FEATURED POET: Changming Yuan, 4-time Pushcart nominee and author of Allen Qing Yuan, holds a PhD in English, teaches independently, and edits Poetry Pacific in Vancouver. Yuan's poetry appears in 619 literary publications across 23 countries, including Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cave Moon, Cortland Review, Exquisite Corpse, Hawaii Review, PANK and World Literature Today. Poetry submissions welcome at poetrypacific.
et
cetera
we,
yuan ii, by the grace
of
god, emperor and autocrat of
all
english words, king of dreamland
grand
duke of assonance and
consonance,
author of
allen
qing yuan, architect of
george
lai yuan, last scribbler of
poetic
lines, et cetera et cetera
et
cetera et cetera etc
herein
proclaim ourselves as no extra ordinary line
but
a yellow-skined ellipsis
H: For Hengxiang
Liao
inspired by a fence in hell
you were invented long ago
to connect every human
for a tall ladder of hope
that we can stand high
against the blue horizon
like the Babel Tower growing to reach Him
where I can find a home in the fame hall
where I can settle my soul in heaven
8:
Sudden Fortune/Prosperity/Power/Sacrifice
first, a curved 1 from Indians
then, it was twisted until it became an
S
ready to seduce, re-presenting itself
like a 5
before the Arabs connected
her two closed circles
piling them one above the other
as if to round up
all sudden Chinese fortunes
Look at them on: What kids can do
We're still writing and publishing student work. Students wrote letters to judges last month. More poetry is on the way
WRITE YOUR POEM:
What do you do to jump start your motivation? Jumping jacks? Whatever keeps you in the habit of creating, make it simple and attend to it every day. Tend the poems like seedlings. The seasons change. The moments will come again, even when it seems you are writing in the snow. Peter Guber tells a story of Zhang Huan, a performance artist who collects ash around the temple and then packs it into a mold. When the mold gives way the sculpture stands five seconds at best before it is blown away by the wind. Poems stand for those five seconds, and somehow that is why they start to endure. Make sure to keep writing.
