“Okay Mr. Pepik, now I’m gonna wash your piu-piu. Do excuse me.”
Maria de Jesus tore the seal on the patient’s catheter diapers and very carefully inched the soiled pad out from under him, replacing it deftly with a towel. Mr. Michael Pepik had a catheter tube running from the eye of his penis, and Maria de Jesus began by wiping it down. She then raised her arm into the air and said “Turn.” After a couple of seconds, a large man came shuffling over with a broad smile. “
~ Excerpt From “Maria de Jesus (Hibernaculum employee) part 1” ~
Very quietly… I put a little link near the end of our most recent newsletter to just clue people in to our newest enterprise… Old Scracth Press.
Somewhere along the way, that link picked up an extra HTTP, making it non-functional. What do they say? Measure twice cut once? With proofreading it is literally hundreds of times, because sometimes the platform tries to help out, and inserts itself in disastrous ways.
Congratulations to OLD SCRATCH PRESS founding member Robert Fleming, whose poem “we were before waring,” featured in impspired was a Delaware Press Award winner.
WAY TO GO ROBERT!
we were before waring
we wore hair keratin like baboons & knocked our chests like gorillas
we wore skin like zebras & bent-over to water like wilder-beasts
we wore muscle like lions & paw swatted flies like bears
we wore bones like swine & dug dirt worms like robins
we wore blood like falcons & taloned on branches like pigeons
we wore fig leaves like chameleons & hide motionless like a rat out-preying an ambush snake
Congratulations to OLD SCRATCH PRESS founding member Morgan Golladay, whose poem “The Day Arose Cold, featured in Solstice, was a Delaware Press Award winner.
WAY TO GO MORGAN!
The Day Arose Cold
The sun rose into a pink sky, pausing to gain strength before entering this frozen day. Yesterday’s snow is untrodden by the small ones, searching for food. Even squirrels have forsaken their branches for warmth and safety in their leafy nests. Would that I, too, could stay, snug and cozy, but there is snow to move, feed to put out, animals to tend.
Welcome to Week Two of National Poetry Month. The four seasons of the year are the subjects of many different types of poetry from traditional sonnets to exuberant free verse sprawled out across the page. So to start this week we are sharing two poems by American poets from the past.
The first poem is by Amy Lowell (1874-1925). A Pulitzer Prize winner for her poetry collection, What’s O’Clock, Lowell is associated with the early 20th Century Imagist Movement, which sought to use precise, colloquial language and concrete imagery in lieu of traditional poetic diction and meter. Compared with the second poem we’re posting by E.E. Cummings, however, to our twenty-first century ears it sounds very traditional, until you compare it to last week’s poem posting by William Shakespeare.
To an Early Daffodil
By Amy Lowell
Thou yellow trumpeter of laggard Spring!
Thou herald of rich Summer’s myriad flowers!
The climbing sun with new recovered powers
Does warm thee into being, through the ring
Of rich, brown earth he woos thee, makes thee fling
Thy green shoots up, inheriting the dowers
Of bending sky and sudden, sweeping showers,
Till ripe and blossoming thou art a thing
To make all nature glad, thou art so gay;
To fill the lonely with a joy untold;
Nodding at every gust of wind to-day,
To-morrow jewelled with raindrops. Always bold
To stand erect, full in the dazzling play
Of April’s sun, for thou hast caught his gold.
The second poet, E.E. Cummings ( 1984-1962) was one of the most popular poets of the twentieth century. Challenging the established approach to words on a page, Cummings experimented with form and language to create a distinct personal style. The exhilaration of the change in seasons is transmitted by his merging certain words together and distancing others in a poem that shouts out to be read aloud.
[in Just-]
By E.E. Cummings
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
Do you have a favorite poem to greet the season? Share it with us and share it by posting it on your own social media account as well. Poetry is not only meant to be read aloud, it is meant to be shared.
April is the month for poetry, and in the part of the United States where I live, I’m fortunate to have a hiking trail where years ago small signs were posted with quotes from poetry. What a delight, to only hear the sounds of my shoes crunching into the dirt and the twitter of birds and insects, blue sky overhead, surrounded by green. I pause and read the poem painted on a wooden sign. If I am with a friend, I read it to them aloud. If I am alone, I still read it out loud to myself, because poetry is meant to be heard.
National Poetry Month was established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. According to the Academy, it is the largest literary celebration in the world. Listening to a poet read their own work is a treat. Click on the previous link to see and hear Joy Harjo read one of her exquisite poems.
One of the earliest poets I was introduced to in school was William Shakespeare. Today, due to the evolution of the English language, his works are not as frequently read. Some of the words and phrasing may seem “odd” to your modern ear, but listen to the phrasing and the selection of vowel sounds and consonants. Read him aloud and his work may start to grow on you.
Discovering new poets and rediscovering forgotten favorites, is part of the fun of National Poetry Month.
Writer and Artist Morgan Golladay, a founding member of the Old Scratch Poetry and Short Form Collective, created this beautiful piece of artwork featuring a flower found in many spring gardens, Impatiens.
Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
We’re Devil’s Party Press. We began in 2017 as a way to publish the writing of a small writing group we managed and hosted in our home. We soon realized we wanted to publish more authors, and more genres. To that end…
…we’re also Out of This World Press, where we publish sci-fi and speculative (and even a little fantasy is on the horizon) like the riveting and unusual new book HIBERNACULUM by Anthony Doyle.
We’re huge horror fans, and for this reason we launched Gravelight Press. Having trouble staying awake at night? Gravelight Press can help! Start your horror journey with one of our award-winning HALLOWEEN PARTY anthologies, featured at the horror event, Horrorgasm, and available on Kindle and in Paperback! Watch for our new classic horror series: great old stories with new art and informative introductions!
And now we’ve really gone and done it! Through an amazing cooperation between us and some authors we love, we’re launching a poetry imprint. Old Scratch Press (OSP) is starting from scratch, and going to see what a group of people who love poetry and short form writing can do to bring it to the world. You can follow OSP from scratch, and watch as we develop our sense of self as a place to publish poetry (not an easy thing to do) and appreciate poetry. You can also follow and have a front row seat to the “science experiment” of a shared mission as it unfolds. It’s not the 1960s anymore, can a collective make it work?
I guess they say that most small businesses don’t make it past year one. And then, the ones that hang on, sometimes they hit a tipping point, and they begin to grow.
Over the years since we began, we (Dianne and Dave) have given our blood, sweet, tears, and quite substantial editing and design hours to our authors over and over again. Yes, we always need another week on that project. But we were so excited about it! We cannot wait to see the book in print, and to read it again, and again! And we love giving authors a chance to reach someone with their words. All we all want, all authors, are readers. And as we grow, we’re finding a way to give more opportunities. Some as editors/curators of collections, and some as artist/illustrators. We love late bloomers! We’re (fairly) late bloomers! And if you want to find out about the kind of late bloomers folks like us hang out with, you can see them here. It’s true, they’re my favorite people.
Follow us for great writing, free stuff, interviews with authors, and publishing opportunities too, and we have an account for all submissions through Duotrope. If there’s nothing available currently, check back. We’re dancing as fast as we can.
How’s about you? You look like you could use to put down your phone and pick up a book. Have I got a book for you!
You must be logged in to post a comment.