Issue 5 July 2015

Childhood


Editor's Comments


Welcome to Issue 5! Childhood has been the most popular theme to date with so many strong poems submitted that selecting the very best to be included in this issue was a very tough job. I hope you enjoy reading this great selection of poems.

Sally Long

Poems


Afternoon, 1988

For Jeff

I’ve been meaning to tell you:
That day the crayfish darted backward to their silty secrets—
when I caught one with pincers too small to nip my small palms,
when the creek-smell caught in my throat and stuck,
toes squeezing slippery bed-sand,
minnow schools disturbed, winking soft bodies in sunlight,
when I ran across Route 20 and the blue sedan swerved—
I saw your face from the safe side of the road,
but I couldn’t see your chest expand then deflate;
I didn’t understand my weight,
the harsh sounds your voice made, for me.

Rebecca J. Schwab


6 a.m.

            and baby T.V.
in eschatological mood
has switched itself on,
cartoons searchlighting lounge
silhouette-full of lego-rubble,
prams upturned like tanks,
juice bloodening carpet,
maimed doll corpses
armless, whingeing,
aglow with reflected life,
battery-ready for resurrection
in today’s Apocalypse
by stirring gods.

Jonathan Taylor



Silver Birch

The extraordinary tree at the edge of the green
sways her supple, white and brown body
as if in a wind, but the leaves are stationary,
green and gold and filled with autumn.

There’s mist on the hill from the dank night
but above the sun has broken clear:
she catches it in her auburn hair,
asymmetric, light on her feet.

Up close, the leaves that blazed in the sun
are honey-yellow smudging to brown,
pointing like fir trees upside down.

The poplars raise dark brooms behind
but the birch just dances alone in her mind,
enjoying the spotlight, for this is her time.

Simon Bowden


Peaceful
The far sea softens
my soul,
my bones cling
to a silence.
I have never been
so peaceful -
I lay with my hands
upwards toward

the moon as
the breeze slices
between the oak trees.
Dawnell Harrison



Burned House

Breezes moving through
The eyeless charcoal skull
Disturb insects
Rustle leaves in untended trees

(Boys sometimes throw rocks here)

A mattress rusts away
The indentations of love

(They write crude obscenities)

Silence but for dust
Settling on the mouse-nibbled wood

(Bulldozers claw at screaming ghosts)

John Bennett



A Dream of Utopia

The rulers in charge of pleasures sweet which never dry
Promise to provide an endless food supply
For citizens desiring wealth without the sweat.

As droids are gathering crops around a field,
Databases print records of healthy summer yield
Across the many zones secured within a safety net.

A system where the people have the choice to roam
Zones without restriction like another home
Cannot prepare for virus ready to attack.

As city’s key defenses sleep throughout the night,
Ignorance rapidly rises to a greater height
As fiends observe protective data they desire to crack.

Jason Constantine Ford



In Catholic School

In Catholic school
we girls never dared

to hope
for mercy but prayed

instead to escape
the ruler

Sister slapped
down hard

in a rage that turned
her cardinal

against the white
of her wimple

deliberate strokes each
girl had to count

out loud.
How it frightened us

to witness
a sister sin.

Sarah Brown Weitzman



Chernobyl
“Children born since 1986 are affected by a 200 percent increase in birth defects and a 250 percent increase in congenital birth deformities.”


They took only a few belongings and left
As quickly as a charm of golden finches,
Wings throbbing thin like heart beats,
Scraping the blue of the sky with their bleeding beaks.
They left behind entire centuries, stored riches, books,
Expensive china and preserves, knitted socks
For the Steppe’s biting winters, schoolbags, pillows,
Onions. Some old folk.

When their children started to run high fevers
Or to grow teeth in awkward places,
They kneeled down and begged the Lord
To show mercy. They sold their golden teeth fixtures
To pay doctors and witches, and they waited,
Restless like water drops on a hot plate.
Their children cried late into the night.

627.70 miles away, my mother locked us in our room.
Touching the grass would poison us to death, she told us.
We read stories and counted beads on our abacuses
For an entire year. We cried. We ate well.
We slept and woke up.

