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"Swallow" Poetry Chapbook by Jendi Reiter Now Available from Amsterdam Pres
2009-09-02 23:14:00
My poetry chapbook Swallow won the 2008 Flip Kelly Poetry Prize from Amsterdam Press and is now available for purchase online. Thanks are due to my awesome editor, Cindy Kelly; poet Ellen LaFleche, who helped me organize the collection and suggested the title; and my prison pen pal "Conway" who drew the amazing cover art. "Jendi Reiter's poems are arrows that plunge dead center into the hearts of feminism, religion, death, the interior of mental health and psychotherapy. Her humor and satire here are as sharply honed as are her indignation. All are delivered in highly imaginative and metaphoric imagery. This is an intelligent and powerful read that will leave issues bleeding in the minds of readers for a while before they heal." ?Ellaraine Lockie, award-winning poet, nonfiction author, educator "There's plenty of poetry I wouldn't give a fig for, but I'd give strawberries for the poems in Jendi Reiter's SWALLOW. When I started in Poetry in 1962, I felt poems were only p...
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Stay Tuned for Miss Trans Northampton Pageant, Sept. 5
2009-08-31 21:00:00
The first-ever Miss Trans Northampton Pageant is scheduled for next Saturday, Sept . 5, at the Northampton Center for the Arts. This is one of only a few such events nationwide. Eight Massachusetts transwomen will compete in the categories of glamour, poise, evening gown and talent. "Transgender" is a broad term that includes transsexuals, transvestites, and those who choose not to identify as either male or female.The Springfield Republican newspaper ran a story on the event yesterday. Pageant organizer Christa L. Hilfers' gender odyssey is interesting in itself: Hilfers, 33, moved to Massachusetts three years ago from South Dakota. Born a biological male, Hilfers was raised by her mother as a girl. She went into foster care at age 9, but was allowed to continue living as a female. "I didn't try to live as a boy until I was 18," she said. Hilfers had a child with a woman, but the relationship failed, and she has not seen her daughter, now 15, for years. "After that I realized I...
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Christian Community in Fiction
2009-08-31 01:10:00
Nathan Hobby, an Anabaptist Christian and fiction writer in Western Australia, posted some worthwhile reflections earlier this summer concerning what it means to write novels for the kingdom of God. In this essay, Nathan unpacks N.T. Wright's directive to write "a novel which grips people with the structure of Christian thought, and with Christian motivation set deep into the heart and structure of the narrative, so that people would read that and resonate with it and realize that that story can be my story." Nathan observes that a lot of popular fiction with the "Christian" label is unfortunately cheesy and simplistic. Brian McLaren's books, such as A New Kind of Christian, use a fictional narrative to put across some sophisticated ideas in an emotionally accessible way, but are not well-crafted as novels. The same might be said of The Shack, an unlikely bestseller about the Trinity, which I admit I enjoyed despite its clunky plot.In the modern naturalistic novel, it's a challen...
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Upcoming GLBT Conferences: Send Me Your Reports
2009-08-28 17:03:00
Three conferences of interest to GLBT Christians and straight allies are coming up this autumn. My heteronormative family responsibilities are likely to keep me from attending any of them. So I'm counting on you, dear readers, to send me your reports from the field. Write up your impressions and I'll consider them for publication on this blog, or send me a link to your own blog post about any of these events. Why Homosexuality? Religion, Globalization, and the Anglican Schism Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CTOctober 17, 2009This interdisciplinary conference is sponsored by the LGBT Studies Department at Yale. "Rather than restaging the arguments for and against the ordination of openly gay clergy, this day-long conference analyzes the threatened schism in the Anglican Communion in order to examine wide-ranging and interrelated issues of religion, secularism, globalization, nationalism, and modernity. How and why, we ask, has homosexuality come to serve as a flash point for so m...
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Gender Binary Versus Gender Spectrum: Implications for Gay Rights
2009-08-26 15:26:00
The "T" in GLBT causes anxiety for some gays and lesbians, or so I've heard. It's not only that a minority seeking mainstream acceptance may feel tempted to push some of its more flamboyant members out of the spotlight. Trans-people demonstrate the fluidity of gender, which potentially threatens one common argument for gay civil rights. Conservative Christians tout the dubious successes of "ex-gay therapy" to alter sexual orientation. Since change is possible, they contend, there really is no such category as homosexuals, and therefore they should not be a protected class under the law. Understandably, gay activists point to scientific research and personal testimonies suggesting that same-sex attraction is biologically based, innate and mostly unalterable. From what I've read about the ex-gay movement, it seems that the evidence is not on their side. Most participants merely learn to avoid acting on their undiminished desire for the same sex, and to conform to current stereotype...
