FIRST LITERARY REVIEW-EAST
JULY 2024
On a Mountain
If she stands on a mountain playing the flute and no one hears her, is she still in love?
—Beate Sigriddaughter
Beate Sigriddaughter, www.sigriddaughter.net, lives in Silver City, New Mexico (Land of Enchantment), where she was poet laureate from 2017 to 2019. Book publications include a poetry collection, Wild Flowers, and a short story collection, Dona Nobis Pacem. In her blog Writing in a Woman's Voice, she publishes other women's voices.
The journey from a long poem
to a short poem
can take a lifetime
—Eelka Franziska Lampe
Eelka Franziska Lampe, Ph.D., is a bi-lingual and bi-coastal writer/poet, and teacher of the healing arts. Her essays and poems have been published in diverse journals and anthologies, including TDR/The Drama Review; First Literary Review-East, The Ekphrastic Review; Remembering Rainer Maria Rilke, Haiku 2024 and others by Moonstone Press. Her recent poem “Trust in Color” was chosen to be posted at the entrance of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s Webster’s Woods Sculpture Park until June 2025.
Nash’s Rhyme
of “belly can” with “pelican”
constitutes a concise way to describe
a water bird that’s defined by the leathery
pouch that is known as its bill, though from it
the pelican can emit no trill …
—George Held
George Held publishes widely, in various journals, including First Literary Review-East, Blue Unicorn, and The Red Eft. His most recent book is Some Birds (Seattle: The Goldfish Press, 2024).
catching the eclipse
in a pot of water
don’t drink it
***
dad buries pennies
in the backyard
my trust fund
—Maria Jacketti
Maria Jacketti was born February 11, 1960, in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. To date, she is best known for her book-length translations of Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. These books were financed by grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the New York Council on the Arts. Her first collection of poetry, Medusa’s Hairdresser, was published in 1995 and remains available.
Little Things Mean a Lot (Erasure)
slow and steady
like a kiss or
love song
the stray cat kept time
with the music as summer rain
danced without end
—Patricia Carragon
[Published in Brevitas 20, an Anthology of the Short Poem, 2023]
Patricia Carragon’s poem “Wild Is the Wind” (Poets Wear Prada’s The Rainbow Project) received a Pushcart nomination. Her debut novel is Angel Fire (Alien Buddha Press). Her books from Poets Wear Prada are Meowku and The Cupcake Chronicles. She hosts Brownstone Poets and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology.
BEACH HAIKU
Under umbrella
I make my home—notebook, lunch,
sunglasses, poems.
BLUE-COLLAR HAIKU
faded denim sky
frayed, torn at the knee by clouds
ready for the wash
WORRY HAIKU
I turn over my
problems, all those straw dolls in
polka dot houses.
—Denise Duhamel
Denise Duhamel’s most recent books of poetry are Pink Lady (Pittsburgh, 2025), Second Story (2021), and Scald (2017). Blowout (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In Which (2024) is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.
Campsite, Block Island
We plunged through brush & bramble to get there, thorn of wild sea-rose tracing thin red scabs on our shins. We scaled low stone wall, found moss-cupped clearance between scrub tree & bush where we raised a tent for the night. Within ripstop nylon walls, we tumbled orbits round muscle & skin, sought out bluffs & hollows of each other. July’s damp breath between us as we lay spine to spine with earth, its sinuous roots. Above: leaf & star. I’ve made a green altar there, Shinto shrine where I go sometimes to love’s early days, ours, among crickets & katydids, musk of bayberry & blown salt. How long would it last, this rigged-up joy? We zipped a membrane between ourselves & coming storm, slam of waves in the distance. Next morning, tent’s a lantern, blazing light. Fragile scrim still standing. Us sun-dazzled inside it.
—Wendy Kagan
Wendy Kagan (she/her) lives, loves, writes, and mothers two teenage girls in New York’s Catskill mountain foothills. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in ONE ART, miniskirt magazine, Eunoia Review, and The Hyacinth Review. Wendy holds an MA in English from Columbia University. Her chapbook Blood Moon Aria was long-listed for the Yellow Arrow Publishing 2024 chapbook competition.
ABOUT
they want poems
that are “about”
this is
about that
WATER
the water colder
than the night
she bathes in it
the way the saints
her own voice
never quite a prayer
INFORMATION
The running gag included a rocking horse and a telephone book and a plate of linguine. The witness was no more than an owl that had been stuffed long ago. Each word spoken left a trail the others were required to follow.
