10x3 plus PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATIONS 2008

from issue #2:

"Talk" by Michael Gessner
"Dust" by Debra Pallone Parks
"Little Boy, little boy" by Debra Pallone Parks

from issue #3:

"Aubade" by John Kay
"Inversions #1-#8" by Jesse Weiner
"Air, Earth, Fire, Water" by Lisa Zimmerman

Congratulations to all nominees and thank you for contributing your poetry to 10x3 plus. Good luck with the Pushcart Prize and the recognition you deserve.

Hamilton Stone Review #16 - Laura Treacey Bentley and Sue Ann Simar

Please check out the Hamilton Stone Review, an online review currently featuring a West Virginia issue (poetry, stories, non-fiction).

Laura Treacey Bentley, who was a 10x3 plus poet in issue #2, has three poems in the issue. Sue Ann Simar, editor of 10x3 plus (and this blog), also has poems included.

There is a link on this blog site, which will take you right to the Hamilton Stone Review and some worthwhile reading. The #16 issue of HSR was edited by Meredith Sue Willis.

Bound by the Laws of This World: 1968 - Susan Grimm

Blonde, blonde, blonde--there was a halo
melting around my head. Licking between
the chocolate wafers of an ice cream bar
in the lunchroom, I contemplated what Sister
had warned could be done with the tongue.
Listening, our faces had been smooth
as rain. But the smell of the earth
was thickening like incense. The swing
of the pleats brushed our thighs. We sensed
combustion, something breaking apart.
And the bars of the fire escape spelled
burn, reassembled, the iron steps leading
down from the deep lady blue of the sky.

*

At fifteen, some girls are already women
in the way they dispose their limbs. They can
make their uniforms look slutty; they would never
be called to be mother to God. Their bodies
curve and fret like horses, heads tossing,
long slender legs, beautiful glowing rumps
like continents in vastness, in mystery.

*

J.M.J.--I.N.R.I.--Not J.P. loves S.G.
Yes, Sister. I am a sister, too, a child
of God, a weak vessel, an unformed amphora
dried out in this sun, a tree rooted
in silence, sap curdling like phlegm
in my throat. Wand thin, I have
no magic. It's night. The celery-sick
walls rise up around me, the glass
in the door winks, as if it were still
the Middle Ages, and only this thought,
only this celebration may be lit up.

*

Walking home from school, stopped
on the bridge above the river, legs angled,
arms braced on the rail, I'm an arrow looking up,
pointing at the eye of God, the clouds
brushed and gray like feathers. I'm not
interested anymore. The bridge, its triangles
hum behind me, under my feet. I'm waiting,
stretched, like that long piece of steel,
trembling, while everything else moves.


Susan GRIMM,
First published in LAKE ERIE BLUE,
BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City

Daddy's Song - Susan Grimm

He has bought a new shirt, slipped it
from its cellophane sleeve, to please a woman.
The night birds stretch their necks and gargle
at the moon. Oh, love, love. He is not looking
at the stars, twisted like tinsel. They cost
nothing; they are too far away. He puts
a ring on her finger instead. The birds fly
to the family Bible, claw over its leaves.
New names are added to the march down the page.
The diagram deepens, widens--each child
a finger reaching, a leg, a piano key.
Light snow on the fields as he drives home;
dark lines of the earth winning through.
The night birds sing low and red.


Susan GRIMM,
First published in LAKE ERIE BLUE,
BkMk Press, Univeristy of Missouri-Kansas City

Land of the Pharaohs - Jefferson Carter

I like being called "brother"
by black men. I like walking past
Land of the Pharaohs
& being invited in by the brothers
to bless them with a poem.
"Brothers," I say, "brothers,
please no keyboards, no congas,
let me lay something white & uptight
on you brothers." I recite my poem
about Martians & Geiger counters,
its conclusion an ironic invitation
to Jesus to drop by some morning
for coffee. They hate it.
The brothers hate it
but they're polite, not like Kerouac
at the Living Theater
heckling Frank O'Hara
or the Academy Awards audience
mocking poor Sally Fields
when she said "You
like me! You really do
like me!" The brothers forgive me
as they'd forgive a flying nun
who alighted among them
& roosted, preening, while a brother
recited his hip-hop poem called
"Kill the White Muthafuckers."


