Ten Most Read Poets @ North of Oxford 2022

Ten most read poets as determined by the readership of North of Oxford for 2022

How Dreams Grow by Manasi Diwakar

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/03/12/how-dreams-grow-by-manasi-diwakar/

Layers of Blankets by Doug Holder

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/08/08/layers-of-blankets-by-doug-holder/

Pandemic of Violence Anthology II – Poets Speak

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/08/20/pandemic-of-violence-anthology-ii-poets-speak/

The Ballad of Morbid and Putrid By Sawyer Lovett

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/01/11/the-ballad-of-morbid-and-putrid-by-sawyer-lovett/

Pandemic of Violence Anthology I – Poets Speak

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2021/12/27/pandemic-of-violence-anthology/

Sisson’s by Eric D. Goodman

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/01/11/sissons-by-eric-d-goodman/

High Stakes by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/high-stakes-by-ryan-quinn-flanagan/

Two Poems by Susana H. Case

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/two-poems-by-susana-h-case/

The Game by Matthew Ussia

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/10/16/the-game-by-matthew-ussia/

Two Poems by Kerry Trautman

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/two-poems-by-kerry-trautman/

.

.

.

Poetry coming on September 13th

Alexander Lazarus Wolff, Donna Pucciani, Michael Gushue, and David Kozinski

Fine Lines by Sean Howard

Fine Lines 

Standing at the edge of the sea is exhilarating. This is the meeting place of terrestrial and marine life, where two ecosystems intertwine.

Jeffrey C. Domm, Canada’s Atlantic Seashore

i. Northern Rock Barnacle

.

Mouth at top

is closed during

low tides’

.

(Slow rush,

tongu-

ing…)

.

ii. Eyed Finger Sponge

.

‘Branches have small

holes, or “eyes”’

.

(Wave, hand

staring back

at you…)

. 

iii. Northern Quahog

.

‘Interior of shell

milky-white

with purple

stain’

.

(Quahog Grail,

bloodstain

rim)

.

iv. Samphire

. 

Salad days

(no takers?) –

.

‘Succulent stem and

branches, bright

green in spring’

.

v. Maritime Garter Snake

. 

‘Rests very

still in the sun,

collecting warmth’

.

(What beggar

could choose

more?)

.

vi. Piping Plover

.

‘…nest in a

depression…’

.

(How many

of us dare?)

.

Sean Howard is the author of five books of poetry in Canada, most recently Unrecovered: 9/11 Poems (Gaspereau Press, 2021). His poetry has been widely published in Canada, the US (including North of Oxford), UK, and elsewhere, and featured in The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books, 2017).

.

.

High Stakes by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

.

High Stakes 

. 

Seizing the high ground is important,

have you not read of the great campaigns?

. 

 And here this stooped man with his back to me,

a pile of stakes which he hammers into the soil above.

 .

 An old slag heap now repurposed and green again,

stakes driven deep into this unnatural hill to form a line.

 .

 A drooping pair of overalls, I see each faded denim strap

disappear over a mountain of disjointed shoulders.

. 

 The stacks from the nickel mines in the distance.

Billowing out their many black dahlia plumes.

.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Chiron Review, Setu, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review. 

Dear Anonymouse by Mike Maggio

Dear Anonymouse

.

Dear Anonymouse:

I’ve noticed how lately

you’ve taken up residence

and claimed free reign of my humble home —

as if you were meant to be here.

.

How you scurry about my kitchen, Earl of Morning,

Prince of Demurity, Sovereign of Shyness

scorning contact, refusing to concede even my presence

while I’m perking coffee or scrambling eggs

or simply puttering about.

.

The pantry, too, has succumbed to your shenanigans.

You’ve raided the rice, finagled the figs

rummaged the rind of a yet-to-ripen melon.

And all you’ve given for my unwilling generosity

is the back of your timorous tail

and a profligate amount of your prodigious pellets.

.

Now I’ve tried to be lenient with you —

even, one might say, tolerant of your presence.

