From Greg Bem

I am pleased to announce the third release from Carbonation Press: Paul E. Nelson’s Daysong Miracle (Past 62).

This small book is available now in Spokane, Seattle, and via Lulu. It has been an honor and a privilege to work with Paul E. Nelson and Roberta Hoffman on this release.

This is the third of four “DaySongs” Seattle poet Paul E. Nelson has completed. The ritual was designed for workshop participants in online Zoom courses he has been conducting since the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. They’re currently run under the names “Poetics as Cosmology” and “Life as Rehearsal for the Poem.” The DaySong comes mainly out of projects by Bernadette Mayer (Midwinter Day) and The “Canto Diurno” of Pierre Joris.

The DaySong exercise is only possible writing projectively and is a test of a poet’s ability to write in the method Charles Olson, in part described as a “use of speech at its least careless and least logical.” It also incorporates a notion that the late BC poet Barry McKinnon ascribed to William Carlos Williams, that each poem you write should be a summary of your life to that point. Having three long-time friends die at age 62 in 2022/2023 and writing the DaySong two weeks before Nelson was to turn 62 was part of the energy that propelled this poem.

Poet/interviewer Paul E. Nelson founded the Cascadia Poetics LAB & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. Books include Haibun de la Serna (2022), A Time Before Slaughter/Pig War: & Other Songs of Cascadia (2020) American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012) (2018) & American Sentences (2015, 2021). Co-Editor of Cascadian Zen Volume I: Bioregional Writings on Cascadia Here and Now (2023, Watershed Press), Make it True meets Medusario (2019) (Spanish & English) and other anthologies. He’s Literary Executor for the late poet Sam Hamill and lives in Rainier Beach, alongside dəxʷwuqʷed Creek.

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North of Oxford – Open for Submissions

North of Oxford is open for submissions of poetry, book reviews and essays.  Please feel free to send for consideration of publication. Follow the guidelines on our about page: https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/about/

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For Weekend Viewing – Interview of North of Oxford Editors

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Two Poems by Donna Pucciani

Barges on the Seine

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1869

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The barges line up like ants carrying sugar,

hardly noticeable on the broad span of river,

the swathe of sky roiling above in white clouds,

and the hedges brooding in foreground left.

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The miniscule protagonists are practically nil,

forgotten, a mere footnote to the wind, water

and shadows that ignore them as they creep downriver

on their plodding journey carrying who knows what

to who knows where.

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Their black forms dribble upstream,

merely an inky line, specks of dark life

on a canvas of dense blue, white, and verdure,

just doing their duty, trying not to run aground

in the vast universe that holds them on a string

like unanswered questions.

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Young Woman Sewing in the Garden

Mary Cassatt c. 1880-82

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She could be any ordinary woman

engaged in lace-making, perhaps

tatting the edge of a handkerchief,

sitting dully in a shady spot among

a handful of poppy-bright flowers.

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Intent on her task, she is oblivious

to the verdant shrubbery around her,

summer’s cloud of tepid breath.

She does not dissolve into the scene,

does not become one with the garden,

or filter herself through blossom,

but remains contained within herself.

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Her plain gray dress closes around her,

leaving bare only her arms, wrists,

and hands free to engage in sewing

the tiny square of fabric that is

her raison d’être, its soft material

gathering her dreams in the task

of the moment.

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The graveled path behind her

provides a horizontal stripe of dusty beige

through a haze of trees. She could easily

run away from her nearly motionless

existence, but refuses to consider escape,

her delicate labors calling her from the heart,

or not.

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Donna Pucciani, a Chicago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in Shi Chao Poetry, Poetry Salzburg, ParisLitUp, Gradiva, Meniscus, Li Poetry, North of Oxford, and other journals, Her seventh and latest book of poetry is EDGES.

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A Prayer for a New Year – 2024 by Charles Carr

A Prayer for a New Year – 2024 

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Come to a standstill in all the light and madness

Come throw away the container of despair.

Come nearer the forgotten self, the lost meaning.

Don’t be afraid of the absence of what is unknown;

          think of the absence of what was known.

Come release the sun that is shut up within the body.

Come shove the light into the night like a star.

          Defy the queen, paint the roses white again.

Come let the verb probe through until it stops all the hate that flows.

Nothing stops the landscape as it walks through you,

         it is fragile, held by the glass hands of the horizon

Lie on the grass, turn your eyes to the sky,

           listen to the humming of the bee

           let it be.

Come let the cloud burst soak you to the skin.

Come to the sands by the water’s edge.

Come to the beach’s longing to stop the world on the brink.

