Toni Simon is a multimedia artist and writer living in Brooklyn. Her illustrated book of prose poetry Earth After Earth was published by Lunar Chandelier Press (2012). Simon’s drawings have been exhibited at the Drawing Center in NYC. She is currently working on a visual/verbal collaboration with poet Joanna Fuhrman. Her video animations, paintings, sculpture and photos can be viewed at http://tonisimonart.blogspot.com<http://tonisimonart.blogspot.com>
It was the year of deflected materialized terror. People carried tremor guides. From inside the insensitive beehive, an occult wakeup call to administer the Theremin. Whistle blowers caught the time lapse train to nowhere, and Armageddon informants turned gelatinous before the miniature Machiavellians. --Toni Simon
Toni Simon is a multimedia artist and writer living in Brooklyn. Her illustrated book of prose poetry Earth After Earth was published by Lunar Chandelier Press (2012). Simon’s drawings have been exhibited at the Drawing Center in NYC. She is currently working on a visual/verbal collaboration with poet Joanna Fuhrman. Her video animations, paintings, sculpture and photos can be viewed at http://tonisimonart.blogspot.com<http://tonisimonart.blogspot.com>
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It was the year of Ditto jeans. If you were a cool girl in high school you had them in as many colors as a rainbow.
I wanted their bling power: they flattened large butts and extended stubby legs. My height began with the number “4” and all of my height’s potential flopped on my ass. It was the year skinny Penny opened her locker door to show a tray of homemade lemon cookies. She suggested to the giggles of surrounding twiggy girls, “Smell.” I looked at the tray, I looked at Mick Jagger in his skinny jeans pouting from her locker door, I looked at her gaggle of gal pals who’d coordinated that Monday to wear green Dittos. I looked down at my feet and saw fake Levis denims with raggedy edges. The edges frayed over 7-inch platform heels. It was also the year of platform shoes. It was the year a seed was planted: I would come to wear only black. I would bring my 7-inch heels to freshman year at a college on the other side of the continent from a giggling anorexic tribe. When it rained or snowed, students from all over the world marveled at how fast I could run in them across the wet cobblestones of Columbia University. ----Eileen Tabios Eileen Tabios’ latest book is SUN STIGMATA (Sculpture Poems). Forthcoming 2015 books include two poetry collections, I FORGOT LIGHT BURNSand INVENT(ST)ORY: Collected Catalog Poems 1996-2015, as well as an experimental biography: AGAINST MISANTHROPY: A LIFE IN POETRY 2015-1995. More information at http://eileenrtabios.com Eileen Tabios Rachel Sherman interviews me for About.com.
http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/interviews/fl/Author-Joanna-Furhman-wants-your-stories.htm it was the year of the pup pup
and the pup pup goes to the park and it is cool and the pup pup goes and the pup pup is 4 he goes in a box no no pup pup zap he goes the end oh no -Aniela is 6 years old and in kindergarten at the ps 770 school. It was the year of panic and infectious disease, big greasy ass on Paper magazine
I wrote maudlin yet acerbic and generally unpublished poetry I felt wobbly from all the sobriety Maybe I was more porous and primed for inspiration I studied garden-variety sex offenders and activist judges Lean into the lack of attention, they said, absorb what you can So many memoirs hijacked by the process Because of the dearth of leaking in the prosaic The list of ex-lovers and dead pets grew ever longer At best we were all just stumbling forward To rage inside then splurge on sushi To find joy in Yiddish words – Oysgamtert, Ongeptschket, and Plosher Five hours in the real world without a phone and nothing bad happened Warning: crooked teeth can hold you back The browning banana on my desk filled me with ennui And I didn’t want to be the smelly teacher (Coven wasn’t my cup of tea) Don’t listen to Leonard Cohen if you’re going through a break up, I cautioned I only stole lines from non-poets I was exhibitionistic on facebook and loved online shopping It was awkward for all of us so we tried to forget There was a woman afraid of giving candy to poor children There were animals that sweetly became cross-species friends I said I believed most of us need the eggs And hoped for a taxi I could never do without friends or contact lenses Some days peanut butter and crackers were the best --Diana Rickard Diana Rickard is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. She writes poems and has been known to bead office supplies. She keeps several blogs, including one highlighting some of her older poems: http://eachnervoussense.blogspot.com/. It was the year we discovered biodegradable compostable flatware. We carried eco-friendly utensils in our pockets. We were particularly fond of sporks. They came in handy during meetings when we needed to stab our own hands to keep from saying yes.
