Unshod Quills

A 2010 Collaboration Between Poet and Artist:

The Poetry of Dena Rash Guzman and the Collage Art of Anthony Bondi

As Leda Lay

– on Beasts

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"As Leda Lay," on Beasts - Anthony Bondi, collage; Dena Rash Guzman, text

Artist Biography

Anthony Bondi’s full biography can be read here.

Author Biography

Dena Rash Guzman is a Las Vegas born writer, poet and visual artist. Contributor to several journals and anthologies, she and artist Viv G also recently co-wrote a play that was presented in Shanghai, China by the Shanghai Repertory Theater in 2011. She works as Managing Director North America for the Shanghai based independent English language press HAL Publishing, and appeared in their 2010 anthology, Party Like It’s 1984 – Short Stories From the People’s Republic of – available worldwide through Powell’s Books. She lives on a farm outside Portland, Oregon and is the editor and founder of Unshod Quills. Her second chapbook, “Love of Godzilla,” is pending release in July 2011 by the brand new Old Heavy Press.

A concatenation of  sonnets from Jamie Iredell

-on the theme of sonnets

Easter Sonnet

This Easter Sunday God delivered eggs
And coffee, magazines depicting tramps,
And my hangover from killing the keg
Of Pabst, which kept us dancing to the amps
All night. The bands: no good, really. Bad lamps
Casting dull light in the cigarette smoke
And skirts sequined like nuclear cherries.
My love, upon her laptop, can provoke
Unchristian desires in men. Men who poke
The fabric of time and space that ferries
Them from chatroom to chatroom searching love
Out the way one buys a Mercedes. She proves,
Even to me—a Spenserian—Christ,
a resurrected teenage feeling: a clenched fist.

JI

Buying Bread

I wonder, should we go ahead and buy
the white, I said. She said, with you always
it’s white, never wheat, sourdough, boiled nor fried
loaves. You won’t change, and I’m the one who pays.
Not now, I said. This discussion again?
How can you go on living with yourself,
she said, not changing your life when you can?
It’s fucking bread, I said; choose from the shelf.
But it’s not just the bread, Jamie, she said.
I’m changing. We’ve grown apart. I’m sorry.
You want sourdough, I said; it’s in your head.
‘Cause I’ll get sourdough if—now stop crying.
She said, sometimes I wish you’d understand.
I said, always you wish I’d understand.

JI

Unbearable Affliction Materializing

I’ve traveled across deserts and tumbling
mountains, down through old forests, scolded dark
green with shadows. I lost one while grumbling
over a hundred bucks to rent a car.
And now that she’s away in a west far
from the three months it took to leave the cold
grip of my dependence, my feet falling
have found this cave in which to write this bold
appeal to you, my audience, my old,
old friends. Do I still wish to taste myself
in her hair? She was one who broke the sole
from still-good loafers. She wanted to help
me keep my feet from running off. And, scared,
I ask you now, are we ever prepared?

JI

Elegy For My Empty Beer

Together we beget the world from tabs
Left soaking in monkey spit on hardwood
Scorched black by leftover cherries from fags
And wrinkled with coasters crusted with food.
I love that we revolve the lights the way
A circus passes by, only distinct
In memory—as corndogs, apple pie—
That prices drop each drink we meet the brink.
But you are bad. Each sip you disappear.
Your love fulfills me as you drain away
And you are not you, nor me, but we are
Commingled in the blood where you won’t stay.
Yet you’re still here awhile carousing me,
My mug refilled, lips poised, ready to meet.

JI

Author Biography

Jamie Iredell wrote Prose. Poems. a Novel., and The Book of Freaks. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Gigantic,Opium, and Avery. He was included in Dzanc Books’ list of “20 Writers to Watch.” He lives in Atlanta.