More About: Rights , Gender , Gay Rights , Versus , Spectrum

William Childress: "How the Earth Was Made"
2009-08-22 22:59:00
William Childress is a Pulitzer-nominated author and photojournalist who is regarded as one of the foremost poets of the Korean War. His books include Burning the Years and Lobo. "Chilly" is a Winning Writers subscriber and an endlessly entertaining correspondent. He emailed me one of his latest poems, which I liked so much that I got permission to reprint it here. Though I don't share the narrator's atheistic conclusion, I can relate to the feeling that God's creation is so much grander and more mysterious than some of our stunted human concepts of the divine. Sometimes, religious ideas (like any ideas) can be a distraction from appreciating what's right in front of us. How the Earth Was Made I was a youngster when I walked a trail Through autumn woods a nonexistent god took credit for. I never thought it odd that to a child, the world was magical, and yellow was the color of enchantment. It wasn?t simply that a golden hue should bejewel and complement the blue eternal arc th...
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Usury: The Invisible Sin
2009-08-21 23:52:00
American Christians have a lot of buying power. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if we went off the financial "grid" and refused to bank with companies that had abusive lending policies for their mortgage borrowers and credit-card customers. As I read the Bible, financial oppression is a front-and-center issue. And yet, in this supposedly Christian nation, consumer advocates have been trying in vain for years to pass regulations against overdraft fees that are several thousand times greater than the debt that triggered them. Both political parties bear some blame for deregulating the industry, but I believe it's time for socially conservative Christians to rethink their automatic support for the GOP, given the party's complete inattention to economic justice issues. Apparently, when you have a debit card from most major banks, it doesn't actually deny you funds when you run out of money in your account. Instead, the bank "lends" you money without your knowledge or consent,...
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Straight Ally of the Day: Ted Olson
2009-08-20 17:22:00
The libertarian wing of the GOP, which briefly wooed me into that party as the defenders of free speech during the politically correct 1990s, has seemed to be all but dead in the era of Bush-style statism for the rich. But conservative powerhouse Theodore Olson , one of the Right's most respected constitutional lawyers, remembers that his movement once stood for something more than bailouts for dimwitted financiers. An unlikely but very welcome ally, Olson is the lead counsel in the federal lawsuit to overturn Prop 8 on equal protection grounds, now pending in District Court in San Francisco. This New York Times profile describes his road to defending GLBT civil rights, and the flack he's taking from his Republican compadres: ...Mr. Olson had become active in the Republican Party as a college and law student in California in the 1960s, long before the rise of the religious right and its focus on social issues. He gravitated toward a particularly Western brand of conservatism that ...
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Viagra Ice Cream versus Gay Wine
2009-08-19 20:01:00
Consumer-trends newsletter Springwise illuminates the far corners of the retail imagination, with weekly updates on new business schemes from the socially conscious to the absurdly decadent. In the latter category, this week, we have Sex Pistol Ice Cream , a British dessert shop's latest plan to pitch this girlie comfort food to the male "members" of the species. The limited-edition flavor is "touted to have the same charge as a dose of Viagra ": Mixed into the frozen treat are ginkgo biloba, arginine and guarana?all guaranteed to increase blood flow and energy level. Before serving, The Sex Pistol is doused in La Fee Absinthe. And since presentation is key, the absinthe is administered from a drip bag into a pink water gun and fired at a heated sugar cube, which drops into the ice cream. The Sex Pistol is deemed so potent that sales are limited to one per customer, although at GBP 11.99 customers might prefer to split one with a special friend. If you'd rather heat up than cool do...
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Saturday Not-So-Random Song: Joan Baez, "Virgin Mary"
2009-08-15 21:14:00
Today, Aug. 15, is the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary . Catholic tradition holds that the mother of Jesus ascended bodily into heaven at the end of her life, without dying (like Elijah in the Old Testament). While this isn't an official Episcopalian doctrine, we still celebrate today as the Virgin Mary's feast day in the saints' calendar. Here, James Kiefer at The Daily Office explains the significance of the Virgin Birth: Besides Jesus himself, only two humans are mentioned by name in the Creeds. One is Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator of Judea from 26 to 36 AD. That Jesus was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate pins down the date of his death within a few years, and certifies that we are not talking, like the worshippers of Tammuz or Adonis, about a personification or symbol of the annual death and resurrection of the crops. His death is an event in history, something that really happened. The other name is that of Mary. The Creeds say that Christ was "born of the v...
