violence? Manifesting something other than what one is experiencing in these circumstances, while possible, is no easy feat. The move from poverty to wealth, for example, or violence to peace, requires nothing less than Herculean effort.
    3. And finally, this : able-bodied-ness is a temporary state for pretty much everyone.

    That’s it for this Monday Minute. Leave your comments below and have an interesting, curiosity-filled week.

    Z-Poet

  • Amber by Jeanne DeLarm-Neri

    Before the boots wore out we found
    a vast ridge of desert hills to cross,
    villagers to meet, other hands to hold.
    We talk like we did at fourteen,
    tucked under blankets miles separated,
    at three a.m. Back then, the phone cord
    stretched to the end of its coil.
    We stayed quiet as mice in walls
    but not quiet at all – stop that scurrying!
    Sleep now. The unconscious has surfaced.
    Blood pumps DNA –it twists, dances.
    We’re ancients, you and I.
    The liquid of us received the fall of gnats
    and wasps – their wings fell into us,
    fossilized. These chunks of amber
    once flowed free. We forget how blocks
    form, how eons compress into the size
    of postal cartons till we feel the rush
    that made them, when sap oozed
    and plasma shimmered in its puddles,
    back when the exciting conduit transported
    the minerals of what we’ve become.

    —

    Though Jeanne DeLarm-Neri has written poetry and stories for her entire life, she also earns a living in other fields, particularly as a bookkeeper at a private school, and as a vendor of antiques. Her poems and short fiction have been published in two anthologies (In Gilded Frame 2013 and Poems Of The Super-Moon, 2015), and several literary journals, one of which, Slipstream, nominated a poem for the Pushcart Prize. In 2014 and 2015 she was a contributor at the  Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She’s currently working on a book of poems and a novel.

  • My father tells me when I am married I will learn a new trick: by Tiffany St. John

    to make the sun shine brighter

    by my relative dimness, to reflect
    the light of a lover, to speak

    in the tones a cattail speaks in,
    to be the plain, but not the wind across it.

    Sometimes, he says, you can be completely invisible.

    He tells me to be a toothless
    lion, to wait

    in the paleness of night for a brassy star
    to overpower me.

    Joy is in the sacrifice,
    he says. My father says. My father

    who has never been pollen, carried
    from one stamen

    to another, who does not lie like a needle in a pile
    the size of a haystack, or been strings plucked

    until the sound waves grew cancerous,
    who has never steamed away, singular

    into something plural, into pocket-sized ghosts,
    who has never been erased from photographs

    or been a moon.

    —

    Tiffany St. John is an eager pursuer and peruser of Poetry, Psychology, and Philosophy. She lives with her husband and two cats in Columbus, Ohio. She has been published in Black Warrior Review and awaits publication in the upcoming anthology Poetry on Loss through Little Lantern Press.

  • New Creative Writing Class in Charleston Community

    f89a6047e669ec1ac91be6381d9ec13eI am happy to announce that I will be teaching  a creative writing class open to community members at Bliss. Thanks to Tish for providing such a wonderful space for dream incubation

    Creative Writing Extravaganza
    Tuesdays, August 16 – October 4, 2016, 7:00 to 8:30 PM at Bliss Spiritual Co-op
    1163 Pleasant Oaks Drive, off Chuck Dawley Blvd
    Mount Pleasant, SC

    No registration required! Attend all eight weeks or drop in when you can!

    Come learn about or deepen your understanding of poetry, memoir, creative non-fiction, essay and short fiction writing. During this eight-week class, we will explore how the raw material of our life experiences informs our artistic expression and how we can develop those expressions into finished pieces. Each class will focus on a specific sample or style of writing from which students will generate their own work by responding to prompts, engaging in invention activities, and emulating the sample writing itself. Time will also be set aside during each class for students to read aloud from any new work they wish to share (always optional). All levels are welcome.

    We will explore:

    • Imagination in prose and poetry
    • The music of the sentence
    • Forms of poetry (and why they matter)
    • Elements of narrative
    • The Lyric Essay
    • Flash fiction
    • Fun with metaphor, simile, and personification
    • Flash creative non-fiction
    • The role of the writer’s journal
    • How drawing helps writing
    • Deepening writing through awareness and meditation
    • Deepening awareness and meditation though writing
    • Establishing a regular writing practice
    • Working through fear of failure
    • Working through fear of success
    • The joy of revision
    • Revising life stories for empowerment
    • Deepening craft through self-awareness

    Bring your journal, favorite writing instrument, and inner child!

  • A Small Event by Stanley Kaplan

    The source of the singer’s lament,
    stuck in his clogged throat,
    holds the story in its hideous space.

    Hiding the false meaning he was told,
    tittering like the bird, hiding in its
    plastic cage,

    he tries to sing, but chokes instead,
    too much this day his daily bread,
    his Vegas stint, his small event.