Samples of the work of Spanish poet and artist
Yolanda Mora

Yolanda Mora on Lipstick

Notes on Sonnets

I can roleplay a sonnet with syllables
That fit in boxes, mujer acurrucada en una caja,
Highjacking me, kidnapping me –
Too many mirrors make beautiful green egg-face,
And green is for hope,
The size is important, the syllables, and numbers, numbers.
I hide myself inside onion peels blankets,
May Day is your day.
I studied Spanish sonnets with their own rules, I think, I think.
I remember
Shakespeare, translated, so no rhymes or sounds or.
Everything.
Missed.
So
I try to make a sonnet out of this school storage:
First, I’ll read Shakespeare and count, count
the boxes, the pace, rhymes and all.
Fit into it, fit, fit, like Tori Amos did
when best seller was punk rock´n´roll.
So
my lover came by with blood roses
Or
the blood rose was mine, I am mean,
I am mean.
A hypocrite, unbalanced young lady
of a Shakespearean age of gold.
I fit in my bed, rough orange peel my sheets
and blankets: I sleep all day and
in the night you are all bright sun.
Art is a mirror, a Francesca Woodman photograph
so
you see your own faces, your sonnets; out of this,
a transformation like a fairy tale
and delightful to watch others’ horror.

YM

The Box

-on sonnets

I can role play a sonnet under the sheets,
Green egg-faced woman to be in boxes –
May Day is your day, like orange peels.
I hide inside these blankets, woman, missed,
Can’t deny the syllables, hopeless.
So, a Francesca Woodman photograph,
Art is a mirror and I am mean,
I scared people with my pace, my face
Best-seller rock´n´roll, as Tori did;
you can´t fit into this box, like a lover.
Trespassing , spazzing, god I am fat,
Fancioulla, green mirror for hope, my base,
If you all see your image, my Art’s hoses –
I fail all the time, like a falling star.

Yolanda Mora on Lipstick

Author Biography

Four paintings on the theme of sonnets from acclaimed painter Peter Halasz.

Please click once on each image, and then again, to view in full size.

"In the Dim," Oil on Linen, 72x36, Peter Halasz 2009 - on the theme of sonnets

Artist Biography

Autodidact painter Peter Halasz was born in San Diego, California, in 1974. His paintings of primeval and numinous landscapes, haunted portraits and figures amidst ghostly vistas have been shown in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, and in Turin, Italy. He is currently an artist in residence at the former De Graaf flower farm  in Sandy, Oregon, and is occupied with painting the foggy morn… more on Peter at www.peterhalasz.com

Japanese poet Naoko Fujimoto on lipstick and when we two parted. 

TOKYO SUMMER, 1993
for y.h.

– on When We Two Parted

There is a bathtub in the parking lot.

I’m falling in love with an abstract
painting, you tell me. Your body

hisses in an August rain. We collect
dead cicadas in the bathtub

and sketch them for hours.     This is a Tokyo
summer, 1993. A dandelion’s white seed softly

lands on the balcony. The cat
slashes open the window screen.

There is your head hanging by a curtain rod.

I don’t know how to live,
your mouth opens wide.

Dark and beaded rain
falls into the bathtub. I want to chop

off the cat’s legs and hollow
out its eyes. I’m craving

your warm body. Cicadas sing their silver song.

NF

MOTHER’S LIPS
after the tsunami in Japan

-on lipstick

You have no father,
my mother said & wiped
my neck with a long
towel; I smelled the lavender
soap: bubbles on her
cheeks: the outline of her
lipstick: dark
purple around her lips;
they were unlike mine; I wanted
hers; I hated the garden
scent; no
lavenders please, I said;
just muddy
bodies
on blue vinyl sheets
at the flower
shop; sand & pebbles filled
my mother’s mouth; I bit
my lip: tasted blood.

NF

Author Biography

Naoko Fujimoto was born in Nagoya, Japan. A recent poem of hers is forthcoming in Hotel Amerika. She is currently working on poems about the Tohoku Earthquake, tsunami, and  the ensuing nuclear crisis. Her spirit is always with the people in Japan.

Six Poems by David  Curtis

Ambiguity of numbered events

– On When We Two Parted

It was never two
it was three and/or more
three rotate two, shift
three rotate, two

before that the left over numbers
the dead carried
propped up on shelves
and in card board shoe box

the big D

then yes, then no
repeats five times
now break
30 days of sulking
silence
maybe one more unopened letter

DSC

adapted from Peter S Lucking

–  On Lipstick

Background
prevalent among the Sumerians, Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks.
Later, Elizabeth I with red mercuric sulfide.
For years, rouge
only promiscuous women
true societal acceptance
By 1915 push up tubes were available, and the first claims of “indelibility” were made.

