Friday, April 4, 2014

Release: Blast Furnace Volume 4 Issue 1

With a theme of Magical Mystery, the latest issue of Blast Furnace has published! How happy I am that my poems "Birch" and "Behavioral Drift" are included. To see them, and the wonderful work of the other contributors, you can follow this link:

http://www.blastfurnacepress.com/2014/04/blast-furnace-volume-4-issue-1.html


The guest editor is Stefanie Wielkopolan, whose first book of poetry, Border Theory, is available from Coffee Bean Press.

"Behavioral Drift" is actually a poem about flames in a woodstove. It gets mighty cold here in remote Maine, and I sit watching the fire dance fairly often. There are plenty of birch trees around, too; hence, "Birch." It is written in the magical-realist style of Neruda and Lorca. Here is the first stanza, which hopefully will entice you:


Birch

obelisk of elephant eyes,
silk of muscular currents,
papyrus of the trunk,


...


There are many metaphorical transformations, all praising this incredible tree, in the poem. It contains the word "ambrosine," which I have stored in the back of my mind for years, waiting for a special moment to use. It finally happened!

Dear reader, Be good to yourself as we journey through this incredible miracle called Life.


Owl

PS: See my blog entry on March 31 for more on Blast Furnace and its stupendous Editor, Rebecca Clever.

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