Review Press Release Gary Beck’s Double Envelopment Collected Poems by Robin Ouzman Hislop


 
Double Envelopment is a page poetry book. Available in paperback with a retail price of $14, ISBN: 978-1-910718-58-2. Published by Purple Unicorn Media.
 
 
Gary Beck has long been a contributor to Poetry Life and Times Artvilla.com over the last decade. In his recent collection of poems Double Envelopment, a collection in response to harsh conditions affecting many of our people, who only want a better future for their children, to quote the author, we already feature some of his poems under the title heading Liberty in Ashes. Beck is a prolific writer, his output over the years is awe inspiring. But what is notable about all his work is his unswerving adherence to style, a particular style, which he never varies from. And this is what is, in my view, one of the most intriguing factors about his works as a poet. It is of course an impeccable style crafted with an expertise at the medium he wishes to portray. His stanzas, often minimal are succinct and pointed directly at the critique he adopts. In fact it is true of most of his works that I have read they are a socio cultural critique viewed from many different perspectives, but always with a compassionate reflection towards the underprivileged and their hardships. Reading his work you follow stanza after stanza in a crisp terse deliberation, that superficially may look simplistically written but in fact are profound and more easily accessible in the form he reaches in them for the reader. Again Beck is a citizen of the USA and much, all in fact of his work centres around its socio cultural milieu. Yet his work is wider than that and finds an appeal and reach of a common humanity that we all embrace. It is a form of poetics that is highly original in its content, because at first glance you are forced to question is this poetry or merely a narrative prose. It is only as you follow the way he develops a theme leading it in its subject matter to deeper enquiry, that you begin to see the subtlety of turn in each stanza poem, of which he seems to have become an adapt of past master, rather easier to test than you might imagine, as when you would attempt to imitate one of his own renditions. Double Envelopment has recently been published and is available at…. http://www.purpleunicornmedia.com/double-envelopment-gary-beck.html

Urban Sight

The creaky, old homeless woman,
ravaged by unmet demands
pulls her cart of broken dreams
as she trudges unkind streets
that do not welcome outcasts,
concrete without compassion
for relics of once normal lives.

Removal

Winter winds blow harshly
on the abandoned homeless
marooned on city streets
‘til rain and snow drive them off,
no choice but to leave behind
cardboard signs imploring aid,
cardboard mattresses, cardboard blankets
decomposing from the torrent
that washes away the last hope
for primitive survival
before eradication.

Share and…

The great divide
between haves and have nots
is never wider
then at Christmas,
when the wealthy celebrate
on their super yachts
with epicurean pleasures,
while many huddle
in pubic housing
without heat, amenities,
each day a struggle
to endure poverty,
while only a few
can better the lives
of their disadvantaged children 

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 3 poetry collections, 14 novels, 3 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 5 books of plays. Published poetry books include: Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order, Contusions, Desperate Seeker and Learning Curve (Winter Goose Publishing). Earth Links, Too Harsh For Pastels, Severance, Redemption Value, Fractional Disorder, Disruptions, Ignition Point, Resonance and Turbulence (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Double Envelopment). Motifs (Adelaide Books). His novels include Extreme Change (Winter Goose Publishing). State of Rage, Wavelength, Protective Agency, Obsess, Flawed Connections and Still Obsessed (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Call to Valor). His short story collections include: A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing). Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Essays of Gary Beck (Cyberwit Publishing). The Big Match and other one act plays (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume 1 and Plays of Aristophanes translated, then directed by Gary Beck, Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume II and Four Plays by Moliere translated then directed by Gary Beck (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume III). Gary lives in New York City.
 
 
 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Gestation. A Poem by Bonnie Bostrom

Gestation


I want to capture a poem;
                   There are thousands swirling
				In my midnight room.

I stalked one into the kitchen
	Where it joined me for a graham cracker
And peanut butter sandwich (crunchy style)
		Along with a fistful of Fritos.

Back in bed,

One shared my pillow and asked ridiculous questions like—
		What is the first name of Aristotle?
And…..
			Why the hell do you keep doing this?
		