Jefferson CARTER
First published in SENTIMENTAL BLUE,
Chax Press

Strep Throat - Jefferson Carter

I sleep in my son's bed,
his comforter billowing
over me like meringue,
the poems of Che Guevara
under my pillow.
When my wife comes home,
she lets the dog in,
the dog who loves me
unconditionally. What did
Che call his apolitical friends?
Drunks, singing, their throats
about to be cut. The dog
loves me for myself, morose,
apolitical, the tang of penicillin
on my skin & he scuttles
down the hall, wondering
where I am, finally
wriggling the comforter
aside & draping himself
over my head like
someone's flung beret.


Jefferson CARTER
First published in SENTIMENTAL BLUE,
Chax Press

10x3 Plus - the word gets around

If you google The Montserrat Review and read Book Review Editor Grace Cavalieri's "Best Books for Fall Reading, 2008," you will see 10x3 plus listed under Best Chapbooks. 10x3 plus is a poetry journal and not a chapbook, but I will take any recognition for the magazine. Grace Cavalieri has a strong history of supporting the arts and her mentioning the magazine in The Montserrat Review has made me smile, and smile, and smile. The word does get around. So is this NAME RECOGNITION and BRANDING? I hope so!

Late Fire - Laura Treacy Bentley

I think it is all light at the end; I think it is air
Larry Levis, "The Quilt"

The poet told us Yeats came to him in a dream
and said, "Passion is everything."

He repeated the words again
as if somehow we hadn't heard.

Then he began to read,
the summer sun streaming through the windows,
the microphone flashing like starlight.

The next day
he went swimming in a lake.

I saw his body crack the surface of the water,
as he swam under that July sun.

His wake lapped against the shore,
covering my bare feet like laughter.

This summer
he is dead.

Just before he died,
he'd been working on a single line,

over and over.
"One late fire

burning beside a field."


Laura TREACY BENTLEY
First published in CONTROLLED BURN,
Collected in LAKE EFFECT, Bottom Dog Press

Seeing - Tomas de Faoite

What does seeing the light mean?
Being enlightened? Seeing a vision
Not made of my own seeing?

The face of God in the dark
Left behind by the rays of the sun?

Seeing Gandhi wearing a monocle
On an Indian carpet during meditation?

Leaving the body briefly? No, no.
I have seen the light
And it was so ordinary.

I looked long and hard at an elder tree
Until its boughs turned pink.
I looked long and hard at ivy
In a ditch until it turned blue.
And I said, forget the master-

Pieces, forget Van Gogh, Vermeer.
Who needs hands when we can paint
With our eyes; the light,
The delight of seeing things
As they are, were, and will be.


Tomas DE FAOITE
First published in GREEN FATHER,
Poezie-uitgeverij WEL

Stairs - Tomas de Faoite

I

You are coming down the stairs my son.
And I can hear you.
You see the light come from beneath
The kitchen door. You know I'm up.

I'm already there with you in mind.
I want to run out and exceed
All my previous limitations;
To fold you in my arms and sing.

But the time is not this moment.
So come on down the stairs.
Tiptoe to your heart's desire.
I can hear you coming down.

And there you are saying, Papa,
Papa,
Ik ben wakker. Ik ben wakker.
A son's lullaby to his father.

II

Up you rise to meet my eyes,
Up you rise into attic light,
Into a room now complete
Emptied of unwanted things.
Your cot is by the window,
You are asleep in my dreams.

Your mother's breasts weep
Whenever you cry, as I weep
Sometimes, in another way.
Outside conditions are arctic-
Like, Siberian winds, hungry
Herons, fish nosing the ice.

Down the narrow stairs
You come in the cradle
Of your mother's arms,
Into the living room
For the first time, into
The midst of our lives.

III

They are parked for the night
Up against the settee, Gregor's
Lorries, cranes and motor cars.
How silent they are, how real too,
Like real lorries parked in a yard
Somewhere.
In the morning
They'll be on the move again
Making long distant journeys
Across the sitting room floor
On into the kitchen
Up the stairs to his room,
And back down again,
Back down for the night
To their parked positions,
Noses against the settee,
Their engines turned off,
Fast asleep, upstairs,
In bed.