    —

    Stanley Kaplan has published poetry in a number of journals, including Onthebus, Midstream, Chiron, Ragazine, Quiet Courage etc. with more forthcoming. He lives in New York City, where he paints as well as writes, He is the recipient of a Pollock- Krasner Foundation grant and his paintings can be seen at www.pkf.org.

  • Remembering Monk, 1966 by Denise Low

    Thelonius prowls stage
    edges while

    the drummer
    drills a solo

    jigs back backwards
    to the bench

    spreads fingers
    stares at them

    ripples an arpeggio
    see-saw fall

    clunks two
    notes at once

    stops
    for the cymbals

    walks behind curtains
    comes back

    outlines a snake spine
    of notes stops

    walks out maybe
    gone maybe.

    —

    Denise Low, a Kansas Poet Laureate, is award-winning blogger and author of 25 books, including Jackalope and Mélange Block. Her memoir Turtle’s Beating Heart is forthcoming, Univ. of Nebraska Press. Low is past board president of AWP. She has an MFA, Wichita St. Univ., and Ph.D, Univ. of Kansas. www.deniselow.net    

     

  • 2016 Zingara Poetry Picks Complete

    This morning, I selected the last poem for 2016’s Zingara Poetry Picks and am happy to report that this will be the first time in the site’s history that a poem will be posted for every week of the year. It also represents the achievement of a goal I have been chasing since re-visioning this project in 2010.

    Zingara Poet is a labor of love, one that requires a lot of time which must be carved out of a of a busy life filled with such activities as grading papers, taking the cat to the vet, having the car repaired, paying taxes, fixing dinner, spending time with the husband, seeing the dentist, moving across country, finishing an MFA, and, oh yes, sleeping.

    Still, I always approach the project with anticipation and always look forward to reading the submissions in my inbox. I am frequently impressed by the quality of work and often find myself contemplating a poem for several days — which often means my readers will, too. And because this year’s submissions have been so wonderfully awesome, I’ve lingered even longer than usual in making final selections.

    Let me reiterate that previous point: This year’s submissions were truly wonderful. I am humbly grateful.

    All this careful reading and busy life-living, however, imposes a longer wait-time for those who submit work. Some poets waited for as many as as eight months before hearing from me this year, and though no one has been unreasonably grumpy about this situation, I am looking into ways of cutting that wait-time down.

    Firstly, there will be two submission periods for 2017. Poems submitted during the first submission period, August 15 to December 30, 2016, will be considered for the first half of 2017 (January – June, 2017). See submission guidelines for complete details.

    Poems submitted during the second submission period, February 1 to April 30, 2017, will be considered for the second half of 2017 (July-December) 2017).

    As always, I reserve the right to extend these submission periods.

    Secondly, beginning August 1, (that’s today) I will be bringing an intern on board to help with administrative tasks, thus freeing me up to read and respond to submissions in a more timely manner. I will be introducing her to you in the next week or so.

    Thirdly, well, there isn’t a definite third thing yet, though it is developing and involves a lot of brainstorming on my part. In any event, more great features and opportunities will be unveiled in the weeks and months ahead. Just know that I am moving toward making the project more visible and viable. Besides, building something carefully over time is preferable to doing too much too soon. Two big things can be enough for now.

    Let me close by once again thanking all of this year’s contributors and readers. Zingara Poet means to be the change I wish to see in the publishing world. If you like the direction in which this project is moving, please submit your poems, subscribe to the site, and share widely with your friends.

    Write On!

  • How does the rooster know when to crow by Rae Marie Taylor

    and the fly to start buzzing
    right now
    How do they and
    all the birdsongs know to stop
    and wait

    while the sun
    climbs up the other side of
    Kitchen Mesa sending rose glints
    into the sky
    but not yet, not quite touching
    the soft red earth
    where I stand
    two ravens know to swoon
    past with a soft, throaty greeting
    quickening trills and twitters
    there in the gulch
    below

    the sun’s glowing
    right now
    the purest white
    down the Dakota Sandstone
    caressing
    purple mudstone
    where fossils still lie.
    —
    Rae Marie Taylor performs on Spoken Word stages in Quebec and the American Southwest. Author of the poetry CD Black Grace, Rae’s The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope also won the 2014 Colorado Independent Publishers’ Merit Award and was Finalist in the 2013 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards (environment).

  • Sleeping with the Squirrels by Tracy Mishkin

    he-wuvs-me-squirrel-1385571-639x518Leaf-fall reveals their fat nests
    cluttering branches, silhouetted
    against the pale sky like hornet hives.
    Still, I am a guest. I climb.