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Stacey Waite: "XY" and "Finding My Voice"
2008-06-10 13:31:00
Continuing this week's Trans Pride theme, below are two poems from Stacey Waite's chapbook love poem to androgyny, winner of the 2006 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest. Thanks to M. Scott Douglass at MSR for permission to reprint. Stacey has just won another prestigious award, the Tupelo Press Snowbound Series, for her forthcoming chapbook the lake has no saint. Put it on your Amazon wishlist today. XYThe doctor, who speaks slowly, after spendingquite a few moments to himself in his gray office,says there is a strong possibility I am "chromosomallymismatched," which cannot be determined nowunless I pay for the test, because according tomy coverage, the test is not necessary dueto the fact that I am "out of the danger zone."The danger zone is puberty, when, he says,"women like me" are at risk for developinggenital abnormalities. I look back at myself at 13,staring at my body. And I think it might haveall made sense to me somehow, if my clitoris grewlike a wild flower and hung its pe...
More About: Voice , Book Reviews

New England Transgender Pride March: Photos and Reflections
2008-06-08 17:13:00
The first-ever New England Transgender Pride March  took place this weekend in Northampton, and I was there with my "Episcopal Church Welcomes You" rainbow tank top and a digital camera to capture the pageantry. I was hoping to blend into the MassEquality contingent, but they were scattered around other groups this time, so I just milled around looking like I knew what I was doing, and took lots of pictures. Next thing I knew, someone had handed me a bunch of purple and white balloons, and I was marching behind the lead banner, shouting "Trans Pride Now".  Without either of my moms this time, I felt anxious that I didn't have the right to be there. Straight allies are important, but on the other hand, was I co-opting someone else's oppressed subculture? (I had a Native American Studies professor in college who was apoplectic about this.) The fact is, when you're genuinely weird, and view all human social categories as potential idols to be decons...
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Trans Pride Tomorrow and Other News
2008-06-06 17:33:00
The first-ever New England Trans gender Pride March and Rally will be held tomorrow at 11 AM in our very own Northampton, Mass. From the TransPrideMarch website: The event is organized by members of the trans and gender variant community, and their allies, with the intent of taking a visible and positive stand for transgender rights. The March and Rally is dedicated to diverse representation among organizers and participants. We seek to educate and build awareness of the movement against gender-based discrimination.Come join MassEquality in gathering petition signatures urging our state legislators to support HB 1722, an amendment to the Massachusetts anti-discrimination laws that would add protections for gender identity and expression.In other news:*Kittredge Cherry's groundbreaking book Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ and More was one of five Lambda Literary Awards nominees in the LGBT Arts and Culture category. See a video of her reading from the book and telling some of...
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My Story "Dinosaurs Divorce" Published on The Writing Site
2008-06-04 18:02:00
My story "Dinosaurs Divorce ", an excerpt from one of my novels-in-progress, won an honorable mention in the 2007 Arthur Edelstein Prize for Short Fiction from The Writing Site, an online resource for fiction writers, and is now posted on their website. (For reasons that are not evident in this early chapter, this post is not actually a departure from our "Pride Month" theme...) Here's the opener: We were gypsies, we were grifters, we were untenured faculty. After I was born, my mother left her beloved Manhattan and we embarked on the wandering life of an adjunct poetry professor, which as you might expect is about as lucrative as it was in Chaucer's day, adjusted for inflation. "And where are you from, Prudence?" Mrs. Litwin or Barone or Vasquez would chirp as I stood up before yet another elementary-school class, and I'd proudly recite, "New York and Cleveland and Durham and Lackawanna and..." I must have sounded like a train conductor.I probably didn't appreciate how little mo...
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Carl Phillips: "The Point of the Lambs"
2008-06-03 18:53:00
Carl Phillips is a professor of English and African and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His poetry has received numerous honors including the Kingsley Tufts Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. The poem below is reprinted by permission from his collection Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006.The Point of the LambsThe good lambsin the yellow barn--the resthoused in blue. By"the rest," meaning those who--the guide explained--inevitablyarrive suffering. Forsome do, he added.Soft.Serious. This--likea new lesson. As tosome among us, it was,it seemed. The usualstammer of heart the naivetend to, in the face of what finallyis only the world. Whatmust it be, to passthus--clean, stripped--through a life? Whatreluctance the mindshows on recognizingthat what it approachesis, at last, the answerto the very question it knowsnow, buttoo late,oh better to never to have neverput forward. What Imean is we movedc...
