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“The BeZine” Call for Submissions; Sundress Publications, Editorial Internship; Reminders

“Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach and Other Poems

“THE BeZINE” CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS thebezine.com is open for the upcoming June edition to be published on June 15, deadline June 10. This is an entirely volunteer effort, a mission. We are unable to pay contributors but neither do we charge for submissions or subscriptions. The theme is sustainability. We publish poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, feature articles, art and photography, and music videos and will consider anything that lends itself to online posting. There are no demographic restrictions. We do not publish work that promotes hatred or advocates for violence. All such will be immediately rejected. We’d like to see work that doesn’t just point to problems but that suggests solutions. We are also interested in initiatives happening in your community – no matter where in the world – that might be easily picked up by other communities. Please forward your submissions to bardogroup@gmail.com No odd formatting. Submit work in the body of your email along with a BRIEF bio. Work submitted via Facebook or message will not be considered for publication. We encourage you to submit work in your first language, but it must be accompanied by translation into English.

SUNDRESS PUBLICATIONS seeks an Editorial Intern. The application deadline is June 1, 2019.

REMINDERS:

  • THE RAYMOND CARVER SHORT STORY CONTEST closes in just two days, May 15. Entry fees. Cash award. Details HERE.
  • THE MASTERS REVIEW, A Platform for Emerging Writers flash fiction contest closes on May 31. Entry fees. Cash awards. Details HERE.
  • THE MASTERS REVIEW, A Platform for Emerging Writers New Voices call for submissions is open year round and there is no submission fee. Fiction and narrative non-fiction to 7,000 words. Paying market. Details HERE.
  • ELECTRIC LIT call for submissions to The Commuter closes this evening. Details HERE.

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

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Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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CELEBRATING MOTHERS EVERYWHERE: A Special Mini Edition of The BeZine

“My mother: She is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.” Judi Picoult

Dedicated  to moms everywhere and in every time

I live in the United States where we traditionally celebrate Mothers’ Day in May, but the acknowledgment of mothers, mothering, and maternal bonds is not unique to this time and place. Simply put, Mothers’ Day in the U.S. reminds me to do something special and always this recognition includes all those fathers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, older siblings and family friends … sometimes even teachers or neighbors … who fulfill the role of mother for those children who have lost theirs.

Truth to tell, this is an accidental edition of The BeZine, totally spontaneous. I asked our core team if anyone had mom material at the ready. I was thinking in terms of one or two blog posts. Some did and, as though my mind was read, a couple of writers coincidentally contacted me asking if I would publish a poem they’d written for their mother or for Mothers’ Day.  Why not? I put out a call to a few other gracious people and voilà! … an unexpected delight.

These are largely poems of love and gratitude (grab a hankie) including a sweet and well-written poem from Kennedy Stewart, our youngest contributor yet. Please enjoy this charming and thoughtful compilation and forgive me for making a quick and casual job of it.

Thanks to all our devoted, generous, and prescient contributors.

Illustration courtesy of Mohamed Mohamed Mahmoud Hassan, Public Domain Pictures.net

On behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines,
and in the spirit of love (respect) and community,
Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents or you can click HERE and scroll through the entire zine.

The Ballad of Stabat Mater, John Anstie

His Mother Bellows, Paul Brookes

Magnum Opus, Natalie Baltuck

Disjunction (in English and Albanian), Frank Buzhala

Your Magic, Loving, Linda Chown

Out of the Womb of Time, Jamie Dedes

A Separate Peace, Jamie Dedes

Tribute, Sharon Frye

Those Before Me, Sharon Frye

Letter to My Mother: The Only Inhabitant of Heaven, Iulia Gherghei

Conflict, Silva Zanoyan Merjanian

“Broken Homes” … Single Moms, Remarkable Son, Gil Scott-Heron

The Apple and the Tree, Kennedy Stewart

Mothers’ Day, Different Thoughts, Anjum Wasim Dar

The BeZine: Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be (the subscription feature is below and to your left.)

Daily Spiritual Practice: Beguine Again, a community of Like-Minded People

Facebook, The Bardo Group Beguines

Twitter, The Bardo Group Beguines

SUBMISSIONS:

Read Info/Missions Statement, Submission Guidelines, and at least one issue before you submit. Updates on Calls for Submissions and other activities are posted on the Zine blog and The Poet by Day.

