Ever go into a bookstore or on Amazon looking for a new poet to read?  Have your eyes ever zeroed in on an unfamiliar name only to peak your interest and then when you open the book you are glad that you did?  Far from disappointed, you sit and get lost in the poet’s world of love lost and found, ever happen to you?

Several years ago, when Borders was still up and running in Bowie, MD, this was how I found poet James Tipton- on accident, right before I was scheduled to meet my writers group.  I was late that day.  I couldn’t put the book down.  I mean it was the best romantic poetry I’ve ever read.  Don’t take my word for it---read it yourself.   Ok, I know your thinking you want to know my favorite lines, so I’ll share these with you:

From “All I know is that I Built this House” by James Tipton

I built this house with the fragrances
of all the women I have ever loved,
and while I was working high in the air,
I remembered how they arrived,
one by one, in secret, offering me
wine bottles filled with rosy poems.

From “I Watched at Low Tide Your Breasts Rise” by James Tipton 
 
At what age did you know--
for certain—that you
never would be beautiful,
never shine yourself
into the poems of lovers,
never have the sultry bliss
that beauty by itself can bring.

 
You can’t tell me those are not the hottest lines!!!  
Thank you James Tipton for sharing your heart with us all!

 
Bio from www.coloradopoetscenter.org:

James Tipton, who kept bees and wrote poems in Fruita, Colorado, for several years, now lives mainly in the mountain village of Chapoles in Mexico. His work is widely published, including credits in The Nation, South Dakota Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Greensboro Review, Esquire, Field, and American Literary Review. He is also included in various anthologies and other works, most recently Aphrodite, by Isabel Allende (1998), Bleeding Hearts, edited by Michelle Lovric (1998), The Geography of Hope, edited by David J. Rothman (1998), and The Intimate Kiss, edited by Wendy Maltz (2001),Charity, edited by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (Red Rock Press, 2002), Hope, edited by Sophie Elise Lalazarian (Red Rock Press, 2003), Haiku: A Poet’s Guide, edited by Lee Gurga (Modern Haiku Press, 2003), Readings for Weddings, edited by Mark Oakley, Vicar of St. Paul’s (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), and Erotic Haiku, edited by Hiroaki Sato (IBC, 2004). His book, Letters from a Stranger (Conundrum Press, 1998) won the 1999 Colorado Book Award in Poetry. His latest collections are All the Horses of Heaven (Modern English Tanka Press, 2009) and Washing Dishes in the Ancient Village (Ediciones del Lago, 2009).

 

 

Bio: Larry Wilfong's world is coming together in a harmonious and syncronistic manner. He and his family recently purchased a home and Larry has retired from the building trades. He now drives a school bus for a little rural school in Vermont and is considered a local favorite.  Larry's latest projects include freelance writing for his town's paper and learning to play the violin.  He enjoys watching his family bloom; Larry is in a good place-  He's found everything, and with it a place for it all to exist.
  

Untitled 
by Lary WIlfong

raised in a darkness that told me I was alone, a tiny corner in my mind was my home. The only place lit well enough for me to see, the darkness was not there originally. In fact it was mine, a gift given by man, who trained me to be jaded, angry and bland. Then came the fire raging within, to consume my being like bits of kindling. When the smoke clear I lay upon the ruble, a pyro who burnt up all of his trouble. The walls in my mind collapsed, I was free. Except for the part where, I didn't know me. A long lonely walk before I found a hand, it took mine in its and we traveled the land. The feelings before would not have been felt, they were now new cards that I had been dealt. No place left within me that I could go hide, the struggle the burden, now has bolstered my pride. Along came the flowers that her and I had sown, there is now no where left for me to be alone. The old me had died, in that fire of mine, a new me reincarnated in that moment of time. I drink from her cup and she from my own, the Woman and the flowers that together we sown. Looking back to that small little space, I can see the light that shone on my face. It was not a bulb or angel in disguise, it was the hope for a future I was to realize. Now is the present, a present indeed. The gift I was promised in my time of need. Grander adventures lie across our path, eyes to the forward no sense to look back. And so gladly I parade in this world filled with gloom, I broke from myself and left that small room. Darkness I still see though it is not inside, it covers the faces of those who will have died. So too, I hope that they burn, and step into the open, to be free, in their turn.

