I long to be craved for
in the wee hours before
darkness melts into dawn;
I long to be the first thought
that enters your mind each day…
I long to be savored,
sweet and moist upon your lips
as morning rays slip the blinds
casting stripes on linen sheets.
I long to feel your soft breath
as you inhale the scent of me;
feel your pulse quicken
as my warmth teases your tongue
I long to arouse your senses
satisfy your thirst…
I long to be …
GINNY BRANNAN (Inside Out Poetry) resides in Massachusetts with her husband, son and three cats. Drawing inspiration from life, nature, and the human condition, her poetry has been published in four poetry collections including The d’Verse Anthology: Voices of Contemporary World Poetry, and three anthologies from Journey of the Heart: Women’s Spiritual Poetry.
Over My Morning Coffee
Over my morning coffee I read
About love between john and a red
Haired lady. I saw the pleas for
World peace and love between jamie
And all who follow her. And the names of
Frank, Linda, and those who travel and explore
food bloggers, bloaters, poets, dragons, two eyed kings
without any cards. And more for the readers who search
for the keys and treasures that rust and stay hidden and wait to be bidden
to search beyond the stars. Over my morning coffee I saw the world in a new light.
I saw a world of promise for those who are willing to stand up and fight.
I’m not a king who has the power
To tweet insults every hour
Nor do I desire to be heard
And claim the truth is in all my words.
If the king were to treat me nice
Or ask for my advice
I would not take a chance
Under any circumstance
To believe him as he raves and rants.
He’s not the kind of guy
Who’ll even try to see eye to eye.
He does what he wants to do,
No matter what might ensue.
He’s a doer, not a thinker,
I won’t swallow his yarns
Hook, line, and sinker.
He’s a king without social skill,
Bullying, badgering, from the Hill.
Rather than a model of decorum
For all the world to see,
He seems bent on dragging down,
The office that represents you and me.
To exchange barbed words from the throne,
Destroys the boundaries between right and wrong.
Those in power have offices to represent,
Not used to get even with those they resent.
My Morning Coffee ( added @ 04/04/2017, 4:14 p.m.)
On a crisp morning before the sun wakes,
Wanting to become instantly awake
I have my first cup of coffee,
I consider very important questions,
How much cream will it take?
Will coffee bring out the best of me?
I soon decide the world is in slow motion,
As i wake, one eye at a time,
All atrocities are to be dealt with later,
I enter my quiet moments of meditation,
Sipping slowly, shaking away yesterday,
Thinking about the beauty of today.
But not all is right with the world.
Russia and china are partnering,
Telling the United States to calm down,
Hold off on defensive missiles, wait until dark
When the world can sleep and dream
Of the perfect cup of coffee.
DAN ROBERTSON (My Blog) didn’t send me a bio and photo (or, maybe I forgot ask for one) but I’ve known him long enough to write a little something off the top of my head. Dan is a former teacher (high school I believe) and a father. One daughter is an accomplished artist. He’s a natural-born storyteller with one – maybe two – collections of short stories that were published some time ago. Dan’s been sharing stories and poetry on WordPress since November 2010. He is also the former owner of an online shop. Dan’s gentle spirit and strong intuitive sense is revealed in all his work. He studied journalism and communication at Cal State Sacramento. J.D.
Over My Morning Coffee
A sweetner and a hearty dose of creamer
await in a favorite mug,
for the hot medium roast,
not too strong.
The purple porch swing awaits
in the cool morning air
as the eastern sun flickers through
the tops of distant trees.
I swing gently, cradling the mug,
enjoying the warmth and
the ritual a bit more
than the coffee.
Contemplating the miracle of
the flow and ebb of life
as flowers bloom and die
in the perennial bed below.
PAT BAILEY, mulitalented and in retirement, publishes stunning photographs on her site, mainly of discoveries made on travel adventures with her husband. These are accompanied with savvy reflections and keen observations on life, relationships and aging. Pat worked at Spring Arbor University before her retirement. She studied psychology at Fielding Institute of Graduate Studies. She has an MSW (social work) and a Ph.D. (clinical psychology), which led to professional employment that she appears to have found gratifying. The meditations Pat posts on her blog reveal the perspectives gained from her work and the insights of a truly decent person. J.D.
::coffee::
can you make coffee, make
it last two hours? can you
talk?
when there is solitary, when
thoughts are enough to blend,
when all you thought you needed
was supplied, it takes encouragement
to talk.
hear yourself chat on and on
about nothing in particular,
or is it something, i can’t remember.
