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A Sad Day: Rest in Peace Reuben Woolley, your voice will never be silenced; link to Paul Brookes’ interview with Reuben

U.K Poet, Reuben Whoolley
U.K Poet, Reuben Woolley bares witness

December 2, 2019: In honor of a valued poet, a reblog of this 2017 post on Reuben and HERE is the link to Paul Brookes’ interview. 

Reuben Woolley’s poetry is minimalist, sinuous on the page – or sometimes scattered like landmines waiting to explode. I find his work addictive and his latest book UntitledSkins (Hesterglock Pess, 2016) is going to be a gift to myself next month. Proceeds from sales go to CalAid.

Reuben’s poems, while exquisitely trimmed of all excess, are still rich with imagery and emotion.

Stylistically, I’m reminded of e.e.cummings.

Yes! I like the way he writes. More importantly, I’m glad Reuben chose to use his deft pen and kind heart to bring more awareness to the darkness in humanity, hanging our dirty laundry out to be seen and not denied. He tells the hard truth. If you are not devastated then you have grown numb to the injustices of our world. This is why we need poets like Reuben, to sound the clarion call and to bare witness.

With Reuben’s permission, here are two poems and look for more of Reuben’s work in the January 15 issue of The BeZine.

lessons

this is the fear
of a first breath

start counting
now

this is laughter
through bleeding membranes

don’t hope
for wings

or terminal
stations

we walk the subway
mazes.the painted
maps & all their changes

…………drilling
skulls gives no answers
& death itself
is rarely clean

to this we came.not this

wrapping
a mind round wires
& razors
……………..cut

i’ll wear the given
shoes so well in these
white
streets

……………....it isn’t
the same
the running from metal

……………….the bombs
they make who give
the shoes but

still

they’re laughing at us
mother

THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF POETRY, MARRAKESH

Reuben is invited to the Fourth International Festival of Poetry in Marrakech, Morroco in April. He plans to take poems from I am not a silent poet, his online magazine. The Festival covers hotel and catering costs but doesn’t pay anything towards transport. Like all of us who live off the proceeds of poetry, his purse is a little light. Reuben set-up a crowd funding page to raise the money for the airfare. That’s the main reason I wanted to introduce Reuben to you today. Here’s the invite. The “Mrs.” is a typo and festival organizers have promised to correct it. Reuben’s crowd-funding site is HERE.

marrakech-invitation

51m8en2wll-_sx329_bo1204203200_Reuben Woolley is published in various magazines including Tears in the Fence, The Lighthouse Literary Journal, The Interpreter’s House, Domestic Cherry, The Stare’s Nest and Ink Sweat and Tears. His collection, the king is dead was published in 2014 with Oneiros Books  and a chapbook, dying notes, in 2015 with Erbacce Press. Reuben was runner-up in the Overton Poetry Pamphlet competition and the Erbacce Prize in 2015. A new collection on the refugee crisis, skins, was published by Hesterglock Press, 2016:
Reubensays, he “pretends to be busy editing the online magazines: I am not a silent poet and The Curly Mind.”

I am not a silent poet is a zine dedicated to poetry and artwork of protest against abuse in all shapes and forms. Reuben’s motivation for founding the site: “I have seen such increased evidence of abuse recently that I felt it was time to do something. I am not a silent poet looks for poems about abuse in any of its forms, colour, gender, disability, the dismantlement of the care services, the privatisation of the NHS, the rape culture and, of course, war and its victims are just the examples that come to mind at the moment.”

© 2017, poems,and photograph, Reuben Whoolley; bookcover art by Sonjia Benskin Mesher

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PAY-PER-MINUTE E-READERS IN WEST VIRGINIA PRISONS JEOPARDIZE ACCESS TO LITERATURE

Apple’s iPad (left) and Amazon’s Fire (right), two popular tablet computers. Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) under CC BY-SA 3.0 license

Income earned (or not) by inmates v. charges for reading-time in the feature below: “In 1865, the United States passed the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which banned slavery and involuntary servitude “except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This provided a legal basis for slavery to continue in the country.  