My wonderful wife Janelle is heading out on tour!  Catch her at Wannee and Return to Roots, or find her online and watch amazingness in action at www.janeticsink.com.

Bio: Deonte Osayande is a writer from Detroit, Mi. His poems and essays have been published in over a dozen publications and have won awards in the Dudley Randall Poetry Contest, the Wayne Literary Review Poetry Contest and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a three time member of the Detroit National Poetry Slam Team as well as slammaster/co-founder of the Freshwater Wordsmiths poetry slam and open mic. He's a poetry reader for The Adroit Journal, teaches creative writing through the Inside Out Detroit program and is a Professor of English at Wayne County Community College.  

1.  Where do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry?
My inspiration comes from life, images and my senses. I know that's a fairly generic answer but I write in spurts. I do prompts from time to time to either make sure I don't get rusty or when I'm coming up with one for my students/mentees to make sure I'm not asking them to do anything too difficult but for the most part my poems come out when they want to. I write about what I live, see, hear, touch and what touches me. Sometimes it takes time for those experiences to inspire me to write and sometimes it's nearly instant.

2.  What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry?   
Give a wide variety of poetry a try before shutting yourself off to it. You never know what kind of great things you can get out of poetry. When I was younger I hated it because all I was being taught was sonnets from old white men who died hundreds of years ago. I'm so thankful I didn't completely give up on it, and now many of my favorite poems are written by women of color and old dead middle eastern men who died hundreds of years ago, haha.

3.   Where are you from/Where do you live?
 I have narcolepsy and I used to be a collegiate track and field sprinter. I started having trouble staying awake in school since middle school but we (my family and I) didn't really know why until college. I've tried to write about it numerous times but that and my experience running track are two things I never feel like I adequately put on the page. 

4. Where are you from?
I was born in Huntsville, Alabama but I've been in Detroit since I was a baby. It's home.


5.  Who is your favorite poet? 
I don't think I have a specific favorite poet. I'm just a fan of the art form and of great poetry. It's a lot of work that I'm a fan of from all different traditions. I enjoy Rumi, Hafez, Sylvia Plath, Han Shan, Li Po, Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, Edgar Allen Poe and so many others that are from today.

by Deonte Osayande


Melt

“Today I heard a music that can make the snow shine”

• David Blair
  

I couldn't hit a note if it were placed
right in front of me, but I continue to sing like a bird.

I can't remember if there was snow
or if the radio was on in the car that day. I don't know 0
if something specifically
sparked the moment we three shared, but I instantly think

of Omari singing about wanting to swallow Keisha Cole's ovaries
as the two of us cried laughing despite the cold. I've never been a fan

of the snow. It makes me sleepy. I remember telling you in a past life
I was probably a bear. For a long time you called me

your man cat. It fit because whenever I came over
your place I curled up on my big sister's couch as if I owned everything. When

you went in to the hospital you gave me the keys
so I could take care of your cats. After they ate your canaries

they kept hiding from me but their purring
still sounded like the rumbling of nature's love song. I could see

the joy in their eyes when I brought you back home
months later. When David died I knew I had lost

my really cool uncle but I would not yet understand
how poets summon the rain from anywhere

except clouds. When I was first taken in I did not yet get
how writing alone could be the start of what makes us family

but now I've lost my big sister and have found
a thunderstorm I didn't know I owned. Even now, reading your poems

I see how people got captured by your raw exposed heart. The tune
of your laughter replays in my dreams like an album of hurricanes. We have lost

so many in such a short period of time but today I saw
a ray of sunlight melt the snow and uncover a yellow bird's

feather. I'm convinced that was you singing a note
in the royal skyline of a majestic landscape in the fantastic above. 