		I am in deep desire for the orgasmic climax
Of a poem sought and seduced
			I		nto a stand still
While these dervish lines flying 
			Around my room avoid me, yet tease with 
Flash glimpsed images. 

There is no satiety without the sentences lying
		Layer by layer on a page
				Like the blankets on this bed of torture
Where the very best my mind can muster
							Escapes 
				Before congealing into meaning.

I sift through a thousand partial pictures looking
			 		For that nascent combination of words
	That will condense, make sense and lead to
				Parturition 

Bonnie Bostrom has been writing poetry since she mastered cursive. She has published eight books, both solo and in collaboration: The WayShowers, Women Facing Retirement: A Time For Self-Reflection, Quicksilver Dreams, Buddha Nature of the Soutwest, Image & Word: A Dialectic, Born Crazy, Love, Always Love, and Duet. Born Crazy, a memoir, received an Eric Hoffer Finalist Award. She lives in New Mexico with her husband, Jim. Her website is www.bonniebostrom.com.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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St.Francis. A Poem by Peter Mladinic

St. Francis

Katie Zwerling, leave everything behind
and come with me to St. Francis,
a little town way up in Maine, way up
there, way out there. When people say
out in the middle of nowhere they mean
this place, surrounded by logging roads

cleared a hundred years ago so trucks
could haul logs to populated places.
You’ve seen roads surrounded by trees.
These roads are really surrounded by trees!
You drive on, it’s a bit scary. Nothing’s
around these winding dirt roads but trees

and this town, where we could settle
in a house with heat, air conditioning. 
Would the house have central air?  Maybe.
But it would have electricity, plumbing,
and we’d be close to the logging roads,
get to know them so we wouldn’t get stuck

or lost. People want to be near the ocean,
or a lake or a golf course. I’d take these
logging roads any day over a golf course
or a mall, roads with trees around, pines,
evergreens, no vehicles, except us in ours,
my jeep with a GPS, so as not to get lost.

So much snow in winter, a snowmobile
would be needed.  I could buy one!
Snowsuits to keep us warm. Go out 
on those roads, not too far, and come back
to our house in St. Francis. Both of us
stripped naked I could kiss you all over.

We could make love, then go to a local cafe,
come home, watch Reign on Netflix.
St. Francis has WiFi. We could call people
on our cell phones. When logging roads
were made, did they had telephones way up 
there?  It’s way, way different from here. 

 

 
Peter Mladinic has published three books of poems: Lost in Lea, Dressed for Winter, and Falling Awake in Lovington, all with the Lea County Museum Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico. His fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Drunk I am today. A Poem by -Bhuwan Thapaliya

Drunk I am today,

O’ you little tender world.

With the book of life open before me,

thwarted, blank, I sit here before you all.

Immersed in myself, I am in the Tundikhel,

floating between medieval and modern times.

 
A peanut seller came with a basket of peanuts

and sat beside me.  He gave me, a handful of peanuts

in a colorful piece of paper.  I tossed the peanuts

into the air, and started reading  the paper instead.

The peanut seller smiled and waved me goodbye,

saying, “You are drunk, very drunk today, my friend!

 
“In remote western Nepal,

people heard the Beatles

on battery-powered tape decks

before they saw electric lights,

and helicopters fluttered

 into their lives

 long before the first trucks got there,”

these sentences rose from their slumber

 and stirred my heart.

 
“The first airplane landed in Nepal in 1949

but it was seven years later before

the first highway connected Kathmandu

 to the outside world.

Within a year of that first landing,

the Rana autocracy was overthrown

with the aid of an airplane.”

These sentences came out

from the paper, and grappled my throat.

 
I stood up

but the gravity

of the revelation pulled me down.

I was now drunk, dead drunk

with a million pegs worth of thoughts.

 
I sat on the grass for a while,

thinking about old Nepal

and my grandfather’s life then.

Then I shifted my thoughts

over to the New Nepal

we claim to be building now.

 
Where are the roots of the new Nepal

we claim to be building?

Where are the roots?

 
With a million thoughts

in my head,

I headed to my home

dusting the bare bodies

of the erotic sculptures

on the multi-tiered pagodas

of  hope.