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Janet Aalfs: "Facing the Wall"
2008-06-02 19:11:00
Janet Aalfs is a former Poet Laureate of Northampton and the director of Valley Women's Martial Arts. Her poetry collection Reach was published by Perugia Press in 1999. The poem below is reprinted with permission from her chapbook Full Open (Orogeny Press, 1996). Facing the Wall 1. Someone found a hearton market street not humanthere's really no causefor alarm though a naked heartwarm on the sidewalk on halloweenis upsetting but not as bad as ifit were the organ of a valuable lifewe don't meanone of the seventeen women foundstrewn along desert highwaysyou can't question whores their storiesaren't reliable their lives aren't stablethe reason we haven't found a suspectyet is that we can'tget a straight answer out of anyoneand no one really knowsa slut she'll go with whatever manwill take her you can't trust womenlike that to die when they're supposed towith their clothes on at a legal addresswe think we've discovered the eighteenth2. I want to know whythe fbi is so good at...
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Melanie Braverman: "Tell" and "Fantasia"
2008-06-02 18:52:00
Since 1997, independent poetry publisher Perugia Press has been supporting women at the beginning of their publishing career. Based here in Northampton, this proudly lesbian-owned press publishes one book a year through their poetry manuscript contest for a first or second book by a woman. Their books are handsomely designed and well-promoted. Below, reprinted with permission, are two poems from Melanie Braverman's collection Red, which won their 2002 contest. Read more of her work here. Later this week, I'll be reprinting a poem by another Perugia author, Janet Aalfs, from her chapbook Full Open (Orogeny Press, 1996).TellLet's talkabout sex, let's talk about whatyou like to do, or havedone to you, or do toyourself while someone elseis watching, sayyou like it in cars, while you'redriving, maybe, his hands or hermouth between your legs, or ina basement, quiet exceptfor the sound of yourbreathing, which isgettingfaster, youcan'thelp it, you likethe way the air fits your skin li...
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Pride Month at Reiter's Block
2008-06-01 22:21:00
June is Gay-Lesbian-Bi-Transgender Pride Month . Why do I care? Perhaps some of you have been wondering why a straight, married woman has such a queer blog. There are several reasons why this issue has become my particular passion.On a personal level, I was parented by two women, and experienced firsthand how homophobia among our relatives and neighbors cut us off from an essential support network. When you can't even admit that you are a family, you can't ask your teachers or friends for help with family problems, which then are compounded by shame and isolation. Growing up with two very different women also taught me that there were diverse ways of being female. You could wear eyeshadow and long flowing blouses, read Victorian children's stories, pretend to be a flamenco dancer, and swear like a longshoreman. You could wear motorcycle jackets, pump your biceps, and cook gourmet French meals. So naturally, at the age of six, I decided I wanted to be a pirate king. I still do. The...
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Videos from Spring Open House at Writers in Progress
2008-05-23 17:11:00
Last week I read from my novel-in-progress with several very talented women who were fellow alumnae of Dori Ostermiller's Writers in Progress workshops in Florence, MA. My husband taped the performances on his new "Flip" camera, which are linked below for your viewing pleasure. Each segment is about 10-15 minutes, except for the intro, which is shorter.Introduction by Writers in Progress workshop leader Dori Ostermiller: Sharron Vaillette reads from her memoir about faith healers and her mother's cancer: Dusty Miller recounts a budding attraction between two young feminists, one of whom has a terrible secret: Jendi Reiter reads her prizewinning story "Julian's Yearbook", a tale of erotic awakening at a homophobic high school: Kate Kahn reads a poignant short story about a young woman in a 1950s trailer park who hopes for a better life: Kyra Anderson relates the comic mishaps of a family trip to Mexico with her young son, who has Asperger's Syndrome: Stephanie Faucher reads from ...
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Don't Take Your Breasts to Church
2008-05-18 12:21:00
Clothing signifies who we think we are and where we belong in the social order, so it's no wonder that religious communities have long been preoccupied with dress codes. While I do believe there is such a thing as dressing appropriately for an occasion, I struggle with how that issue becomes entangled with policing women's sexuality.To put it bluntly, women's clothes are sexually coded in a way that men's are not. Outside of beaches and nightclubs, men rarely wear anything provocative or revealing when they want to dress up. Men can wear a straightforward, professional suit to any special occasion, without worrying that they are sending the signal that they no longer think of themselves as young and desirable. By contrast, women's formal wear is all about sexual display. High heels, short skirts, makeup, low cleavage, rich fabrics, and form-fitting clothing are meant to show that a woman is toned, young, sexually confident and worth looking at...