Raw Materials
wax, oil, alcohol, and pigment.
beeswax, candelilla wax, or the more expensive camauba. Wax enables the mixture to be formed into the easily recognized shape of the cosmetic. Fragrance and pigment are also added, as are preservatives and antioxidants, which prevent lipstick from becoming rancid.

DSC

none of this looks

– on Transportation

clean shiny version
inhabits invisible places
wears filthy socks
walks anonymous

dead and dying
take me
to racist old folks Denny’s

for a Grand Slam bees wax
Florida all the sudden

DSC

that place seems better than this place

– on Mirror

same people arguing
justifying their habits

my life stopped at such and such date
whatever this is it isn’t life
eventually I hope to have a life

maybe I will take yours

DSC

To indifference then

– (a toast to Sonnets)

to fear of losing
to mock interest
to violating policy

to religious indoctrination
and Nation in general

to the giving up one vice for two others

to missing the boat(s)
to throwing lines

DSC

third name (getting closer in shape)

– on Sonnet

Decisions at early ages
Volunteering ‘else to remain
Anonymous  brown masses of
Angels. I won’t say thank you or
Lift mock trials nor will I pretend
To know if “no” in 2007
Matters when compared to the quest-
ions of 2011
I’ll occupy my time until
The appointed hours whether they
Come or not I’ll follow you ’round
(Place holder line)
( )
( )

DSC

Author Biography

David Scott Curtis, born 21 August 1964, is from Las Vegas, Nevada. He practices architectural design while being a father. Sometimes he writes. David is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.

Michigan musician and writer Joe Secreast on the theme of sonnets.

toy boat toy boat toy boat toy boat

how about a little boat of riddles
sailing on a sea four inches wide
stuck fast on a mud spit in the middle
waiting on a moonless sort of tide

how about a meteor from outer
space makes its way into the sky
carves a name converting any doubter
into a man stands just a half inch high

how about a stained blue book of puzzles
waterlogged and dried a thousand days
the pages salty weep and softly rustle
at any slight touch crumble away

sit down my boy and gently take the wheel
and steer it any fucking way you feel

Author Biography

Joe Secreast is a musician and writer from Marquette, Michigan. He likes motorcycles and extended bouts of heavy drinking, interspersed with the (very) occasional moment of clarity.

Poet Kevin Weidemann on Lipstick

Greeting My Aunt on the Farm as a Kid

The sow squeezes out wriggling masses of blood and goo—
little piglets struggling to draw their first breaths.
With huffs and puffs and heaves,
the mama pushes out another one.

In painted-on eyebrows and lips,
wearing knee-high muddy rubber boots with shorts,
my Aunt Nade pulls the next new piglet out
of the hog’s oozing orifice.

This baby pig is stuck, she says,
like the lipstick still on my face,
from the duty-bound greeting
I was forced to make that morning.

KW

Author Biography

In addition to family, the daily running-a-business thing, and writing far too infrequently, Kevin makes time for his art project, TerraSight, which hosts a multitude of artists exploring globally conscious themes while embracing the struggle and beauty of the human condition through writing, painting, photography, music and more.  Kevin lives in Saint Louis on the Mid Coast.

A Sampling of Literary Collage From Portland Writer Kevin Sampsell

– excerpts from a larger project

Kevin Sampsell on transportation

Kevin Sampsell on "When We Two Parted"

Kevin Sampsell on sonnets

Kevin Sampsell on mirrors

Kevin Sampsell on beasts

Author Biography

Joe Secreast on the topic of sonnets.

toy boat toy boat toy boat toy boat toy boat

how about a little boat of riddles
sailing on a sea four inches wide
stuck fast on a mud spit in the middle
waiting on a moonless sort of tide

how about a meteor from outer
space makes its way into the sky
carves a name converting any doubter
into a man stands just a half inch high

how about a stained blue book of puzzles
waterlogged and dried a thousand days
the pages salty weep and softly rustle
at any slightest touch crumble away

sit down my boy and gently take the wheel
and steer it any fucking way you feel

Author Biography

Joe Secreast is a musician and writer from Marquette, Michigan.  He likes motorcycles and extended bouts of heavy drinking, interspersed with the (very) occasional moment of clarity.