Tuesday, May 30, 2017

New Poetry by Jonathan Beale










Birth of the bridging epoch

1960’s

‘Everything is purged from this painting but art; no ideas have entered this work’, 1966 – 68, John Baldessari

This sprinkled form Jacques de la Villeglé
‘Angers’ 59 the shell was about to break and burst….
Within this conscience manipulation

This footprint to forge a path.

The ever decreasing decade – it speeds - on –
Crashing down as a pinball

Perceptions – dimensions from God to Giving Birth*
To the Arena.** To a new ethic another morality –
The politics grow evermore malleable identical to the core

Spaces grow into forms and naming becomes necessity…
by necessity. As the images grows into the fabric of society
from the whole sequence of Fibonacci one boby, one head,

two arms, Plica semilunaris***, five fingers….

In this strange mirror – the stress crack –
as it creates – reforms and cracks again –

as the artist becomes a philosopher breeding questions
from the title-less, strange, peculiar, abstract, obtuse.

as originality bred by gin and other elixirs. As too many
seeing to find take the wager ‘drugs are a bet with your mind.’°
Win. Lose what remains

Miles Davis’ discography II an effigy from Jean-Michel Basquiat
Stuns a bemused world a door opens.

All the things I know but of which I am not at the moment thinking 1.36P.M; June 15 1969, 1969 °°

*Monica Sjoo ‘God giving birth 1968
**Frank Moore Arena 1992
***Third eyelid
° Jim Morrison
°° Robert Barry


- Jonathan Beale 2017


Jonathan Beale has numerous poems published over 50 journals around the world. His work can be found in such books as ‘Drowning’ and ‘The Poet as Sociopath’ (Scar publications). His first collection of poetry ‘The Destinations of Raxiera’ is published by Hammer & Anvil. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Destinations-Raxiera-Jonathan-Beale-ebook/dp/B018F6GWQ6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1452199641&sr=1-1&keywords=jonathan+beale

His second volume is looking for a publisher and he is currently working on his third volume. And is included in Macabristas d'Honneur 

His work has recently been published in Anti Heroin Chic, Dissident Voices, Red Fez, Sheepshead Review, Aphelion, Linnets Wing, aaduna, Horror Sleaze Trash, et al. He studied Philosophy and lives in Surrey.



Tuesday, May 23, 2017

New Poetry by Michele Seminara










Second Coming

It seems I am the problem child, again.
Father speaking on Mother’s behalf
that nitrogen cold gaze.

I bathe in it; it burns —
it always burned.
But now my skin is bound
in bitter scales.

How forlorn, to be the black one;
I don't show it.
Let them beat their breasts
and rail — I won't.

Instead, I involute, secrete this note: 
beware the coming of the twice-born child.


- Michele Seminara 2017


Michele Seminara is a poet, editor and yoga teacher from Sydney. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Cordite, Mascara, and Tincture. She has published Engraft (Island Press, 2016) and a collaborative chapbook, Scar to Scar, with Robbie Coburn (PressPress, 2016). Michele is also Managing Editor of online creative arts journal Verity La. She blogs at https://micheleseminara.wordpress.com/. 

'Second Coming' is from Michele's forthcoming chapbook, HUSH, to be published by Blank Rune Press on 1 June. 

Tuesday, May 09, 2017

New Poetry by Natalie Crick










Swan

I scrub mouse blood from the floorboards
Imagining ice,
Imagining throats.
The dead stay dead.

A necked Swan
Sits disgraced,
The pale bone poking through, a
Sword rising from a lake
Sharp and still sheathed.
The bone is so white
I could have carved
It from wax,
Soft as bees,
A candle without a flame.

Forever Winter, the sky
Looks cold, pink as a clot
In the mouth
When the lights go out.


- Natalie Crick 2017


Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry published or forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including Interpreters House, The Chiron Review, Rust and Moth, Ink in Thirds and The Penwood Review. This year her poem, 'Sunday School' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Thursday, May 04, 2017

From the Eye of the Storm

Colin Dodds
Brooklyn, NY 2017


Regular readers of Bluepepper will likely be familiar with the name Colin Dodds, but as a poet rather than a novelist. Judging by his bibiography, however, it would be fair to judge Dodds as a novelist first and a poet second. Such distinctions are, of course, a personal matter, but any writer with six novels already under his belt, three collections of poetry, as well as two screenplays, has a fair claim to call himself anything he wants. On top of a string of awards, Dodds has won what many may regard as the ultimate accolade from no lesser a light than the great Norman Mailer himself, who said of Dodds’ novel, The Last Bad Job, that it showed “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Having raced through Dodds’ latest offering, Watershed, in only a handful of sittings, I have to agree with Mailer (not something I am in the habit of doing). The style is simple, uncluttered, but the writer has a gift for magical turns of phrase as well as a natural ear for rhythm. Francis Bacon’s famous quip about “the burden of the conveyance” springs to mind: there is none of it here.