Bio: ELIZABETH ACEVEDO was born and raised in New York City and her poetry is infused with her Dominican parents’ bolero and her beloved city’s tough grit. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Maryland. With over twelve years of performance experience, Acevedo has been a featured performer on BET and Mun2, as well as delivered a TED Talk that aired in March of 2013. She has graced stages nationally and internationally including renowned venues such as Madison Square Garden, the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, and the State Theatre in Pretoria, South Africa.

Acevedo is a National Slam Champion, the 2014 Women of the World Poetry Slam representative for Washington DC (placing in the top twenty-five in the overall competition) and she  holds the distinction of being the 2014 Beltway Grand Slam Champion. She lives in Washington D.C. and has been published or has poems forthcoming in The Acentos Review, The Ostrich Review, Callaloo, Poet Lore and The Notre Dame Review.

1. Where do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry?
The daily things, small moments, language that rings in my ear as particularly poetic. 

2. What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry?
If you're threatened by poetry, good. That means you're doing it right. Poetry should be threatening. It's scary to explore feelings and untold stories and it requires vulnerability to face those risks and do it anyway. But what better way to understand yourself and the world?

3. Where are you from/Where do you live?
I'm originally from New York City,  but I live in Washington DC. 

4. Who is your favorite poet? 
Lucille Clifton 

1.  Where do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry?
      I draw my inspiration from life taking in the beauty that surrounds me daily. I enjoy just taking time out       of the day to to lose myself in the moment. Loving life while I am still here never wasting a minute.

2.  What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry?
      There is no right in wrong in poetry when speaking from the heart.

3. What is an interesting fact about you? 
     I tell people I play the Banjo well the truth is i don't. It was just something that sounded funny.

4.  Where are you from/Where do you live?
      I am from San Antonio, Texas born and raised. 

5.  Who is your favorite poet? 
      My favorite poet would have to be Kahlil Gilbran. When I began this journey into poetry I came across         his work and it really spoke to me and opened my eyes to the beauty of words and the beauty of life. 
 

Bio:   Angelique Palmer is a finalist in the 2015 Women of the World Poetry Slam and shares the  #5 ranking with two other dynamic artists from the hard-fought, talent-latented bout.  
     
     A writer, teacher, and performer, she is from Miami by way of New Orleans, now calling Northern Virginia home. The Creative Writing graduate from Florida State University found slam poetry through Will “Da Real One” Bell, was born and raised on the Literary Café and Poetry Lounge stage and where a devotee is called a “Café Baby.” As an Elementary School Creative Writing Instructor at the American Poetry Museum in Washington, DC, she traveled to different area charter schools introducing creative writing as an art form and watching the faces of her students light up when they debut on the semester ending open mics. As a volunteer with Split This Rock, and DC Youth Slam she found new fire in the explosive talent of young people striving for greatness. Often taking on the role of an organizer and Angelique Palmer spent 3-plus years hosting weekly open mics and curating local poetry shows.

     Since making her feature debut in Miami, 2008, Angelique continues to bring her brand of vulnerability and passion to stages, coffee houses and corporate events in Atlanta, Charlotte, Jersey City, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and all over Washington, DC. A former TV news producer turned elementary school teacher, she takes pride in her daughter, her students, and her walk through the world. 

The Interview

1. Where do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry?
I write about life, love and pain. Most of my writing is done in the 30/30 challenges. I like writing prompts because they help me to unpack a compound thought.  And if I'm honest, those 30/30 poems were already writing themselves in my head way before I committ them to my harddrive.

2. What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry?
Dear Threatened by Poetry: 
Congratulations on your good instincts. Poetry will cut  you! Poetry has teeth and claws and a comfortable seat in dark smoky bars.  If you're uncomfortable it is because you're meant to be. But if you're comforted it is because you're meant to be. Poetry isn't there to threaten you, it is there to exist and speak truth.

3.  What is an interesting fact about you? 
I actually have 6 fingers on each hand! My daughter does too. I also haven't been on a date in 3+ years, I haven't seen a movie in a theatre in longer than that. 

4.   Where are you from/Where do you live?
I live in Manassas, VA. I am very proud to say I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. I feel like that will always be home and I haven't lived there since I was 12.