Morning coffee reminds her of years gone by
when she hustled to clean & tidy up the house
so untidy with five children running about
so she would be in readiness for parents
knowing that several pots would brew of a day
to give her the energy to persevere, strength
to be patient while her mother scrutinized,
criticized and ultimately laughed with her
but she knew as their car left the driveway
she would settle into a comfy spot dozing as
her caffeine high evaporated, energy waned
leaving her thinking of only the one cup
setting before her swirling, inviting to
remind her the pots of coffee that brewed
are but a memory no longer required, no
longer needed to get through parents visits
On June 14, as the only funder in the country to support arts activities in all 50 states and five U.S. jurisdictions, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced its second round of funding for FY 2017. This funding round includes partnerships with state, jurisdictional, and regional arts agencies. The NEA will award 1,195 grants totaling $84.06 million to support organizations that employ artists and cultural workers to provide programs for thousands of people from Idaho to Maine; in urban centers such as Cleveland, Ohio and Dallas, Texas; and in rural towns as different as Haines, Alaska and Whitesburg, Kentucky.
“The American people are recognized for their innovative spirit and these grants represent the vision, energy, and talent of America’s artists and arts organizations,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “I am proud of the role the National Endowment for the Arts plays in helping advance the creative capacity of the United States.”
NEA-funded arts activities are as diverse as the places that foster them. A folk festival in downtown Butte, Montana; a former gas station transformed into a glass foundry in Farmville, North Carolina; dance classes for children with special needs in Winter Park, Florida; and a playwrights’ workshop in New Harmony, Indiana are just a few of the projects included in the lists below.
These lists are organized by:
State/Jurisdiction and then by City/Town and by Funding Category (Art Works II, Our Town, Research: Art Works, and state and regional partnerships) and then Artistic Discipline/Field, ranging from arts education to visual arts
Competition for NEA grants is significant. In this second funding round for FY 2017, the agency received 2,063 eligible applications. The value of NEA funding is not only its monetary impact but also its reputation. An NEA grant confers a seal of approval, allowing an organization to attract other public and private funds beyond the required 1:1 match. In 2016, the ratio of NEA dollars to matching funds was 1:9 or $500 million.
To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, use #NEASpring17.
ART WORKS II: 1,029 awards totaling $26.1 million
Art Works is the NEA’s largest category and focuses on funding the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with art, lifelong learning in the arts, and strengthening of communities through the arts.
Examples of Art Works-supported projects are:
A $20,000 grant to Alabama Youth Ballet Theatre in Huntsville will provide free or reduced-cost clothing, equipment, nutrition, and professional instruction for underserved students during a summer dance program
A $20,000 grant to the Baltimore School for the Arts Foundation will support expansion of TWIGS (To Work In Gaining Skills), a free multidisciplinary arts education program for students from underserved communities
A $30,000 grant to the Montana Office of Public Instruction in Helena in partnership with the Montana Arts Council to help teachers and teaching artists integrate the arts into classroom instruction through the Montana Teacher Leaders in the Arts Institute.
OUR TOWN: 89 awards totaling $6.89 million
Our Town is the NEA’s signature creative placemaking program that supports partnerships of artists, arts organizations, and municipal government that work to revitalize neighborhoods. This practice places arts at the table with land-use, transportation, economic development, education, housing, infrastructure, and public safety strategies to address a community’s challenges. Creative placemaking highlights the distinctiveness of a place, encouraging residents to identify and build upon their local creative assets.
Examples of Our Town-supported projects are:
A $75,000 grant to the Arrow Rock Lyceum Theatre in Arrow Rock, Missouri to support community planning and design for the theater’s expansion. The Lyceum is the only professional theater between Kansas City and St. Louis.
A $100,000 grant to the National Association of Counties Research Foundation to allow the foundation to train county staff and managers on how to do arts-based economic development across rural America.
In addition to funding, the NEA advances creative placemaking through publications and resource development. In December 2016, the NEA released How to Do Creative Placemaking, a collection of essays and case studies. Other materials are available on the NEA’s newly re-launched creative placemaking page.
RESEARCH: ART WORKS: 14 awards totaling $540,000
This year marks the sixth year that the NEA has offered funding for research by outside parties through the Office of Research & Analysis. This year’s funded studies investigate research questions about the value and/or impact of the arts, or studies will explore causal links between the arts and another domain of interest.
For example; the Affordable Housing Management Company based in Fishers, Indiana will receive a $90,000 grant to support a study examining the effects of music engagement on low-income, older adults.
STATE AND REGIONAL PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS: 63 awards totaling $50.53 million
Through partnership agreements, the NEA translates national leadership into local and regional benefit. States and U.S. jurisdictions have their own arts agency that together receive 40 percent of the NEA’s grantmaking funds each year to support their programs and leverage state funding. In addition to these 55 agencies, six regional arts organizations are funded to manage programs across state, national, and international borders and across all arts disciplines.