 
Yes, drunk I am today.

Today I am drunk.

With the book of life open before me,

thwarted, blank, I sit here before you all. 

 

 

Nepalese poet, Bhuwan Thapaliya works as an economist, and is the author of four poetry collections and currently he is working on his fresh poetry collection, The Marching Millions. Thapaliya’s books include, Safa Tempo: Poems New and Selected (Nirala Publication, New Delhi), Our Nepal, Our Pride , Verses from the Himalayas and Rhythm of the Heart. (Cyberwit.net)Poetry by Thapaliya has been included in The New Pleiades Anthology of Poetry, The Strand Book of International Poets 2010, and Tonight: An Anthology of World Love Poetry, as well as in literary journals such as Urhalpool, MahMag, Kritya, FOLLY, The Vallance Review, Nuvein Magazine, Foundling Review, Poetry Life and Times, Poets Against the War, Voices in Wartime, Taj Mahal Review, VOICES (Education Project), Longfellow Literary Project, Countercurrents etc. Author: Safa Tempo: Poems New & Selected & Our Nepal, Our Pride
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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Route Signs. Poems by Javier Gil Martin. Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arrospide & Robin Ouzman Hislop


FIRST TERRITORY

        child eats crying
        child cries eating 
        in animal concert
	                
                     Blanca Varela

Lips that you have not used to kiss
little feet you haven't walked on yet
eyes which see just a foot from your face
hands you still don't know are yours
only
crying, hunger and sleep
and some furtive smile
but now comes life
beautiful Guille,
and  kisses will come and your steps
and your eyes will see to the end of the horizon
you will know your hands, and how to handle them
but don't forget, my child,
that crying, hunger, sleep
were your first territory.

PRIMER TERRITORIO 

    niño come llorando llora comiendo niño en animal concierto Blanca Varela
Labios que no has usado para besar, pequeños pies con los que no has caminado todavía, ojos con los que ves a solo un palmo de tu rostro, manos que aún no sabes que son tuyas; apenas solo llanto, y hambre, y sueño, y alguna sonrisa furtiva; pero ahora llega la vida, hermoso Guille, y los besos vendrán, y tus pasos, y esos ojos verán al final del horizonte, y sabrás de tus manos, y sabrás manejarlas, pero no olvides, mi niño, que llanto, hambre y sueño fueron tu primer territorio. [Scars will come, my son...] Scars will come, my son and they will mark your body but do not let them scare you because they will be  your private dialogue with the world a way to know you are alive  full of past and full of present. [Sobrevendrán cicatrices, hijo...] Sobrevendrán cicatrices, hijo,   y marcarán tu cuerpo,    pero que no te asusten pues serán    tu diálogo privado con el mundo,   una forma de saberte vivo    colmado de pasado y de presente.  [The many things you discover every day...] The many things you discover every day.  How to lean out with your clean eyes  to this world full of sorrows,  how to lean out and not soil everything  with prejudices, fixations and miseries, how will we do it without you telling us  which path to take, which way,  without us telling you “This way yes, this way no, eat slowly,  try not to stain your vest, shut the door, brush your teeth...”. [Cuántas cosas descubres cada día...]  Cuántas cosas descubres cada día.  Cómo asomarnos con tus ojos limpios  a este mundo cargado de pesares,  cómo asomarse y no ensuciarlo todo  de prejuicios, esquemas y miserias,  cómo lo haremos sin que tú nos digas  qué vereda tomar, por qué camino,  y no nosotros los que te digamos:  “Por aquí sí, por aquí no, come despacio,  intenta no ensuciar tu camiseta,  cierra la puerta, lávate los dientes...”.  NOT BEFORE Wake up when the light lets you look at your toys NO ANTES Despierta cuando la luz ya te permita ver tus juguetes. [In addition to paying our pensions...] In addition to paying our pensions, it is expected of you, children, (at least by poets) a word that illuminates the world. Like innocent little prophets you sleep peacefully you don't know yet our secret assignment. [Además de pagar nuestras pensiones...] Además de pagar nuestras pensiones, de vosotros se espera, hijos, (al menos los poetas), una palabra que ilumine el mundo. Como pequeños profetas inocentes, dormís tranquilos, no conocéis aún nuestra secreta encomienda. [How I wish my errors were of value to you...] How I wish my errors were of value to you a sort of hereditary apprenticeship —I´ve a whole string of these to give you— but only your own errors with their taste of blood between the lips will be of some use to you, if at all; most will be irreparable and useless, like a toy forgotten in an attic. [Ojalá mis errores os valieran...] Ojalá mis errores os valieran como un aprendizaje hereditario —de eso tengo una ristra para daros—, pero solo vuestros errores, con su sabor a sangre entre los labios, os servirán de algo, si es que os sirven; la mayoría serán irreparables e inútiles como un juguete olvidado en un desván.

