Pushcart Nominations 2019-20

Our Pushcart Prize Nominations - 2019/20

August 1 - St. John, N.B. Canada - Alex Stolis (from "Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife”)

 

August 1 - St. John, N.B. Canada   I keep all your letters in a cigar box under our bed next to grandmother’s wedding dress. This is a city of ghosts of bars of brown pastures. You send me postcards from all the places I’ll never go. They are on a map I do not own. I am left with ink on fingers, smudges of black on white on an unpunctuated loss. Truth is something only paper can be witness to. I'll never wear that dress. Instead, I'll meet you where the earth is covered in blues and greens. • Alex Stolis © 2019 (from "Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife”)

Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis and has had poems published in numerous journals. Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife, continues the tale started in his microchap 'Postcards from the Knife-Thrower' where the poet uses the Al G. Barnes Circus Route from 1934 which began its season March 31 in San Diego, made a circuit through the United States and Canada and ended the season October 29 in El Centro, Ca. Each part of this series consists of one month from the season, April-July. The intention is for the work, as a whole, to be a narrative; a novella in chapbook/prose form.

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karma lounge - Sanjida Yasmin (from "bickering echoes”)

karma lounge   though my memory might be dim, I remember the red lounge, the walk back, him. I remember his last name spelled in tonic, & the evening moving on a whim & Bleecker Street turned into a stream, where lights of 1st Avenue limned. his black leather jacket, his military short hair, chestnut eyes of sin. • Sanjida Yasmin © 2019 (from "bickering echoes”)

Sanjida Yasmin is a poet, painter and a professional educator living in the Northeast. Sanjida earned her B.A. in English and M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the City University of New York. Sanjida’s poetry has been published in numerous journals, including Pink Panther Magazine, Peacock Journal, The Promethean, Nebo, Panoplyzine, Poetry in Performance, Anomaly, and Triggerfish Critical Review.

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A Parade of Male Cardinals - Martin Willitts Jr (from "In the Moment”)

Cover art (background) by Lauri Burke with collage effect by Jan K

A Parade of Male Cardinals   It is a ritual, waiting to be chosen by the only female. Red, red, red speak their bodies of scarlet sunsets. She uses her discerning eye. The goddess finesses boredom. So many to select, but only one to pick. So much questing and discovery. It is not as easy as one might think. The air is breathlessly waiting. Everything else is patience, rejection, disappointment. A cascade of red waits. I believe I was chosen exactly like this. • Martin Willitts Jr © 2019 (from "In the Moment”)

Martin Willitts Jr's latest (2019) poetry books include: Unfolding Toards Love (WipfandStock.com) and The Temporary World (Blue Light Press - on Amazon, too). Also: Coming Home Celebration (FutureCycle Press, 2019), How to Be Silent (FutureCycle Press, 2016), and Dylan Thomas and the Writer's Shed (FutureCycle Press, 2017). Martin has won numerous prizes including the 2012 Big River Poetry Review's William K. Hathaway Award; 2013 Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest; 2013 "Trees" Poetry Contest; 2014 Broadsided award; 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; and, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor's Choice.

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Things that are lost - Susan Moorhead (from "Lost and Found”)

Cover photo by author

Things that are lost   My heart. Two souls. My favorite huarache sandals. A sketchbook in France. Innocence, and the desire to sin. One earring only. The belief in consequences. Two parents, innumerable relatives. My passport. The ability to sleep. The sweetness of my children when young. Letters and photographs shredded. Thinking there's enough time. • Susan Moorhead © 2019 (from "Lost and Found”)

Susan Moorhead writes poetry and stories and works as a children's librarian in New York. She's happy to have managed to always be surrounded by books. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and been nominated three times for a Pushcart prize. Her chapbook, The Night Ghost, was published with Finishing Line Press. Recent work includes a short story in The Westchester Review, poems in Heartwood, Woman Around Town, Breadcrumbs, and Poems-for-All.

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plum poem – Tricia Marcella Cimera (from “Go Slow, Leonard Cohen”)

Cover art by Lauri Burke

plum poem   for Leonard Cohen   you didn’t create the tree           that was you but you made the poems           that fell like plums from your branches:           all purple in the long grass where god           is found • Tricia Marcella Cimera © 2019 (from “Go Slow, Leonard Cohen”)

Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview. Her work appears in many diverse places — from the Buddhist Poetry Review to the Origami Poems Project. Her poem ‘The Stag’ won first place honors in College of DuPage’s 2017 Writers Read: Emerging Voices contest. Tricia lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois, in a town called St. Charles, by a river named Fox, with a Poetry Box in her front yard. (Find The Fox Poetry Box on Facebook and Twitter - @FoxPoetryBox)

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Triolet for the Return of Spring - Andrena Zawinski (from "Drifting Sands”)

Cover photo by author

Triolet for the Return of Spring   So much to love about it, the again again again of it, the breeze on pampas grass seaside. So much to love about it the riots of wildflowers, return of green, the singing birds, the simple daily beat. So much to love about it, the again again again of it. • Andrena Zawinski © 2019 (from "Drifting Sands”)

Andrena Zawinski's poetry collections are Landings (Kelsay Books 2017), Something About (Blue Light Press 2009), Traveling in Reflected Light (Pig Iron Press 1995). Her poems have received accolades for free verse, form, lyricism, spirituality, and social concern. Her Blood Moon and Other Haibun microchap is from the Origami Poems Project (2018). She is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com and founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon.

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All work published by the Origami Poems Project is considered for the annual Pushcart Prize nominations.