    Thirty feet up, where two limbs meet,
    the fox squirrel sits in the shadow
    of her tail, invites me into the hollow
    sphere perched on a platform of twigs,
    lined with grass and moss.

    She sets acorns before me, this solitary
    forager, bustling and clucking until
    I take one. We talk of kits and children
    until we can scarcely see each other.
    Her eyes brighten when I accept
    her invitation to spend the night.

    Sleeping with a squirrel is like curling
    up in a hammock. I am warmed
    by the embrace of her luxurious tail
    under a blanket of leaves.

    —

    Tracy Mishkin is a call center veteran with a PhD and an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn’t Make It to McDonald’s, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014.

  • Walking an Old Dog by Lisa Chavez

    we rest more
    often. His eyes clouded
    with cataracts,
    hearing dulled
    so he startles
    sometimes.  His hips sway
    with ache, but he
    whiffles his way
    through a scent rich world.

    Walks are shorter, slower
    and even I see
    more–the caterpillar’s
    circuitous journeys,
    the pinon cones
    opening like fists
    dropping their treasure.
    We pause
    to look or sniff.
    Then head home,
    the sun behind us
    like the span of his years
    and our shadows
    thinning to fade,

    lengthening
    toward the end
    of the day.

    —

    Lisa D. Chavez has published two books of poetry, Destruction Bay and In An Angry Season. Her essays have appeared in Arts and Letters, The Fourth Genre and other magazines, and in anthologies including The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity, and An Angle of Vision:  Women Writers on their Poor and Working Class Roots.  She grew up in Alaska and currently lives in New Mexico, and has a keen interest in Japanese dogs and in perfume. Find her online at lisadchavez.com

  • A Wild Hair by K.L. Frank

    A few errant fibers bristle
    from the fallow field
    below my chin, waving goodbye
    to more subtle golden fuzz,
    that once hummed in spring’s
    soft hormonal breezes.
    In blatant disregard
    of harsh depilatories,
    bleaching creams, and tweezers,
    these outlaw strands fly free,
    battle banners
    raised above years ripened
    past their summer prime.
    For now is the autumn
    of more brutish shoots –
    stiff dark hairs that defy
    any downward drag
    and thrust outward, splayed fingers
    reaching toward dreams
    muscles fatigued in the fight
    against gravity can no longer grasp.
    These hairs mark my last attempt
    to step up to the edge of etiquette
    and shout a challenge,
    my final foray into impudence.

    —

    Karin L. Frank is an award-winning author from the Kansas City area. Her poems, including haiku, and prose have been published in both literary journals and genre magazines in the U.S. and abroad.

  • Take the Apple by Michelle Holland

    Drag out books with dog-eared pages, find thatIMG_0924
    quote to make some sense of Adam and Eve,
    the doctrine of apple trees and the real
    story of knowledge. Take the apple not
    just to eat, but cast the seeds and make sure
    to spread them wide along the paths. Seek out
    that birdsong found on an ipod matching
    the birdsong from the lush cottonwood down
    by the ditch, to know a Bullock’s Oriole.
    Notice the canary-yellow bottom
    of a brilliant white sego lily
    balanced on its slender stalk. Truth rises
    in spits and starts, our own bird call, a trill
    of thought where the hummingbirds whirr and dive.

    —

    Michelle Holland has two collections of poetry, “Event Horizon,” included in The Sound a Raven Makes, (Tres Chicas Press) \ New Mexico Book Award winner 2009, and Chaos Theory, (Sin Fronteras Press).  She is co-poetry editor of the Sin Fronteras Journal, and treasurer of the New Mexico Literary Arts Board.

  • The Road to Heaven by D.G. Geis

    Unlike the Road to Hell,IMG_0907
    The Road to Heaven is paved
    With many things.

    Consider sparrows. They
    Make excellent base material
    And are seldom missed.

    And what about the Rabbis of
    Treblinka? Their prayers ascend
    Like incense. And ash packs well.

    Throw in a few starving children
    (Africans of course) and while you’re
    At it, an aid worker or two.

    And dogs beaten especially
    For television. Show the dogs
    With large eyes pleading

    For humanity, praying for the Dog
    Of Dogs to show his growling face,
    And from you, for ten dollars a month.

    Show the living room of the Good Shepherd
    Counting sheep on his 70 inch wafer-thin TV,
    Reclining in a Lazy Boy, kicking back with a

    Cold one, doing what Good Shepherds
    Always do. Taking a well deserved break
    From deciding who gets sheared

    and who gets slaughtered.

    —

    D.G. Geis lives in Houston, Texas. He has degrees from the University of Houston (B.A. English) and California State University (M.A. Philosophy).  He will be featured in a forthcoming Tupelo Press chapbook anthologizing  9 New Poets and is winner of Blue Bonnet Review‘s Fall 2015 Poetry Contest.