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Sponsor Soulforce's American Family Outing
2008-05-12 16:30:00
Soulforce, the nonviolent activist group that advocates for gay and lesbian equality in religious communities, is sending out 21 GLBT families to tell their stories to religious leaders at six leading mega-churches: Rev. Joel Osteen and the Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas Bishop T.D. Jakes and The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr. and Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland Bishop Eddie Long and New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia Rev. Bill Hybels and Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois Dr. Rick Warren and Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California Each family has pledged to raise $2,000 to visit these churches between Mother's Day and Father's Day. Most still have only a few hundred dollars, so your contribution will make a difference. Soulforce families include a mother and her FTM transgender son, a straight couple who have joined the movement to support their GLBT friends, and several gay...
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Open Questions About Open Communion
2008-05-05 16:42:00
A couple of years ago, my church switched from "all baptized Christians" to "all those worshipping with us" being invited to receive the sacraments, a practice that I hear is not uncommon among liberal churches. This change upset some traditionalists while making others, including my multi-religious family, feel more welcome. I'm content with the current policy, though I wouldn't be offended if they invited non-Christians to receive a blessing at the altar rail instead. My personal opinion about communion is similar to how I feel about premarital sex: It's important to reserve certain intimate acts for a fully committed relationship so that those vows represent a real life change and not a mere formality. However, it's hard to point this out to someone without shaming them in a way that is worse than the original offense. A public distinction between people (like not inviting your daughter's live-in boyfriend to Christmas dinner) is less defensible than a pr...
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"Julian's Yearbook" Wins Chapter One Promotions Short Story Competition
2008-05-04 19:40:00
Marianne Moore may have wanted imaginary gardens with real toads in them, but what's even better is imaginary friends who earn you real money. "Julian's Yearbook", a chapter from one of my two novels-in-progress, has won first prize of 2,500 pounds in the Chapter One Promotions International Short Story Competition . In this episode, Julian grapples with first love and homophobia at his Southern high school, while taking steps to launch his career as a fashion photographer. Here's the beginning: Desire smells like acid in the dark. Its face is a hundred faces, rising out of the stop bath, materializing on grey paper like ghosts. Your ghosts and mine; you knew them too. The football heroes joshing in a group shot, a chorus line of manly awkwardness. There's the clown, the golden boy, the dull and violent sidekick. You've got to remember that snub-nosed blonde with too much school spirit, whose mascara you almost forgot to clean off the backseat of your daddy's car. Mem...
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Northampton Pride 2008
2008-05-04 19:19:00
Yesterday Northampton held its 27th annual Gay Pride March, attended by 7,500 people. My husband and I and one of my moms marched with the good folks from MassEquality, the group that successfully lobbied to preserve equal marriage rights in Massachusetts, and their Connecticut counterpart, Love Makes a Family.MassEquality is currently advocating for the Equality Agenda, a variety of state legislative and funding initiatives including transgender civil rights, "safe schools" programs, and HIV/AIDS prevention. Behind that sign, I'm wearing my rainbow "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You" tank top, available here from Cafe Press. The leopard-print sequined lid is from Mrs. Dewson's Hats in San Francisco. (I received objective proof of my fabulosity when a young gay man asked to buy it from me. I let him try it on.) That's MassEquality organizer Ryan Brown on the left, with other supporters whose names I didn't catch, as we march down Main Street past the courthouse. An appr...
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What to Do When Your Glasses Break
2008-05-01 21:30:00
My beloved, unstylishly large eyeglasses went kaput this week, after 10 years of faithful service. Since without them I am as blind as Mr. Magoo, I put on my driving glasses and headed to the eye doctor for a long-overdue checkup and a new prescription. I'm not sure what she said after "As you get closer to age 40..." (the very thought induced brain freeze) but the upshot was, I bought a lovely pair of Armani frames, then spent the afternoon on the couch in a darkened room waiting for my eyes to un-dilate. Cut off from my usual sources of entertainment, I searched the Internet for someone to "tell me the story of Jesus". If you're ever in a similar predicament, start with the Coffee Cup Apologetics podcasts at the Internet Monk's blog. His conversational musings take a little while to get to the theological heart of the matter, but there's always a memorable original insight to take away. Recent topics include the New Atheists (Dawkins et al.) and what it means to be p...