In addition to the state and regional organizations, awards are made to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies to support national leadership services and to Pacific Resources in Education and Learning for delivering arts education services and technical assistance to arts agencies of the Pacific territories.
RELATED
Details on the threat by the current administration to NEA’s 2018 budget HERE.
About the National Endowment for the Arts
NEA logo, public domain
Established by Congress in 1965, the NEA is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. For more information, visit http://www.arts.gov.
THE BeZINE submissions for the July 2017 issue – themed Prison Culture/Restorative Justice – deadline July 10th latest. Publication date is July 15th. Poetry, essays, fiction and creative nonfiction, art and photography, music (videos), and whatever lends itself to online presentation is welcome for consideration. Please check out a few issues first and the Intro./Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines. No demographic restrictions. We would encourage submissions from people who are involved one way or the other in the justice system and former youth “offenders.” Critique along with constructive suggestions or tested solutions and best practices are welcome. We do not publish anything that promotes hate or violence.
Heads-up on the August zine: The theme is Theatre. Deadline: August 10.
HADEAN PRESS publishes books, journals and pamphlets and since its founding in 2008 has focused on occult books, journals, and pamphlets in standard and hand-bound editions. Details HERE.
DREAM POP JOURNAL, a quarterly published by Dream Pop Press features experimental writings. Beginning 2018 this press will open to chapbook submission “Dream Pop Press seeks to make space for non-narrative, linguistically inventive writing. We are interested in lyric memoir, cross-genre experimenters, fearless inventors, and poets who dream in made-up languages.” Submissions may incude poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and visual art. Details HERE.
PASSAGER BOOKS, “dedicate to writers over 50 and writers over 60, 70, 80, 90 … ,” publishes two journals a year. These include poetry, memoir, essay and short fiction. Its 2018 Open Issue accepts submissions through September 15, 2017. There is a submission fee of $2. Details HERE.
THE MALAHAT REVIEW (CA) welcomes submission of poetry, fiction an creative nonfiction from writers and poets at all stages of career. Poetry guidelines are HERE.
THE LOW VALLEY REVIEW, a publication of NorthWest Arkansas Community College ” celebrates and amplifies the typically under-heard voices of writers and artists in community colleges nationwide. We represent the blended, sometimes gritty, perspectives of nontraditional students: the first-generation college student, the veteran back from service, the immigrant, the retiree taking a class for the pure love of learning. We will also publish work from the community college at large, including full-time instructors, adjunct lecturers, and staff.” This review accepts submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and art from October through February. Details HERE.
GO WORLD TRAVELfor those who love to travel invites submission of travel articles up to 1,600. Pays $30 to $40 on publication. Details HERE.
THE SHALLOW ENDS publishes poetry and will re-open for submissions on September 1. Details HERE.
BORROWED SOLACE, a new online publication, is interested in considering submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, photography and artwork. “Borrowed Solace hopes to publish artful work that inspires readers to fall in love with language. They want stories, essays, and poems that invite readers to ask for more. They accept work in all genres and styles, but prefer pieces without excessive violence or erotica, unless it has a purpose.” Details HERE.
RED QUEEN MAGAZINE “named Red Queen after the Red Queen effect, a hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt & evolve not only to get ahead, but to stay exactly where they are. We fight through literature to maintain ourselves; we write & we edit & we rewrite just to preserve our lives. We want work that has torn you apart & then saved you. Work that bleeds & then heals. Literature for you to consume, & literature that consumes you.” The focus now is work on the current political climate expressed in poetry, prose and art. Details HERE.
TETHERED BY LETTERS, A Nonprofit Literary Publisher and Writer’s Resource, publishes F(r)iction and welcomes submission year round. Of interest: short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and graphic stories or comics. This publication also sponsors annual contests. Look for future announcements. Details HERE.
LIKELY RED, a new online publication that has published two issues to date pays its writers ($25 on acceptance) and welcomes submissions of prose, poetry, photography, art year round. Details HERE.
ARSENIKA is a journal of speculative poetry and flash fiction and “seeks marginalized voices. We work to uplift those outside the center and believe that identity is not the defining trait of a piece of work, but that unnameable quality that weaves through prose and poetry to give it its nuance.” Details HERE.
BLOOD & BURBON, a publication produced by storytellers for storytellers, has an open call-for-submissions for its Fall 2017 issue theme Death. appropriate submissions are non-fiction, fiction, poetry or black and white photography and “could be satire, speculative fiction, horror or some angle we haven’t even thought of.” Deadline is the end of August.Details HERE.
ONE PERSON’S TRASH, “a literary print journal [quarterly] with a web presence …. tells homeless stories” [through poetry, fiction, nonfiction and interviews] by homeless, formerly homeless, and people whose professional and personal lives intersect with the homeless.” Details HERE.
