Poetry

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Distillations: The Inspiration of Others

By Jennifer Mercer ⋅ August 15, 2008

Inspiration can be a mysterious thing. However, this month we will explore three poems from Mythic Delirium #18 which spring from a specific inspiration documented in each poem. These poems are not copies of the original, but new art inspired by the old.

Distillations: Repeating Forms

By Jennifer Mercer ⋅ July 16, 2008

The act of repetition is one of the paradoxes of poetry. In the confined world of a poem, what is the use of redundancy? However wasteful it may seem, there are many poetry forms built around obligatory patterns of repetition. In this column, we will explore two rather different forms, the villanelle and the triolet, [...]

The Journey to Kailash by Mike Allen

By Marcie Lynn Tentchoff ⋅ July 15, 2008

The Journey to Kailash is the most recent poetry collection by speculative poet Mike Allen. It contains around sixty poems, each rich and darkly beautiful. Nurtured by Allen’s fertile imagination and strong poetic skills, seeds of myth, science, and art have grown into poetry that is lovely, thought-provoking, and subtly twisted.
That is not [...]

Distillations: Tell Me a Story

By Jennifer Mercer ⋅ June 19, 2008

A poem with a plot seems like a violation of some kind of natural law. The condensed design of poetry conveys the entirety of a moment at once. How can a poem build a narrative arc like that of fiction? The answer lies in the history of poetry itself. At one time, poetry’s mission was [...]

Lone Star Stories #26

By Shaun C. Green ⋅ June 19, 2008

Lone Star Stories is a bimonthly webzine which offers three pieces of fiction and three of poetry. That it has lasted for 26 issues (now 27) speaks well of its endurance and consistency. This issue opens with a short story—almost flash fiction—titled “The Stamp” by Terry Bisson. It’s deliberately simply written and tells the tale [...]

Lone Star Stories, #27, June 2008

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ June 15, 2008

Issue #27 of Lone Star Stories presents a by-now-standard sextet: from the three stories, one is particularly strong, and all three poems are highly recommended. The magazine typically offers challenging stories in a speculative vein, in various narrative styles and tones which make it—fortunately—hard to categorize; this issue is no exception. I have come to [...]

Distillations: Breaking the Line

By Jennifer Mercer ⋅ May 16, 2008

Once upon a time, it was easy for both poets and readers to know where to expect a line break. The rhythm of the meter shows it and by the rhyme you would know it. However, the previous example is an example of why this approach is less common today. It takes a great amount [...]

Distillations: Explorations of Hunger

By Jennifer Mercer ⋅ April 15, 2008

In this month’s Distillations column, we explore three poems involving different twists on the mundane experience of eating and the experience of hunger. The narrators in each poem are human, and the food being discussed is not particularly exotic: risotto, soufflés, and mother’s milk. However, each poem shows hunger from an unexpected direction.

Sometimes While Dreaming by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

By David Kopaska-Merkel ⋅ April 15, 2008

Sometimes While Dreaming is a chapbook of poetry written by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff. Thirty-seven of the 48 poems in this collection are new. Eight ethereal illustrations by Marge B. Simon accompany them. At her best, Tentchoff is able to put the reader in touch with the souls of some pretty strange people [...]

Flashing Swords, #9, Winter 2008

By David Kopaska-Merkel ⋅ April 1, 2008

Flashing Swords, #9, Winter 2008, serves up a generous helping of sword and sorcery fiction and verse. This issue, 133 pages long, contains illustrations by a variety of artists and 19 written pieces. Alas, the table of contents does not distinguish between stories, essays, and poems, although interviews are always titled as “interview [...]

Lone Star Stories #25, February 2008 (Poetry)

By Marcie Lynn Tentchoff ⋅ March 17, 2008

The February issue of Lone Star Stories contains three poems. The first of these, “Up North” by Elizabeth Hand, is a rather long piece of prose poetry. “Up North” uses rich language and surreal imagery to describe what is either a world only slightly different than our own, or our own world going [...]

Distillations: Visions of Time

By Jennifer Mercer ⋅ March 15, 2008

Around here, March is when spring starts making its tentative appearance. If fall and winter are about remembering the past, spring is all about the future. In many ways, this idea of change is where science fiction began. What will happen next? What will the world be like if X happens? What will [...]

Dreams & Nightmares #78

By Marcie Lynn Tentchoff ⋅ March 1, 2008

Dreams & Nightmares #78 contains ten poems, many of them illustrated. The shortest in the issue is “Still Falling” by Anne K. Schwader, a nine-line piece, vaguely oriental in style. The first stanza grabbed me right from the start:
It’s not only black holes,
you know: all events
have horizons….
Those lines open the poem up [...]

Dreams & Nightmares #77

By Marcie Lynn Tentchoff ⋅ February 26, 2008

There are 15 poems in the 77th issue of Dreams & Nightmares, which seems a large number for this publication. As usual, there is a nice mix of fantasy, science fiction, and myth, but for once the poems that most catch my eye are among the more futuristic of those offered.
“Spring in Rutherford County” [...]

Dreams & Nightmares #76

By Marcie Lynn Tentchoff ⋅ February 19, 2008

Issue #76 of Dreams & Nightmares contains twelve poems, which rage in size from a three-line haiku to a four-page poetically told myth.
The issue opens with “Till Stars Turn Strange,” a piece of Norse verse by Tom Galusha. Old Norse poetic forms rely as much on very strict alliteration as on meter or [...]

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