Tomas DE FAOITE
First published in GREEN FATHER,
Poezie-uitgeverij WEL

Five Meditations on Hair - Lisa Zimmerman

1.
My first-born daughter's bald head crowned
in the slate room before dawn
though hours would climb down the stairs of my body
before she emerged whole, glistening.
In high school she would dye her long hair black
because being blonde was overrated.

2.
The second daughter shaved half her head
when the P.E. teacher confessed to class
she had breast cancer. Two years later that daughter
shaved off all of her abundant red hair and I said
not beautiful. And I thought Dachau.

3.
My boy's first haircut was at age two.
He had curls. They fell like pale feathers
beneath the girl's swift scissors.

4.
When my son was fourteen I showed him
all the gray hair in my bangs.
He said It looks like tinsel.
Last August he got his head buzzed for Kung Fu.
He looked like a Marine. I say The war in Iraq
cannot have him.

5.
The filly is as tall as the mare. They stand together
against the fence like sisters. I comb her long black tail.
Tucked inside, near the bottom, is a black corkscrew
of hair. It is the first tail, the one she was born with.


Lisa ZIMMERMAN
First published in THE LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING,
Anhinga Press

Karma - Lisa Zimmerman

I could love you once then let you go
alive in a life I cannot keep
but I'd rather burn than die that slow.

Your hair, your breath, your eyes I know
from another time, some quantum leap
I could love you once then let you go.

A hundred years of wind could blow
the candles of the past asleep
but I'd rather burn than die that slow.

Beyond the meadow, beyond the glow
of sunlight brushing this hill of sheep
I could love you once then let you go.

The wreck of sex, the dive, the flow
into each other so true and deep
but I'd rather burn than die that slow.

To know you now, to want you so
I dream your ribs, your hands, I weep
I could love you once then let you go
but I'd rather burn than die that slow.


Lisa ZIMMERMAN
First published in THE LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF EVERYTHNG,
Anhinga Press

Coyotes in the Ditch - Lisa Zimmerman

Sometimes in summer we wake
to their high-pitched chorus
carried across the rope of sleep.
Night sky abates and becomes
pasture, becomes singing--
horses stir and rustle,
the moon's white fangs pierce
chinks in the barn.

When you tell me you listened
to a pack in full daylight
take an animal down, bone by bone
in the snowy ditch--
we imagine a February calf
as the prize, imagine
the tender throat exposed.
All day you couldn't shake
that gleeful barking.

Tonight the farmer's cows across the road
low endlessly, their calves vanished
into the dark interior of trucks at dawn.
Beyond the string of fence the coyotes
begin their refrain.


Lisa ZIMMERMAN
First published in THE LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING,
Anhinga Press

On a Personal Note - Sue Ann Simar

Thanks to the many well-wishers who have provided me with support and encouragement during the past five months of surgeries and treatments. I'd like to refer everyone who is going through any kind of personal tribulation to Martin Turner's blog site (linked here), which has a section of interdenominational prayers included. I've found particular comfort in the words of Thomas Merton, St. Augustine, and the Sarum Primer.
Martin's web site as a whole makes for interesting reading. His writing skill is unsurpassed, and I want to remind everyone that you can read five of his poems in issue #2 of 10x3 plus.

I've started reading for the 2009 issues of 10x3 plus, and if any readers have any poems that they'd like to submit that read like litanies or prayers, I would be interested in reading them. Please keep in mind that I am not doing a Sunday school handout, but editing a literary magazine so all submissions would have to have solid literary merit to be considered. I'm interested in poetry, not preaching.

Again, 10x3 readers and contributors, thank you-thank you-thank you
for helping me with the mag and for helping me distribute the mag and for keeping me on task these past few months.

Each kindness has been a gift,

SAS

News from Pennsylvania

SPRING CHURCH BOOK COMPANY is going out of business and owner Britt Horner is "winding down" to "concentrate on my garden and my reading--and our new granddaughter, Quincy." SPRING CHURCH sells POETRY and has an inventory of older books, which may not be available online or anywhere else. You can contact Britt at SPRING CHURCH BOOK COMPANY, PO Box 27, Spring Church, Pa. 15686, phone 1-800-496-1262. Readers of poetry will miss the specialized service that Britt has provided for 35 years. Did I forget to mention that all books are now 50% off? And Britt has often been known to slip an extra chapbook or book into an order.
SPRING CHURCH will be missed--I'm not aware of any other poetry source to take its place.