Roxana Cazan


Émigré

Dripped through its funnel like paraffin
above the sleeping estuary, where it ruffles and wrinkles
swirled in slow rush of backtides through its waters
dusk leaches into greys of peat and heather
the drowsing turnstone and godwit
this almost siren music of the pipes
refractions of air on the damp stones
as your gown darkens on dark wet cobbles
air through heating groans to join up
with its comrade photons of the sky
remembers a hint of heather offered
by the crofters’ shawl wrapped hands:
ghosts whisper their wordless duotones
what you have lost here, white on green and purple
where the heart’s ease cased its ribbed glen
among crushed heather and broken bracken
unbidden plantains progress from wind-curled valleys
where the wind sleeps.

Colin Honnor



The Psychedelic Kid

After a day at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

I often marvel at my early paintings, the zigzag 
of my brushstrokes. No wonder. My parents say
I looked like the apocalypse when I was born.
Taffy-burgundy, ankles crossed, I blew steamy
Bible verses into the air, my pungent cheeks
puffing with stories to be told. Mark December
17th, Sagittarius. I was a fast starter. After 8:45
a.m., I was already doodling with my tiny, crooked
finger, an eager crayon. My ego popped out
first, I guess. But I wasn't wrapped in threads of
silk, but laid on a drawing pad. I did quick wrist
flicks, left a sheet of Eden's apples for High Mass,
a "magnum opus" of elegance and order. An uncle
called me "The Psychedelic Kid," placed a tiny beret
splashed with colors on my head. Forever, my 
drawings were said to be original, always beautiful--
like my chinaberry trees, thunderclaps (I loved
the sky), melodious jars teeming with eyeballs
or dark secrets. Nobody could count how many
cubist breasts were hidden in any picture. Of 
course I was a mockingbird at the finest art schools.
Tipped my Pork-Pie hat in New York City where
I set up easels under skies bursting with refracted
light (crowning me). But today, it's another story. 
Often I go breathless if someone asks, "Were you
an artist?" Or adds, "Didn't I know you when?"
Never do I say that I once smacked colors on like
any Renaissance (or Met) master. I don't dare.
I doubt that there's more than a few of my old
canvases in the attic. And I wouldn't crawl into
that dark crawlspace to look at, or display to
anyone, what's under every dust-sheeted quilt--
paintings with earthy effects, love and passion,
my self-portrait (the one where I left off one ear).

Isaac Black



Carolyn, the Apple of Avenue F

A childhood so consumed with painful shyness
she told everyone to call her Nancy.  Even on vacation
her parents called her that, glancing sideways at each other,
shrugging their shoulders.  Now blossomed and respected
as the one who gets things done she is reborn. 

Her lover, skilled at making her know beauty and fixing
plumbing, has endeared her to her tenants.  She puts on soup,
he fixes the sink in 2B, they make love and feast
like peasants.  Innocent flirting has the gardener
water the walks and plant flowers for all seasons

out of gratitude for her sweetness and his visibility
to someone besides his children.  She welcomes
the “hello’s”,  loves chatting with the mailman
and baking cakes for birthdays and celebrations.
She speaks gently to the little girl in 4C, petrified

and chubby, forced into pink tights, black leotard
and ballet by a mother who cannot accept her baby
as anything but perfect.  Graceful and grown, she tells
the girl when the time is right to be seen it will happen.
Don’t bake the sweets until you’re ready to be thanked.

Tobi Alfier



Ethical Issues in Child Rearing #137

Can it be quite fair of us
(And should it need the pair of us)
To make them eat asparagus?

Steve Broidy


Ceremony

The pregnant woman
comes to
the wedding reception.
The bride
feels
the stomach of the guest
after the
ceremony
and ritual toasts
by best man
and father of the bride.
She feels movement
under the skin,
ripples of pasture
as in
an earthquake
and thinks
of foreshadowing.

Howard Winn



On the Deck
  
The sound of someone scrubbing:
a loving sound, a fibrous rhythm.

A robin weaves twigs into moss,
breast-shaped cup blooming.

The small birds tweet everything:
chickadee, wren, like soft popcorn.

The robin flits away to reload,
to bring back a grassy beakful.

Someone has stopped scrubbing.
All the surfaces are clean.

Diane Tucker



Winter Poem

The deer watch me as I feed the birds.
They are waiting for me to leave.
They are waiting to come down to the feeders.
They want to eat the black oil sunflower seeds that spill on the snow.
I wonder what I have no right to wonder:
Do the deer wish they were birds now?
Do they wish they could fill their empty stomachs on seeds?
A second time I wonder what I have no right to wonder:
Are these juncos, finches, sparrows, glad they are not deer now?
I shake my head to clear it of such nonsense.
The deer watch me as I feed the birds.

