Pushcart Nominations

We are delighted to nominate the following poems for 2013.

 

Francesca Bell’s “You Can Call Me Ma’am” published in burntdistrict Volume 2 issue 1, Winter/Spring 2013

CM Borroughs’ “Monument the Dead” published in burntdistrict Volume 2 issue 1, Winter/Spring 2013

Eszter Takacs’ “Sometimes I Look At Your Boyfriends And They Are Colorful” published in burntdistrict Volume 2 issue 1, Winter/Spring 2013

Brian Clifton’s “A Prayer to Forget”  published in burntdistrict Volume 2 issue 2, Summer/Fall 2013

Ryder Collins’ “Voyeur” published in burntdistrict Volume 2 issue 2, Summer/ Fall 2013

Brandon Courtney’s “[Misreading] The Odyssey in Iraq” published in burntdistrict Volume 2 issue 2, Summer/ Fall 2013

 

Poem of the Week: November 19th, 2013

Our poem of the week, “Exodus,” by Christina Collins comes from our Summer 2012 issue. Christina also writes comedy shows and stage plays and has work in Vinyl Poetry Vol. 6.

EXODUS
By Christina Collins

Flapping their wings, all of them at once.
Like snow; it was like snow falling,

the perfect silence of it, the action that has
no sound except the sensation of wind

fluttering past the ears. Even less than that,
of the air, the thing that holds the air

growing weary and slipping off in soft
curling strips, floating down as though

our breath was a knife, and the struggle to keep
breathing was the incision in the wallpaper

in the dining room that we changed,
remember when, on the day all the birds

in the garden took flight at the same time,
and you said you would never believe

that there were this many birds in the world,
let alone nesting in the dahlias and the iris.

Poem of the Week: November 11th, 2013

Kelley Bright Leidenthal, who holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Nebraska, is the author of our poem of the week. More of her work can be found in our Summer 2013 issue.

JOHN HAS PTSD
By Kelley Bright Leidenthal

This time, I paint John red
with untied shoes before the sun
comes. There is food every day
and no more talk of work.
Red is my favorite color, and
I have what I want. John is home
from war, and it is Sunday everlasting.
From the kitchen, I see him
with a stare stretched over
our field. The shadows
camouflage his face.
I know he sees the landscape red ̶
the pieces of people
blown across a desert.
I have made a haunted man
to haunt me. I’m not alone.