Monday, March 30, 2009
Third Wednesday Winter 2008/2009 out!
The new issue of Third Wednesday is now out in stores and online. I'm pleased to find my poem, A Brief Respite, tucked away in its pages. The issue can be ordered at: http://www.thirdwednesday.org.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Mon. 3/30/09 reading in Cambridge
It's been awhile since I've been able to attend my regular Monday poetry reading in Cambridge (Out of the Blue art gallery in Central Square), but I'll definitely be there this coming Monday, 3/30/09, if anyone's interested in swinging by!
Poems now on Clapboard House!
The three poems accepted for publication by Clapboard House are now available at: http://clapboardhouse.wordpress.com/about-the-house/john-sibley-williams/
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Saturday Reading in Cambridge- Attending
Saturday, 28 March @ Outpost, 3pm
186 1/2 Hampshire Street
Inman Sq. Cambridge (behind 7-11 on Prospect)
Jim Dunn’s first collection Soft Launch, is the first title in the publishing collaboration, B Is for Beans, between Bootstrap Productions and Pressed Wafer, featuring Boston based poets. Gerrit Lansing has written it contains "flashes of emotional perception that transfigure the sad remains of the City" Dunnʼs previous collection is CONVENIENT HOLE.
Simon Pettet's many books include most recently Hearth, Selected Poems and More Winnowed Fragments, all published by Talisman. He edited The Selected Art Writings of James Schuyler and collaborated with Duncan Hannah on Abundant Treasures and with Rudy Burckhardt on Conversations About Everything and Talking Pictures. British by birth, he lives in New York City.
Come here these fine poets
186 1/2 Hampshire Street
Inman Sq. Cambridge (behind 7-11 on Prospect)
Jim Dunn’s first collection Soft Launch, is the first title in the publishing collaboration, B Is for Beans, between Bootstrap Productions and Pressed Wafer, featuring Boston based poets. Gerrit Lansing has written it contains "flashes of emotional perception that transfigure the sad remains of the City" Dunnʼs previous collection is CONVENIENT HOLE.
Simon Pettet's many books include most recently Hearth, Selected Poems and More Winnowed Fragments, all published by Talisman. He edited The Selected Art Writings of James Schuyler and collaborated with Duncan Hannah on Abundant Treasures and with Rudy Burckhardt on Conversations About Everything and Talking Pictures. British by birth, he lives in New York City.
Come here these fine poets
Six Fires- previously published by Flutter Poetry Journal
Six Fires
If I had one name
to call you before
the sun shatters;
fire.
Through the ten thousand vaginas
that bore me light;
fire.
And where water and water
both wash your confident flesh
and the tattooed curve of your tongue;
fire
until I write your body
only with these peasant hands
that once loved soil and rock
and now rain
fire
like a jasmine swan
like a heart never silent
like fists with green knuckles
mountaining everything between
my horizons and my mirrors.
When held still too long, without
fire
worlds crumble sandy,
cloy our mouths,
but engulfed in your movement,
skirt and wind and metallic German tongue,
I grow unfamiliar
and drop,
icicle,
from the thawing roof.
If I had one name
to call you before
the sun shatters;
fire.
Through the ten thousand vaginas
that bore me light;
fire.
And where water and water
both wash your confident flesh
and the tattooed curve of your tongue;
fire
until I write your body
only with these peasant hands
that once loved soil and rock
and now rain
fire
like a jasmine swan
like a heart never silent
like fists with green knuckles
mountaining everything between
my horizons and my mirrors.
When held still too long, without
fire
worlds crumble sandy,
cloy our mouths,
but engulfed in your movement,
skirt and wind and metallic German tongue,
I grow unfamiliar
and drop,
icicle,
from the thawing roof.