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CELEBRATING MOTHERS’ DAY (U.S.) PART 3: a separate peace, a poem

“I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore.” Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Note: This is the third in a three-part series celebrating Mothers’ Day, which is today in the U.S.. All the pieces were published some time ago – here and/or elsewhere and it just feels right to publish again this year. I hope you’ll enjoy this short series … And ♥ Happy Mothers’ Day to all the mothers and to all the dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents and older siblings who are covering for moms who are gone.♥

sometimes …
near impossible to see past the manic crowds
or to lift our eyes to look at the wholesome
trees inscribing their calm upon the sky

sometimes …
we record our fears with writing utensils,
call them weapons, coloring the margins
of our books with the dry dust of martyrdom

sometimes …
the children use their pages to blot away their
mothers’ tears, turning backs on the old refrains,
hearing their own souls speak, deaf to their fathers

sometimes …
those children fell trees, transforming them
to paper and well-sharpened pencils, their lives
written in the manner of their own separate peace

“Everything has to evolve or else it perishes.” John Knowles, A Separate Peace

Originally published in Brooklyn Memories

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes; illustration courtesy of Dawn Hudson, Public Domain Pictures.net

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

Facebook

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School days

Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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Contests, Calls, and Poetry Humor

“Writers can write whatever they want, but after THE END, when they self publish their book, they become accountable to readers for the quality of the book they’re selling.” Eeva Lancaster, Being Indie: A No Holds Barred, Self Publishing Guide for Indie Authors

PROLETARIA “is a journal dedicated to the art of literary one-liners. Taking the form of the monostich, monoku/ one-line haiku or anecdotal statements. These single line or single sentence verses are inspired by politics, philosophy and the phenomena of all worldly and natural events happening around us.” Submissions are open year round “24/7” and you are invited to submit 3-5 unpublished poems or statements. Details HERE.  Thanks to Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans) for sharing this site with us and congratulations to her. She submitted five pieces. Three were accepted by proletaria. They’ll be up for your reading pleasure on July 11, 2019.

WINNING WRITERS tells us: “The North Street Book Prize, now in its fifth year from Winning Writers, will award $10,500 in cash prizes to today’s best self-published books. Top prize: $3,000. Deadline: June 30. Entry fee: $60 per book. Six categories: Mainstream/Literary Fiction, Genre Fiction, Creative Nonfiction & Memoir, Poetry, Children’s Picture Book, and Graphic Narrative (new). Enter books published in English in any year. No restriction on country of author. Entry fee. Cash award. Details HERE.

REMINDERS:

  1. THE WRITER Best in Show: 2019 Spring Short Story Contest is open through May 31. Entry fee. Cash award. Details HERE
  2. THE 15TH ANNUAL VOICES OF LINCOLN POETRY CONTEST is open with five categories. No entry  fee. Cash award. Deadline: July 20, 2019. Details HERE.
I don’t know who to credit for this. It was posted in Literary Jokes and Puns on FB. Priceless! 🙂

This response from Resident Skeptic, James R. Cowles, a member of The Bezine core team whose work is sometimes published in the Zine, on The Poet by Day, and weekly at Beguine Again.  “Know the signs … have you found Norton anthologies hidden under your child’s mattress? Does s/he quote, e.g., T. S. Eliot or Baudelaire or Dante or Emily Dickinson or A. R. Ammons in unguarded moments? Has s/he spontaneously evinced a desire to take poetry classes in college that are strictly elective? BEWARE!!!! THESE ARE DANGER SIGNALS!!!!”

Courtesy of Andrews McMeel Syndication ™

Booklovers not-so-trivial trivia shared with us by university librarian, writer and artist, and member of The Bardo Group Beguines core team, Corina Ravenscraft (Dragon’s Dreams). It certainly a fun and new-to-me-and-maybe-you-too word:

Bibliosmia (noun)

bib-lee-oz-mee-ah

It sounds like something catching and maybe it is. It refers to the scent of a good book, to its effect on us when we breath. It’s one of the things we miss when we read off our devices.  Corina says it hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary and thus it is probably considered slang at this point. Or perhaps a neologism.

The appeal of the scent of books appears to be a combination of chemistry, nostalgia, and a reminder of “all good things.”  Details HERE.

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

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Walt Whitman, famous self-published poet

Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton