Within Words We Are One
(Covid-19) Summer by Juanita J. Martin Beaches are quiet Except the occasional Tide coming in As the sun burns its way through the atmosphere No sizzle from the grill Everyone’s inside— Dreaming of vacations they never had as pools of sweat bead guzzling water clinging …
Hair It Is By Dr. Gina Rizzo Everyone is valuable and beautiful as they are. Hair has a mind of its own. How it is born is how it’s grown. Hair is all the same. We are all working with how it came. Perms to …
i am a doll dug out of a landfill by Melissa Eleftherion Body of the cave mouth Dissolution of salt Intuitive ash collects I vibrate to the speleothem the duodenum My heart holds the dirt like some sweet music i remember once a breathing green i remember once breathing i am a dull dig out of a landscape The hemisphere a polydactyl crustacean of a fault Veil of topography how the dirt is lucid mass shell of sea star fall in a ditch this sun’s channel lines and gaps Here I am that dirt i am limestone I am gravel Lush grave of the verdant flesh a lyric from the detritus One lyric up up little ascending I say this to my cohort i say to the wind my desert of doll people i say to the abandoned tire i say to metal up up you can reach it
Melissa Eleftherion (she/they) is a writer, a librarian, and a visual artist. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & nine chapbooks, including little ditch (above/ground press, 2018) & trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020). Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa created, developed, and co-curates The SFSU Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange with Elise Ficarra. She now lives in Northern California where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.
Cold Gin and a Pandemic by Georgina Marie A swig of fresh lime squeezed over ice San Francisco’s Junipero gin with a garnish soothes the overwhelm of more bad news and sudden heat What I learned at home today: the length of estrangement becomes short …
Wishing Well By Aqueila M. Lewis-Ross I wish you Love: We need it today more than ever As you find your way in this world You may see the change you want to see And do something to make a difference without conditions, but sometimes …
Great Greats family hatbox rolls beneath her hands asking, do cedar balls burn daguerreotype was shocked, melted every one so recent, the southern way to tinder buildings and her carriage seemed to be of two minds homestead barn’s drip of rainwater on the pig’s folded ear twitch tin basin sloshed heavy water and shoulders slant and shoulders bent toward the father the comfort fire only imagined mother’s family’s livestock was brick, thought them in a century after, sun streamers through carriage windows hatpins long and ear splitting, while broad-shouldered uncles look on hungrily, the type that lumber through a door but whisper in libraries your hat red with ribbons a feather, look at teacup move it to the patch of firelight something that belonged to me, but as one gets older
Jeffrey Kingman lives by the Napa River in Vallejo, California. His poetry chapbook, ON A ROAD, was published by Finishing Line Press in December of 2019. He is the he winner of the Red Berry Editions 2015 Broadside Contest, the winner of the 2018 Eyelands Book Award for an unpublished poetry book, a finalist in the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk Prize poetry book competition, and he received honorable mention in the 2017 Quercus Review Press Fall Poetry Book Award. He has been published in PANK, Crack the Spine, Squaw Valley Review, and others. Jeff has a Master’s degree in Music Composition and has been playing drums in rock bands most of his life. Visit his website at www.jeffkingman.com
“Salt Cedar” SUNRISE CHORDS RISE SEE THEM GROW JUST THERE UPON MY FENCE GLORIOUS JASMIN COVER FORMING DELICATE MOUNTAINS A VIEW OF THE ISLAND OF CORK UNJARRED MEMORIES THROUGH YOUR SCENTED FLOWER BEING THERE MY 1ST FLIGHT FROM MY DOORSTEP TO THE COCKPIT OF MY …
MASKS I had to wear a mask To protect me from you The fear of someone seeing Me imperfect, as I was, Frightened me You wore a mask, too, For what reasons I Could not tell but Most likely similar Pain or sorrow …
Congratulations to Poetry by the Bay host Jeremy Snyder for becoming Vallejo’s 3rd Poet Laureate. He was preceded in office by Genea Brice (2015-2017) and D.L. Lang (2017-2019).
His work appears in Verses, Voices, and Visions of Vallejo, and he recently hosted the Vallejo Poetry Slam. He has been hosting Poetry by the Bay since 2018 which meets at the Odd Fellows Hall in downtown Vallejo on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month.
You can reach him at vallejopoetlaureate@gmail.com
A committee appointed by the Vallejo Community Arts Foundation consisting of Nina Serrano, Fairfield Poet Laureate Emerita Juanita Martin, Jeff Kingman, and Karen McKevitt chose Snyder from the pool of applicants.
We at Vallejo Poetry Society wish Jeremy continued success!
Read the official press release from the City of Vallejo here.
Congratulations to Hakim for winning first place and Juanita J. Martin for winning second place at the Vallejo Poetry Slam held October 26, 2019 in the Joseph Room at Vallejo’s John F. Kennedy Library. Thank you to everyone who competed. Thank you to Provisions for …