As of 2018, many prisoners in the US perform work. In Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas, prisoners are not paid at all for their work. In other states, as of 2011, prisoners were paid between $0.23 and $1.15 per hour. Federal Prison Industries paid innmates an average of $0.90 per hour in 2017. In many cases the penal work is forced, with prisoners being punished by solitary confinment if they refuse to work.From 2010 to 2015 and again in 2016, and in 2018 some prisoners in the US refused to work, protesting for better pay, better conditions, and for the end of forced labor. Strike leaders are currently punished with indefinite solitary confinement. Forced prison labor occurs in government-run prisons and private prisons.

The prison labor industry makes over $1 billion USD per year selling products that inmates make, while inmates are paid very little or nothing in return.In California, 2,500 incarcerated workers are fighting wildfires for only $1 per hour, which saves the state as much as $100 million a year.” MORE Wikipedia

“West Virginia’s recent institution of pay-per-minute electronic tablets in prisons is predatory and would effectively limit prisoners’ access to free books,” according to PEN America. The program allows incarcerated people to read a limited selection of books from a free online library, but the service provider will charge up to 5¢ per minute to access this content. The state sharing some of the revenue. The private vendor, Global Tel Link, also reportedly maintains the right to raise prices without state permission.

“If you want to demonstrate how misguided prison policies towards access to literature have become, this serves as a perfect example,” said James Tager, deputy director of Free Expression Research and Policy at PEN America. “Incarcerated people are actually being charged money to read books already in the public domain, and the state gets a portion of the revenue. Not only is this a predatory policy that will actively disincentivize incarcerated people from reading, but it rewards the state for being complicit in these restrictions. After all, do we really expect West Virginia prison officials to develop more permissive policies towards book access now that the state is literally receiving a monetary award for funneling incarcerated people towards these pay-per-minute plans?”

In its September 2019 report Literature Locked Up PEN America examined the recent trend of prisons deploying e-readers. In November 2018, responding to public pressure, the state of Pennsylvania reversed a policy that banned physical book orders and required prisoners to buy e-tablets in order to read. Civil rights groups have increasingly warned that prisons may turn to e-tablets as a lower-cost substitute for physical services — such as law libraries or access to legal assistance — in ways that ultimately degrade the substance of incarcerated people’s constitutional rights.

“The average person may see a headline that says ‘prisoners receive e-tablets’ and think that such an agreement can only be beneficial for the incarcerated population’s right to read. Not necessarily,” Tager said. “We have to look at how these policies are being implemented in practice. Are they truly enlarging incarcerated people’s access to literature? Or are they further entrenching the idea that access to literature is a privilege for incarcerated people and a source of profit for the state? In the case of West Virginia, charging for per-minute access to books in the public domain clearly falls in the latter category. Access to free books should be free. Period.”

This feature is courtesy of PEN America, Wikipedia, and PrisonPolicy.org

PEN America a stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.

Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry.  Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.

About / Testimonials / Disclosure / Facebook / Medium

Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications: Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Womawords Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019

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

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For the Thanksgiving holiday, the wise Brother David Steindl-Rast

♥ May you have much for which to be thankful! ♥

I’m putting the site on hiatus for the Thanksgiving holiday here in the States and will return on Wednesday, December 4 with the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.

GRATITUDE: This stunning video was filmed by Louis Shwartsberg. As visually appealing as it is, its peace and healing value lies in the words of Brother David Steindl-Rast.

RECENT BY JAMIE ON MEDIUM:

Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry.  Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.

About / Testimonials / Disclosure / Facebook / Medium

Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications: Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Womawords Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019

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

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-cheveux indisciplines- … and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

© 1961, Jenny Joseph

Joseph’s best known poem, Warning, was written in 1961, first published in The Listener in 1962, and later included in her 1974 collection Rose In the Afternoon, in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse, and in her Selected Poems (1992). Warning was identified as the UK’s “most popular post-war poem” in a 1996 poll by the BBC. The second line was the inspiration for the Red Hat Society. Due to its popularity, an illustrated gift edition of Warning, first published by Souvenir Press Ltd in 1997, has now been reprinted forty-one times.

