We all carry things—
The most dear often reside in the microcosm of our minds—
Sometimes we are compelled to shed these traces of ourselves, to cut them clean away, to separate ourselves from them like flesh from bone. What civilians dismiss as baggage, writers capture and render into art; writers give baggage a good name. Reading for the April issue was titillating, so many mind blowing submissions; it was a challenging task, but we’ve arrived and are thrilled to present the work of 13 remarkable and refreshing writers.
This quarter’s Full of Crow Poets cull from the most mundane moments in life and turn them into literary artifacts. A moment of regret is perfectly captured in Michael Brownstein’s “A Tear in a Screen and It’s Partly Cloudy Outside:”
“I wish I had said, yes, and let her dark hands cover my feet
instead of the thing I did which was give her exact change
and watch her fade into the lamplight….”
On these cyber pages you will find all matter of exquisite objects, considerations, and words captured for your pleasure and examination.
Cathleen Daly is “carrying something like a valise….red in its snap cricket hinges.”
In her poem “Rust Belts” Cat Conway announces that she will “hug the spit and the smoke smells of home.”
Sergio Ortiz will launch you “between cactus and a lute… “between a drunk and a compass”…and “between parchment and volcano.”
Changming Yuan has “a leash/unleashed in his hand,” while Adam Henry Carriere unleashes in his own style, “horny smoky drunk and still choosy/wound to tight how ya. doin.”
I hope you enjoy reading this issue, because as Carol Lynn Grellas reminds us, these moments are transitional, and oh so temporary:
“ while I gather
your things in half-empty room,
the glass by your bed with its spittle
kiss on the rim. A threadbare screen
flaunts remnants of feathers tangled
in mesh; ironic as a sieve ensnaring
-MK Chavez, Poetry Editor
April 2010 Quarterly Poetry
Valise, small hallowed dreams, hypothetical bob and flesh bob, lights go smack
A Visit To The Zoo, This Was Once A Love Poem, A Tear In The Screen And It’s Partly Cloudy Outside
Intermediate House Type No. 5, Rust Belts, Fan Club
Saturday Evening, Stylistic Signatures For a 2×2 Card
Double Life, Another Snapshot, Charon
Behind The Green Door
Weather, Trading Cards, Seventy Octobers
Getting Over A Sickness
Coming Back To The Home I Made For The Woman I Am Now, The Living, Meteor Shower
Imago, The Castanet, Kiwi News, launching platforms
Blue Fishnets, Animal Kingdom, Bird Through A Window
Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Poet, Tubercular
Consternation, Romanticized
