*****

The editor of The High Window is grateful to the poet, Alan Jenkins, and Rory Waterman, at New Walk Editions, for permisssion to reprint two poems from The Ghost Net.

Review • Poems

*****

The Ghost Net by Alan Jenkins. £12. New Walk Editions.  ISBN: 9781739281205                 Reviewed by David Cooke

The publisher’s blurb for Alan Jenkins’ The Ghost Net informs us that this is his ‘eighth full collection of original poems and his first for a decade’. Since publishing five acclaimed collections with Chatto & Windus, between 1988 and 2005, and, in 2001, A Short History of Snakes, his selected poems with Grove Press, New York, it has been increasingly difficult to keep track of work that has been published by various small presses. One is grateful, therefore, to New Walk Editions for making available this memorable addition to the poet’s oeuvre which…

Bio: Matthew Johnson is the author of, Shadow Folks and Soul Songs (Kelsay Books) and his most recent collection, Far from New York State (NYQ Press). His poetry has appeared in Roanoke Review, Front Porch Review, Northern New England Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and elsewhere. Matthew is the recipient of a Sundress Publications Residency and is a three-time Best of the Net nominee. A former sports journalist and editor, he is an MA graduate of UNC-Greensboro and the managing editor of The Portrait of New England and the poetry editor of The Twin Bill. 

Twitter: @Matt_Johnson_D

Website: matthewjohnsonpoetry.com

https://www.matthewjohnsonpoetry.com/book

If God Permitted Pirates on the Mississippi A poah man leans on his plow to rest in the Delta swelter, As his mule lies by the bank, Dipping its head in the muddy sweet. The flood had receded, And what was left for poah whites and poah blacks Was merely…

An Evening of Music & Poetry at The Root

featuring

Poetry by

Jinn Bug
Brigid Morrissey
Frogg Corpse
Skye Nicholson
Michael Duckwall
David L O'Nan
Elizabeth Nelson
Ron Whitehead

Music by:

Katrina Harper
Tommy Bays
Maddie Fitts

Thursday, August 24th  6:30-8:30 (et)
The Root
110 E. Market St. New Albany, Indiana.

The Root image by Brigid Morrissey

 *Post is from Ron Whitehead's facebook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgm4amfr0TA&pp=ygUdcm9uIHdoaXRlaGVhZCBnb256byBmZXN0IDIwMjM%3Dhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ-2qJvZa6Q&pp=ygUdcm9uIHdoaXRlaGVhZCBnb256byBmZXN0IDIwMjM%3Dhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGx-_VC4Qfc&pp=ygUdcm9uIHdoaXRlaGVhZCBnb256byBmZXN0IDIwMjM%3Dhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkfhoBZFnK0&pp=ygUecm9uIHdoaXRlaGVhZCBnb256byBsYXN0IGdvbnpv

A Poetry Showcase from Frogg Corpse

A Fevers of the Mind Interview/Promo piece with Ron Whitehead, U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate

Illusions

I stand up, my knee scraped, another stocking ruined. I rub my eyes. Was it really Paul, or simply my phantoms taking form?

Dawn is still a dream away. The newsstands are shuttered; the street’s empty except for skittering rats and weary nighthawks like me.

Soon the sun will rise and smile on the flowers. They will look up with open faces and smile back. But I remember trembling roses, their thorns no match for the monstrous mechanical birds we’ve created. London filled with rubble; Dresden destroyed. The giant cloud like a ferocious radiant rose, rising high in the sky, an Angel of Death that proclaimed, “for beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.”

If only I had known. I thought we were seeding a garden, but it was a mirage. And now I’m haunted by ghosts and the figment of love.

