POETRYFEATURED POET FEATURED ARTIST CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES ABOUT TIMELINE
Rebecca Starks


Flawed

My dad saw it first, he the one who's always
finding out the facts he doesn't want to know
and no one else does, either; a real dog,
he'd said, which clued me in we'd gotten you
in part to show my parents we were grown,
the impulse to impress them never outgrown—
no grandkids yet but here, I drew a picture,
never mind if the dog's legs are all wrong;
it yellows on the fridge no matter what.
Shy of my dad, you barked when he emerged,
late morning, from the room he'd slept in,
which saddened him; a dog the only thing
he'd get down on his knees for, go soft on
as if repenting rage he hadn't meant.




True Love

After its loss there was a place in me
my body guarded against any touch
that might revive the pain of memories
woven of neurons I quarantined and starved,
determined to love again, but differently,
until the gentlest brush of fingers, tingling,
caught me when my guard was down and flooded me
with tenderness I'd bottled up for years.
I haven't let myself get close to dogs
since you, though I took one named Sky on runs
and felt a surge of the old eagerness
when he'd glance back, grinning, to catch my eye
before doubling down on the chase after nothing.
I sped up but couldn't fly—still dogged by you.




As You Willed It

Kismet in the dunes, Kismet at the ocean,
running full-tilt free, like fistfuls of sand flung
straight out into the Pacific whitecaps
lowering your head to charge, dropping your jaw
jagged with fur to take it all in,
pelican-scooping, gagging on the brine
again and again until you've dissolved
the cognitive dissonance: water, salt.
Kismet massaging your nape on a seagull wing
not, as for us, to clear your head of shame
but incorporating death into your life.
Kismet pouncing playful at the dog parks—
never anything like you anywhere—
beautiful, smart, charismatic and wild.

































AUTHOR BIO

Rebecca Starks' poems have most recently appeared in Slice Magazine, The Carolina Quarterly, The Raintown Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She has a PhD in English from Stanford University and teaches literature and writing classes part-time for the Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning program at the University of Vermont. She edits Mud Season Review, a literary journal run by members of the Burlington Writers Workshop. For links to more work visit: www.rebeccastarks.com.

POETRY CONTRIBUTORS

Kim Bridgford
Deborah Bruce
Melissa Garcia Criscuolo
Barbara Crooker
Elise Hempel
Katherine Hoerth
Sujata Iyengar
Karen Kelsay
Siham Karami
Miriam Kotzin
Jean L. Kreiling
Luann Landon
Jenna Le (Featured Poet)
Lesléa Newman
Angela O'Donnell
Renée M. Schell
Susan Spear
Rebecca Starks
Cara Valle
Marilyn Westfall
Joyce Wilson
Marly Youmans

NEWS

The two most recent additions to The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline are Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Eileen R. Kinch and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore by Anna M. Evans.

Wendy Videlock is the recipient of the 2016 Mezzo Cammin Scholarship to the Poetry by the Sea conference.

FEATURED ARTIST
The Cheryl Yun Collection is a range of image-based sculptural objects or "products," from handbags to clothing, which simultaneously mirror and subvert fashion and consumer culture to reveal, question, and reevaluate one's relationship to the world.The Cheryl Yun Collection handbag series is handcrafted and features newspaper photographs of tragedy and catastrophe, religious and political conflict, as well as issues of beauty and control, while the Cheryl Yun Collection: lingerie and bathing suits is an image-based series of underwear, which questions the "victims" and "aggressors" of our current political, economic and religious conflicts.
ARCHIVES
LINKS
POETRY
32 Poems
The Academy of American Poets
The Atlantic
The Christian Science Monitor
The Cortland Review
Favorite Poem Project
The Frost Place
The Iowa Review
Light Quarterly
Modern American Poetry
Measure
The Poem Tree
Poetry
Poetry Daily
Poetry Society of America
Poets House
Raintown Review
Slate
String Poet
Valparaiso Poetry Review
Verse Daily
Women's Poetry Listserv
The Yale Review

CONFERENCES
AWP
Bread Loaf
Poetry by the Sea
Sewanee


PUBLISHERS

Barefoot Muse Press
David Robert Books
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Graywolf Press
Headmistress Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Texas Tech Univ Press
Tupelo Press
Univ of Akron Press
Univ of Arkansas Press
Univ of Illinois Press
Univ of Iowa Press
Waywiser Press
White Violet Press

BOOKS
Alibris
City Lights
Grolier Poetry Bookshop
Joseph Fox Bookshop
Prairie Lights
Tattered Cover Bookstore

OTHER RESOURCES
92nd Street Y
Literary Mothers
NewPages.com
Poets & Writers
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