Javier Gil Martin (Madrid, 1981). With a degree in Spanish Philology from the UAM, he is professionally dedicated to subtitling and literary proofreading and passionately to reading and editing, mainly poetry. He has coordinated, together with good friends, several literary collections. In 2020 he founded the publishing project “Cartonera del escorpión azul” and since 2006 he coordinates the “Versos para el adiós” section of Adiós Cultural magazine. As an author, he has published Poemas de la bancarrota (Ediciones del 4 de agosto, Logroño, 2015), Poemas de la bancarrota y otros poemas (Espacio Hudson, Argentina, 2018), Museo de la intemperie (Ejemplar Único, Alzira, 2020) & Museo de la intemperie [II] (Cartonera Island, Tenerife, 2022). His “Route Signs” is a section of the latter.

 
 
Amparo Arróspide (born in Buenos Aires) is an M.Phil. by the University of Salford. As well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines, she has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento. The latter is part of a trilogy together with Jacuzzi and Hormigas en diaspora, which are in the course of being published. In 2010 she acted as a co-editor of webzine Poetry Life Times, where many of her translations of Spanish poems have appeared, she has translated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith and James Stephens into Spanish, and others such as Guadalupe Grande, Ángel Minaya, Francisca Aguirre, Carmen Crespo, Javier Díaz Gil into English. She takes part in poetry festivals, recently Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds) .

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Spice Rack, Sisters & Festive Messaging Pivot, Poems by Anna Eusthacia Donovan

Spice Rack

Late nights a festival vendor
dictates his gospel
at my spice rack,
tent preacher pacing
in perfect pitch.

He makes a list,
recites it under his breath:
whorled Sage branch tiered
in tulle fluffy skirts,
balmy light cloudy vanilla,
cinammon the color
of summer's skin,
smoky paprika curves
in roof tiles in tropical sun,
rough and tumble red pepper flakes
heat and rumble of fast cars
and slow hands,
the rough cumin sash on ranch hands
over campfires.

He pauses and pulls a snake
barely wiggling
from a badger skin bag,
a petroglyph stick at the top,
throws it in boiling water
and we watch the unraveling,
the releasing of substance,
then skims the surface
and mixes the miracle.

The snake gives up her secrets
and he bottles them
with my crushed spices,
labels it in beard bone font:
"For the cure of all pain."

Sisters

In a minimal city
well versed in matters
of rumors and gossip
sisters carry fruit baskets
on their heads,
light on their feet,
limber on their hips.

Prairie wildflowers
lean on the slant
to the rise and fall
of blue mountain ridges
capped with the earth's birth caul.

Uneasy roosting
on the rituals
of the holy,
the innermost hidden
behind half closed
almond shaped eyes.

In unison they read the signs
in a persimmon's innards,
reveal the heart
of winter,
harsh or mild,
sisters know.

A sister whispers,
"Gather persimmons at dawn
when the tree lets go
of its first ripened fruits
to the awaiting ground."

"Saigon cinammon,
sweet depth of nutmeg,"
mumble the sisters.

The sacred hidden
in the crumbling language
of ancient recipes
tied with honeyed strings
and mourning doves
heavy with sadness,
touched by a neatly sliced
sort of love
tender persimmon pudding
to devour as the gods.


Festive Messaging Pivot

I am the bright setting sun
and a thousand wings to fly.