—Bob Heman
Bob Heman's latest book, Washing the Wings of the Angels, has just been published by Quale Press. His words have been anthologized recently in Contemporary Tangential Surrealist Poetry: an anthology (SurVision Books), A Shape Produced by a Curve (great weather for MEDIA), and Dancing About Architecture (MadHat Press).
Cookie Monsters
My new app scans the hard drive
for cookies and swallows them whole.
Websites have grown wise to this,
have stopped trying to persuade me
that cookies provide improved service.
Now they may block access
if I decline their half-baked treat.
Like Don Corleone, they make me
a cookie I can’t refuse.
—George H. Northrup
George H. Northrup is a poet and psychologist in New Hyde Park, NY. He is the author of You Might Fall In (2014), Wave into Wave, Light into Light: Poems and Places (2019), When Sunset Weeps: Homage to Emily Dickinson (2020), and Old Caterpillar (2021).
Art Prof
I would send my students to sketch
at Museum of Modern Art
when I taught at City University.
Their college id's got them in free.
Many students drew Ed Ruscha's painting OOF
I thought because they thought
it was easy to draw.
But also
it spoke to them:
OOF
—EK Smith
EK Smith makes books at Purgatory Pie Press and writes books about making books, including the best selling How to Make Books. Since 2006, EK Smith has been a proud member of Brevitas and has also been published in Bob Heman's CLWN WR and writes the Distaff Side column for Mike Topp's Stuyvesant Bee.
Otter Jeux
For Susan on our 42nd Anniversary
Holding hands,
we nap on our backs;
mellowed from play,
from juggling rocks,
from sliding down banks.
We never look back,
but up at the clouds;
nonchalant and content,
knowing we can’t float
away from each other.
—Philip Venzke
Philip Venzke grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. His poetry is widely published in magazines throughout the U.S. and Europe. His chapbook Chant to Save the World was a winner of The James Tate International 2021 Poetry Prize (published July 2022 by SurVision Books, Ireland). His second chapbook, Rules to Change the World, was published by Finishing Line Press in November 2023. His poems also appear in Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Poetry (an International Anthology), edited by Jonas Zdanys (Lamar University Press, 2022).
Waste Your Love
until you surf-roll
a gull-hollowed horseshoe crab
decorating sand
until you split-fall
mighty oak lightning-struck
acorns spread like surf
until you are flesh
burned-dust-ash adrift at sea
waste your love spilling
seeds like wildflowers in
wind-crazed waves cluttering life
with reckless color.
—Catherine Arra
Catherine Arra is a native of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she lives with wildlife and changing seasons until winter when she migrates to the Space Coast of Florida. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous literary journals online and in print, and in anthologies. She is the author of four full-length collections and four chapbooks. A former high school English and writing teacher, Arra now teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com
This Is Just to Say
I am wearing your red hoodie sweatshirt
because you said it wouldn’t fit,
and it does,
because it is freezing here still,
and you are walking under palms,
because you will ask:
Don’t you have your own?
I don’t, but I found
on the cuff of the sleeve
a small coffee stain
shaped like a map,
which bridges the distance.
—Laurie Kuntz
Laurie Kuntz has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. She has published six poetry books, her latest title is That Infinite Roar (Gyroscope Press). Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila-Na-Gig, and other journals. More at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com/home-1
Call Me
Call me it’s so long now since I began
these travels knowing nobody feeling nothing
until the damp autumn weather penetrated deeply
enough that the wind might cut like an ice
dagger we left the city through the area you now
call docklands a silent place in your future
bustling waterfronts replaced by robot machines
assembling stacks of containers that reach
for the sky somewhere beyond this darkening sky
beyond this swirl of oil-slick water there is
the extreme dryness of an inland desert call me
and take me there let the heat harden my bones
leaving me fragile and I will sleep and dream
my way to your impossible future call me now.
—Paul Ilechko
Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, Southword, Stirring, and The Inflectionist Review. His first book is scheduled for 2025 publication.
The roof slightly slanted
so that far off to watch
by the window
the crowd the traffic
the gray buildings
everywhere
and the noisy highway
stretching like a ribbon
creasing the skirt of my mind
I slowly turn
into a ball
of flesh
to roll down the corridors
of such a sad and ugly world
—Ivan de Monbrison
Ivan de Monbrison is a bipolar French poet and artist living in Paris born in 1969.
La Ruche
Hive collapse distresses more than bees
whose drones grow moribund and leave their queens
in deadly cells, like monarchs on their knees
the Paris mob beheaded. No, it means
the narrow mono-cultures on our farms
with toxic herbicides have emptied hives
and like a silent Spring each spraying harms
not only nature but our sweetened lives.
