INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Lana Bella
Deji W. Adesoye
Chris Lord
Ali Znaidi
Francis Annagu
Olajide Vincent Ajise
Lyn Lifshin
Akor Emmanuel
Duane Locke
Running Cub
Paul B. Roth
Fahredin Shehu
Laszlo Slomovits
Silvia Scheibli
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Amit Parmessur
Irsa Ruci
Elisavietta Ritchie
Alex Ferde
Richard Gartee
Robert Nisbet
Alan Britt
Changming Yuan
Nahshon Cook
Peycho Kanev
Jennifer Burd
Fred Wolven
Karyn M. Bruce
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2016
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
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AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 47 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
BEATITUDES OF A YOUNG GIRL
Blessed be the hula-hoop
the ring of plastic filled with weights
that spun on our hips and knees.
I was the first of my friends to own one
and it was my father who brought it home one summer afternoon.
He even knew how to swing it around his bulging middle
and I laughed so hard I cried right there in the backyard.
My mother thought he was nuts or drunk, pleading
have mercy on us all!
Blessed be pantyhose!
My first pair of nylons had those brown lines
running up the back of my legs like worms
and never staying straight on my legs,
attached to the garter belts that held them in place
with the snaps popping open all the time
against my unwomanly thighs!
Growing up was such a nuisance
with unholy contraptions and thingamajigs!
So praised be Allen Gant who had mercy on us
with his control-top invention,
thus protecting us from a life-time of girdles!
And blessed be Rock ‘n Roll, Elvis and his gyrating hips
and Bill Hailey and the Comets and Chubby Checker
do-whopping and be-bopping on the transistor radio
I snuck under my pillow!
My grandmother who learned the Twist
and bought a stereo for the 45-speed records,
her neighbors whispering, “Lord, have mercy on us!”
Blessed be the memories
of petty coats, shimmering pink and white lipstick
applied in layers in front of Dianne’s mirror
that weekend I slept over,
ponytails, drive-ins, skating rinks, Hosh’s Grill,
Catholic school uniform skirts rolled up at the waist,
Dairy Queen, feeding ducks at the Lagoon,
and cruising the gut on Michigan Avenue
on Saturday nights. We were beyond
the prayers of the nuns
and the priests signing crosses on our foreheads
and the last Kyrie Eleison sung at Sunday Mass.
And blessed be that almighty Amen.
Amen!
Karyn M. Bruce, Biscayne Park, Florida