The Shit Creek Muse

Inspirational! Shit Creek to some, but the Hippocrene Fountain to true poets: that's The Shit Creek Review, which Muse-like has inspired a stream of pellucid verse from Dave Bonta, poet and editor of the innovative poetry web magazine qarrtsiluni.

Read 'Shit Creek' at Via Negativa: http://www.vianegativa.us/2009/05/shit-creek/

We're Shakin' It, Boss!

Shit Creek...

...it's closer than you think. Hopefully by the end of July, possibly early August. Keep treading.... errmmm.... water.

The Byte of The Second Flea

The Second Flea has hatch'd, and, pamper'd, swells — with verse by Peter Bloxsom, Catherine Chandler, David Davis, Ann Drysdale, Rhina P. Espaillat, Bill Greenwell, Clive James, Jalina Mhyana, Timothy Murphy, Alfred Nicol, Marly Youmans and Thomas Zimmerman. Go, read, be bytten!

http://www.the-flea.com/

Margaret Menamin, Poet

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We are all saddened to hear of Margaret Menamin's death. She was a poet's poet and beloved by many, not only for her fine work but her gracious and thoughtful critique. This poem of hers from The Chimaera III speaks beautifully about acceptance, remembrance and treasured relationships …how those who loved her will come to remember her season on season, summer after spring.


Baucis and Philemon

I believe I know how it will be
with you and me:
Coming silent one day through the wood
where last you stood,
I will stop, remembering, and see
a newsprung tree.

It will be as if it had been planned:
Where then you stand
I will stop, remembering, and see
a wild young tree
tall and straight among the others, and
put forth my hand.

As I touch your greenness, some strange thing
will leap and sing
within the hardening fibers of my hand.
So we will stand,
season on season, summer after spring,
remembering.

Recent news from our published authors

A new interview with Joseph S. Salemi, along with some of his published work, appears at the following website address: http://alongstoryshort.net/ThePoetsCorner-June09.html

Salemi writes a monthly column for The Pennsylvania Review , and his comic poem "Rear-Meat Rhoda" is up at The Formalist Portal.

Bench Press: Poetry that exerts pressure at every point, and so achieves a momentary rest.

Bench Press, an independent publisher of poetry, will be launched on July 4, 2009. On that day its website will go "live," and unveil its logo. 

The press is pleased to announce its first title: Jee Leong Koh's Equal to the Earth. Of Koh's book, Vijay Seshadri writes: "Jee Leong Koh is a vigorous, physical poet very much captured by the expressive power of rhythm, rhetoric, and the lexicon. He is also, paradoxically, a poet in pursuit of the most elusive and delicate of human emotions. The contradiction is wonderful and compelling, and so are his poems."

You can read a poem from the book on the press website, and purchase a copy of the book.