AWP and Champagne. Also, Stevie Edwards!

Thoughtcrime Press is busy collecting and editing this year’s manuscripts. A possible perfect bound Little Bones is in the works, and we already have the first chunk of poems by Chicago poet, Emilio Maldonado.

Somehow we all survived AWP, and in fact, a few of us survived it with some atypical (for a) poet style from near the top of the Seattle Wyndham, overlooking Elliot Bay, and the Space Needle. Champagne breakfasts in bed, surrounded by business cards, new books, and half-empty/full bottles of Motrin. Bottled water always went fast. While we suffered, we discussed some great, new ideas regarding the possibilities of small press publishing. And, we now have a line on a writing residency program within the next couple years that would make (your favorite serious-role celebrity, say Christian Bale) giggle in glee. More to follow…

Here’s a piece by Write Bloody, and Thoughtcrime Press author, Stevie Edwards. One of three Little Bones poets, Stevie is currently teaching at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and is as fine a poet and tour buddy as you’d ever hope to meet. Her first book, Good Grief, was released in 2012 and went on to win the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award for Poetry in 2013.

What I Mean By Ruin Is…

When there’s only condiments left in the fridge
and you join a free online dating service
so men will buy you dinner.

When you’ve shucked the night with the dull blade
of indecision and gulped down everything,
even the pearls.

When some old, left-handed love has left
your guitar strung backwards
and you can’t find any songs for rain
in its frets.

When you wake up next to the body
of your past and it looks ready
to wrinkle and bald.

When the last burn of summer is peeling
from your breasts and there’s nothing to husk
the pale raw of new flesh.

When the woman who wears her hair in the old way
quits mumbling about Jesus on street corners
and takes her salvation pamphlets
to a pauper’s grave.

When you’re too ugly to pray,
but pray
and the only voice
on the drunk subway wails
good grief.

—originally published in Good Grief, 2012, Write Bloody Publishing

2 Poems

paperdarts:

First Move After the Year of Hangings
A slight terror detonates in the under-insulated attic: a collectionof dead weeds, leaves dried brittle and heaped,the former tenant’s useless harvest.What facet of their formdid he love enough to gatherbut not to U-Haul across this small town?
Read more poetry by Stevie Edwards on our website.

Poems by Stevie Edwards!paperdarts:

First Move After the Year of Hangings

A slight terror detonates in the under-
insulated attic: a collection
of dead weeds, leaves dried brittle and heaped,
the former tenant’s useless harvest.
What facet of their form
did he love enough to gather
but not to U-Haul across this small town?

Read more poetry by Stevie Edwards on our website.

Poems by Stevie Edwards!

(via stevieedwards)