"Post-Fire" to be published by Sangam Literary Magazine
Sangam Literary Magazine has accepted my poem "Post-Fire" for publication in their Fall 2009 issue. At that time it will be found at http://www.sangammagazine.com.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Boston National Poetry Month Festival April 4 2009
I'll be attending and reading:
Boston National Poetry Month Festival April 4 2009
PRESS RELEASE
THE BOSTON NATIONAL POETRY MONTH FESTIVAL
Now In Its Successful NINTH!!! Year
CO-SPONSORS: Tapestry of Voices & Kaji Aso Studio in partnership with the Boston Public Library, SAVE the DATE, Saturday, April 4th 10:00 A.M.- 4:45 P.M. OPEN MIKE: 1:30 to 4:00P.M. The Festival will be held at the library’s main branch in Copley Square. FREE ADMISSION
53 Major and Emerging poets will each do a ten minute reading.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Me Live on Youtube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40ufQugaF8I
The funny things you find while googling yourself...in this case, me reading "At Daybreak" at Stone Soup Poets from Feb. 2009.
The funny things you find while googling yourself...in this case, me reading "At Daybreak" at Stone Soup Poets from Feb. 2009.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Brockton Poetry Reading Sat. 3/21/09
On the second day of Spring (finally), I'll be reading at the Brockton Public Library around 2pm. This Saturday, 3/21/09, will have a one hour open mic followed by a featured speaker. Join me for some coffee that seems straight from an AA meeting or police station and a little poetry...I'm thinking politically-motivated ones...
Clapboard House- 3 Poems Published
Two this week! Clapboard House (http://clapboardhouse.wordpress.com) has accepted three Southern fried poems for publication in their next online issue and their annual print anthology. "Railyard at Rest", "Baptismal", and "Variations on a New Dam" will be available soon online!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
ken*again acceptance of 3 poems
ken*again (http://kenagain.freeservers.com) has just accepted three poems for publication! "Palace Gardens", "The Poem Tells Us Death", and "Don't Fear" will be published in their Summer 2009 issue.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Poet's Ink Feb. 2009 issue out
Just a note the Feb. 2009 issue of Poet's Ink is now out, which contains my poem "Stone Sagas". If interested: http://www.poetsink.com/poetsinkreview/poetsinkreviewfeb09.htm.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Munyori Literary Journal- 5 Poems Accepted
The Munyori Literary Journal (http://www.munyori.com) has accepted five poems for acceptance for their March 9th online edition. The poems: On Footprints; On These Warmer Nights of Sleepwalking; National Anthem; Little Sun, Pinpricked Night; Oia Sequence.
I'm particularly excited as this online journal is based in Munyori, Kenya, which in addition to poems published in New Zealand, Fiji, and the UK, truly fill me with a delight and sense of purpose that supercedes publiations merely in the US...
I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the Editors...
I'm particularly excited as this online journal is based in Munyori, Kenya, which in addition to poems published in New Zealand, Fiji, and the UK, truly fill me with a delight and sense of purpose that supercedes publiations merely in the US...
I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the Editors...
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Love poems now up on Seven Circles Press
4 love poems previously accepted at Seven Cirlces Press (print edition this summer) is now available online at http://www.sevencirclepress.com/johnsibleywilliams.htm. They're part of an ongoing love poems book that circles and circles like a shark and is nowhere near completion....
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Winter Sequence, Santorini
Winter Sequence, Santorini
The children, spirited as early snowfall, still poke the mongrel dogs
and bored donkeys, but the zeal of cruelty has faded.
Each town has wasted its breath on summer. Shops deserted.
Vibrantly painted homes climbing steadily up from port
drained of contrast, without raw sun to reflect.
The giant tongue covers cloud and sky, unrolls over the street.
The sand I hold could be murderous ash cooled over centuries,
Minoan doom, or a dead man, more recent.
Cunning life begs as stray kittens, laps the milk now crusted
from tourist season, begs for more-
more water, more shells emptied of ocean,
more crosses and bells to appease or confront Nea Kameni-
more of what abounds. Never enough.
I read the varied initials of winter:
the dizzying handwriting on wind, the fading recollection
of gulls and footfall, a retreat to songs of despair and toil-
shows the character of naked rock, the blood it lets into the sea.
All things settle in different places
like the sun cradled low in the vineyards,
swallowing in bottles the sweet wine unsold,
or the island’s tense voice spoken up through feet, leg, heart,
in a seasonally lightened mezzo soprano.
The children turn their eyes on me,
myself an empty town sleeping,
but I’ve a longer stick, my weariness and regret
measured in calendars that have not witnessed them.