J.R. Solonche



Crock Pot Cooking in Terza Rima

The unhinged lid is dancing once again –
its measured steps a metronome for thyme,
potatoes, carrots, onions, free-range hen,

green peppers, garlic, waltzing in white wine.
Who said, If you can read, you are a cook,
was right ­– but only in three-quarters time.

They prophesy their meals will make me look
as skilled as Julia Child or Rachel Ray.
But what they do not spill within their books

are strategies when tragedies delay
the chopping up or cooling down. The call
that screams, Your child upchucked three times today.

The keys that laugh inside my trunk; the fall
that sends me to my knees before the gods
of saucery and gravy-splatted walls.

The Flavor Bible’s geniuses will prod
my insecurity when I cannot
decipher formulas for blackened scrod

or callaloo or Philly pepper pot.                                     
I am not intimate with tapenades
or okra. What is tripe? I prefer … Stop!

the timer chimes above The Blue Danube,
announcing my luscious chicken debut.

Carolyn Martin


The Louvre

Some people say don’t miss the Mona Lisa.
Others say you’ll need all day there
deciphering her smile
but I say
              beyond those walls
children are waiting for a breath of wind
to launch their tiny boats.

Harriot West



Playing House

Plastic forks and knives
Cups and dishes with no content
Stuffed children sit around a small table.
The make believe was simple.
Birthing is both painful and beautiful
Holding a still beating heart of my own creation.
Long ago I played the role
Not understanding what it all meant.
Now it’s clear
Now it’s the real thing.

Mike Freveletti


Nonno

That’s what he calls me
Italian for grandfather
And each time he does
It grabs me deep down
Makes me want to cry
Till his smile breaks out
As I sweep him up
Safe from all danger

It’s an age ago
But I can’t forget
His gentle wisdom
In work overalls
Or best Sunday suit
Eyes twinkling with joy
And arms outstretched
As I flung myself
Towards him
Nonno.

David Subacchi


Memories of the Circus

I My father

Was a circus strongman who could bend
An iron bar as if it were liquorice,
I still see him in his candy striped leotard
And walrus moustache

Caught in the spotlight in the sawdust
Twisting bar after bar together
Until they formed an intricate structure
Somewhat akin to the swirls of a copperplate letter,

Or a trebleclef's hoops and curls.
The way his muscles rippled under the cotton
Made him quite a hit with the girls
But he only had eyes for my mother

As she balanced on the high wire
Holding her balancing pole,
It seemed that her hands held ever so gently
The filaments of his soul,

As everyone watched her, magnetised,
She would skip and prance
In time with the drumroll shrieks and applause
Death her partner in the dance.

So it was strange to see them one night
Stood in a dark space between the caravans
Just a silhouette of a man
Holding her lightly as a champagne flute

In one of his massive hands
her head tilted back for a kiss, his mouth
Light as a humming bird, hovering
Just for a second, then heading south.


II The Flying Komarnitski Brothers

Had performed for the crowned heads of Europe
Before rumours of a tragic love affair
Led to them joining our troupe,
And touring round towns in the middle of nowhere,

They were a trapeze act but also sang and played guitar,
Songs sung for centuries among
Birches and steppe grass and each ancient tavern,
They sang of rivers, moonlight and a swan

Donning their spangled red and gold leotards
Your eyes dark as blackthorn,
Shimmying up the ladder
Supple as lizards barely seeming human.

I watched them release trapezes and fly
Spiralling towards each other’s hands,
To hang briefly under a canvas sky
Balancing at the edge of death and chance.

One day when we were leaving town
I went to the river bank
I never liked to see the big top come down
The mermaid's drained tank,

And found Kolya smoking by the water on his own
Perhaps watching the waves
Or gazing at his reflection,
Ruptured by sunlight and the shadows of the leaves.

He pointed to a bronze shape that flashed
At the surface only to flit
Back into darkness and unfurl,
With one flick of his tail the curl of a Tadjik carpet .