U.S. Link https://tinyurl.com/4eb76txw

Australia link: https://tinyurl.com/24pp36sv kindle only for now

U.K. Link: https://tinyurl.com/2z3n2wwz

India link: https://tinyurl.com/ys3jvt7z kindle only for now

Italy: https://tinyurl.com/2fv8k7he

Spain: https://tinyurl.com/24ewwt8k

Canada: https://tinyurl.com/hnc2sv67

France: https://tinyurl.com/yzaejzwn

Japan: https://tinyurl.com/rzcnhykk kindle

Germany: https://tinyurl.com/48dzcmzt

https://tinyurl.com/3kdmu8kk Mexico kindle only??

https://tinyurl.com/kcydavew Brazil kindle

https://tinyurl.com/mrz6anht The Netherlands

https://tinyurl.com/ysym79s3 Poland

https://tinyurl.com/yhsj3zft Sweden

Poetry inspired by writings from Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton.
2 very gifted, wonderful poets & writers both of whom were leading
very tragic lives in which they expressed in their unique poetry. Their styleof poetry was not often seen or accepted during the times they were living in.
Women were often not accepted as serious writers during the 1950’s and early1960’s when it comes to expressing feelings that were more mature in nature, or when speaking of mental health and on death.

All the contributors included: David L O’Nan (editor/poet/some art/filtering), HilLesha O’Nan (co-editor, idealist), Christina Strigas with several poems, Diana Archdeacon…

Though Texas poet, David Estringel, has written several collections and been widely published in magazines and anthologies, I ashamed to say I was not aware of his poetry until I had an advance view of his shortly to be published, Blind Turns in the Kitchen Sink (Anxiety Press), and I’m pleased that I did; I’ve become a fan. The poems in this fine work are his meditations on the theme of death as he wrestles with the thought of his own mortality.

The collection begins with poems that convey the transience of life and the inevitability of death. A Scene Outside the Window of a Country Church is typical. The preciousness of existence is conveyed through the beauty of the natural images: ‘Shocks of green/ flutter/ and shimmer-’, ‘dewy butterfly wings’, ‘emerald and jade’. The vibrancy of the scene outside penetrates the sanctity of the church, yet so does…

Stuck 


We lived like stuck ants in a wine glass
In the red wine remnants
That was sifted impure
We lived like the homeless man,
Whose skin and jacket
Has become one with the epidermis
Who can believe our past truths, or fears?
We must be symphonia, forever
To a deaf vain psyche

Through Faith 

In the frame of heaven,
I became dust
Interceding with the sunlight of a narrow hallway
Dividing into millions of tiny poisons
A quotient of one malevolence
Why the hiding?
As the piling of sales papers and bills accumulate
Teases to aneurysms
Can I be more like Paul in Malta,
Impervious through faith ?

As Dolls  They opened the door to hatred hundreds of years ago Every time we get that door to budge Racist, sexist, bigotry, homophobic, narcissistic dictators Put more magnets to our metal minds To fail us til we become only tunnels…

Jared Morningstar is a high school English teacher and adjunct English professor at Saginaw Valley State University and Delta College. He writes about his interests and observations of the world around him. Morningstar has published three collections of poetry and prose (American Fries, American Reality, and A Slice of American Pie) through Alien Buddha Press, and he was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2020. He lives in Michigan with his wife and children.

Instagram: @lordjstar

Twitter: @reallordjstar

Facebook:facebook.com/jmorningstarwriter

Goodreads:goodreads.com/jaredmorningstar

YouTube:youtube.com/jstar_the_poet

TikTok: @jstar_the_poet

Learning the Game Just before the plane crashes into the frozen Iowa ground, you realize you’ll never play another concert hall, set the nation on fire again with those six strings on that gorgeous Stratocaster, make American youth believe that you are some horn-rimmed, musical Clark Kent who’s here to make them dance, to give them hope that they, too…

Charles K. Carter (they/he) is a queer poet who currently lives in Oregon. They are the author of several books, including Read My Lips (David Robert Books) and Artificial Sweetness (Finishing Line Press). He is also the creator and host of the video podcast series #SundaySweetChats. Carter can be found on Instagram and Twitter @CKCpoetry

Omens of 99E On my way to work, there is a cat on the side of the road, fluffy and grey. She almost looks like she is resting but the circling flies and pecking crows shout another story. And I wonder how long she had lived aimlessly grey, in a perpetual state of decay. Then there is a dead black kitten in the middle of the road, paws stretching across yellow painted line, reaching out for something – or was it reaching for someone? And I think of the student I couldn’t save from homophobia’s…