5.  Who is your favorite poet?
OH THIS IS SUCH A HARD QUESTION! I love different poets for different reasons; I love poets more than their poems and I love some poems more than their creators.  I LOVE Nikky Finney! I can do with her subtlety and revealtion all day.   And for a different reason  I LOVE Marty McConnell. She is a lightning storm on stage; a person the eyes surrender to, an enjambment the brain waltzes with, and metaphors all rolled in talent.  And for a different reason I think of  Janae Johnson here; she is captivating! She uses her body and cadence to create a shared experience with her audience. 

Watch What Happens
 
There’s a boy I know...
 
met him last summer.
 
His body is a betrayal,
lies under oath.
His skin, for example,
a blueberry patch in summer sun.
A rare disorder turns the slightest brush,
simple contact
into a blue ribbon surfacing
through the pail of milk;
even sitting on the wrong surface, at
the wrong velocity makes him
dove-coo a whimper
he makes small.
But he complains though, reacts.
as if being in pain
for that long and so often
isn’t enough to scramble a mind into
a gold medal cuss-out in the bad behavior relay.
He wins, a lot.

One time I touched this boy on the back,
he stared saltwater into every paper cut I ever had
and throb back into all my stubbed pinky toes.
He yelled,
loud enough for everyone to turn and look.
He took the camp counselor-sure out of me.
I was embarrassed, my mindless hands.
 
One time I went somewhere
with this boy I know;
everyone dipped and bobbed about
in the sweet cool of August swimming.
Blue-water smiles and sobering splashes.
I am not surprised,
because this boy is brave,
that he asked for permission
to go down the tallest water slide!
And I said yes.
Then, because he is a boy
he asked me to go with him.
I said yes.

And when the lifeguard said
he was too small to go alone, he asked again, only with a look.
Again I said yes.
We
sped to a plunge 10 seconds later.
The joy on his face
like a trophy
for winning life!
He asked immediately
could we go again.
I said yes.
 
He grabbed my hand
wincing, this act caused him  
so much pain he had to
fight against; he used his free hand
to tuck the other fingers that had
straightened into shock.
 
He had to make himself hold my hand.
 
He told me plenty of people give him what he wants,
but no one was ever nice to him,
until I was. He said I was the nicest lady he knew.
I straightened into shock.

There’s this boy I know
met him last summer,
found out I have too much in common with:
every time I try anything hard
I land a wealth of blueberry bruises --
yell too loud and not loud enough
I have to bend my skin into
love and yes;
fight my pain for joy
and because the deep end is
the coolest part of the pool
I slide and leap and do it again
and again.
 
He taught me something too:
when someone asks you
for something simple
you can give it to them,
say yes,
watch what happens.

Bio: Eric Atkinson is currently a PhD. student at University of California, Riverside, studying African American Literature with an emphasis in comics, highlighting representations of the African American body. A former McNair Scholar and the 2008 winner of the S. Randolph Edmonds Young Scholar Competition, Mr. Atkinson has published “The Griot: The Rhetorical Impetus of African American Fiction” in the online journal of Gnovis, "Migraine" a short story in CSUSB's Pacific Review, the poem “to get there” Claremont Graduate’s Foothill Journal, vol. 2 issue 1, “Post Script for Gabriel Posser” in Verse/Chorus: A Call and Response Anthology, and short story “And the Rocket’s Red Glare” and the poem "Jane Russell's Pose: Or What You Will" in The Chaffey Review: A Creative Collective XI: The informed (un)American. Mr. Atkinson, a member of Sigma Tau Delta, Phi Theta Kappa, and the Golden Key Society, and  is currently working on his dissertation on the discrepancy between social narratives and the lived social realities through a focus on representations of the African American body in graphic novels.

1.  Where do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry?
 
I think where is a misnomer in that location has little or nothing to do with poetic articulation as the simplest and easiest answer, for me, is how the play of language that poetry demands allows me to see (see in the sense of knowing, understanding) me through that play. To me poetry is the confluence of the senses articulated in a way that it traditionally missed or dismissed. Poetry relies on the emphasis of the metaphor, the reliance of language's inherent paradox of being something and simply representing it. 
 
