Here is an anthology of different works associated with 42 Mile Press and W280.
I attempted to create a similar theme or image in this collection. I personally enjoy poetry that have natural images, and evoke a sense of ambiguity that leaves the reader begging for more.

The Non-Classical Penguin Press

Emperor Anthology Issue I

-Anne Marie Lindgren

 

Jelly Bucket for Reading:

Rachel Rinehart

For Laika / 1

 

Ocean Vuong

A Kind of Kindness / 2

 

Michael Schmeltzer

Insect, Inflict / 3

 

Olga Rukovets

Permanence / 4

 

Anothai Kaewkaen

Poems in Praise of Savory Foods and Sweets (Translations of King Rama II’s Food Poems) / 5, 6

 

Abrupt Rural:

David Dodd Lee

Her Body / 7

 

Watermark:

Clayton Michaels

Melancholia is a collective noun / 8

Fiddler’s hearth – summer, 2009 / 9

Eleemosynary / 10, 11

 

Fragile Acts:

Allan Peterson

Innocence of Proof / 12

Ghost Writer / 13

Moon Missing / 14

 

The Other Life:

Herbert Scott

Closing Up / 15

The Lost Aisles / 16, 17

Wolf / 18

 

Shade 2004:

Elizabeth Skurnick

Mt. Desert Island / 19, 20

Mary Ruefle

Grief / 21

Statement / 22

The Feather / 23

 

Tina Chang

Part of the Forest / 24

 

Lydia Melvin

Suit Me / 25

 

Bob Hicok

Limited resources / 26, 27

Suggested modifications / 28, 29

Cleaning House / 30,31,32,33

 

Pablo Medina

The Pillars of Community / 34

Tectonics of the Imperceptible / 35

Purpose and Extravagance / 36

 

Donna Munro

There’s Nothing So Bad Living Can’t Fix It / 37

Trepidar / 38, 39

Filterless Pleasure / 40

 

Chad Faries

Cadenza for the Works of Nick Cave and Euridice / 41, 42, 43

 

Karen Whalley

Under the Sign of Fire / 44

Family of Hard Workers / 45

When He Prunes the Roses / 46

 

Brian Henry

American Incident / 47, 48, 49

 

Kevin Clark

Hands Off / 50, 51

The Crossing / 52, 53

 

Ron Rash

Something Rich and Strange / 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60

 

 

 

Paula Cisewski

Birds of Appetite / 61

To A Margin / 62, 63

 

William Olsen

Success / 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71

 

Jaimee Kuperman

I Think Words Louder / 72

Hadrianus / 73

Somebody Else’s Funeral / 74

 

Gretchen Mattox

The Moon Is No Mother / 75

 

Shampoo Issue 40:

Jim Behrle

I move the clocks ahead every weekend / 76

Thank you for your concern / 77

 

Tim Yu

Chinese Silence No. 17 / 78, 79

Chinese Silence No. 18 / 80, 81

Chinese Silence No. 19 / 82, 83

 

Alison Strub

Address to Gregor Mendel / 84

Address to Dr. John Clarke, 1959 / 85

Address to Hipocrates / 86

 

Julien Poirier

The Poem: Fact and Fiction / 87

Caterpillar at the Acropolis / 88

 

Octopus Magazine 15:

Alice Bolin

Yearbook / 89

 

Kevin Simmonds

Mishima / 90

Crystal / 91

Honey / 92

 

 

 

 

Joanna Novak

On a Bolus / 93

Soft Spot / 94

On Appointment / 95, 96

 

Donald Dunbar

Eyelid lick / 97, 98

 

Jason Koo

Giant Steps / 99, 100

GQ Correspondence / 101

 

Sixth Finch Spring 2013:

Luke Bloomfield

Have Some Cake / 102

 

Jay Deshpande

Nocturne. / 103

 

Anne Cecelia Holmes

At Last an Effigy Shaped Like Oklahoma / 104

In Home Movies We Are Always Waving / 105

Poem for What I’m not Allowed / 106

 

John James

It Loops Back Over the Pacific / 107

 

