To Hestia: who was forgotten – by Gabriela Marie Milton
it’s quiet now inside the shapes of our burning hearts tortured the endurance of surreal trees a headkerchief full of blood dries on a bench unknown the mark upon the sky to which you point the windows of bookshops read “kill” and “f..k”
Hestia, strangled, your virginity hangs on a rusty wire inside the chimney a creaking creature with bat-eyes streets filled with guns mundane caricaturesque phalloi, demonic blisters rub the hearts there is no home for millions of us
come back you, virgin goddess of the heart, the murder and the sex will stone you in the boulevards premonitions there are back streets where you can walk songs of nightingales and roses will hide you in their arms
you sacred fire, give a home to hungry children with no clothes to those who sleep under the bridges of cursed stars in nights when linden trees in cemeteries bloom flame the ebb and flow of skies that know no tides you, goddess, the very subject matter of which I write.
I am thrilled to be part of Issue III of Free Verse Revolution. You can download the publication for free here.
Update on the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
Thank you to everyone who enter the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. I am honored and touched by your submissions. Your entries are magnificent. Everyone’s writing is so dear to my heart that I will never be able to choose a winner. As a gentle reminder here is how the winners will be selected:
The selection method is similar to that of a double-blind peer review: the reviewer doesn’t know the identity of the author, and vice-versa.
To achieve that I will do the following:
Create a master document with all submissions. Remove the name of the authors and replace them with numbers.
Create a second document with the name of the authors and their assigned numbers.
I will not participate in the process of determining the winners. Winners will be determined by two of your peers.
However, I will disclose a piece of information and deviate a bit from the fully double-blind process: the editor of Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine, Brian Geiger, will be one of the reviewers.
The winners will be announced in late-October. I will update you periodically.
Prizes: First Place: $300 Second Place: $150 Third Place: $75
Funding for the prizes comes from my royalties.
To the future winners: please remember to spread love in our community and buy some books written by your WP favorite authors.
Update on MasticadoresUSA
Please visit MasticadoresUSA. Support our community. There are several new and wonderful poems up. Do not forget to like, follow, and submit.
My poetry book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow was reviewed in Seattle Book Review.
You can read the review in the link below.
Here are several snippets:
“Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose, written by Gabriela Marie Milton, is a brilliant arabesque comprised of authentic artistic stanzas and poetic prose penned the multifaceted emotive lines that highlighted the dichotomous complexities of womanhood in history and modernity…
Milton detailed the stark dualities of feminine divinity hidden within seemingly everyday occurrences via twenty-five pieces of poetic prose at the end of the book. The prose contrasted aching souls, aging, fear of the unknown, mysterious characters, and a genuine penchant for feeling the essence of life in all experiences, whether negative or positive outcomes.
Poetic collages adorned with emotional ephemera captured raw femininity dovetailed within the life cycles of womanhood; enmeshed in struggles, trials, and tribulations were depicted with fortitude and honor that chronicled the beautifully gritty feminine experience…”
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose available on Amazon here.
Updates:
Thank you to those of you who entered the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. I am deeply touched and incredibly grateful to everyone. Your poems are magnificent.
Help our literary community strive. Do not forget to read, like, and submit to MasticadoresUSA.
The Fisherman and the Syren (1856–1858), Frederic Leighton.
the miracle of you
the moon’s right-hand pours soul into my flesh pigeons’ wings bring scents of lilac blooms the air gets drunk with poetry statuary women of the water flaunt their hair
within the loneliness of you my heart rotates five equinoxes on a wooden spindle your eyes pour flesh into my soul my body germinates the sounds of growing leaves I wash my hands into the waters of Guadalquivir in the scented night of those who never sleep I say I love you and in one single breath our wedding is transformed in an enraptured death
was it the moon? was it the morning dew? perhaps it was the miracle of you
Poem included in my book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Amazon available here.
Updates
Please visit MasticadoresUSA. Support our community. There are several new and wonderful poems up. Do not forget to like, follow, and submit.
Thank you to everyone who sent poems for the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow| Love Poems and Poetic Prose. The closing date is September 20. You can read more about the contest here and get the book in the link below.
