Thank you to Stoneboat for publishing Vine in their fall 2017 issue, available now.
Vine
my toes, roots
hands, leaves curling
growing into my loves
like ivy on a chain link fence…
I was partly inspired by the sculpture, “The Vine,” by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (pictured above).
This is the first poem I’ve published that appears for sale in a print edition, you guys!
(photo courtesy of ketrin1407)
Your wounds are fresh
and still too deep
to paint your surfaces blue.
Only pinpoints of blood
decorate your skin,
like freckles on little girls
before we train them
to blush, gloss,
conceal.
The red dots are petechiae…
my psychotherapy teacher taught me to counsel
with his fingernails…
a deliberate inattention,
staring at my nails as if they were
the most interesting thing in the world;
giving space for a woman with wounds
to unwrap them, carefully,
without accidentally being touched…
If you’re looking for quick, good reads, consider Vestal Review’s collection of its best 17 stories.
VR invited readers to vote on the best stories from their 17 years of publishing–and each story’s under 500 words. A couple weeks ago, I bookmarked the collection on my phone, and I’ve enjoyed returning to the page and reading another story every few days. My favorite, so far, is “Chickadees Dance on My Windowsill.”
If you find a favorite, let me know!
NaNoWriMo 2017 is upon us! November 1st-30th. Perhaps you know all about it. If it’s news to you, check out nanowrimo.org. I’ll be participating.
If you’d like a writing buddy on the NaNoWriMo website, feel free to add me! Here’s how to add a buddy on the NaNoWriMo website. I’m Anna Kander, same name & picture over there as here on WordPress. I’ll look forward to saying hello and checking out your project.
This is a little piece about my six-foot-long pet iguana, Quiz. I nominated him for “Literary Pet of the Month.” He never officially won the title, but formercactus picked up the vignette anyway. Who’s your literary pet?
Once we get the iguana, we have to figure out what to do with him. We name him “the Quizzical Lizard” and call him “Quiz,” for short. When you talk to Quiz—say, reading from your seventy-ninth draft of Harry Potter fan fiction, which is definitely honing your craft—he cocks his head in a way that suggests interest…
Outside our carnival tent,
sun dries dropped sodas
and hot dog buns.
Small birds peck crumbs
and seem happy…
Thank you to Breadcrumbs for publishing!
I’ve a little poem, The End, in the Fall 2017 issue of Hollow Tongue.
The End
Before me, black tendrils
of hand-writing
darken bleached fibers…
Thank you to Valentina and Kathyrine for publishing.
Degenerates: Voices for Peace just released an anthology on bullying. Two of my poems are included.
The Sound of Metal
love your brothers and sisters, momma said
carry us like a song in your heartin high school, i whispered gossip to mean girls
and, on alternate Tuesdays, tried to not to drownin labels
and expectationsand a labyrinth of dented lockers
that made hollow soundswhen bodies and metal collided
for the thousandth occasionat the same high school
at the same timemy brother was molested
we didn’t learn what happened ’til years later
after he stopped coming home…
The editor of Degenerates, a fellow named Weasel, also reprinted Paper Cheerleaders.
Emailing him “Dear Weasel…” was possibly my favorite part of the publishing process. (My friends all have boring names.) However, Weasel made the whole endeavor delightful. He send proofs to authors–early–and released the issue on time.
Weasel Press is open to submissions.
Somewhere between a prose poem and flash fiction, please enjoy To My Friend with Diabetes, On Losing Her Foot. Just like my friend, the poem is quirky, uplifting, and full of heart.
To my friend with diabetes, on losing her foot
You walk sixty-seven years while childhood diabetes, against your iron will, poisons your peripheral nerves with sugar, and the muscles of your feet, starved of circulation, gradually dissolve.
Your toes gnarl and curl backward at wild angles, as if aspiring to adorn gargoyles. (You’ve always had a dragon-and-knight heart.) Unruly tendons draw themselves into bows, aiming toes in every direction.
The doctor calls nerve death a blessing: unmuffled shrieks of twisting bones, no one could stand. But nerve death isn’t sudden, like cremation; electric signals climb your calves like flames.
First, you walk in special shoes; then, titanium braces, laced to your knees. Then, as orthotic specialists bite their fingernails, you cut holes in shoe leather with razors, because you have places no one can touch.
A medical resident offers custom replacements: braces with art printed on the back of your calves. You imagine the black-on-black silhouette of an animal whose feet don’t have to touch the ground. You imagine a city to save. You say, “Batman.”
Black on black is more than a side-eye at fate. You’re making an all-season fashion statement: black shirts, black knee socks, elastic waists in cropped black pants to hold insulin pumps and air your knees.
(Your nerves still crackle like static.)
The new braces arrive, featuring 1950s comic-book Batman—blue cape and yellow belt, swinging a punch and yelling “Bam!” because nothing turns out as we anticipate. At the checkout line in the grocery store, you become popular among small children…
Thank you to Hektoen International for publishing “To My Friend.” This was the first piece of my creative writing accepted for publication, ever, and by coincidence, the acceptance arrived on the night before my friend went into surgery. All good news–my friend came out of surgery and continues to heal.
Anna Kander 