This week we bring you poems on the joys – or at least the odd or funny things – about aging in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, What’s It to Me?, November 20. In a world gone mad, it’s nice to be able to share a few giggles today.

Thanks for this collection go to: Gary W. Bowers, Olive Branch, mm brazfield, Paul Brooks, Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Kakali Das Ghosh, Urmila Mahajan, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Pali Raj, and Clarissa Simmons  Enjoy!

Note: The Poet by Day will be on hiatus for the Thanksgiving holiday here in the States and will return on December 4 with the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.

♥ May everyone have much for which to be thankful. ♥

endgame adjustments

it’s easy to have a blast at 65
just don’t do it in your pants
for your once reliable digestive tract
is now a trickster
and sometimes pretends one substance
is another
so be discreet
hie thee to a bathroom stall
and relax
and enjoy
one of life’s unsung pleasures
unless…

your tract reaches into its bag of tricks
and inexplicably delays the countdown
and subsequent blastoff

and then you must wait
r e l a x
pretend you have all
t h e t i m e
i n
t h e w o r l d

except you don’t
and if the parcel is still
on the loading dock five minutes on
it is time to go fishing
with ernest hemingway
marlin fishing
for the extreme rocking motion
papa uses when he has a marlin on the line
sometimes is a sufficient propellent
for the contents of the large intestine to offload
so catch that marlin

but that doesn’t always work
so it’s time for desperate measures
make yourself laugh
cough like a firefighter
find something to sneeze at

still…unmoved?
in this extreme
i must refer you to Project DJT
and ask you to form
the most real image in your mind
of Inauguration Day 2021
and…
(ogodno)
DONALD TRUMP TAKING
THE OATH OF OFFICE!!!!!

now, if that
doesn’t Scare You Shitless,
NOTHING will!

© 2019, Gary W. Bowers

Gary’s site is: One With Clay, Image and Text

Bliss

One summer
night, after
a trip to the
American West,
and comfort in seeing family
and an old
friend,
a contentment
prevailed.

The torch was now passed
to the next generation,
and we’d lived to be
witness to the 30 years
onward that we’d
travelled to arrive at
the current nuptial.

Unanticipated and fleeting,
the gladness
when it appears
sometimes in the aftermath,
can be all the more memorable.

© 2019, Olive Branch

-cheveux indisciplines-

i love the color of my hair
brown red and in some places pink
my tired legs and lined filled hands
eyes that stare flat beyond the sky
and a mind that has lost the hard shell
of youthful indulgence and inexperience
i love my lips still round and plump
and the new found freedom
of spouting my own thoughts
that are crafted with the filigree of wisdom
i love my face
oh those expression lines
that will never be usurped by botox
my cheek bones high and tight
to frame a genuine smile at the wind
i love my hair when she gets wild
and i walk the streets of Beverly Hills
stroll in the Rolls Royce isles
worn out Chucks with the strategic tears
where the toes are too tight
salesmen follow me with Lysol cans
and their neat white gloves
that eradicate the traces of the hoi polloi
the hair a right of passage glorious
furious bright riot
reminding me that my agedness
is a catalyst to the third eye lens
from where i can finally see
the dimensions of the world
the good and the bad
and really only give a dam
about the moments that matter

© 2019, mm brazfield

mm’s site is: Words Less Spoken

To Biddy

Scatter radiances of milk
on her icy sod.
Let each brightness warm her earth.

Broadcast flames of oats
on her waters, stoke embers of fish.
Let her waves be ablaze with shoals.

Brush and scrub your home for her visit.
Put her bread and butter on windowsills.
Make her a bed of twigs for her rest.