Gabriela Marie Milton/ The Pacific Ocean, August 27, 2021
A piece from my collection Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings
Profuse desires
rolling like waves on white marble sands roaring like tigers looking for prey howling like winds in gray towns of ghosts resting on sofas like courtesans praying like nuns married to Christ tormenting my dreams your raspy deep voice dying for love
Thank you to Diana for her beautiful review of my new poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
My deepest thanks to Diana, a wonderful author, and a great supporter of our WP community, for her beautiful review of Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. The book is available on Amazon here.
Here is a snippet from Diana’s Amazon review.
“Her free form poems are rich with imagery and emotion, gently loving, full of longing and loss, and sometimes shining with personal strength. In every way, this collection captures the diversity of experience that comes with being a woman…
A highly recommended collection for readers of poetry who enjoy flowing imagery, beautiful words, and a deep dive into the soul of womanhood.”
Please visit Diana’s site here. Her books are gorgeous. You will enjoy reading any of them.
There is also a wonderful review of my collection posted by KichiRsa on Amazon too. I do not know who she is but I am deeply grateful to her for reading my collection and writing a review.
An excerpt from her review:
“Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton is a book of the divine, platonic, sometimes erotic, but often intense and thought-provoking poems. The language is fresh and delightful and reminds the famous poets’ classic works at the beginning of the XX century. At the same time, it is very modern, too. Rendered with richness and beauty, experiences of true love, sadness, sorrow, and grief we all felt at some point or another. You’ll find everything there: from madness to deep ache, from romantic dreams to constantly shifting relationships. In one word, her poems are magic.”
Thank you KichiRsa!
Several Updates
Please visit MasticadoresUSA. Support our community. There are several new and wonderful poems up. Do not forget to like, follow, and submit.
I post poetry on Twitter several days a week. I retweet other poets too. Please follow me on Twitter here @shortprose1
Thank you to everyone who summitted pieces to the Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrows. As a reminder those are the guidelines for submission:
The poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow is now open. This contest honors the literary community that has supported me in my writing journey, and celebrates my becoming a #1 Amazon best-selling author.
To participate, you should write one poem inspired by a piece from my #1 Amazon best-selling poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrowand list the name of the piece that inspired your submission. A number of poems from Woman: Splendor and Sorrowcan be found on this blog.
The deadline for submission is September 20, 2021. Please submit your work before September 20 at shortprose12@gmail.com.
Guidelines for submission:
Label your submission Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow.
Do not submit more than one poem.
Do not forget to include: the poem from Woman: Splendor and Sorrow that inspired you, your name or pen name, and the email address where you can be contacted.
Please submit your poem in the body of the email. No attachments or links will be open.
Prizes:
First Place: $300 Second Place: $150 Third Place: $75
Funding for the prizes comes from my royalties.
If you do not have a PayPal account, please open one.
All winners will be featured on my blog. So will those who finish in the following places: 4, 5 and 6.
It is my hope that the winners will use part of their prizes to buy two or three books of their favorite fellow poets or novelists in order to help our literary community strive. If you do so, please let us know what you bought.
How the selection will be made?
The selection method is similar to that of a double-blind peer review: the reviewer doesn’t know the identity of the author, and vice-versa.
To achieve that I will do the following:
Create a master document with all submissions. Remove the name of the authors and replace them with numbers.
Create a second document with the name of the authors and their assigned numbers.
I will not participate in the process of determining the winners. Winners will be determined by two of your peers.
However, I will disclose a piece of information and deviate a bit from the fully double-blind process: the editor of Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine, Brian Geiger, will be one of the reviewers.
The winners will be announced in mid-October. I will update you periodically.
Thank you to everyone who already submitted.
To the future winners: please remember to spread love in our community and buy some books written by your WP favorite authors.
Thank you to my wonderful followers who have supported my work and showed me love and respect during my almost 4 years of blogging. I am deeply grateful to you and beyond humbled by your kindness.
In this post, special thanks to Joni Caggiano [site link] and to Dave Williams [site link].