We all- leery children, treasonous tourist, ghostly streets,
eternal morning drifting out to sea- circle each other
with soft hands and dangerous claws, viewing our open veins
as if from a train window at midnight.
-in the upcoming River Oak Review
The children, spirited as early snowfall, still poke the mongrel dogs
and bored donkeys, but the zeal of cruelty has faded.
Each town has wasted its breath on summer. Shops deserted.
Vibrantly painted homes climbing steadily up from port
drained of contrast, without raw sun to reflect.
The giant tongue covers cloud and sky, unrolls over the street.
The sand I hold could be murderous ash cooled over centuries,
Minoan doom, or a dead man, more recent.
Cunning life begs as stray kittens, laps the milk now crusted
from tourist season, begs for more-
more water, more shells emptied of ocean,
more crosses and bells to appease or confront Nea Kameni-
more of what abounds. Never enough.
I read the varied initials of winter:
the dizzying handwriting on wind, the fading recollection
of gulls and footfall, a retreat to songs of despair and toil-
shows the character of naked rock, the blood it lets into the sea.
All things settle in different places
like the sun cradled low in the vineyards,
swallowing in bottles the sweet wine unsold,
or the island’s tense voice spoken up through feet, leg, heart,
in a seasonally lightened mezzo soprano.
The children turn their eyes on me,
myself an empty town sleeping,
but I’ve a longer stick, my weariness and regret
measured in calendars that have not witnessed them.
We all- leery children, treasonous tourist, ghostly streets,
eternal morning drifting out to sea- circle each other
with soft hands and dangerous claws, viewing our open veins
as if from a train window at midnight.
-in the upcoming River Oak Review
For Federico García Lorca
For Federico García Lorca
I found death happily
spinning old cloth
in my father’s basement.
I sat beside him
to embroider the plain vestments
but each stitch
blackened to ash
between my fingers.
His fat, nimble hands
just kept churning
fabric yards over the cold tiles,
though I asked him
to slow.
I was alone in the house.
I had a key.
My father had left
the procession.
Silence.
When the sun finally broke in,
it strengthened my thread
and in the light the garment
was black too, ashen,
my thread yellow.
Death just kept sewing
and in the silence
I began working hard
to catch up.
-published w/ Barnwood International @ http://web.mac.com/tomkoontz/Site_26/Williams.html
I found death happily
spinning old cloth
in my father’s basement.
I sat beside him
to embroider the plain vestments
but each stitch
blackened to ash
between my fingers.
His fat, nimble hands
just kept churning
fabric yards over the cold tiles,
though I asked him
to slow.
I was alone in the house.
I had a key.
My father had left
the procession.
Silence.
When the sun finally broke in,
it strengthened my thread
and in the light the garment
was black too, ashen,
my thread yellow.
Death just kept sewing
and in the silence
I began working hard
to catch up.
-published w/ Barnwood International @ http://web.mac.com/tomkoontz/Site_26/Williams.html
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Saturday, 2/17, Reading(s)
Updated Saturday reading schedule:
2:15-3:15pm
Brockton Library Poetry Series: http://gbspa.homestead.com/Calendar.html.
304 Main St, Brockton, MA
(and very likely)
8-10pm
Open Bark: stonesouppoetry.blogspot.com.
Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect St, Cambridge, MA
2:15-3:15pm
Brockton Library Poetry Series: http://gbspa.homestead.com/Calendar.html.
304 Main St, Brockton, MA
(and very likely)
8-10pm
Open Bark: stonesouppoetry.blogspot.com.
Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect St, Cambridge, MA
Monday, February 16, 2009
Stone Soup reading tonight- 2/16/09
I'll be reading at the open mic at Out of the Blue gallery in Cambridge again tonight, tea first at 1369 Coffehouse. I'm thinking a little political poetry might be in order, given the state of things. I'd love the support/friendly faces. I'm also seeking someone perhaps interested in filming the 5-10 minutes worth of me reading one of these Mondays. Huge favor payable in hugs, kisses, coffee, wine, or all of the above...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Stone Sagas- in newest The Journal and upcoming Poet's Ink
Stone Sagas
In Reykholt his statue inspects the old church’s
slight movements, doctrinal pauses before light
warms the wood pews, its garden of crosses
shaved from the hillside, also the sun-bleached
lava fields, fluttering mountains, awkward streams
keeping back the fjord’s distant glare, overseeing
the various separations.