FOUR CHAMBERS PRESS is accepting poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction manuscripts through July 31, 2017 deadline. Details HERE.
CONTESTS
Opportunity Knocks
THE STANZA POETRY COMPETITION (UK) “is open exclusively to Poetry Society members (if you’re not a member join here) and who are also members of a Poetry Society Stanza. The theme for the 2017 competition is WALLS. Send up to two poems, max 40 lines per poem (not including title). Free entry. Closing date is Monday 11 September 2017 and the winners will be announced on National Poetry Day, Thursday 28 September 2017. Judge: Andy Croft.” Details HERE.
PRESS 53 Award for Poetry 2018 competition is open for submissions through July 31. Winner receives a cash advance of $1000 and publication. There is a $30 reading fee. Details HERE.
2018 FAR HORIZONS AWARD FOR POETRY (CA) is not yet accepting submission watch The Malahat Review for updates. This is for poets who have not yet published a collection. Prize is $1,000 (CAD). The deadline is May 1, 2018. Entry fees vary. Submissions from outside of Canada are welcome. Details HERE.
THE POETRY CENTER sponsors three annual competitions: Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, The Paterson Poetry Prize, and The Paterson Prize for Books for Young People. February 1, 2018 is the deadline for all. Details HERE.
EVENTS
TONIGHT 8 pm – Festa Junina (Brazilian music and traditional foods) in Berkeley, 8pm – 1 am. Hosted by Praganala and BrasArte at BrasArte, 1901 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA
Poetry with Punch, Bradford Literature Festival, poetry, world affairs and politics, July 6, 7:30 – 10 p.m. More detail HERE.
100,000 Poets for Change annual global event is scheduled for September 30. Details HERE.
The BeZine 100,000 Poets for Change Virtual Event is scheduled for September 30.
Second Saturday @ Cyrus: featuring Omatara James and Gladys Henderson from 7:15-9:45 p.m. on July 8 Hosted by Matt Pasca and Omotara James at Cyrus: Chai & Coffee Company, 1 Railroad Plz, Bay Shore, New York 11209
Legacy Conversations: Chris Abani and Norman Ellis hosted by Cave Canem from 7-9 p.m. n July 11th at the Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine 61 W. Superior St., Chicago, Illinois.
Second Annual Chicago Poetry Block Party from 2-9 p.m. on July 29. Hosted by and held at the National Museum of Mexican Art and Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine. 1852 W. 19th Street, Chicago, IL
Arte Folia: Preto No Branco (Artefolia Dance Company) from 7 -10 pm, August 27. Hosted by Aninha Malandro at BrasArte, 1901 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA
Since 2011, 100 Thousand Poets for Change, cofounded by Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carion, have worked indefatigably to organize events around the world for peace, justice and sustainability. Now, they’ve also created aGLOBAL ACTION CALENDAR open to EVERYONE to post Creative Actions around the world.
Sonjia Beskin Mesher art honoredby Halls Writing Forum, St. Edmunds Hall Oxford. One comment, “I think my favourite for this incredibly complex challenge is Sonja’s tiny, trembling moment of truth”
Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow) for his many publications and reblogs this month. Appropriate acknowlegement by other poets for this original and prolific poet.
OTHER NEWS AND INFORMATION
10 Simple Yet Empowering Writing Apps for Your Mac, Tomas Laurivicius, Forbes Magazine (Ed. Note: There are probably other versions of these or similar ones for PCs that a bit of research would reveal, but I don’t do Windows.)
On Giving Feedback, Anthony Wilson (Lifesaving Poetry, BloodAxe Books, 2015) and Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter
Often information is just that – information – and not necessarily recommendation. I haven’t worked with all the publications featured in Sunday Announcements or elsewhere on this site. Awards and contests are often a means to generate income and publicity for the host organizations, some of which are more reputable than others. I am homebound due to disability and no longer attend events. Please be sure to verify information for yourself before submitting work, buying products or paying fees, or attending events et al.
Over his morning coffee he sat,
dreaming of yesterday’s spring
and the hill country of his youth,
remembering summers of peace
and autumn days when he thought
life a forever thing. The world lay before
him then, a ripe field awaiting harvest.
Now beside this sad cup, a winter hand,
so withered and so gray, an old man’s
hand he barely recognized as his own.
Then his gaze found her playful smile.
In the hazel warmth of her eyes he
felt like spring again, the rich loam of
her love yielding a gentle harvest of joy
So, what about your morning coffee – or tea? Tells us …
If you feel comfortable leaving your work or a link to it in the comments section, please do. All work shared will be published on this site next Tuesday.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 