Matthew E. Henry Reads:
split screen (An Excerpt):
we exchange
normal pandemic pleasantries, and note
it’s Friday the 13th , before we slip
into the safe, familiar silences
split screen (Spoken Word version):
Dr. Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the Boston-born author of the full length collections the Colored page (Sundress Publication, 2022) and The Third Renunciation (New York Quarterly Books, 2023), the chapbooks Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020) and Dust & Ashes (Californios Press, 2020), and the micro-chapbook have you heard the one about…?. (Ghost City Press, 2023). He also has a collection forthcoming from Harbor Editions (said the Frog to the scorpion). MEH is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes . He’s been nominated and won some recognition for his poetry, but for some reason he continues to dabble in prose.
ALL THE FALLEN GOLD, a video poem by Anna Saunders (w/film & sound by Paddy Saunders)
An excerpt from the poem All The Fallen Gold, included in The Pandemic Love Anthology:
It is autumn, the season for largesse.
The oaks are munificent gods
throwing their coin everywhere.
Watch the film here:
https://vimeo.com/489579957
Anna Saunders is the author of The Prohibition of Touch (Indigo Dreams), Feverfew (Indigo Dreams), Communion (Wild Conversations Press), Struck (Pindrop Press), Kissing the She Bear (Wild Conversations Press), Burne Jones and the Fox (Indigo Dreams), and Ghosting for Beginners (Indigo Dreams). The poem, “All the Fallen Gold,” first appeared in High Window Magazine, Fall 2021. Anna is the CEO and founder of 143 Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Read more here https://cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk/. She has been described as ‘a poet who surely can do anything’ by The North and ‘a poet of quite remarkable gifts’ by Bernard O’Donoghue. Twitter: @AnnaSaund1.
Catherine Graham Reads:
Hold the Dark (An Excerpt):
How you must hurt.All the portions
taken from you,
stemmed tendrils,
dent in sun, torn
island
disappearing. Run
to the stone hedges,
unlock the penny closed.
Hold the Dark (Spoken Word Version):
Catherine Graham’s most recent book, Æther: An Out-of-Body Lyric, was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award and The Celery Forest was named a CBC Best Book of the Year and was a finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award. Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Poetry Award. A previous winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Poetry NOW, she leads their monthly Book Club and interviews for By the Lake Book Club. Her second novel, The Most Cunning Heart, appeared in Spring 2022. She co-hosts The Hummingbird Podcast: Conversation & Inspiration and teaches creative writing at University of Toronto SCS. Her next poetry book appears Spring 2023. Visit: www.catherinegraham.com She tweets @catgrahampoet
Maria S. Picone Reads:
We Should Not Forget (An Excerpt):
The way dolphins reclaimed waterwaysin the Bosporus, the sun serenaded
children in Shanghai; how the great swan, duck
boats in Boston fell silent & roadways in São Paulo blew
themselves free of great congestion;
We Should Not Forget (The Video):
Maria S. Picone has been published in Ice Floe Press, Moonchild Magazine, and Whale Road Review. She won Cream City Review’s 2020 Summer Poetry Prize. A queer Korean adoptee, HUES Scholar, and Watering Hole Fellow, Maria’s work explores themes of identity and social justice. Twitter: @mspicone. Website: www.mariaspicone.com.
Lee Potts Reads:
A Concise History of the Wind (An Excerpt):
Our sheets caught each gustThat passed through all day
Then our hands held them stretched
Above and across our bed
The top sheet’s corner
Folded over on one side
Creased page in a book
Of words left over at day’s end
A Concise History of the Wind – (Spoken Word Version):
Lee Potts is the author of the chapbook And Drought Will Follow (Frosted Fire Press) and is poetry editor at Barren Magazine. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust + Moth, Whale Road Review, UCity Review, Parentheses Journal, Firmament, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He lives just outside of Philadelphia with his wife and the last kid still at home. Twitter: @LeePottsPoet.
V.B. Borjen Reads:
The Kites (an excerpt):
I am learning, too: how to begin,how to circumvent the doubt that
bites into my neck every day between
five and two-and-twenty hours;
I am teaching myself discipline.
The Kites (the video):
Velid Beganovic Borjen (he/they) is a writer & visual artist currently based in the Czech Republic. Author of one poetry collection in Bosnian, his work in English and his visual art are featured in The Maine Review, EcoTheo Review, FOLIO, AZURE, Ice Floe Press, High Shelf, Rattle, Honey & Lime, The Adriatic, Parentheses, and others. He is a guest editor at Palette and Frontier poetry magazines. IG: samoniklo. Twitter: @Borjen.
Andres Rojas Reads:
Time (an excerpt):
for logged spodosol to greenagain
for the wild sunflowers to tilt
towards their daily star
for the bobcat’s ears to lean
into what’s coming:
TIME (the video):
Andres Rojas is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Third Winter in Our Second Country (Trio House Press). His poems have appeared in, among others, AGNI, Barrow Street, Colorado Review, Diode, Massachusetts Review, New England Review, and Poetry Northwest.
Elisabeth Horan reads:
Soft Ghost Sonnet
May softness be your heart’s new homemay it bring more joy than I’ve become –
myriad cut & stab of blood, wears it thin;
surely becomes woven thread of skin
and bone, bone the heft – the honed handle
a hunter’s needed murder manacle.
Rip one out of the leg and sharpen;
sew a jacket from death, of tartan;
the hell I will; I’ve you to love! I’ve you
to cover, smother my dove, love me true
don’t be frightened of this delirious heart
I dragged it along, much easier on a cart
Eager to bring these tidings back home:
soft ghosts: I needn’t die to be a good mum –
Soft Ghost Sonnet (Spoken Word Version):
from Twentieth Anniversary (an Excerpt):
…
Tell me when we could talk –when would it be best to bring up
Tell me when we could talk –
when would it be best to bring up
the idea of us playing house again;
How it is you could leave for work
and not bend me over, and kiss me,
gallantly, first; our baby dolls cry
inside our house, they miss you,
…
Twentieth Anniversary (Spoken Word):
Elisabeth Horan is an imperfect creature from Vermont, advocating for animals, children and those suffering alone and in pain – especially those ostracized by disability and mental illness. She is Editor-in-Chief at Animal Heart Press and Co-Editor at Ice Floe Press. Her newest collection, The Mask, is available from (Broken Spine Arts, 2021). She has numerous collections and chapbooks published by Fly on the Wall Press, Cephalo Press, Twist in Time Press, Moonchild Magazine, and Animal Heart Press (co-authored with Adedayo Agarau). She is a poetry mentor to many up and coming brilliant poets, and proud momma to Peter and Thomas. She has an MA in English from SNHU and her MFA in Poetry from Lindenwood University. Twitter: @ehoranpoet, Website: www.ehoranpoet.com.
Bunkong Tuon Reads:
No One Asked but They Did It Anyway (an excerpt):
During a power outage they dropped off
camping lantern and wool blankets,
offered home to recharge smart phones.
No one asked them. But they did it anyway.
No One Asked (The Video):
Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of Gruel, And So I Was Blessed (both published by NYQ Books), The Doctor Will Fix It (Shabda Press), and Dead Tongue (a chapbook with Joanna C. Valente, Yes Poetry). He teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY. Twitter: @BunkongTuon.
Banner Art: Reconstruct, a VISPOglitch by Robert Frede Kenter. Twitter @frede_kenter
IceFloe Press 