Waxing light polishes
her crone wrinkles
into maiden’s roundness.

Make her a doll
out of primroses
and snowdrops.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

Old Are Young

My wrinkles disappear,
No more crow’s feet.

Knees lack pain when I get up,
or walk stairs. Mind so pin sharp

it hurts. Touch my toes,
cartwheel, run marathons.

I’ve had to throw away my false teeth,
As I’ve grown new ones.

Age means less struggle.
Life should be struggle.

Age means less pain .
Everything should hurt.

I tell my wrinkled grandkids.
Never grow old. Wish it on no one.

Excerpt from Paul’s collection A World Where (Nixes Mate Press, 2017)

© 2019, Paul Brookes

My Decrepit Is Good

Bring on grey hairs turn to silver.
Bring on sharp pain in the knees
as I hobble downstairs.

Bring on memory loss
as I know no different.
Bring me my stick,
my arrow of desire.

Bring it all on, fuzzy brain,
misty sight, zimmer frame,
adult nappy’s, oxygen through
plastic tubes, a knowing.

Bring on wrinkles, laugh lines,
tang of autumn, radical spice
of spring, footskate winter,
wild summer, all natural process.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

My Friction Ridges

Seventeenth week of mam’s pregnancy
my fetus friction ridges fully form
arch, loop and whorl,

My basal layer buckles and folds
in several directions, forces complex shapes.
Not barkskin growth rings
light and dark, a seasonal response.

Rather as if someone thumbs out my face
or mine tbeirs, erase facial recognition
on a photo, stain the image
with sand dune ripples, tropical fish stripes,
convecting fluid patterns,

von Karman vortices, air or liquid currents
move in opposite directions, curl clouds.

Insects speed and manoeuvre
borrow energy from their wing made
von Karman vortices,

this blotted face buckles and folds
with age.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

  • Paul’s Amazon Page U.S. HERE
  • Paul’s Amazon Page U.K. HERE

More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play

Something It Is To Me Surely

Something it is to me surely,
something is
my shirt hangs loose and long
from the shoulders, I have no worries
I am smart, silver streaks do not bother
I still wear the ‘jhumka earings’ I can smile
I cover my head, no hairstyle, am free of the
chair and clip in the hair
Wow what freedom has come-

I am free. I have nothing to hold
I am more bold, when cold, I wear socks
as I please,
I am a bit old, not much for
I can sit of the floor, need not reach for
the stick, nor for the bottle ‘on the rocks’
no cigarettes please, just coffee hot
Something it is to me surely
something is

dark glasses help me to see, what I
wish, what fun to be served and waited upon
Old is gold, and Grand and Great Grand
I am soft and stern at the same time
I am there among laughter and hugs
I am a bit old not much
I am just seven with a zero I say
I am fine my wrinkles may show
I am now eight with a zero I say
I still love am loved how lucky I say
Without me, value me-

something it is to me surely something is
It is love and respect as I love all and bow
and I pray and I pray and soon I may not be
If I have been good, I will be young as seven
and I will not grow old again, for I will be in heaven

© 2019, Anjum Wasim Dar

Anjum Ji’s sites are:

“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar

When I Am An Old Woman

I want to be
A old woman
With a squishy tummy
From having babies and eating chocolate chip cookies
I would have wrinkles in all the right places
I would wear my grey hair the same way as I wore it when it was my black hair
I would wear a bright print top
And swingy pants made of linen
I would sit in my rocker
On my front porch
Under a retractable awning
A glass of sweet tea on the table next to me
With a battery powered fan next to it
Just in case it got too hot
I’d have my knitting in a bag
But I wouldn’t take it out
Instead
I would watch the street
I would watch the sidewalk
I would wave to the kids as they walked to school
I would give the stink eye to unfamiliar cars
I would greet the UPS driver and chat up the mail carrier
I would chide the dog owner who didn’t pick up what their dog put down
I would smile to the mama with the sleeping baby
I would listen to the birds and the squirrels, the ambulance and the fire trucks
I would only glance at the air planes overhead
And when the sun is high enough, I would pull back the awning
And let the sun kiss my un-sunscreened face.