Steve Komarnyckyj



Jesus H. Christ

He was more of an invisible smoking buddy
to my father than a divine companion whose assistance
might occasionally be worth calling upon.  
Someone who could appreciate the parade of clowns
cluttering the narrow streets of my father’s life --  
the bozos who rode his ass down the highway,
the neighbors who cut their grass on Sunday evening,
everyone who had anything to do with the drill
whose trigger broke the first time he used it.  
Bosses.  Hippies.  Jeeesus H. Christ
The name rolled out of his mouth like a wave,
the long sound of the first syllable
crashing into the rocky shore of the last. 
One of the great mysteries of my childhood
was what the “H” stood for.  My best friend
was Catholic, and he didn’t know.  I sure as hell
wasn’t going to ask my father.

Jeff Coomer


God's Finger

Light, so much light,
Like the gateway to Heaven,
Or Hell as the cold hits
And the first breath
Rips out a whimper.

Shadows and blurs
Circle the world,
Rumbles and squeaks
Sending thrills and shivers
With gentle whispers.

A warm hand holds me,
Cradles me to the Earth,
The soft hills soothing
As I'm given to God,
And her stroking finger.

MV Blake



djembe
  
I open my hands

for the goat skin stretched taut
over the goblet shaped hollow
of the hand carved wood

I’m striking the drum, entering

the duun guun of the bass
the pa ta of the slap
the go do of the tone

shamans claim to fly
with such sounds, riding them
like horses over new plains

the drum is a vessel 

I place my childhood inside
along with my dreams
and notions and fears

everything I am enters the drum

I close my eyes and witness
black and white images
finding color

I open my hands

Michael Spring



Regression (y = a + bx)
‘...truths are illusions
which we have forgotten are illusions...’ (Nietzsche)

Square one
or one squared:
the brain has exactly four corners,
which means any creative movement
of molecular furniture
will confound domestic design
causing significant derangement.

All I feel, however,
 is I am eight again,
clutching the banister,
listening for two specific numbers,
different every time,
which prove the predictive fit of x,
but not this wet about my eyes.

You explain the turning of the tap,
but never how that equals fact,
never why
any model of mine
just illustrates the textbook scraping
sound of desks and chairs wrenched
across a classroom.

Ela Meyer


Monopoly

The summer we were twelve
Monopoly called
like a stranger with candy,
sent us stampeding
toward Hal’s front porch,
blossoming tycoons, magnates,
wheeler-dealers. Chance card
an injunction, Community Chest
a reprieve, we hoarded
yellow, pink and blue monies,
crowed when someone
landed on Boardwalk—
holding two hotels.
Always five or six played,
two or three on stand-by
should someone’s mother call.
That summer, skins didn’t tan.
Hair did not sun streak.
Shorts wore thin in the seat.
We rushed through chores,
ignored ice cream truck’s
tinny Turkey in the Straw
would not have noticed
if the sky turned chartreuse,
fish sprouted wings, or aliens
walked among us. We gathered
in a tight little circle,
passed GO and collected $200,
got out of jail free. Legs crossed,
we sang with the radio: Elvis,
Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins.
We shook dice, spilled them,
stuck houses on every empty lot
like suburban developers:
unscrupulous, money-hungry,
cut throat, leaving our mark,
prepared to take on the world.

Ann Howells



Milk Line

It’s five o’ dawn.
My grandfather taps my shoulder,
caresses my hair,
kisses me on my forehead
and whispers gently
“Wake up my child.
It’s time for milk”

I feel the cold air of his kiss
that has been out since 2 o’ night
and get up to see the stars
while waiting to buy
one more bottle of milk
for this family of nine.

He has polished my shoes
and warmed my coat
on the tubes of the wood stove,
gives me my mittens,
my favorite scarf
and holds my hand
in the hopeful dark.

Even communists buy milk
this early in the morning
they believe the cows
are producing more than ever
so they share this joyful news
right there in the milk line
where darkness stays put.

My grandfather remembers prison
but doesn’t mention it to me
a brick covered in plastic in front of our line
is an ear for those who love
to convert families into refugees
and sincere subjects into spies.

He’s told me once and I never forgot
walls can hear what a mind can’t stop.
We bought milk and thanked the party
for allowing me to sleep until five
for teaching me that life is beautiful
even when everything is dark.