I’ve left you offerings for your midnight snack —

tempting morsels meant to appease your avid appetite —

a crumble of cheese beneath the sink

.

a pat of peanut butter near the fridge

even, once, a bowl of fruit left, unwrapped,

beside a special cocktail I concocted

meant to con you, meant to attract you

to my little contraption in which I wished to whisk you away.

.

And yet, to no avail. You avoid my good will

and continue to sashay through my kitchen

ogling me as if I’m the one who should take his leave.

Dear Anonymouse:  please understand:

I do not wish to harm you.

I merely bid you and your progeny godspeed.

.

So please: pack your things.

Make haste with your belongings.

Seek shelter in some other domicile.

Because come tomorrow

a certain calico companion is about to join my campaign.

.

Mike Maggio is a poet and fiction writer with nine full-length works to his name and numerous publications in journals including The Northern Virginia Review, The L.A. Weekly and others. His newest poetry collection, Let’s Call It Paradise,  , will be released in 2021 by San Francisco Bay Press.. He is an adjunct assistant-professor at Northern Virginia Community College and an associate editor of The Potomac Review His web site if www.mikemaggio.net

Celestial Elbow by D.R. James

.

Celestial Elbow

.

The sky wore the regalia of flames but

turned lavender-violet quietude

in a moment’s romance. And the breeze, how

it finessed everything and cradled me.

Awakened by the dazzle, I reposed—

riveted, infused, imbued by satin.

Gift after gift from ginger tongues, then glow

audible like visions. It was never

a coddling. The nod from the heavens

judged some memories mere indulgence—and grudge.

.

D. R. James’s latest of nine collections are Flip Requiem (Dos Madres, 2020), Surreal Expulsion (Poetry Box, 2019), and If god were gentle (Dos Madres, 2017), and his micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is free, fun, and printable-for-folding at Origami Poems Project. He lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan.

Two Poems by John Dorroh

.

For Mary Oliver Who Loved Dogs

.

We are learning new things

about the history of dog bones,

how they permeate the soil

on every continent, a gauge

of the manner in which civilizations

have flourished and failed, burying

their own bones beside them.

.

The collective souls of canine

beings – wolves and chihuahua,

beagles and basset, mixed breeds

and the paperless hound – form a cool

gray layer that only those who’ve

fallen in love with them ever sense

or see. It’s in our marrow, saturating

the pulp of existence.

.

We’ve always loved them, even

as they crouched on the perimeters

of pre-historic fires, inching forward,

cowering on bellies that kissed

the cold ground, stealing bits of skin

and meat while humans slept under

the stars.

.

Reluctant Crow

.

There’s a reluctant crow stuck in my throat,

unable or unwilling to recognize my face.

.

How could he not remember these acid-etched

furrows, this cute pink nose, such rosy cheeks

.

and a head the shape of a cube? He’s not trying,

that’s all. Sad bird. If I can remember the way

.

that green bottle flies entered the dead man’s mouth

at the river when I was 8, their drone-like metallic

.

buzzing, the way the lemon sun felt on my neck,

and the excitement when we pulled up obsidian

.

glass shards from the bottom of the gravel pit,

then why can’t this crow remember me? Perhaps

.

he harbors some gene for resilience, or experienced

a traumatic avian childhood with blood-drenched

.

scenes that he can’t get out of his head: witnessing

a bald eagle being shot from the sky, or seeing

.

his father murdered?  Hundreds of articles

documenting the intelligence of crows and cousins

.

of crows, feathered beings worthy of scientific literature,

of behavioral antics that defy description: Betty,

.

a New Caledonian, picks up a piece of wire

in her cage, uses an object to bend it, like a junior

.

engineer, into a hooked tool that she uses to lift

a chunk of scrumptious pig heart up into her beak.

.

Instead, I have the special crow, the one who doesn’t

fit the mold, the one who grew up just like me.

.

John Dorroh’s poetry has appeared in about 75 journals, including Feral, Dime Show Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Os Pressan, and Selcouth Station. He also writes short fiction and the occasional rant.

.

.

.

.

Two Poems by Mike Wilson

.

Castle Keep

.

I never saw it coming.

It doesn’t have a face,

is known through absence

of chunks and parts,

small paving stones of ordinary

gone missing.

.