            Follow the path, listen to the voiceless trees,

            run from the swollen shadows.

Come like a dancing flame.

Come weave your way homeward.

Ler there be nothing between us,

          between me and them and their coming back.

When you come be more than when you went away.

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Charles Carr of Philadelphia has two published books of poems, paradise,pennsylvania and Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems. Charles has been active in the Philadelphia poetry community for 20 years and he hosted a Moonstone Arts Center Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub for 5 years and is currently the host of a live monthly broadcast Philly Loves Poetry now in its seventh season.  Eat This Poem, a Chapbook, published ny Moonstone Press, was released in December.  Proceeds of the sales of the chapbook will go to Ukraine Trust Chain.

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Still-Life With Dragonfly Perched on Beer Bottle by Jason Ryberg

Still-Life With Dragonfly Perched on Beer Bottle

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And here is a bridge,

not unlike a thousand other bridges

made of rusted iron and sun-cracked wood,

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a bridge that crosses a creek,

not unlike a thousand other creeks

that wind and weave their way

through the raw fabric of the gothic,

Midwestern American landscape,

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where a lone Blue Heron, maybe,

stands patiently contemplating a single gold koi

(lazily circling a pink lotus blossom

that is just now beginning to open).

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And here is an abandoned barn,

not unlike a thousand other barns

in varying stages of disrepair

and un-making, leaning precariously

into the ebb and flow of the seasons,

the last flake of paint having long-since been

weathered away by sun, wind and snow.

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And here is a country crossroads,

not unlike a thousand other crossroads,

where a dragonfly just happens to be perched

on the mouth of an empty Lone Star bottle

(sitting on a fencepost made of limestone),

and a hand-painted sign by the side of the road reads

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SWEET CORN, TOMATOES,

WATERMELON 5 MILES

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where maybe 10, 11, 12 cars, at most,

may pass through on any given day

and the passage of time,

without anyone there

to take the time to notice it

let alone be of a mind

to try to get a hold on it,

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is ultimately revealed to be

just the slow, nearly imperceptible

rotation of morning into day

into night into morning

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and a breeze

that never really

stops blowing.

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Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and countless love letters, never sent. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is “Fence Post Blues (River Dog Press, 2023).” He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.

Two Poems by P.E. Sloan

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Lost Syntax

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Worse yet

The sentence that goes nowhere

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Like a beached jelly fish

Flotsam without sting

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The ideogram surrenders

As the tide recedes

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Branched off helter-skelter

Lost clauses scatter

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Dangling participles emerge

What of?

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Like an open parenthesis

You may become omitted in errata

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We scan the crowded page

Hunt for a semaphore

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We read the cards

Argue over whether it’s a that or a which

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Like a clean clear sentence

You inhabit my shadow

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You fill my neat paragraph

With exact proportions of joy and sorrow

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Our prose glides on a fluttering breeze

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Homage to Magritte

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Words flap on clotheslines

Pinned tight, they crackle

Float backwards

Inject down the maw

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Ready for a reset

What is the ask

We babble

Become traders

Language just a barter

Our tongues caw

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Here comes civilization

Wheels on clam shells

Spandex on steroids

Bowler hats that billow in the breeze

Boutique victuals, ravenous

We eat art

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P.E. Sloan is a writer who lives in Northern Virginia and Brooklyn with his wife, Donna Cameron.  Originally from Chicago, P.E. attended college on the East Coast and then worked as a reporter and photographer and, occasionally, clueless deckhand in New England and the Florida Keys before getting some additional schooling and settling in for the pleasures of the long haul. His poems have appeared in North of Oxford, Third Wednesday, Poetica, Cathexis Northwest Press and District Lines.

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Two Poems by Greg Colburn

Obsolescence

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After 48 years of loyal service and stellar performance,

They sent you packing… threw you out on the street… kicked you to the curb.

Didn’t even have the decency to throw you a party.

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They said you didn’t fit the company’s image anymore. That you were a little dull.

That you were too plain for plain M&Ms.

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There had always been talk that you were but a pale imitation of Mr. Brown M&M.

But for nearly 50 years you had quieted the critics

Because under that admittedly lackluster surface,

You were just as good… just as delicious as your colorful colleagues,

weren’t you, Mr. Tan M&M?

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When the news came down they were going to have a contest to replace you,

Did you run off and whine to the media? Do you go out and get a high-priced lawyer?

Did you get all crazy and talk about bringing a gun to work?

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No, you didn’t.

You came in and continued to do your job.