The colorful doors of the scattered houses all close
in greeting. Winds panic from all sides,
graying the sky. My eyes stone in response
as I read the great sagas of our time,
those even history cannot shame.
In the margins I note such fear
solitude bears, its proximity to stone.
No music whistles from the land. No overtures.
No warnings. Only the brash noise
used to startle time into progressing.
The misspelled experiences. The old tongues
buffered by unyielding monuments
hands could never write or, in a definite image,
reshape.
In Reykholt his statue inspects the old church’s
slight movements, doctrinal pauses before light
warms the wood pews, its garden of crosses
shaved from the hillside, also the sun-bleached
lava fields, fluttering mountains, awkward streams
keeping back the fjord’s distant glare, overseeing
the various separations.
The colorful doors of the scattered houses all close
in greeting. Winds panic from all sides,
graying the sky. My eyes stone in response
as I read the great sagas of our time,
those even history cannot shame.
In the margins I note such fear
solitude bears, its proximity to stone.
No music whistles from the land. No overtures.
No warnings. Only the brash noise
used to startle time into progressing.
The misspelled experiences. The old tongues
buffered by unyielding monuments
hands could never write or, in a definite image,
reshape.
Confessional Hymns- in new Flint Hills Review
Confessional Hymns
Bless us, fertile new morning.
Bless the barrage of tangerine light
streaming through the thawing pines.
Bless the slight wisps penetrating within
these bedroom windows,
balancing upon her forehead.
To whoever misses the conch’s hermetic ocean voice
grinding and honking down the avenues,
bless those ears pressed to concrete
who know history never fully unfurls.
Bless the gathering hummingbirds
who resuscitate night’s lost shadows,
swarming into a single crab
splayed across our bedroom wall,
legs furiously kicking the air.
Bless the beasts conquered and belly up,
accepting without pretense the slaughter and their breath.
Bless all the things each sea coughs up.
Bless their ignorance, their well-lit tree within.
Bless the bountiful cold waves
sleep polishes our wounds,
our nightly flight taken with Icarus
and our awaking moments before the sea opens its mouth.
Bless the moment between waking and understanding,
when such purity of new morning blinds us
to what the night undid.
Bless us, fertile new morning.
Bless the barrage of tangerine light
streaming through the thawing pines.
Bless the slight wisps penetrating within
these bedroom windows,
balancing upon her forehead.
To whoever misses the conch’s hermetic ocean voice
grinding and honking down the avenues,
bless those ears pressed to concrete
who know history never fully unfurls.
Bless the gathering hummingbirds
who resuscitate night’s lost shadows,
swarming into a single crab
splayed across our bedroom wall,
legs furiously kicking the air.
Bless the beasts conquered and belly up,
accepting without pretense the slaughter and their breath.
Bless all the things each sea coughs up.
Bless their ignorance, their well-lit tree within.
Bless the bountiful cold waves
sleep polishes our wounds,
our nightly flight taken with Icarus
and our awaking moments before the sea opens its mouth.
Bless the moment between waking and understanding,
when such purity of new morning blinds us
to what the night undid.
Kafka- in Cadillac Ciccatrix
Kafka
Around the same time he affixed feathers, wings,
so too a wire-meshed pen,
and hunched over his meager seed allowance
commenced to peck at his cage.
Years forgot themselves
as housecats their missing claws
and though he pecked still
well after he’d razed the pen,
savagely attacking empty air
as if it held his freedom,
this ongoing dust worship
finally took the place of flight.
Around the same time he affixed feathers, wings,
so too a wire-meshed pen,
and hunched over his meager seed allowance
commenced to peck at his cage.
