Web Poetry Wednesday #1

I've been writing and publishing my own poems here on my site for a little over a year now, but I wanted to do something to bring some exposure to other poets who are publishing their work online. Wednesdays have been a great day to discover web-published fiction, in part because of ErgoFiction's Webfiction Wednesdays series and the #webficwed hashtag on Twitter, so I thought I'd jump on that bandwagon with my own version, Web Poetry Wednesday.

Every Wednesday, I feature a list of 10 poems that I've found across the web: on blogs, in literary journals, etc. The only real criteria is that the poems must be publicly accessible, meaning that readers don't have to pay any sort of fee to access them, and the writer in question ought to be alive and still writing today. If you're a poet and you'd like to see your work featured in a future Web Poetry Wednesday post, send me a link to ONE (1) poem for consideration: you can submit your links through the site's Contact page, or you can tweet me a link through Twitter.

This week's poems:

• Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus by Valerie Valdes
  Maybe it's a bit of an old trope, but I have a soft spot for poems about creatures that use scientific names as titles. Valerie Valdes' poem about the platypus is one such poem. I love her use of description.
• Eurydice's Gambit by B.R. Belletryst
  I discovered B.R. Belletryst the other day through Twitter, and quickly fell in love with his poetry. "Eurydice's Gambit" is shorter than some of his other works, but it packs a punch. I especially like the first two stanzas.
• stillness by jorc
  jorc's "stillness" is an interesting take on religious poetry. The inclusion of drug references alongside religious icons like "burning bush" is a tough thing to pull off in a way that doesn't sound condescending, but jorc nails it.
• Exposed by Jaymie Thorne
  I really wanted to include Jaymie Thorne's "Exposed" for one reason: her use of different font colors to emphasize key portions of the poem. A stunt like that wouldn't work in a print document, but since we're dealing with online poetry and web browsers, it works well, especially in subtle moderation.
• One Grunt by Jude Goodwin
  I really love the imagery in Jude Goodwin's "One Grunt" -- "the sodbuster's son upon me / (one grunt for every nail)" is the kind of image that really sticks with me.
• When He Is Older by Joaquin Carvel
  While a bit longer than some of the other pieces featured this week, Joaquin Carvel's "When He Is Older" is really one of my favorites on the list, because it managed to encompass an entirely life in a few short stanzas. Interestingly, Carvel's poem is a response poem, written after the style of "When She Is Older," a poem by our next featured poet.
• Sleeping Through a Hurricane by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder
  I was really able to connect with Julie Buffaloe-Yoder's "Sleeping Through a Hurricane" on a personal level, because I remember being that child asleep on the floor in the hall during Hurricane Opal, listening to the trees beat the plywood my father had nailed over the windows.
• Syringa by Max Bouillet
  Max Bouillet's "Syringa" packs a lot of sharp description in a few short lines. I particularly like the line about "suicidal lilac trees."
• Which Bird Breaks the Light by Joseph Gallo
  Joseph Gallo's "Which Bird Breaks the Light" is a very soothing poem to me, with fantastic word choices throughout. It seems to me the type of poem I'd like to read just before going to sleep.
• after Nagasaki by Steven Schroeder
  Finally, I included Steven Schroeder's "after Nagasaki" because, as readers of my own work will know, I am fascinated with poetry written about World War II. Schroeder's poem, set in the aftermath of the second nuclear bombing of Japan, easily captures the tension of that period.

That's it for this week! Tomorrow, I'll be posting a new piece of Guest Poetry by poet Gay Reiser Cannon.