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The Good Thief's Penance
2008-04-30 16:53:00
Bryan at Creedal Christian has posted this meditation from the late Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (Bloom) that I hope to remember whenever I feel ensnared in persistent sins: So often we ask ourselves and one another a very tormenting question: How can I deal with my sinful condition? What can I do? I cannot avoid committing sins, Christ alone is sinless. I cannot, for lack of determination, or courage, or ability truly repent when I do commit a sin, or in general, of my sinful condition. What is left to me? I am tormented, I fight like one drowning, and I see no solution. And there is a word which was spoken once by a Russian staretz, one of the last elders of Optina. He said to a visitor of his: No one can live without sin, few know how to repent in such a way that their sins are washed as white as fleece. But there is one thing which we all can do: when we can neither avoid sin, nor repent truly, we can then bear the burden of sin, bear it patiently, bear it with pain, bea...
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Book Notes: Liberating Tradition
2008-04-30 16:30:00
Kristina LaCelle-Peterson's Liberating Tradition : Women's Identity and Vocation in Christian Perspective offers a solid introduction to Christian feminism, and a wake-up call to the churches not to mistake culturally conditioned gender roles for gospel truth. Topics surveyed include the strong women of the Bible and their often-overlooked successors, from the female monastics to the 19th-century social reformers; feminine metaphors for God in Scripture; sex discrimination and body image; the diverse forms that marriage has taken in the Judeo-Christian tradition; and the egalitarian message of Jesus. While at times I feel that Liberating Tradition goes in too many directions at once, this smorgasbord may be useful to conservative Christians who have not previously been exposed to basic feminist critiques of consumerism, for example. The book's main strength is that LaCelle-Peterson backs up mainstream feminist-egalitarian arguments with detailed Biblical c...
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C.H. Connors and Other Smith College Poets
2008-04-25 21:02:00
Earlier this week, the Poetry Center at Smith College celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2008 with readings by alumnae from the past 60 years. Poems by the participants and other Smith graduates are featured on this web page. Carolyn Connors '60, who publishes her poetry online at www.chconnors.com, has kindly permitted me to reprint her poem "A Glory from the Earth", which she read at the gala. I especially love the last line.A Glory from the Earthby C.H. ConnorsOur science has achieved its opposite    and taken us down a peg or two.    Our animal nature has come ungluedfrom ghost; we?re Things with skills and wit.Once we had a soul because we thought    the world was also made in part    of spirit. Taught by story, artand church, we went about the earth in awe.Those who went before believed with ease,    an opening between two roots    gave passage to the underw...
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Poems by Conway: "Walls" and "Things That Hang"
2008-04-24 16:35:00
New poems below from "Conway", my pen pal serving 25-to-life for receiving stolen goods under California's three-strikes law. I'm exploring self-publication options for his chapbook, but would also appreciate being contacted by any interested publishers.  Walls As I stand in contrastquestioning authority, to which it standsIs this wall of concrete asking itselfwhy I stick around, never leave?Seeming to grieve this stoic stanceheld so long, by a pillar built society.Do the walls rejoice, in my familiar visagewhenever I caress that sharp roughnesswith this softer fleshpolishing the stone.Or, is it just hopethat makes me imagine the wall alivewith sight, even sturdy voice?Then, I wonderis it this stonethat exiles me inor the world out...****Things That Hang A sound in the airuntil caught by an earwanted peopleon the post office walloffering money to callA kite by the windwith a stringon the other endthat question of doubtyou knowwhat I'm talkin' aboutA hopeand a prayerpants, on ...
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Poem: "Called Out"
2008-04-23 21:51:00
The baker, said Luther, glorifies God in bread.He was a fat fellow, knew good beer from a bad sermon.Enough of these piglets in neckclothssweating through bare words never meantto be dragged up from belly to lips.Inside every man I want, I wantcries like a baby, but ashamedof bread sopped in milk,choleric to grab his father's knife.The helmsman glorifies God by seeing sharks.The constipated scholar can afford to toss his inkat demons in the frost,his own chamber glass cracking.But bluff sailors, their red hands freezing to the wheel,need gloves, not Latin.Bless the tanner and his scrawny boywho sleeps in the horse-hay,wakes to crack the trough's icy skinand offer the first biteof an ordinary apple to the steaming mare.Let him be too young to dream of whoreslike Reason, Luther's false bride.She is all painted with vocationsof monk and knight and merchant,pale halo, priapic spear,the great ships laden with lemons.The leper glorifies God by losinghis fingers. Luther counted beadsbut...
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