Month: November 2023

Alien Buddha Zine #56, with My Fish Poem and Other Goodies, Arrives

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Alien Buddha Zine #56, taken by me.

My copy of Alien Buddha Zine #56 has arrived, with my poem about fish inside. You can get your copy and gift copies for your friends in black and white here, or in color here.

I discussed my fish poem here, but I did want to add something my husband observed on reading it that I forgot to mention: there’s a darkly comic implied parallel between the fish who swim against a current all day but are actually going nowhere except eventual consumption, and us. I had thought of that when constructing the poem; it just slipped my mind when discussing it in the previous post. But enough about me. What’s your favorite aspect of my poem?

Just kidding. I have not read the whole zine yet, but I did read a lot of it, and I want to highlight some of my favorite work. The excerpt from Kathryn Burkett’s novella, Broken Angels, about a young woman with mental illness struggling on the edge of multiple disasters, was a frightening, gripping, respectful, and credible, account. I also liked the excerpts from Jared Morningstar‘s poetry collection, Lost in America, very much. Each of the poems included here holds out one of America’s bright, shiny promises, only to undercut it, and us for wanting it, sardonically. A bitter, but healthy pill, wrapped in an engaging capsule of capitalist marketing and the desires that fuel it and are fueled by it. Addressing the pain of a different kind of desire, Michelle Reale‘s collection, Terra Ballerina, places the love and longing for a destroyed homeland experienced by survivors in tension with the devastating permanence of loss. Each detail evokes and awakens the desire for home, but equally reinforces the tragedy of its destruction. Thus, in “Lacrime,” survivors driven by thirst to drink sea water “might as well be drinking / their own tears.” Sad but beautiful work.

Are you still here? Follow the links and get yourself some good new writing!

Fish Poem Out in Alien Buddha Zine #56

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Alien Buddha Zine #56. Promotional Photo.

Just a heads-up that my poem about the intelligence of fish is out in Alien Buddha Zine #56. You may order the magazine here in black and white or here in color.

I wrote this poem in response to two articles I read. The first was about raising barramundi on Midwestern farms, the second about how scientists taught fish to drive. I liked the piquant contrast between the barramundi happily “swimming upstream” against an artificial current in a small tank and the goldfish, driving more freely in a whole new realm. The tension between our recognition of fish intelligence and a lovely dinner of barramundi en papillote I once made seemed to belong in there, too. I threw all this together, rather like the fish and vegetables in my barramundi dish, and allowed it to stew in the reader’s mind.

Bon appétit!

“Character Sketch” Up at Autumn Sky Poetry Daily

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YouTube documentary on René Gruau.

A little while ago, my cousin, the painter, posted another work that inspired me to go ekphrastic. It is a fashion illustration by René Gruau. I believe it is under copyright, but you can see it here. I love the way the folds of the cloak in the back are indicated only by a thick, black, curved line, coming down from the outline at the top like the tail of a letter. And I like the old-fashioned glamor of the more fully realized top.

So I sat down and hammered out “Character Sketch,” a poem about the places that painting took me. I submitted it to Autumn Sky Poetry Daily because the magazine came up early in the alphabetical listings at Chill Subs, and because in an interview, Editor Christine Klocek-Lim says this about why she started the magazine: “A long time ago in a poetic landscape far from here, I disliked most of the poems I read in current publications. They didn’t seem to have the flow of imagery and gusto I wanted to see, yet because I was participating in several online workshops, I knew that those brilliant poems existed in the wild.” She also says she looks for “an emotional framework to which a reader can relate.”

My sentiments exactly! Except I find the lack of movement, gusto, and emotion to be an ongoing issue. I checked over a couple of poems, just to make sure the editor and I were on the same page, and, yes, we seemed to be. I revised for an hour or so, to make sure the narrative created an “emotional framework” undergirded with sufficiently imaginative imagery, and to police my line breaks (about which Editor Klocek-Lim is a stickler, according to the submission guidelines).

Then I sent it in, not hoping for much. Apart from my doubts about whether I had adequately captured the magical effect of the painting, I felt that my poem’s “emotional framework,” which owes something to classic Hollywood, might not be deemed moving enough. Moreover, Editor Klocek-Lim does not send out rejections. Instead, submitters must check every day for a week, and if their work doesn’t appear, they know they didn’t make the cut. I knew from my own editing experience that hundreds of submissions might come in over the course of a week, so my chances would be slim.

Still, I checked conscientiously and was delightedly surprised Thursday to find not only my poem on the site, but a lovely Editor’s Note that gave an intriguing assessment of the poem and called attention to its “brilliant imagery.” Thank you, Editor Klocek-Lim!

I have subscribed and look forward to encountering the gusto of others. I also plan to submit to the magazine’s “Saturday book feature” of a poem from a book written by one of the contributors to the magazine. Fingers crossed!