Joni is a published poet and author of The Path Toward The Light, available for purchase on Amazon (Paperback and Kindle). She recently posted a wonderful review of my book Woman: Splendor and Sorrowon Amazon. Joni’s gesture touched my heart. Below please find a snippet from her review. You can read the entire review on Amazon, and please do not forget to visit Joni’s blog.
I have discovered [in Woman: Splendor and Sorrow] an amalgamation of emotions that touch on every part of a woman’s existence.
Yet never have I experienced such a strong sense of compassion in every imaginable object as she transcends the physical world and relates to living entities, or nature, in the same way as she does human beings. Some examples that give us a taste of the extensiveness of these writing are as follows:*
“peaches will grow on one side of the moon Injured lambs will scream on the other”
“I am neither a gift Nor something you can keep I am the syllable forgotten on your lip”
Thank you, Joni. I do not know if I would ever be able to repay your kindness.
Before I get to the review, Gabriela Marie Milton is holding a poetry contest around her new book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. Head on over to her blog post for details!
Now on to the review of her previous book…
Let’s say you’ve walked through a few houses with blank walls. Maybe these are show houses in a new development in town. The blankness of the houses reminds you of routines: doing the same things every day, eating the same foods.
Then you enter a house with tapestries hanging on the walls. The tapestries are filled with vibrant images and suggestions of senses. That’s the kind of feeling given by Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings. Each poem is like a tapestry.
You walk up to each tapestry and absorb the images woven into the fabric.
The poems are celebrations of language, locations, emotions, and senses.
Thank you, Dave. Repaying your kindness will be hard, but I assure you I will do my best. Everyone, please visit Dave’s blog.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow Poetry Contest Reminder
The poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow is now open. This contest honors the literary community that has supported me in my writing journey, and celebrates my becoming a #1 Amazon best-selling author.
To participate, you should write one poem inspired by a piece from my #1 Amazon best-selling poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrowand list the name of the piece that inspired your submission. A number of poems from Woman: Splendor and Sorrow can be found on this blog.
The deadline for submission is September 20, 2021. Please submit your work before September 20 at shortprose12@gmail.com.
Label your submission Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow.
Do not submit more than one poem.
Do not forget to include: the poem from Woman: Splendor and Sorrow that inspired you, your name or pen name, and the email address where you can be contacted.
Please submit your poem in the body of the email. No attachments or links will be open.
Prizes:
First Place: $300
Second Place: $150
Third Place: $75
Funding for the prizes comes from my royalties.
If you do not have a PayPal account, please open one.
All winners will be featured on my blog. So will those who finish in the following places: 4, 5 and 6.
It is my hope that the winners will use part of their prizes to buy two or three books of their favorite fellow poets or novelists in order to help our literary community strive. If you do so, please let us know what you bought.
How the selection will be made?
The selection method is similar to that of a double-blind peer review: the reviewer doesn’t know the identity of the author, and vice-versa.
To achieve that I will do the following:
Create a master document with all submissions. Remove the name of the authors and replace them with numbers.
Create a second document with the name of the authors and their assigned numbers.
I will not participate in the process of determining the winners. Winners will be determined by two of your peers.
However, I will disclose a piece of information and deviate a bit from the fully double-blind process: the editor of Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine, Brian Geiger, will be one of the reviewers.
The winners will be announced in mid-October. I will update you periodically.
Thank you to everyone who already submitted.
To the future winners: please remember to spread love in our community and buy some books written by your WP favorite authors.
A Snippet from Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
In the evening, the sky stretches itself from blue to dark violet. The silk of the gloves hugs my fingers. I feed my iguana with cookies soaked in champagne. She hisses at me. I open a package of silk stockings. The door opens by itself, and you step in. Then it closes. I stare at you. You are in by your own volition. One kiss, and you borrow my tears. One touch, and I borrow your pain. A passage rite. I keep a coffin adorned with lilies in my bedroom. I sleep besides death like Sarah Bernhardt.
Did you hear that noise? A rosary fell from the Spanish chest.
The wind slips between the petals of a rose and opens it.
Who am I? If I knew, I would tell you.
Did you say you love me? The twenty-four hours are up. Nobody is facing in the direction of the sea anymore.