2. What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry?

I don't think I could as anyone who is threatened is automatically defensive. Besides, if they are defensive it means they've already decided and concluded: ideas can be argued with determinations and definites are fixed and cannot be moved. Why would I advise? But I would try to understand their position, their rationale, and their approach. My thinking is if I can understand this person better, their thinking better, I can become a better human
 
3. What is an interesting fact about you? 

 I've donated nearly 10 gallons of blood, I'm dyslexic, and I once stopped a robbery at a Wal-Mart.
 
4. Where are you from/Where do you live?

I am from a little town in the Mojave Desert, Victorville.  I now reside in the same city where I am receiving my PhD, Riverside, CA.

5. Who is your favorite poet?

I don't really have a favorite poet as I am always attracted to the poetry in the mundane, the quotidian. For instance in Dr. Fred Moten's academic prose, there is a sense of poetry, a sense of a reliance of metaphor instead of linguistic precision: to me his work is an articulation of the phenomenal as it communions with wonder, with meaning. And it is through these metaphors that I can know what he's talking about through the inclusion of something from me. Does that make sense?  

1.      Where do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry?

          I write what uproots me—whether personally or as witness.

2.      What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry?

          Read more poetry.

3.      What is an interesting fact about you? 

          I used to have a fire engine-red mohawk.

4.      Where are you from/Where do you live?

          Denver, CO / New York City

5.      Who is your favorite poet?

         This is an impossible question. The list is immense and shifts with mood. 
         Today, I feel like saying Adam Falkner. He is outrageously brilliant.

Jezebel Revisits the Book of Kings

by Jeanann Verlee
after Roger Bonair-Agard

“For the whole house of Ahab shall perish...and the dogs shall eat Jezebel”

                —Book of Kings 2.9, King James Bible

I wouldn't go out frayed and bleating.

Refused to racket or wail. I was a holy woman of Ba’al.

I faced the end in silk and jewels. Posture. Purple.

For this, my name means whore. Means raggedy-dance.

Means black jasmine, means sweat, stamen, ovary. Means pearl

in the wet lap of oysters. My name means ruby-lipped.

I lived in a time of men. I lived in the time of Ahab.

I am a mother of kings. I was born of hurricane and pomegranate.

Fed on the breast, I was maker of milk. I passed the stream

and the nightflowers bent to kiss me. I was evoker of hail.

Windstorm. I prodded the gods and they came. Feasted

at my table. Crowned my husband. Mine is a story of love.

Women who survive the hate of men are named harlot, witch,

Jezebel. (I still hear the dogs.) In a different century, they’d have

burned me. They’d have pressed my body to the river’s floor.

I was a burning fish. Silver flakes trailed in my wake.

I was silkdance and flutter. Maker of tides. Of thorns.

Girls cowered and men flocked. I led armies

on the soft hull of my back. (A powerful woman

is simply one who has not yet died.) Flanked on all sides

by men made furious with envy. Men gone mad.

I did it for Ahab. He came to Ba’al for me.

There is nothing I wouldn’t do. He wanted the castle,

I mortgaged my wrists. He asked for the crown, I slayed

the soldiers. He sought a dynasty, I gave him the globe.

Nothing less than a man would do. (Remember Helen.)

I was ear to the Prophets. Ahab’s wife. Mother to Ahaziah and Jehoram.

Men raised on woman’s sugar tit. Phoenicians with mouths of gold.

I was a woman with hunger. Prophecy.

Scholars name me corrupt. Name me concubine. Hussy.

Charlatan. Tainter of men. My name means wicked. Unholy.

Ahab was my only. His tongue, my tongue. His flesh, my flesh.

I was a woman in love.

They robbed me first of Ahab’s breath. Then my sons.

I wasn't thrown into the pit of dogs.

I dove.

Originally published in Third Coast Magazine and appears in Verlee’s book, Said the Manic to the Muse.