Voila! The French who learned gastronomy,
that urban savoir-faire, have found that honey,
despite our socio-pathology,
cannot be had for love or ready money.
Elysian Fields will yield the sweetest flower
and endless bees now buzz the Eiffel Tower.
—Royal Rhodes
Royal Rhodes taught courses on global religions, death & dying, and social justice for almost 40 years. His poems have appeared in: The Lyric, Last Stanza, Abandoned Mine, Plum Tree Tavern, Seventh Quarry, and The Montreal Review. His art and poetry collaborations have been published by The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina.
Sewing curtains
All weekend long,
how quickly my needle
skips over hems.
We won’t have to look
at bricks anymore.
I bought a patch of
celestial blue to hang
from the kitchen window.
A few yards of green
velour in the bedroom
waving like soft meadows.
Green meadows will
keep city lights
from our eyes.
Sewing curtains all
weekend long.
Now that we have
found our own place
hidden from the world.
—Joan McNerney
Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over thirty-five countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for Michael and At Work are available on Amazon.com. A new title, Light & Shadows, has recently been released.
When the Waves Stop
Something besides the heavy hurl
of waves, heard long before seen,
brings Cape Hatteras back and back.
Something besides the beach grasses’
soft green wave, besides the wave
and smile of my parents when I stood
after a hurtle in the curled hand
of a wave, my child’s board-body
riding the surge. Something besides
the slap and smell of salt and fish
on a wide-awake wind. Is it the always-
there, rush and play of gulls’ flight
and child’s flight, that makes it all return
each dawn? Or, is it the night’s visitant:
a wave’s open hand, not coiling: waiting
to surfeit me on all possible eternities?
—Johanna Caton
Johanna Caton is a Benedictine nun of Minster Abbey in Kent, England. Although her vocation took her to England, she is actually an American and lived there until adulthood. She writes poems because the process helps her to understand the work of the divine presence in her life. She has been sharing her work with the public through various journals and reviews since 2017 and has had poems accepted by both online and print publications; many, but not all, are faith-based venues.
Blanket of Imagination
I’m draped, dark, warm
and misted in imagination
like a butterfly drifting—
wings in mindless
thermals, inky torso
dripping word sketches,
petals on paper
dancing. But the moths
are at it again. The holes leak
light like a hammer gun
nailing the petals in place
distracting me like an
etch-a-sketch
with a mind of its own.
—Richard L. Matta
Richard L. Matta grew up in New York’s rustic Hudson Valley, attended Notre Dame, practiced forensic science, and now lives in San Diego with his golden-doodle dog. Some of his work is found in Hole in the Head Review, Dewdrop, New Verse News (Pushcart-nominated in 2023), Healing Muse, and many international haiku journals.
lost id
search all you want
you’ll never find me
i’m hiding in a dream
cure
i walk
into a room
on the walls
are scenes
from my life
i erase some
frame others
memories
should be neat
—Jan Emerson
Jan Emerson lives, writes, and paints in New York City. She met JFK, saw the Beatles on their first American tour, and was present at the launch of Apollo 11. A Brown Ph.D. and former professor of German and Medieval Studies, she has published on Hildegard of Bingen and other medieval visionaries. Her poems have appeared in Brevitas 14–20, First Literary Review-East, and San Francisco Peace and Love. www.janemersonartist.com; Brevitaspoems.com
The Jerk
Age, you are a jerk.
How dare you arrive into my home, unwanted
Stealing my pride, my independence, my memories.
My loved ones fear you, as do I.
I fall down, but get back up, only to fall again.
My efforts are hopeless.
You will triumph in the end.
And when the battle is over,
I’ll be at peace,
But your presence will always be questionable.
—Donna Kwan
Donna Kwan lives, works and writes in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. "The Jerk" is her first-ever submission, even though she has been writing for her own pleasure for over three decades. Donna finds inspiration for her poems and stories in her personal experiences and kooky imagination.
[Editors’ Note: We are always pleased to give a worthy poet their first publication. Congratulations, Donna. May this be just the beginning of more success in the poetry world.]
Oars are Made to Float Sonnet
Like
anxiety
poetry
must
include
the
unknowable.
And
like
infinity
we’re
already
in
it.
—Randy Prunty
[from the manuscript Spare Sonnets]
Randy Prunty grew up in West Virginia and North Carolina and has lived in Atlanta and Boulder. He now lives in California with his wife, poet Elizabeth Robinson, and works as a bus driver in the Bay Area. In 2022 BlazeVOX published a collection of his poetry called Test Camp.