Joan Fishbein

Joan Fishbein's work has appeared in The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume One, The Kennesaw Review, The Devil's Millhopper, Helicon Nine, Poetica, The Reach of Song,The Best of Sand Hills and other small literary magazines. She won first prize for poetry at the 2008 Chattahoochee Valley Writer's Conference and graduated from Vassar with a BA in English and from Warren Wilson College with an MFA in poetry.

Her poetry is included in The Poets Loft anthology, Nine New England Poets on love and loss. Edited by Beatrice Lazarus, it includes poems by Nancy E. Brown, James Cronin, Michael Crowley, Diane Dolphin, Joan Fishbein, Karen Haskell, Maureen Lapre, Beatrice Lazarus, Sandra Moran. Released May 25, 2014. Order here from Main Street Rag.

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► Joan's Origami microchaps & selected poems are available below. Download the single-page PDF by clicking the title & saving to your pc. Set your printer for 'landscape' printing. Folding instructions are under the Who We Are menu tab.

Origami Microchap		Poem(s)
Celebrating the Towers in poetry and verse
Click title to download microchap 'Sleight of Hand' was selected for this commemorative collection. (Also see 'Random Acts of Poetry') Photo by Richard Benjamin - by kind permission - //richardbenjamin.zenfolio.com	Sleight Of Hand the free-fall ride soft ice cream store wood planks whose undersides played my weekend passageway through puberty where I tried my first French kiss drank warm illegal beer smoked my brother's cigarettes my favorite summer span seagulls pelted with clam shells my childhood cotton candy jelly apple jamboree my home town boardwalk slashed crashed pulverized by earth's chaotic sleight of hand taste of the greenhouse gassed future I have no doubt we'll confect again • Joan Fishbein © 2013	• On April 21, 2013 The Origami Poems Project held a wonderful poetry reading at the Narragansett Towers (RI) at the invitation of Kate Vivian, Events Manager. This compiled collection reflects the meaning of the event to our guests. • Poets include Joan Fishbein, Helen M. D’Ordine Pat Larose, O.R. Gami Jen Slater
Fact Of The Matter
Click title to download microchap Cover art by Jill McLaughlin This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.	1. Japan counts as a consequential nuclear consumer fish water trees fundamental humans are the country’s principle resource 2. August 1945 at ground zero hit the earth Fat Man Little Boy birds and butterflies ignited in flight 3. like white graffiti on remaining steps sidewalks walls bodies left shadows	4. the first year after a death Japanese relatives don’t send or receive New Year cards 5. in Fukushima during the 2012 holiday post offices will need merely a fraction of their staff • Joan Fishbein © 2011
More Than A Sign
Click title to download microchap Cover art by Jill McLaughlin This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.	Interior Modifications a dream kindled by some sublime candle a jade crane grounded on a glass top table views of tumbling objects a white cat flipped upside down clothes cleaning in a washing machine swept pebbles that make a garden I fall through feet first as I watch flying roaches smash against sun porch windows a voice says you have abandoned me piece by piece make interior modifications unlock the clock behind the wall rewind yourself More Than A Sign time appears to contract less light more color beside our slate walk children skip and trample brittle leaves I sit on the basement floor play Ma Rainey Bessie Smith their songs slash the air blues whose lyrics I know by heart you carve a seal from driftwood salvaged last summer snow and sleet forecast today mirror my mind your silence seems more than a sign hands can shape anything	Framed Life through a dance of detached legs toes thighs cut from trunks colored red orange green we swirl floor by floor in the spiral museum where artists stretch extremities and couples who wear faded jeans pass before paintings as they hold hands you trail me don't speak later on the street elms and poplars bleed resins which smudge car windows while we wait for the bus to move us away from the art we stand side by side the starlings sing At Sea we take what we can from each other quick kisses touches that don't swim below the skin's surface after so many years sharing bed and board we're no longer anchored but float in space we splice we need no compass to know the direction we're always at sea just treading water	Designs the leaves on the lower branches of the sugar maple and yellow birch crackle in the November wind catch the late afternoon sun form designs on the grass fall lingers beyond its time through pine bedroom blinds light burnishes the captain's chest as I pull the down quilt over sheets where our bodies meshed last night flowing and contained like the ironstone cup whose snake handle I grasp when I drink my morning tea • Joan Fishbein © 2010 'I picture my poems as small abstracts of emotion. I don't punctuate so meaning, sound, and rhythm can become flexible elements. The reader can play with the poem on the page, or in his or her mind. And, if I succeed, my work will endorse and, perhaps, enhance personal experience.'