That was the year we became no men. Estrogen reigned. So much so that the market became saturated. We exceeded the capacity of our bras and shoelaces. The frequency of radical hysterectomies grew sharply in an attempt to manipulate demand. We looked forward to menopause to get some relief. We could no longer wear cotton or eat strawberries so we braided our hair with obsolete shopping lists. One night Whole Foods ran out of kale. A quiet panic ensued and we understood this was the beginning of the collapse. We were greatly relieved the next day when it was all back. --Karen Hildebrand Karen Hildebrand is chief content officer for the publisher of Dance Magazine. Her play, “The Old In and Out,” cowritten with poet Madeline Artenberg, was produced off-off Broadway by Three Rooms Press in 2013. Her poetry appears in Poet Lore, Meridian, Fourteen Hills, A Gathering of the Tribes, Maintenant and other journals. http://karenahildebrand.blogspot.com/ It was the year of the red turtles.
It was the year of the crashing moon. Like a phantom cosmonaut, the moon ricocheted into vacant hemispheres. In the dark children flew kites, cheering as the jolts of light cruised down swings and slides. No one cared that the children might disappear into an air as dry as saltines. Everyone was afraid they’d forget to feed the turtles. The Russian almanac declared them the pet en vogue, the pet du jour. So rare and divine, you could shake them like magic eight balls. A black market for them thrived. Haven’t you seen those faded tattoos? It was the year of renaming-- Our father taught us endangered languages that stuck like pennies in the throat. My best friend sailed a paper airplane through the wisteria montage of my window at night with the blood type of the boy she’d love the next day. It was the year teenagers were found circling on rooftops trying to suck in the sky like Whip-Its only to find their knees were tar-stained and their mouths tasted like clouds. Rebecca Watkins has an MFA in Poetry. She has taught literature, writing and English as a Second Language at the college level for over six years and has created and lead poetry workshops for all age groups. She has been published in The Promethean, The Red Mesa Review, SN Review, and Poetry and Performance among other literary journals. More of Rebecca’s poetry can be found at www.rebeccawatkinspoetry.com. It is the year when the birds sing and the tips of the towers touch the sky. The stars make patterns with the moon and the kids play with joy. They hide-and-seek each other. Stuff you do cannot be bad, but if you rob, the owner will get sad or mad. If a bee stings you, you will watch the Lion King OMG!
I will swing, if you think you can find me. It is the year when you ring the dinner bell, while the kids play in the snow. But then it’s summer again. People faint. The sun gets in their eyes and they burn. Everything goes weird. People get colds and the leaves are falling. BRB! It is the year when the families come together to have a reunion picnic. They ask the earth what it’s thankful for. The earth says, it’s thankful for the people who walk on it. LOL! --Eva Eva, age 6, plays the guitar and lives in Brooklyn, New York with her parents and sister. http://whatireadandwatched.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-year-of-yellow-butterflies.html . Thank you Diana Rickard.
It started with jaded foodies gnawing their hangnails and becoming aware of an inimitable toothiness.
They progressed to little bits of dried skin from the bottoms of their feet or their elbows; taking the tiny bits on a finger, they’d lick at them like squares of windowpane acid. Their hunger grew for more substantial bits of their own flesh. The most intense gourmands carved tiny slices of themselves from their calves or buttocks, and competitions for most creative preparation ensued. They’d serve themselves (but only ever themselves) a paper-thin auto-carpaccio with a miniscule dollop of green tea foam, or skewer a tiny idio-cube over a candle and dip the flesh into an intense salsa of Serrano peppers and heirloom pomegranates. Magazines and web sites were published about the best ways to cut and prepare one’s own flesh and survive; epicures would describe both their agonies and delectations in excruciating detail. When asked why they did it, and what made it all worth it for them, they replied, “I just feel more like myself --Nada Gordon was born in Oakland in 1964 and has lived in Bolinas, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Brooklyn. Her seven books of poetry include VILE LILT and SCENTED RUSHES from Roof Books. A founding member of the Flarf Collective, she has performed widely in the USA and abroad. She teaches English as a Foreign Language at Pratt Institute and loves to make all sorts of things. http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781931824491/vile-lilt.aspx |
AuthorHi. I'm Joanna Fuhrman. This is a prose poetry/flash fiction blog in conversation with my serial prose poem "The Year of Yellow Butterflies" (The Year Of Yellow Butterflies, Hanging Loose Press 2015). I had fun writing these poems about fads and trends from imaginary pasts. If you would like to add your own section, write me and I can post it (along with a short bio). Start with "It was the year...." Categories
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