The big shots upstairs were a little chastened by your unflappable attitude

But they wanted you gone and the sooner, the better.

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They wanted somebody with a little more flash, a little more panache.

It was the 90s after all,

And doing a good job just wasn’t good enough anymore.

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The contest was a big success.

More than 10 million calls poured into a special 1-800 number

And Mr. Blue M&M triumphed over his purple and pink rivals.

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That was 1995.

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And for the next twenty-some years, we haven’t heard a peep about you.

No sightings on Florida beaches… or at Hollywood parties.

But that was never your style, was it?

You were always about blending into the background,

Holding your position until the right moment

And then providing a jolt of mingled sweetness

Before taking the plunge

Into total darkness.

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The Smoker

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don’t bother with such things

that’s what my old man would say

a camel in one hand

and a gunther’s in the other

sitting at the kitchen table

staring out at the tiny backyard

you’ve gotta be careful of your dreams

yeah, they can drive you

to do things you never thought possible

but they can break your heart, too

and then they can keep breaking your heart

until nothing’s left

he stubbed out the cigarette

grinding it

until it bent

right at the filter

and assumed

its pre-determined place

next to all the other

crushed, smashed, snuffed-out things

that filled that little round ashtray

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Greg Colburn is a writer, collagist and printmaker. His work has been published in Inverted Syntax, the City Paper and Baltimore Sun. His poem “Brightness Born Afar” appeared in the recent collection––published by Moonstone Arts in Philadelphia––celebrating the life and art of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He is the co-author––with his wife, the artist Bernadette Colburn––of an art and poetry chapbook titled, Beyond the Edges. Originally from Baltimore, he currently resides in Media, Pennsylvania.

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10 Questions for Charles Carr

Charles Carr is an integral part of the Philadelphia Poetry Scene. His poetry has been published widely in the small press and three collections of his poetry have been published. He is the host of Philly Loves Poetry on Philly Cam and is active with the Moonstone Arts Center. A native Philadelphian, Carr attended LaSalle and Bryn Mawr Colleges, earning a Masters degree in American History. He has been an advocate for services for abused and neglected children for 35 years. More recently Charles has worked as a volunteer to promote the cause of the poorest of the poor in Haiti. Charles is married. He has one son

An interview with g emil reutter 

GER: How did you come to poetry as an artform?

Actually, poetry came to me first as a form of meditation.  I wrote my first poem twenty years ago.  I had returned to Philadelphia and was staying with friends as I was looking for a new job.  My ironing a shirt for a job interview prompted me to remember the pleasure of ironing, something I started to do when I was 12 and something my mother taught me.  The poem was titled “The Revolution Has To Wait”.  I made the task a reminiscence of my mother’s instructions on the exact order of the task, reflections on the agony of those young women (wayward they were called) in Ireland who enslaved in the famous Madelaine Laundries, ironing my altar boy cassock and surplus.   I shared the poem with a close friend who is also a writer, he loved it and urged me to keep writing.

GER: You are the host of Philly Loves Poetry. How did this come about and how has the program developed over the years?

Moonstone for a brief period sponsored a PhillyCAM broadcast titled “Who Do You Love”.  The program focused on the great poets – Neruda, Yeats, Rilke and others.  The program hosted a panel of poets and others who discussed and offered their analysis of the poet’s work.  This usually was followed a brief open mic where a select number from the audience would read poems of the “loved” poet for the night.  Over time the program lost momentum and the panelist who were invited didn’t show up.  Larry and I discussed the potential for a replacement.  I recommended that we focus on local poets, and we came up with the title Philly Loves Poetry.  At times the format has changed from “themed” programs (e, g Veterans, Ekphrastic, Whitman 200 celebration etc.) to what it is now:  hosting a discussion and the guest poet reading a selection of their poems. 

GER: Your first poetry book, paradise, Pennsylvania, was released by Cradle Press. How did the book come about?

Actually, the book came about accident and good fortune of meeting a publisher while vacationing with friends in Michigan.   By 2008 I had gathered a collection of poems, which I wanted to submit to publishers.  I met the publisher of Cradle Press who lived in St. Louis who also was a poet (and an international security consultant).  I told her about my collection and asked if she would read it and give consideration to publishing.  I sent her the manuscript.  She liked it and we published.  I lived and worked in Lancaster County for almost five years and had a lot of contact with the Amish and the signature poem is dedicated to them.  The collection cuts across a wide assortment of things-including the resting place for old wallets, requiem for pens, to my 1984 Volvo.

GER: How has the Moonstone Arts Center impacted the Philadelphia area and beyond?