Empty boxcars uncoupled

still rolling with momentum

from a life lived, carrying him

through days, a click

clack along an old track,

a train without a schedule.

.

At first preoccupied, then reoccupied

by patterns he no longer owns,

fragments of stories, twisted

paragraphs clutched, the abridged

version of his life, shorthand

dictated, no longer transcribed.

.

Alone in gray that could turn black,

becoming the prey of his own mind,

the timbre of words

not tempered by love

uttered with prompts, delivered to

an audience of tissues and tears.

.

I buried him, broken,

and shuffled along, waiting

until they made me sell the house

and settled me in assisted living

with meals, a bed, and no meaning,

but everyone is kind.

.

The Golden Years

.

She calls the nurse,

pressing the button nobody hears.

She calls family,

they let it go to voicemail,

waiting to see if she will die.

.

She doesn’t…

.

She calls to God,

presents her argument,

makes her plea,

waits for the judge’s gavel

to strike the bench with a ruling.

.

They stick her in a home.

.

Night fears

make conjugal visits.

She calls the aide

but can’t remember why,

can’t remember the girl’s name,

but pretends she does.

The girl leaves

when she thinks she’s done.

It must be nice.

.

The same with visitors –

muscle memory

of social interaction

kicking in the tune

but not the words.

All these strangers

who are like fishing bobs

bobbing up, bobbing down,

looking at their watches.

.

Mike Wilson’s work has appeared in magazines including Cagibi Literary Journal, Stoneboat, The Aurorean, and The Ocotillo Review, and in Mike’s book, “Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic,” (Rabbit House Press, 2020), political poetry for a post-truth world. Mike resides in Central Kentucky. www.mikewilsonwriter.com

.

.

.

Two Poems by James Tyler

.

Cumberland River, 2am

.

There’s a latitude and longitude in Tennessee

where I step in the dirty Cumberland River,

mud between toes, those brittle bones.

.

It goes from here to the Queen City,

winds its filth, memories of Civil War

and white paddle steamers.

.

Wind sings songs on the surface

to rainbow trout and walleye,

to the bones of drowned lovers.

.

White lights shine on black water,

reflect the last silver quarter minted 1964.

The Queen City is asleep now,

nestled against the Cumberland River, 2am.

.

There must be some equation

explaining how the river bends into nothing—

darkness a heavy, bottom-dwelling catfish—

darkness that betrays no moon tonight.

.

I could slip nude into these black waters,

but it’s too cold and the current might take me away—

for I am a man and not Ophelia,

for there is no bard to orate about me but me.

.

Somewhere around here I wish starlight could sink

all the way. I wish I could play the flute,

coax sleeping fish away from the reeds

so they could follow me into my own dreams.

.

My father taught me to fish these waters,

how to hook a night crawler and cast a line,

but I never got the gumption to gut one.

.

Put your ear to these waters and they’ll sing

a whole history, how sun and star burn in turn,

and maybe they’ll tell the truth, or just a little lie.

.

Blade of Grass

.

O to be a blade of grass, trampled upon

by the soles of a thousand feet,

to fall victim to the gardener’s blade

in the morning before the spring storm.

.

Dear wind, your northern breath sour

from snowstorms and icy midnights,

spreads pregnant pollen across meadows,

the whorehouses of nature.

.

I am not a wildflower, red columbine or harebell,

just a blade of green that has grown too tall,

quite worthless in the eyes of flower pickers,

but am I not one of God’s children, equal

.

to lily and rose, though not fragrant or fair,

free to be pissed upon by your purebred dog

and forgotten like one of a thousand banquets

whose mother is dirt and water, seed and sun?

.

The double rainbow is essential to my soul

in a mundane world whose colors are black and grey,

where I kiss the dew with tongue and a force

that can cut this blade, this insignificant flower

.

whose song remains unsung in the season

who becomes golden in its turn and spun,

becomes humble food for cattle and horse,

forsaken by me, yet still touched by God.

.

James Tyler earned a BA in English from Austin Peay State University. He has been published in such journals as Chiron Review, Cape Rock, Doubly Mad, and Poetry Quarterly. He currently resides in Nashville, TN.

.