Aida Bode



On the Day I Was Born

They tell me it was the end of a long and miserable summer.
My mother, full of me, sat in a rocker in front of the sturdy box

fan that whirred its double blades, morning & night, in the window
facing Ontario’s stillness. Nothing was moving, except for

my mother’s heel stomping against the blue linoleum floor, calling
for another glassful crushed ice before she expired from the constant

heat that pressed down upon the crown of her head. My siblings came
when she called & were just as anxious as she was to get this over with.

 I’m not sure how I felt, but I was patient, waiting until suppertime.

M.J.Iuppa


Old Cars

How I longed, 
at ten years old, 
for the low-slung glamour 
of a 1966 fishtailed Cadillac
My neighbors
 driveways 
filled with latest models – 
sleek convertibles,
turquoise or red 
instead of our 
‘52 3-hole Buick,
with black body
bee-round and fat.
I spent my childhood
riding in back seats 
of cars older than me,
great hulks of steel 
from smoke-filled 
Detroit assembly lines
parked in front of our house
for every one to see.
Other fathers played
baseball or grilled hamburgers.
But my father spent Sundays
grease-covered, struggling 
to keep those old cars
running one paycheck longer,
and when I waited   
in the grocery parking lot
for my mother
s return,
I hunkered down in the dust
of those rusty floor boards.
I prayed that no one could see me,
I prayed for a different road 
to travel down.

Lisa Rizzo



Contributors


Tobi Alfier is a five-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee.  Her seventh chapbook is “The Coincidence of Castles” from Glass Lyre Press. Her collaborative full-length collection, “The Color of Forgiveness”, is available from Mojave River Press. She is the co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com).

John Bennett is a retired ambulance EMT. He studied Comparative Literature at New York University.

Isaac Black, an MFA graduate of Vermont College, has published in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, San Pedro River Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he's also been a recipient of poetry fellowships from the New York State Creative Artists Service Program (CAPS) and New York Foundation of the Arts. 

MV Blake is an avid writer and blogger, penning poems and short stories for his own peace of mind.  He's forced to work as a teacher for a living, but suspects he's in the wrong job.

Aida Bode is a writer, poet and translator. She was born in Korca, Albania. Her writings have been published in the Albanian media as well as by The River Muse, Dr. Hurley's Snake Oil Cure, Vayavya and Oddball magazine. She’s the author of David and Bathsheba, a novel based on the Biblical story of King David and Bathsheba, the poetic collection True Cheese, and of A Commuter's Eye View, collection of quotes born during Aida's commuting hours to and from work. They bring a unique perspective on life’s fleeting moments. Aida Bode is a graduate of Berkeley College, NY.

Simon Bowden is a retired BBC journalist. He has published a book of poems by the late Mary Skinner and is active in writers’ groups in the St Albans area, winning occasional prizes for poems and short stories.  He is press officer of Ver Poets and runs their workshops.

Steve Broidy is a professor at Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio. His poetry has been published in The Midwest Quarterly, Dark Matter Journal, and The Resurrectionist, among other publications; and he has received an award from the Missouri Arts Council Writers' Biennial.

Sarah Brown Weitzman, a Pushcart nominee, has been widely published in numerous journals such as America, Art Times, The North American Review,  Rattle, The Mid-American Review, The Windless Orchard,  Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Poet & Critic, etc.  Sarah received a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Her latest book, a departure from poetry is a children’s novel, Herman And The Ice Witch, published by Main Street Rag.  www.sarahbrownweitzman.com

Roxana Cazan is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at St. Francis University, PA. Her poetry appeared in Sojourn, The Portland Review, The Madison Review, Barnwood International, and Harpur Palate.

Jason Constantine Ford is from Perth in Australia. He works at a book shop and writes poetry for the love of writing. He has been developing his style of writing for over a decade since his early teens. His main influences for poetry are Edgar Allan Poe and William Blake.

Jeff Coomer is a recovering overachiever who once had a career as a technology executive for a global Fortune 500 company.  He now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he writes poetry, serves on the board of two nonprofit organizations, and volunteers his time as a certified tree steward.

Mike Freveletti is a writer from Chicago.  He surrounds himself with creative people and enjoys a good a story, no matter the form.  

Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 200 magazines and journals.  She has had five books of poetry published including Voyager, The maverick posse, The fire behind my eyes, The love death, and The color red does not sleep. Also, she possess a BA from The University of Washington.
Colin Honnor is widely published in magazines in print and online, including: Bitterzoet, The Screech Owl, Eunoia Review, Crack the Spine, Poetry Bay, The Missing Slate, The Hour of Lead, Sentinel Journal, Message in aBottle,  Ataraxia, Miracle, Ink Sweat and Tears,  A New Ulster, The New Shetlander, Hark, Angle, Awen and Inclement. He formerly edited Poetry and Audience, is a literary scholar, translator of modern European poetry and runs a fine arts press in the Cotswolds.
Ann Howells’s work appears in Crannog, Little Patuxent Review, and Spillway among others. She has edited Illya’s Honey for fifteen years, recently taking it digital: www.IllyasHoney.com. Her chapbooks: Black Crow in Flight (Main Street Rag, 2007) & the Rosebud Diaries (Willet, 2012). She has four Pushcart nominations.
 M.J. Iuppa lives near the shores of Lake Ontario. Most recent work has appeared in: Poppy Road Review Black Poppy Review,Digging to the Roots, 2015 Calendar, Ealain, Poetry Pacific Review, Grey Sparrow Press: Snow Jewel Anthology, 100 Word Story, Avocet, Eunoia Review, Festival Writer, Silver Birch Press: Where I Live Anthology,Turtle Island Quarterly, Wild Quarterly, Boyne Berries Magazine (Ireland), The Lake, (U.K.), Punchnel’s; forthcoming in Camroc Review, Tar River Poetry, Corvus Review, Clementine Poetry, Postcard Poetry & Prose, among others.  She is the Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College.  You can follow her musings on art, writing and sustainability on mjiuppa.blogspot.

Steve Komarnyckyj's last collection of translated poetry, A Flight Over the Black Sea, which was published by Waterloo Press in 2014, won an English PEN award. He has published two translated novels and runs Kalyna Language Press with his partner Susie and three domestic cats.
Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR, where she gardens, writes and plays with creative friends. Her poems have appeared in a variety of publications both in the USA and the UK. Her second collection, The Way a Woman Knows, was released in February 2015 by the Poetry Box.
Ela Meyer is a British-German writer living in the North East of England. Her work has appeared in, amongst other things, Cadaverine Magazine.
Lisa Rizzo is the author of In the Poem an Ocean (Big Table Publishing, 2011).  Her work has appeared in such journals as 13thMoon, Earth’s Daughters, RiverLit and Calyx Journal. Two poems received the 2011 BAPC poetry prize. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Rebecca J. Schwab serves as acquisitions editor for Leapfrog Press, teaches creative writing at SUNY Fredonia, and contributes regularly to the Observer. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Slipstream, Drafthorse, and elsewhere. It is forthcoming in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review.
J.R. Solonche, four-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s. He is co-author of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books).

Michael Spring’s poems have recently appeared in Absinthe, Flyway, Gargoyle, Hermes, Neo, and Spillway. His recent chapbook, blue wolf, won the 2013 Turtle Island Poetry Award (Turtle Island Quarterly).

David Subacchi studed at the University of Liverpool. He was born in Wales of Italian roots and writes in English, Welsh and Italian. Cestrian Press has published two collections of his poems. ‘First Cut’ (2012) and ‘Hiding in Shadows’ (2014).

Jonathan Taylor's books include the novels Entertaining Strangers (Salt, 2012), and Melissa (Salt, forthcoming late 2015), and the poetry collection Musicolepsy (Shoestring, 2013). His memoir is Take Me Home: Parkinson's, My Father, Myself (Granta, 2007). He is Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, and co-director of arts organisation and small publisher Crystal Clear Creators. His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk.

Diane Tucker, Canadian poet has published three poetry books (God on His Haunches, Nightwood Editions, 1996; Bright Scarves of Hours, Palimpsest Press, 2007; Bonsai Love, Harbour Publishing, 2014) and a YA novel (His Sweet Favour, Thistledown Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared in anthologies and in more than sixty literary journals.
Harriot West writes poetry as an antidote to academic writing. Her work has been published in various journals including Modern Haiku, Ekphrasis and Contemporary Haibun. Her collection of haibun and haiku, Into the Light has recently been published by Mountains and Rivers Press. http://mountainsandriverspress.org/Home.aspx

Howard Winn's poetry and fiction has been published recently in Dalhousie Review, Galway Review, Taj Mahal Review, Descant (Canada), Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, and Blueline. He has a B. A. from Vassar College and an M. A. from the Stanford University Writing Program.