洞月亮 Cave Moon Press November 2019

FEATURED POET:  Mona Theresa Lydon-Rochelle grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts. She received her PhD from the University of Washington and was a professor at the University of Washington and University of College Cork. She has worked as a midwife nationally and internationally; an epidemiologist for Médecins Sans Frontières; and editor and peer-reviewed for numerous journals.  Her first poetry chapbook was Mourning Dove. Her latest work is On the Brink of the Sea from Cave Moon Press.

Miraculous Water Birth of Jésus

         I want the word
of women’s plight,
word upon word,
poem upon poem,
pronounced.
          August warms
Libya’s coast, winds blowing
off the Mediterranean Sea.
Fawn-eyed women mewl
in pain—prison walls echoing.
Guards’ guns sodomize.
Women bleed rivulets.
One escapes. And in a boat
on lemon water, sun-blessed
dolphins breach
as life throbs in her
refugeed womb.
            No midwife hands.
Burning sun, brine-soaked
lips. Wracked,
weary, worn. And then,
the sea went mute,
as the child was born.
The mother wakes to rescuers:
A Senegalese man I didn’t know
held my hand and wrapped my baby
in a scarf. I named him Jésus.
These words sound like a miracle,
like Jesus walking on water.

Copts of Egypt

Christians flee from villages like the Jews before them,
sorrowful. Hatred was, is, will be. Blood and debris.

And the children? In the rubble?

A tent tattered blue. A woman, cold as a stone,
weeps in her cot. Love turned sorrowful.

And the children? In the rubble?

In the monastery pilgrims pray, ‘Lord forgive them.’
Icons of malachite and verdigris watch sorrowfully.


And the children? In the rubble.


WRITE YOUR POEM!

And the children? In the rubble?  
The question becomes for your poem, how do you use punctuation?  It's a huge subject, but note how Mona uses the questions to face the reader and develop the irony, just with changing the punctuation of her lead/chant form she utilizes in this poem.  Ask your question.  Write your poem!

洞月亮 Cave Moon Press September 2019

FEATURED POET:Gerry McFarland acquired his MFA in creative writing in 2011, served seven years on the editorial board of Floating Bridge Press, and taught psychology, human service and writing at the University of Phoenix until he retired to write full time. His poems have appeared in Contemporary American Voices, Bayou, Crab Creek Review, Crucible, Limestone, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Sanscrit, Zyzzyva, and the journal War, Literature and the Arts, among others. He was a finalist in the 2014 december Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize, and his chapbook, Gunner, was a finalist in the Frost Place Chapbook Competition. The Making is his full length book of poems produced by Cave Moon Press.

Gunner Gets His Sea Legs

While I was seasick my first months
At sea, the boatswain’s mate said:
S’all in ya haid, boa!
So I learned to right myself at sea:

When the starboard beam
Of the USS King slipped down, swollen
As a pot-bellied sailor, my dungarees
Flagged in the groaning gusts,

I remained upright starboard aft
In the hard turn, work boots
Black wedges flat on the non-skid
While the gray planet shifted rudder,

The wind veered and the splashing
Vessel sloped into the long turn.
I leaned into the curve of the earth
And put my face into the wind.


Aubade

Sleepless again, 4 a.m.
I watch the backyard from behind

The cold glass of the bedroom window.
Leaves scattered and branches fell

In the night’s wind. Limbs that remain
are poised to conduct the next gust,

And the glossy painted lawn chair waits
Like a seated gardener:

Thoughtful, contemplative, grateful
For the beginning and its bright dust.


WRITE YOUR POEM!

And the glossy painted lawn chair waits
Like a seated gardener:

How do you craft your metaphors and similes?  Here they become a reflective pivot point for the short poem.  Sometimes they are the overarching driver of the poem.

The word pictures have power and can drive many decisions in your poem.  As a warm exercise write five similes and metaphors for this sentence starter. (Yes, doves are a bit loaded in symbolism....)

"The dove landed....."

洞月亮 Cave Moon Press July 2019

FEATURED POET: Claudia Castro Luna was born in El Salvador. She received a BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine, an MA in Urban Planning from University of California, Los Angeles, and an MFA in poetry from Mills College. She is the author of Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press, 2017) and the chapbook This City (Floating Bridge Press, 2016). In 2019, Castro Luna was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. She currently teaches at Seattle University and serves as the poet laureate of Washington State.

MYTHIC

A country with borders of bread

A country where laws taste like milk

A country where I can walk without fear

A country where walls don’t bring tears

A country where hope is not fiction

A country where huger is thin

A country where children don’t rot in jails

A country whose flag no one needs to defend

A country whose heart is its coin  

A country where war is naught

A country where days begin with song

That, is where I want to belong

ON CITIZENSHIP

I want full citizenship

when I die

none of this

you are legal

only when convenient

when cheap labor is wanted

when votes are sought

In Death’s camp

there is no Temporary Protected Status

DACA, J-1 or H-2 visas

there are no second chances

short sentences, pardons,

no permit renewals,

no political expiations

No. Dead is dead.