MICHAEL WURSTER has been waylaid with medical problems and will not be submitting any new poems in the immediate future. Hopefully, Michael will recover fully and some of his work will appear in 2009 issues of 10x3 plus. Here is the address for anyone desiring to send a card or best wishes: Michael Wurster, Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, PO Box 4279, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15203-0279.

Reservation - Carol L. R. Shaw

You send me letters, the wisdom of Black Elk
the Dakota elder. Point to the scars
that have accumulated on my skin. Then point
in the four directions. Leave me spinning.

I tell you, my grandfather was a man of two skins,
a survivor of a collision of worlds. I am
a child of divided countries, offspring of cultures
that war beneath my skin, divide my limbs.

Seven years ago my doctor says I am pale,
my skin is too white, insists I keep a dream journal,
recommends a vision quest, points to the patterns
shaped across my skin.

You send me crystals in raw form, willow hoops
wrapped in leather with colored feathers.
And I recall Jung saying four is the natural
division of the circle, the symbol of totality.

A fire burns inside the round pit. I consider
the burnt out shells of branches. Ash white
and still round in their sacrifice. Study
fingertips, the roundness of stars.

Lost in reflection I drift on a bed of sage,
wait for my skin to unite and awaken me.


Carol L. R. SHAW
This is part 2 of a 3-part poem. Part 3 "Strange Medicine" appeared in 10x3 plus #1.
Carol writes of the entire 3-part poem: "My grandfather was half-Indian, his life was hard. He had what many would consider unusual ways about him."

Creator Said - Sue Ann Simar

The rain weeps rust through summer heat,
calls out its praise for greenery. "Who,"
I ask, "is my inventor?"

Scarlet shreds of paper light

Hold me in this double space

Read me into asteriks

Snow or star or

* One frame of reference

* One burnt-up meteor

Creator Said

I want to lie on the walls of the museum

*

Confined to the wall and confirmed by the wall,
increased by the wall and recognised.
The ripple of these fingertips
and underneath a fingertip,
and through an eye and in a dream,
the structure of a strand of sleep,
an object and an observation,
Birth, because I visualize a body.


Sue Ann SIMAR
"Creator Said" first appeared in Passager.

My Aunt in America - Jesse Weiner

In 1946, my aunt from europe,
who was living in treblinka
when it was liberated by russian troops,
came to america, married a
bakery and cooked stuffed cabbage soup
with cheap fatty flanken which left
huge bubbles of strong flavored fat
floating, separating, joining.

when my aunt from europe got rich,
she used leaner meat,
ground sirloin to stuff the cabbage,
less rice and the soup wasn't as good as before,
sliced white bread rather than corn rye,
frozen dinners instead of pierogen.
when she fried she used fine olive oil
and mayonnaise in the chopped liver
instead of schmaltz,
and she was glad to forget the taste
of europe, the smoke of kishinev in 1903,
the smells of kielce in 1946 and
the ovens, always the ovens.

my aunt from europe learned to speak
without an accent, to dress like manhattan
instead of brooklyn, to shed each skin
after each finished season.
she told me- be an american, be
a human being instead of a jew.


Jesse WEINER
"My Aunt in America" first appeared in The Black Bear Review.

10x3 plus, #2 issue of poetry journal published and ready for distribution

Scott from On Track Communications delivered the magazine this past weekend and the mailers arrived today so I am ready to begin distribution. The journal looks so professional--On Track did a thorough job, as usual. Helene Lacelle's artwork printed crisp and clear, and the writing is varied, focused, great. First copies will be going out to the contributors (listed below), and then I will be filling orders and sending to libraries, other poets, creative writing programs, and organizations like Poet's House and the Wick Poetry Center. Anyone with suggestions on where to publicize and distribute the mag, please contact me. I also love hearing feedback--please make my ears burn.