Stars dip by me in quick salute,
march in flares and glow around the world.

My spirit quickens in a child's hand,
I am flight, speed, and strawberry hearts.

I am love, a Valentine, a rose,
skipping with high knees
in vast fields outside the lines.

I am red, a melted planet
forgotten on the dashboard
in summer's technicolor,
a festive messaging pivot,
apples on the paradise tree,
early Christmas morning
Kool Aid pitcher cherry smile.

I am Red, Red Crayon.

Anna Eusthacia Donovan is originally from Nicaragua, Central America. She is a psychologist and educator dedicated to university students’ success in visual arts and design. She has published in Ponder Savant, The Quiver Review, Melbourne Culture Corner, The Dillydoun Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Litterateur Rw, The Raven Review, Impspired, Global Poetry, Spillwords, Mad Swirl, and Open Skies Quarterly volume 3. She wants to “start where language ends.”
 
 
 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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To Purusha, The Little Homunculus in My Hand/Heart. A Poem by Kalpita Pathak

To Purusha, The Little Homunculus in My Hand/Heart

My left hand is the holder. Mascara
tube, apple on the cutting
board, paper while my right
hand writes. 
            A buttress. 	
                       Not strong

but not weak, either. My left hand holds
a palmful of peace. The velvet 
pouch of small rocks      
                        smoothed 
by ancient waters, rubbed 

between thumb 
and forefinger.        Aaaaah. 
Or the bottle of pills to unclench
my gut. Lines overlay

veins overlay muscles 
overlay bones. A palmful 
of bones, held out
in supplication, in valor, in terrible

loneliness, delicate 
and powerful as the pale 
wing of a dove seeking 
a place to finally rest.

Kalpita Pathak is an autistic poet, novelist, and advocate with a passion for research and sensory-rich details. Her work tends to explore the perseverance of hope in a sometimes despairing world, with a little dark humor and magic added to the mix. She received the James Michener Fellowship for her MFA in creative writing and has taught at both the college level and in school programs for kids from three to eighteen. She has recently been published in Mediterranean Poetry.  

 
 
 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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The Velut Luna Poems by Jessica Skyfield.

The Velut Luna poems


Starseed


Particles accelerate
Never losing mass.
Never losing energy.
Cold fusion brilliance,
created in a fog of clarity.
Energy illuminated.
Magic?
Pounds of stardust
traded for an ounce of perspective.

We all love amusement parks.

Dizzy and delirious,
parked permanently on the ride.


Dust to dust


We’re made of stars
disparate and dissonant.
Day by day
doubt festers,
fenestrations of fear.

And we damn deities,
dredge demons.
Cosmological chaos.
Inherent ideological clashes
birthed from cultural constructs.
Idiomatic onslaught,
shaped by societal mores,
moored by millennia.

Nihil sumus.


Velut luna


Spin the wheel
Velut luna

Fortune favors the bold
Tried and true, trite and true.
Therein lies the rub.

Squeezing our infinitesimal selves into the lens
of a long-forgotten dream.

All roads lead you home.
That’s as unconditional as it gets.


Open


Sometimes I forget to breathe.
Creating a vacuum seal of self.
Presenting that self to the world: an unwilling taciturn tacticality.
The perceived enormity of our individual selves
Lost to the ether.
Lacking time.
Creating space.
Where?


Relativistic Infinity


Effusive energy
Silent fusion
Dominos without end
A self-made loop

A louped glance,
askance.

Golly gee. Great.

Gutted by greed,
Gouge our evil eyes,
And hollow hearts.
Our irrational ears.

As we fester in finite fallacy.


Outline


where to start?
where to begin?

“We need an outline.”

Oh? Oh.

Of my life. Of the complication.
The words swirl in a torrential hurricane inside.
How to order chaos?

“Of course.”

It’s only a matter of course.

Jessica Skyfield is currently a teacher. She has been a scientist, a mother, will always be a student, and worn other hats, too. Her poems seek to bring light to our struggle with our awareness of our humanity: the juxtaposition of the smallness of ourselves when viewed universally and yet the large impact each of our individual actions can have.  

 
 
 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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