As ghost, I’ll own

the full spectrum of me

if I desire a foul green mouth

then so be it

I’ll make myself visible and invisible

whenever I want

be evil, if I so choose

or tender, mother to newborn tender

Ah, when I am dead as dead

boneless, toothless, wordless

wondering somber valleys

among drafts of shadows

when my pride is but an emerald

streak in Quetzal’s royal feathers

and my cry lodges in mockingbird’s throat

what mother of love will I then be!

Better in death to inhabit all of me

than half dead living, living afraid of living

Yes! I want full rights for the ghost of me

not just a temporary worker permit

it shouldn’t be that hard

for in life, I’ve never seen

anyone queuing up for the privilege

of crossing to the other side

WRITE YOUR POEM!

Prompt tickler I.

"for in life, I’ve never seen

anyone queuing up for the privilege

of crossing to the other side"

How much punch is in your punchline?

Good or bad, the prosaic nature of poetry in our era begs an ending.

In a joke it makes people laugh.  While that is an option, there are other days it just needs something else.  Read her poem again and see how you can build one of your poems to this powerful a punchline.

Prompt ticker II.

"A country..."

"I hear America singing..." (Walt Whitman)

Analyze the boiled down nature of this poem and compare it to Whitman's view of our world in this geography.  How can you use repetition in just as powerful a manner with a tightened set of metaphors.  Look at how carefully Claudia pivots with "where" and "whose" to bring variety to the ideas, while giving us a constant chant of hope, pathos and desire after Whitman's world.

洞月亮 Cave Moon Press March 2019

FEATURED POET: BETTY SCOTT'S poems are influenced by California, Oregon and Washington landscapes. She earned degrees from U.C.L.A., Central Washington University and Western Washington University and taught in community colleges before retiring into her daily writing life. She enjoys editing her daughter’s novels as well as poetry and essays by colleagues in Bellingham, WA. She is currently writing a third collection of poems and a book of essays

GENEROUS UNIVERSE

On a walk
as blue jays squawk
I find a wad of money

and in a crack
between cement blocks

a purple and white pansy


AFTER WORDS MEDITATION

In the wake
of black and white
hatred rising

social justice out-
shadowed by slogans and lies
most nights I sit

with a plate of olives
tangy black ones, buttery
Castelvetrano greens

and hold words close
believing in poems as prisms

that shine with light

WRITE YOUR POEM:
Do the seasons shock you every time they arrive?  We had a great deal of snow in February, and now the robins and tulips are popping up.  Seems like a miracle every year.  Take a time to breathe in.  Write a poem in sharpie on the inside of a box. Pack a care package in the box up for someone in need and send it along.

洞月亮 Cave Moon Press February 2019

FEATURED POET:  GERRY MCFARLAND acquired his MFA in creative writing in 2011, served seven years on the editorial board of Floating Bridge Press, taught psychology, human service and writing at University of Phoenix until he retired to write full time. His poems have appeared in Contemporary American Voices, Bayou, Crab Creek Review, Crucible, Limestone, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Sanscrit, Zyzzyva, and the journal War, Literature and the Arts, among others. He was a finalist in the 2014 december Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize, and his chapbook, Gunner, was a finalist in the Frost Place.  His latest collection The Making is soon to be released by Cave Moon Press




WHEN RICK DIED, LINDA SAID

She will toss his ashes in the Mekong,
The black grain an arc from her furrowed hand.
That seemed generous. When I am gone
My body will go to ruin in the land,
The soil in a garden comforting.
I will grow there, while my wife weeps
Above the decomposing birth of things.
I will lie in my ungenerous sleep.
I don’t believe in spreading myself thin.
How would they ever find me? And who would try?
My travels done and every place I’ve been
Just punctuation in the dust when I die.
For myself, I need to find one place
With language carved in stone above my face.


GUNNER GETS HIS SEA LEGS

While I was seasick my first months
At sea, the Boatswain’s Mate said:
S’all in ya haid, boa!
So I learned to right myself at sea:

When the starboard beam
Of the USS King slipped down, swollen
As a pot-bellied sailor, my dungarees
Flagged in the groaning gusts,

I remained upright starboard aft
In the hard turn, work boots
Black wedges flat on the non-skid
While the gray planet shifted rudder,

The wind veered and the splashing
Vessel sloped into the long turn,
I leaned into the curve of the earth
And put my face into the wind.

WRITE YOUR POEM!
Colon or not to colon, that is the question.  Unless it is dire emergency during a colonoscopy, the question really doesn't have too much weight...unless you are a poet.  In translations of poetry from different languages, punctuation can create meaning or detract, but the decision on whether you use a colon or comma needs to have one person in mind- the reader.  

So just like you would wrestle for days over the correct modifier or metaphor, punctuation should take on the same consideration.  Yes, there are different schools of thought, but many of the arguments boil down to how much salt you should put in the stew.  In any case don't let the questions freeze you up.  Write your poem.  Draw it with a stick in the snow bank, take a picture and post it on Instagram.