INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Gerald Clark
Lyn Lifshin
Paul B. Roth
Ndue Ukaj
Anne Babson
Laszlo Slomovits
Qinqin Huang
Duane Locke
Adhar Maheshwari
Shutta Crum
Odimegwu Onwumere
Anthony Seidman
Chris Lord
Running Cub
Amit Parmessur
John F. Buckley &
Martin Otto
Joanie Freeman
Alan Britt
Jennifer Burd &
Laszlo Slomovits
Sonnet Mondal
Karyn M. Bruce
John Tustin
Jennifer Burd
Michael Gessner &
Daniel Davis
Martin Camps &
Anthony Seidman
Fred Wolven
M. J. Iuppa
John Grochalski
Catherine O'Brien
Joe Milford
Byron Matthews
Joseph Murphy
Dike Okoro
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2012
Fred Wolven
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
------------------------------------------------
Fred Wolven, editor
Submissions via e-mail:
The tulips I grow in pots
never do as well as the ones
spreading rampant in my backyard
bulbs swollen big as fists
sprays of flowers bursting like fireworks
from a single hidden point. Every time I try
to recreate the flamboyant show of color from out there
in here, I end up with
shrunken, mold-speckled bulbs bearing
withered, yellow-green stalks
twisted striped buds that
open sickly as sea anemones
in polluted tidepools
on some frigid coast.
THE WOODEN MAN
a man made of wood would be a much more practical being
than a man made of flesh, a man with knotted arms
coarse flesh, rough bark, rooted to the ground
unable to leave. I imagine the women
of those long ago forests carrying
new babies in their arms, determined to forget
who the single sperm on that single night
came from. I see those women
holding their babies up to the best trees
the old, tall ones with birds in their crowns,
squirrels in their crooks, rabbits under their roots,
saying, "This is your father," spinning elaborate
but believable tales of strong, beautiful, dependable dryads
visiting sleeping children during the night, planting
dew-damp and sap-scented kisses on tow-framed foreheads
whispering the secrets of the forest in their tiny
sleeping ears, and how the tree outside your door
is the thing that makes this home.
Holly Day, Minneapolis