Poem of the Week: July 26th, 2015

Lori Mosley is from New Orleans. She currently lives and teaches in Lake Charles, LA. Her work can be found in Volume 1, Issue 2 of burntdistrict.

from IN CONVERSATION WITH THE TANGERINE JESUS
By Lori Mosley

Colonnades of lemonade stands
compete for penny cent pieces

When’ll we be outdated? Lemons
will grow and drop and wait / not
for hands / but degradation/ ne’er we
Never will we fall but pared / juiced / inhaled / always
still hanging / I cannot
insist the husk that remains contains evermore
ripeness / evermore usefulness

Useful: the monumented child / surrogate-lover
always awake to the mother

Poem of the Week: July 21st, 2015

Matt Mason, author of our poem of the week, has won two Nebraska Book Awards (for Poetry in 2007 and Anthology in 2006) and organized poetry programming with the U.S. Department of State in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Minsk, Belarus. His poem, “What I’ve Learned, Being a Father” can be found in Volume 1, Issue 1 of burntdistrict.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED, BEING A FATHER
By Matt Mason

is that being a person
takes practice.
Nobody springs fully-formed anymore
like in ancient stories. Even Jesus,

we acknowledge, drudged through
the relative embarrassments of infancy:
arms as novel and unwieldy as tentacles,
no sense of social control with your tongue,

these brand new bowels
and the surprises they prove capable of;
these bodies
like rowboats on stormy seas,

crashing against momentum and seeming never,
ever will they be something
you can steer.
You may someday know

how to balance on water; but
for now
the waves do not answer
to your spastic, sausage-like hands.

Poem of the Week: July 13th, 2015

Todd Robinson’s work has appeared in Sugar House Review, Margie, Prairie Schooner, The Southeast Review, and Midwest Quarterly. More of his work can be found in Volume 3, Issue 2 of burntdistrict.

THE WHITE PILL
after Jim Carroll
By Todd Robinson

I took the white pill this evening

I got new fuzz on the bones inside my skin

the missus
does her little sleep on the sofa

and at dawn
a whistle summons all the tiny workers
to their cubicles

it is silent and piercing

not at all like the shriek
of a perfectly failing republic

Today, It’s Official

We are delighted to announce that Spark Wheel Press and burntdistrict have become a part of the Nebraska Writers Collective, a vibrant nonprofit that promotes creative writing and performance poetry throughout the Midwest. This is an exciting new chapter for us, and while our editorial mission and aesthetic at SWP are unchanged, we’ll be spending some time considering how to best embrace the growth this new partnership is offering. In the short term, submissions to burntdistrict will be closed. Full length collections continue to be considered at Spark Wheel Press

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