Anne Marie Rooney

Bright path / 108

 

Quarterly West Issue 77:

Lucien Darjeun Meadows

Cocoon / 109

 

Kimberly Grey

We are Mostly Alright / 110

 

Gina R. Evers

Learning to Read Tarot / 111

 

Kerry Banazek

Is It Sex to Say Seeing? / 112

If Our Eyes Slip Through Our Fingers and Leave a Residue / 113

 

Meghan Privitello

Elemental / 114

Rachel Rinehart

Murderess, Ohio / 115

 

Pool:

Jessi Lee Gaylord

I Don’t Want to Watch Deadwood with You Anymore / 116, 117

The Slain Blue Bedroom / 118

 

Kristin Hatch

Pretty Poem / 119

 

Anna Maria Hong

Cassandra / 120

 

Molly McQuade

From A Field Guide to Verbs / 121

 

Amy Newman

When Anne Sexton Makes Enough Money Selling Beauty

Counselor Cosmetics Door-to-Door, She Buys James Wright’s The Green Wall? / 122

 

Nicholas Wong

Post –Colonial Zoology (1997, Hong Kong, returning to China) / 123

 

The Afterlife is a Dry County:

Charmi Keranen

And What of The Moss / 124

A New Mythology / 125

A Treaty of Everlasting / 126

 

The Glimmering Room:

Cynthia Cruz

Strange Gospels / 127

Chronic / 128, 129

Strange Gospels / 130, 131

 

The Baltimore Review:

Sally Rosen Kindred

At the Altar of My Fifth Year / 132,133

 

Patrick Milian

Boy, / 134

 

Helen Degen Cohen

Midnight in Paris / 135, 136

 

Reginald Harris

Self-Portrait as My Father’s Son / 137

 

Megan Grumbling

Vapors / 138

 

Linda Pastan

Weeping Cherry / 139

On the Beach / 140

 

42opus:

Bradley Paul

What Kind of Slow Creeping Death Are You? / 141

 

Diagram 12.6:

Ari Banias

Solve for X / 142

 

Michael Canavan

Nasa Elegy / 143

 

Ted Jean

Mixed Marriage / 144

 

David M. DeLeon

Songs to Water / 145

 

Norman Lock

11 Impossible Objects / 146

 

D. E. Steward

Marzoto / 147

 

R. Williams

The Currency of Tourism / 148                 

 

Portland Review:

Anis Shivani

December 31 / 149

 

Christine Stewart-Nunez

Abecedarian to Unbind / 150

 

Zachary Lundgren

287 South / 151

 

Diode Volume 6 Number 1:

Ash Bowen

We’re Always Getting the Story Wrong / 152

To the Double Helix / 153

For the Man Waiting by the Monkey Bars / 154

 

Anna Journey

Evacuated / 155

 

Gary Sange

Kissing Hands / 156

This link will provide a video of Carol Ann Duffy reading "Premonitions" from her most current collection The Bees. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxrMznlN6i4

Ornithomancy

 

On overcast October nights

in an orchestra of oak trees,

one owl omits the obscure obstructions

and obsolete obligations of oneirodynia.

Ornithological oracles

obtain omens,

occasionally observations

of organisms,

particularly one obfuscating owl,

an ouzel  Odyssey.

Catherine and Frederick

 

A Grimm’s Tale

            indeed

permeated in

                        grains of truth.

Not a Cinderella story

            of severed toes

filed heels

                        or lichen to peck from agate ashes.

No reels of cheese

            chasing after one another

down hills of hop flowers

                        and barred thicket bushes.

Only an over flowing

            tap

of hefeweizen Krankenwagen

                        beer.

Catherine

            Frederick,

we’ll Burn Em’

                        to the fucking ground.