From the opening line I defy any reader worth the name not to feel themselves hooked:

Raquel figured if they were going to kill her, Tyra probably wouldn’t have taken so much time explaining the parachute.

And so the roller-coaster ride begins.

Raquel is, ironically, one of the least interesting characters in this admittedly crowded novel, even though she is the narrative pivot. Actually, more like the eye of the storm, the still point. The storm was already raging well before she found herself strapped to a parachute thousands of feet above the earth., which is why Raquel found herself in this situation in the first place. It’s not that she’s exactly dull. The woman is far from dull, but she is a facilitator-by-proxy around whom others act, or react to forces acting against her. She is beautiful and smart to the point of being cursed  rather than blessed. 

Like the start to any great novel, the reader feels as though they have opened a door onto another world, in this case onto a mystopia (my term for a mild dystopia), a recognisable enough world just knocked a little off kilter. In a world of Brexits, Syrias and President Trumps, this mystopic movement in literature is fast becoming a crowded market place. But Dodds writes with restraint, not forcing either the pace or the tone of the novel. Perhaps the closest he comes to testing the reader’s credulity is in a bizarre re-enactment of the September 11 attacks in which convicted criminals are forced to fly planes into replica Twin Towers, but the whole spectacle is portrayed so convincingly, complete with the voluntary martyrdom of an alt-cult “Ludlite” inside one of the buildings in a futile protest against the anaesthetising effects of the digital age, that even this jaded reader had no trouble buying it. The “Ludlites” are a seemingly spontaneous movement of young people against the digital “Web” in all its ubiquitous manifestations. They decry leaders or any form of manipulation or compulsion, but as is the way with such well-meaning attempts to “correct” the course of history, leaders emerge armed with pretty words and nefarious motives. In this case it is a mysterious figure known as “The Geometress”, although she is far from the only shadowy figure in a novel which is in large part an exploration of people’s motives in a world whose moral compass appears all but broken. Sound familiar? Welcome to mystopia.

In fact, perhaps the only character in this novel whose motives remain clear and honest throughout is Norwood, into whose arms Raquel literally lands in the most bizarre of circumstances at the very start of the novel. The most opaque character of all, and the real driving force of the novel, is the millionaire Rudolf, nee Hurley, nee Ostanze, a corrupt ex-senator who appears to be inhabited by some mysterious entity that has allowed him to live for a very very long time, the hints are for millenia. I would say more about him, but any review of such a frantic narrative requires so many spoiler alerts as to render any overview almost unreadable. And unnreadable is something this novel most definitely is NOT.

If our review copy is anything to go by, Dodds appears to be putting this novel out under his own imprint. It begs the question why some major publishing house hasn’t taken this title on. But more and more writers at the moment appear to prefer the autonomy of self-publishing. I can think of at least half-a-dozen publishers, however, who would give this novel a great deal of consideration. Any publishers out there who happen to follow Bluepepper, and who may be interested, can purchase an advance copy by clicking on the novel's title at the top of this review. The only slight reservation Bluepepper had with the novel was with the rather fiery denouement, but on a second reading it sat better, reminding this reader that it is beholden on us as much as the author to hold all the threads together.

- Justin Lowe
Bluepepper 2017


New Poetry by Jim Zola










My Two Cents of Reasoning is Spent

The world rides on top of a butterfly, 
a ladder leans into nowhere. My shadow 

plays a shadow song. Inside the piano, 
keys caw. The night is bright green between 

black branches. A mouth opening wide 
enough for death. Here comes the train. Wider. 

Stars pop and salt the air. This is to say 
sadness stands outside me, a stranger

in a monkey mask. I wait for him 
to ring the buzzer. He lifts one arm. Then the other.


- Jim Zola 2017



Jim Zola has worked in a warehouse, as a security guard, in a bookstore, as a teacher for Deaf children, as a toy designer for Fisher Price, and currently as a children's librarian. Published in many journals through the years, his publications include a chapbook -- The One Hundred Bones of Weather (Blue Pitcher Press) -- and a full length poetry collection -- What Glorious Possibilities (Aldrich Press). He currently lives in Greensboro, NC


Tuesday, May 02, 2017

In case you hadn't noticed, dear reader, we live in interesting times. Alert but not alarmed is our running credo at Bluepepper, and in line with that policy we are currrently

CALLING ALL POETS


Bluepepper believes that perhaps now more than ever this troubled rock needs the wisdom only poetry can distil, so get out your quills and parchment and submit per the guidelines at the top of the sidebar.