POETRY TRANSLATION FEATURE FEATURED ARTIST CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES ABOUT TIMELINE
Anjie Kokan


Fish Lines (compound abecedarium)

Afternoons with Dad and a tin can fizz
between fish stories and sips of Coke, stay
centered in my tackle box memoirs. Mix
Dad's singing in there and you got some wow
entertainment. Only us, no TV
filtering the background, just the guru
glitter of the sun on the lake, that tint
heavenly peace for the taking. Our lines
intersected short conversations; our
joys were a Snickers bar or Suzy-Q.
Keepers were always a bonus. We'd plop
live bass in the net for dinner to go.
Many times we stopped at Yankee Tavern.
Never told Mom a thing about the ma'am
on the bar stool or jokes on the cocktail
picture napkins. On the way home, we'd kick
quietly back, WKLJ
ringing the oldies, the day done, and I,
small and whole, content to pass that time through
the bounce of a pick-up and Dad's laughing
under the spell of ordinary stuff,
vividly glad, and solid as a tree
waving the light of a wild chirping bird.
Xeroxed in my mind and a bit off sync,
yesterday's moments rise from the heart slab,
zoom me to smiles over warm cups of tea.



Car Hop (alpha-box)

Ain't much shakin' going on, my hair's a limp frizz
yanked in a pony tail. Root beer with ice-cream dab,
creamy as your dreams, floats in a mug. In a mix,
wondering where I should deliver the next fried
entrees of Corky Burgers, my cleavage, small v
under my cherry smile, calls for a bit more stuff.
Great idea! I run and grab gobs of blanket-
soft tissue. I won't be out-tipped by blonde Sarah
in rush hour ever again. See these? Now I wear
Queen V. I'm your Be-bop-a-Lula as the DJ
kicks in the new hits. I flaunt a confident hop,
order curious eyes up past my skirt. How swell
my plan works, keeps quarters jigglin' in my apron.

Note: Alpha-box poems are Kokan's original creations that feature thirteen lines with all letters of the alphabet found in the first letter of each line and the last. Each poem has its own alpha pattern.

































AUTHOR BIO

Anjie Kokan is an award-winning writer who publishes poetry and non-fiction. She enjoys trying to grow sunflowers as big as her house in Wisconsin where she lives with her poet husband and two children. She teaches English as a Second Language to adults and loves to facilitate creative writing workshops for all ages. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in publications such as Gravity Pulls You In, The Upper Room, and Toward the Light.

POETRY CONTRIBUTORS

Melissa Balmain
Janann Dawkins
Juleigh Howard Hobson
Anjie Kokan
Jean L. Kreiling
Luann Landon
Michele Leavitt
Mary Meriam
Gail White
Holly Woodward
Marly Youmans

NEWS
Mezzo Cammin is proud to announce that The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project, which will eventually be the largest database of women poets in the world, was launched on Saturday, March 27, 2010, at 6:00 PM at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Tom Field)
Visit Timeline.
FEATURED ARTIST
Gail Biederman: I use sewing as a form of drawing, as one way to alter a surface. Thread is my line, a physical presence that hovers in space in my installations. With both a cast shadow and an edge that catches the light, thread creates multiple realities, a jumbled mix of hard and soft, the solid and the ephemeral.
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
David R. Godine Press
Graywolf Press
Headmistress Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Louisiana State University Press
Northwestern Univ Press
Ohio Univ Press
Persea Books
Red Hen Press
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
10X10