In literary journal Shampoo Issue 40, the cover art is fantastic. There are distinct contrasts between the purple, black, and orange that shapes the face of this mysterious girl. It holds a certain ambiguity that makes me want to open the pages of this collection. Jim Behrle’s “I Move the Clocks Ahead Every Weekend” started this collection out humorously. The poem has a touch of vulgar humor that appeals to many of our senses through the images presented. However, Behrle’s second poem “Thank You for Your Concern” was anything but appealing. I did not enjoy this poem, because the “political” statements are one dimensional. Emily Hunt’s poem “Symbols” states the word “light” one too many times by the third stanza. I honestly want to send her a Thesaurus. The work as a whole seems quite juvenile. The cover of this collection deceived me, as a reader. Guess that is how the saying goes, right?

                The cover Octopus Magazine 15 leaves much to be desired. However, unlike the Shampoo Issue 40 this literary journal seems to be quite professional. I enjoyed the layout of the journal, the white space used by the poets, and the color scheme of the texts. Alice Bolin’s “Yearbook” appeals to me on many different levels. The stanza: “Those whores. Our oboe reeds litter the alley. Leak saliva on the yearbook and don't ask questions. / The painter's nest spit-burned and choked in apple, the big suckling pig.” This is my favorite out of the poem. There is an array of images of the “big suckling pig” and “saliva on the yearbook.” It creates an atmosphere anyone can picture in their head, however; it still leaves the reader with a sour taste in their mouths. The ambiguity of what might be happening in the poem, and the mysterious feeling of the certainty of not wanting to know creates an intriguing atmosphere. This is in contradiction with Kevin Simmonds’ “Summer of 1982.” There are vivid images here as well, but lacks a sense of ambiguity. The reader clearly knows what is taking place in the poem. I would have originally guessed it would take away from the poem, but the aesthetic beauty of arrangement of words draws the reader back into the poem.

First draft of my new poem: "A barren well"

A barren well

 

In the Middle Ages,

                I once sat by a fire

quite alone

                                for who could help

but produce bad dreams?

 

The grandmother of the devil

took pity on upon me

as I crept into the folds

of her pelted dress.

 

For my tree no longer

produced apples

or crisp lavender leaves,

so I plucked three

golden hairs

from the head of a demon

and squashed the toad

sitting under a stone

hidden in a barren well.

Questions: Nancy Botkin’s Parts That Were Once Whole

1.       God seems to be a predominate theme in your poems. The element is mentioned six times throughout this collection of poetry. Is there significance to this word?

2.       The word “memory” and “remember” are mentioned seven different times in the work. Are your memories a major source and inspiration to your poetry?

3.       What roll do the dolls on the front cover play? Are they a representation of your childhood?

Does this tie in with the repeated use of the word memory or remember?

In the collection poems titled The Afterlife is a Dry County written by Charmi Keranen there is a intensely large amount of ambiguity presented in each poem. These poems tell a story or make a political statement. To be honest, I did not particularly care for this collection. However, I see the significance of the poem and the aesthetic beauty of the collection as a whole. There was one poem in particular that struck a small chord within me.

Seney

It's slow going

waiting for the rock
to become a fish

the log
a grebe

the eagle's nest hovers
naked and known

but who in their right mind
would leave

the SUV to fight the deer flies

100,000 ticks per moose

*

We used a retractable razor blade
to scrape the inspection stickers

from each window carefully

safe for another year

yes, there was a forest fire

a virgin pine burn

then blue buckets of berries
all those following years

the town was skirted
like a woman

you're dying to surround

Hemingway said

The Big Two-Hearted

was more poetic

 Gothic girl

Are your amethyst black lips

 replicating the color

of your soul

or your pierced labia?

Do you walk the cemetery

whispering  secretes

in the ears

of the dead

asking for redemption

of dreaming books,

of sparrows,

or dead mice.

Do each

                Of your markings

littering your wrist

                                tell a story,

or did you just

                grow up in the suburbs?

Here is a first draft of a poem I recently wrote:

Chicago Skyline

Eating “rotten cow”

snuggled close in a two seat truck

watching groaning graffitied gas-turbines.

Gastropods loose in the cozy kitchen cabinets,

Compulsive straightening of covers

and fluffing of pillows.

Pretty little black dolls with thumbs in their mouths,

Protecting me from strangling stranger stares.

            My whisper

      tangled in strings.