© 2019, Irma Do

Irma’s site is: (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too . . .)

Old Eyes

When my old age comes

I”ll not be upset

Thinking I too have to leave this world

Keeping my old eyes on the velvety sky

I will count innumerable stars

I know that this counting will remain incomplete

Though time goes on

There is an impression of events

While counting stars I will remember my left days of past

Then I will come to my mirror

Reflection of sunrays on it will make my existence happy

I will recall my glorious past

And collect a jug of honey

With full of vivacity

Thus I will be a sparkling beauty of innersense .

© 2019, Kakali Das Ghosh

Purple

Noiseless as autumn footfalls,
clematis vines reach higher on
the trellis into the blinding
sun. The season unravels gently

preserving a trail of beliefs from
the echoes of coral jasmine gathered
in two orange-smudged childhood
baskets of burnished brass, reserved
for practising faith with garlands
and incense, to the intrinsic
rituals of coral jasmine itself:
simple beginnings and growth. The
flamboyant carpet of bauhinia petals
below my feet (now past its
prime) coils into rich chains

of understanding, edging unbroken
days and nights towards reflection
on natural systems and those
flashes of purple autumn stillness.

© 2019, Urmilia Mahajan

. yes we come older .

I just copy and paste
the whole thing,
they can take it or leave
it.

i do find that
much does not
matter now,
all that fiddly stuff,
all that desiring
things, when all around us
is ready.

i like the birds
and such like
little things.

glad of the heal.

yes a sensitive soul, when all is quiet,
small sounds, voices interrupt
the day.

is best we listen.

just now the planes fly over, the dog runs out looking up, barking.

it is pleasant here again today,
a piece of mind.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Sonja’s sites are:

Growing old I enjoy it
WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM
Ah, when I get off my bed I rub my back
You don’t find it annoying
I am too old
I need rest, and medicine ….yeah,
I raised a good, and gentleman
YOU CALL HIM SON
I am old but who are we kidding?
WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM
if only there were just one
I cough with half my mouth
Son, I can’t stay in the air for a long long time
Well, you treat us like we are dying ….yeah
Growing old I enjoy it
WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM
Ah, when I get off my bed I rub my back
You don’t find it annoying
I am too old
I need rest, and medicine

© 2019, Pali Raj

Elliptical

In secret grasses
Wild flowers thrive, watching me
An aging Goth Granny
Freely pedaling
Tiring easily
Suddenly seeing
I’ve become paprika
A shadow of cayenne
O, but the beat
The music thrums
Through overloud speakers
Legs moving faster
Lungs gasping
Singing voice rasping
Sure will pay for it
Tonight when the yard is
Moonlit
But worth every moment…

© 2019, Clarissa Simmens

Unrecognized/Winter Disguised

Following middle of the night
Poetry ideas
Into oblivion
Darkness magics the words
So Stygian
Yet moonlight
Like blankets
Shields and comforts
Transforming a stressed face
Into a softened glow
As the mask melts
Lost in a
Mythology unrecognized
Although semiotically using
Correct signs, symbols and
Elemental scents
Winter disguised
It is the unrecorded that
Fascinates
Separating historically
Asking the clouds rhetorically
Who will I be this decade
Because I certainly don’t know
That other person from the last
And moving back in time
Across an invisible line
Is a very different
Woman
Young adult
Teenager
Child
And I think
To my great surprise
I like this old one best…

© 2019, Clarissa Simmens

Find Clarissa on her Amazon’s Author Page, on her blog, and on Facebook HERE; Clarissa’s books include: Chording the Cards & Other Poems, Plastic Lawn Flamingos & Other Poems, and Blogetressa, Shambolic Poetry.

Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry.  Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.

About / Testimonials / Disclosure / Facebook / Medium

Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications: Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Womawords Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019

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