Years forgot themselves
as housecats their missing claws
and though he pecked still
well after he’d razed the pen,
savagely attacking empty air
as if it held his freedom,
this ongoing dust worship
finally took the place of flight.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Poet's Ink acceptance
A little good news on a frigid day. Poet's Ink just accepted my poem "Stone Sagas" for their February 2009 issue. It should be posted online soon at http://www.poetsink.com. This poem has been previously published by The Journal, which was just released last week, so it's wonderful to see it in two places, print and online. I've always felt strongly about this one, and after countless rejections, as usual, this news is a little stormcloud parter...
Reading tonight- Cambridge
If interested, I'll be reading at tonight's poetry open mic at Out of the Blue art gallery, via Stone Soup Poetry, in Central Square, Cambridge. Open mic is from 8-9pm, headlining poets from 9-10. I'll try to get to Cambridge early and, if so, will be at the 1369 Coffehouse, right around the corner. Cup o' joe on me.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Journal #25 now out
Issue #25 of The Journal, a UK based literary review with special interest in translations and Scandanavian work, is now out, with two of my poems, "Stone Sagas" and "Autumn Rain" included, the former written about a village in Iceland I visited a few years ago. Website: http://www.freewebs.com/thesamsmith/index.htm.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
New Issue of Ghoti
The Winter issue of Ghoti just came out, with a few of my older poems in it. http://www.ghotimag.com.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Barnwood International now online
I just received word today my poems "Left Hand" and "For Federico Garcia Lorca", taken by Barnwood, are now available online at http://web.mac.com/tomkoontz/Site_26/Williams.html.
Anyone else tired from watching balls on CNN all night? They are one striking, fun, and down-to-earth couple that cut quite a remarkable image few will soon forget.
Anyone else tired from watching balls on CNN all night? They are one striking, fun, and down-to-earth couple that cut quite a remarkable image few will soon forget.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Southern Ocean Review
So sad to hear Southern Ocean Review has printed its final issue, no. 50. It's a fantastic international journal from New Zealand publishing unique work from across the globe since 1996, edited by Trevor Reeves. I was lucky enough and feel honored to be published in their last edition, now available online and in print. Link: http://www.arts.org.nz/jsw.htm.
Thank you, Trevor, and best wishes...
Thank you, Trevor, and best wishes...
YES WE CAN!
On such a monumental moment, huddled with coworkers, clapping, some with tears welling up, I'm again struck that this is one of the first times in our generation the American and international public can be proud of our country. I truly feel for our new president. Not only are the difficulties handed down to him immense, but there's also this expectation in the air that no human can really achieve. We're expecting the world (literally) from him. Though he can only do so much, he has proved himself the perfect person to reach into all divides and lay waste to the faulty reasoning behind them. All my time in Europe has proved them expect as much. I try not to get too caught up in this belief in complete change. As much of this is in our hands as his. But if ever the time was right and if ever the right person was standing before us and if ever we've all been joined together to combat so many simultaneous struggles...it is now...and him...and it's hard not to think, perhaps, it will be our hands that will reshape our nation...
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Cambridge Reading This Monday, 1/19
Just one day before this historic inauguration, which will keep us all glued to the television, I'll be reading at an open mic in Cambridge. Stone Soup poetry meets every Monday at Out of the Blue art gallery in Central Square. Open mic between 8-9pm. This past Saturday's reading went incredibly well. I got to meet Martha Collins, an award winning poet who pulled me aside to compliment me after my reading, which was a wonderful surprise. The Brockton group is a very warm gathering hosted by a Pushcart nominee. Hopefully this Monday will be as successful...
Friday, January 16, 2009
Et Cetera Et Cetera Et Cetera
Actually just one of the above. My poem "Et Cetera" has been accepted today by The Evansville Review. It will be displayed in Volume XIX, out later in the year.
Question: If the work one likes the best is oft rejected and those which took less effort and that seem less polished are more easily accepted, does that say something about the industry/poetry reading editors or public, or does it say something about the author's ability to judge his/her own work?
Regardless, The Evansville Review is a rather decent one. Might see it at Barnes & Noble soon...
Question: If the work one likes the best is oft rejected and those which took less effort and that seem less polished are more easily accepted, does that say something about the industry/poetry reading editors or public, or does it say something about the author's ability to judge his/her own work?
Regardless, The Evansville Review is a rather decent one. Might see it at Barnes & Noble soon...
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