I know of no organization in this City and or other cities that has done more to advance love poetry and to use poetry as a platform to speak to the many issues we face as a City and a nation.  My book “Haitian Mudpies” was the first book of poems published by Moonstone, (beyond the annual Poetry Ink Review Anthology).  Since that that first book, published in 2013, Moonstone Arts has published over 200 books, which includes, large collection. Chapbooks, and topical Anthologies. Yearly Moonstone hosts 100 readings in their poetry series which has given approximately 300 poets a venue to read their poems.  As I said often publicly Larry Robbin and Moonstone Arts Center are a cultural treasure of this City.  There is no way to quantify or evaluate the impact that Larry and The Arts Venter have had on the cultural life of this City.

GER: Haitian Mudpies & Other poems is your second release. The title is unusual, creative to say the least. How did this project develop?

In 2005 a close friend of mine who had been making trips to Haiti for several years invited me to stay at the mission Hands Together and to volunteer for a week at an Infirmary and Orphanage run by thy the Sisters of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa.  During our stay Father Tom Hagan, an Oblate priest, and former Philadelphian, took us for a tour of the schools his mission built in Cite Soliel, a slum in the capitol City of Port-au-Prince.  During unforgettable tour Father Tom accompanied up a set of stairs, where a watched a woman sitting in the blistering sun, forming small patties.  I thought these patties were hand pieces of pottery, which she would paint.  Father Tom told me she was making “mudpies”, which she will sell at the market and which the starving people of Cite Soliel eat!  This experience combined with the volunteer work in the Infirmary feeding and comforting was life changing.  I did make a few more missions to Haiti until the Earthquake in 2010.  After this I agreed to become a lay missionary for Hands Together traveling to Churches in Tri-State to make appeals and raise money for the mission.  I have continued to do that for ten years.  The site of watching the woman on the roof make mudpies resulted in my writing the title poem in the form of a recipe.  Poems about Haiti appear in all three of my books of poems, including two in my recent Chapbook “Eat This Poem.

GER: You have had your poems published in a number of small press magazines/journals and have read your poems to audiences. How important is it for a poet to publish and read their poems in public?

Publishing and reading one’s poetry is a validation and reflection of what the poet wants to say to the world.   In publishing and reading the concerns, hopes, and commitments in life can be read and heard.  The reading for me is important in continuing the tradition of the Bards in our culture.

GER: Eat This Poem was recently released by Moonstone Press. Sales from the book will benefit a Ukrainian charity. Tell us about the book and how the benefit came about?

I have had a passion for food and cooking for a long time.  I had composed several poems about food- including the relaxation of making soup, a Self Portrait of myself as a salad, and the guilt of a missionary shopping in a Giant’s market in midst of massive malnutrition in Haiti.  While I was putting the collection together scenes of the war on Ukraine and the starvation of children affected me greatly.  Also I had a long time affection for Ukraine as three of my favorite professors immigrated from Ukraine.  I contacted two. al Ukrainian American poets and asked them about organization I could donate the proceeds from the sales of the book.  Both recommended Ukraine Trust Chain, a volunteer initiative in Ukraine that was started by Ukrainian Americans living on Philadelphia.  To  book sales have resulted in $625.00 and I hope to keep working to sell more books.

GER: You have immersed yourself in the poetry scene of Philadelphia as an interviewer, host and writer of poems. How has this impacted your poetry?

Being a poet in this community of truly remarkable poets has provided a life in poetry and friendship with extraordinary people.   Reading and listening to other’s work creates opportunities to learn different subjects and a variety of ways to write my poems.  Leonard Gontarek has been my mentor and through his workshops and his friendship I come to live a new life in poetry.

GER: How has your non-poetic background come into play in your poems?

For 45 years I served in a wide variety of jobs in helping address wide assortment of needs-employment and training opportunities for underserved groups. Abused and neglected children, helping low-income families access and pay for quality childcare. These experiences let me see a broken City and it has had a lasting impact on how I view the world and the role that poetry can play in speaking to chasm and wrongs of the wider world.

GER: What projects are you currently working on and what can we expect from Charles Carr in the future?

I am putting together a selection of poems from the past 10 years with the goal of submitting for another book of poems.

Books by Charles Carr

Eat This Poem

https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/carr-charles-s-eat-this-poem/454?cs=true&cst=custom

Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems

https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/carr-charles-s-haitian-mudpies-other-poems/22?cs=true&cst=custom

paradise, Pennsylvania

https://www.amazon.com/paradise-pennsylvania-charles-s-carr/dp/0978949935

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