More information is available at the web site: http://www.10x3plus.com/

If you have problems opening the web site, try googling 10x3 plus. Yes, it comes up now, or you can google Simar 10x3 plus.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this issue--especially the poets and the cover artist who were so generous with their work.

Love you all,

Sue Ann Simar

Guy R. BEINING--regarding DOLLOP 1-12--letter to Sue Ann Simar

3/2/08--Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Dear Sue Ann Simar,

Yesterday received your probing letter concerning Dollop 1-12. I'm going to comment on your inquiries as they fell in your letter. First, I'm sure you're above normal regarding work & images, being a poet and an editor, you'd have to be. Then you say that you still don't completely get the dollops. Dollop one, for example, is just a ruinously sad appraisal of the world today. Next you feel that "dollops seems almost an excuse for the larger work to get off easy and not have an overall cohesiveness." My take is that titles are overrated. Take that god awful poem Trees that every school child had to read. Yes, it is about trees. So what? Do you need labels to read poetry? Between 1978-1990, I wrote a long work entitled STOMA. I got up to over 2000 Stoma poems before I was done. Giving titles to each poem would have added nothing. I sometimes go for long periods where I title each poem, so it's not completely laziness. Must there be overall cohesiveness? Perhaps that makes me a laborer of poems rather than one who wants to compartmentalize. Then you say, "I may get a glimpse but it's like catching a shadow." That appeals to me & might irritate someone else. Poetry to me is the most powerful medium of all, but should not be reined in so easily. This next part in your letter I really like, even the "words without paints" part. You believe that they have a painterly quality & stage presentation. This is insightful on your part & emphasizes my concepts about poetry. It is theatre, art, etc. I've had art pieces in Vispo shows, i.e. visual poetry, & that is more direct but poetry is a thing to play with & not be boxed in by, as academia has done for years & years so they can have all those poetry workshops.
You like 4, 5, 6, 9, & 11 & you like the haiku man & wished that he were present sooner. Might have solidified things in your view, but as you can guess, I don't think much of haiku poets. I have appeared in haiku magazines but find most haiku poets are on the smug side, so he was rude in his entrance into this set of poems. Very typical. I agree with you on #6. It works well as it plays with a Dickinson poem. I also agree that the five poems you selected as best are probably the best of the 12 works. So you honed them down well......"



dollop 6. dollop 9. dollop 11. ---> These poems appear in the #2 issue of 10x3 plus.
Guy R. Beining does not use or have a computer, but the letter excerpt above and his poetry appear here with his permission.

dollop 4. - Guy R. Beining

the better strands of a day
had been abandoned.
someone had drawn
portions of a dream,
lifting up parts from
a circular drum while all pretenders
were left baring a common fiction.
a girl stood in the middle
of a road; her cheek bled.
fast forward to where
the girl's detached head
was set up as a bomb
which blew up a grocer
who had tried to rescue it.
such a sweet sweep of things
steeped in greed.
will a posse rule this dusty strip,
or will we just preen
as history gets soundly slapped?


Guy R. BEINING
from his series dollop 1-12.

dollop 5. - Guy R. Beining

the flurry of strings
must have numbed her
& the feeling of some terrible
sting was close behind,
or perhaps a sick wave
might spill onto the
attraction of her piece.

will the water remain calm
in backdrop of artist's loft,
knowing that in the nagging
onslaught the bowery will sing
without tweeds or longing?
was she thrown into emberness?
the statue of her eyes
chip away at me, & like a poet,
she stands off center.
the ballroom was blue & unmoved
& blended in with the sky.
the shell was that part left untouched.


Guy R. BEINING
from his series dollop 1-12.

A Simple Prayer

God, known in many ways, God, called by many names,
nurture within us an abiding respect for one another.
Remove from our hearts all violence and hatred. Replace
it with a passion for justice and peace.

10x3 plus

10x3 plus is a journal of poetry. The focus of 10x3 is to publish ten poets times three poems or three poets times ten poems. The plus includes poems, prose-poems, and features such as Jesse Weiner's The Structure of Complex Symbols. Poets can find submission information on the web site: http://www.10x3plus.com/.
The magazine was founded in 2007 and is professionally printed.

Hopefully, this blog site will display news and poems of 10x3 writers, and also news and poems of other poets.

Anyone with Say about the art of poetry is invited to participate.