I am thrilled to let you know that Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology published by Literary Revelations is now a #1 Amazon bestseller. This book was made possible by the gorgeous poems you, poets from around the world, sent us. Thank you for trusting Literary Revelations with your poetry. Congratulations! You are now #1 Amazon bestselling poets. And we are filled with joy.
We planned the official release of the book on January 31. The book was on Amazon on the 26. However, not all Amazon markets were populated [at the hour I write they are still not fully populated] and the book’s categories we not showing. Even now only one category shows. In addition we had other few things to take care of.
However, people found out about the book on the 27th of January. In a matter of hours Hidden in Childhood became a #1 Amazon bestseller.
I am filled with joy and gratitude. Thank you for buying the book. Thank you for supporting Literary Revelations Publishing House.
On our pre-launch Hidden in Childhood show: Our gracious host Victoria Onofrei of Radio Bloomsbury will broadcast the show on Sunday January 29, at 6pm London Time. If you want to listen you can do it here https://www.bil.ac.uk/bloomsburyradio/
You can buy the book here:
Thank you. Have a great weekend.
Gabriela Marie Milton 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee Publisher, Editor, Award Winning & #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Books:
I read your words and a thousand childhoods burrowed into my heart.
Gabriela Marie Milton
My Dear Readers
Thank you to everyone who submitted to Literary Revelations Publishing House’s collection Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology, due to be released late January. If anything changes, I will let you know.
I am thrilled to release the full cover of the anthology and the preface I wrote. I have tears in my eyes. Here is why.
I am beyond humbled by the number of submissions. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for entrusting me with your beautiful poetry. Most important you entrusted me with glimpses of your childhood. That honors me more than words can possibly express. I rarely talk about myself. Yet, last night after 14 hours of work I was listening to the winter knocking on my windows and thinking of your poems. A sentence inscribed itself into my soul. It will stay with me forever. I read your words and a thousand childhoods burrowed into my heart.
We are looking at a monumental work of poetry; a work of breathtaking beauty and substance. I included over 150 poets and around 280 poems. The Word file I will send for formatting tomorrow has 456 pages. I suspect after the formatting the anthology will have over 456 pages. Congratulations to everyone who was included.
I wrote a good number of rejection letters and I am not done yet. To those poets who were rejected: please do not get discouraged. I am honored by your submissions too and ready to collaborate with you in the future.
One other important thing I learned by reading your poems: this collection teaches the reader about childhood perhaps more than an academic treaty could do it.
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Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology – preface by Gabriela Marie Milton
If you open the pages of this poetry collection, you will be mesmerized by the talent of the contributors, and by the range of stylistic approaches they use to recreate the world of childhood. It must be said from the beginning that this is not a poetry collection for children. The pages you will read memorialize the beauty and magic of childhood – remembrance of love and fairytales – as well as its ugliness – abuses, poverty – that unfortunately still exist in our world. Some of the authors of the poems included in this anthology were brave enough to talk about the pain they endured in childhood. I salute all contributors: those who tell the world that childhood is love, and those who still bear the wounds of a difficult childhood.
As the editor, curator, and publisher of this book, I am honored and humbled that so many poets entrusted me with their work. The poems I included in this anthology are stunners. They are magnificent in their wealth of emotions, and very diverse in style. It is the role of the editor to try – as much as she/he can- to stylistically unify the works included in poetry collections. To a certain extent, I decided against it. I allowed for English spelling, as well as for American spelling. I overlooked places where perhaps I would have used different words, in the interest of clarity. Why did I do it? Two reasons: (1) These breathtaking poems have their own energy, an energy that continuously echoes in one’s soul, and it sends shivers down the spine of the reader. There is a freshness about them, freshness in front of which the strive for better formulations ends up in patheticism. (2) Perfection is most of the time sterile. There are emblematic poets who sometimes consciously allowed for small degrees of clumsiness – here and there – in their poems in order to preserve the authenticity of the feelings. I hope I did that in this collection.
The themes and archetypes the contributors use are very diverse. You will find the father as the protector and/or as the abuser, the figure of the mother as the nurturer and/or as the monster, the loss of siblings, the heavenly paradise of grandparents, the fight with disease, and the list can continue.
To turn to a different idea, once Charles Baudelaire wrote, “The child sees everything in a state of newness… Nothing more resembles what we call inspiration than the delight with which a small child absorbs form and color.” No doubt, during childhood we are first and foremost the recipients of the sensory world.
The academic literature on childhood – as well as our common understanding – frequently defines childhood as a period of our lives that precedes adulthood. Whatever happens during our first years is formative and important to our becoming. However, we tend to dissociate childhood from maturity. Most people subscribe to the dichotomy of childhood/adulthood.
Indeed, the prima facie reading of the poems included in this anthology shows that the authors kept in mind the dichotomy of childhood/adulthood.
Yet, what strikes the reader during the second and/or third reading of these stunning poems is how present childhood is in the lives of the authors, now mature people. For these poets, whether they know it or not, childhood is not a simple memory filled with joy or pain. Childhood constitutes itself as an integral part of their poems, a part that continues to transform them as they write.
The strength of this poetry collection is the capacity of its authors to blur the line between childhood and adulthood. Whether the authors talk about joyful memories, or sadly abusive childhood, the effect is stunning. We do not know anymore where childhood stops, and adulthood starts.
Am I returning to Philippe Ariès and his Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (1960), who put forward the idea – albeit controversial – that during medieval times childhood was not recognized as a distinct phase of human existence?
No. I am not. I merely claim that the idea of childhood is not as transient as authors such as Ray Bradbury claimed.
In many aspects, childhood never goes away. It stays with us forever.
This is what you will discover in this anthology, which contains the most beautiful, as well as the most heart-wrenching, verses one has ever read. And this is a phenomenal discovery.
ah, I forgot to tell you when I meet you in my dreams Arabella still sells bracelets in the silver market she asks me every time about you while lizards run their greens into the nearby parkette I lie and promise her you’ll come next time to buy another bracelet and some juicy limes
now in the silence of long purple nights the silver bracelets do not hurt my flesh at all but every minute you are not with me cuts yet another wound into my soul
[From my poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose.]
Between the bed and the window, in that space that smells roses and rien que pour toi, the morning lets her hair down. She is so close that I can reach her skin with the tip of my fingers.
I know … his book and the fame it brought him. The book in which he made me – the me that he imagined – the main character.
He was fascinated by the purple of my makeup and the yellows of my cobra, who used to erect the upper portion of her body to greet him every time he visited.
I do not know what demons he tried to exorcise. In the heat of those summer afternoons, he used to sip his sangria and attempt to find almost religious justifications for what he called my ecstatic existence; an existence populated with the richness and succulence of the Mediterranean literature and void of bullet points.
His acute shyness and his need to overcome the incapacity to love beyond nightly adventures used to ring in my ears like some unhinged marimba lamenting the loss of a pipe.
The dress that I wear in page twenty-seven. That dress and the heart-shaped red stone pierced with a hole for the suspension I used to wrap around my neck. I found that stone in a churchyard.
I was too young. Perhaps an older version of me would have made him a better writer. Do not laugh. You are too handsome when you laugh.
In the end, he managed to do something special. He invented the name of a perfume and made me wear it on every page of his book: rien que pour toi. I hid his book somewhere in the library. Yet, every morning, in the space between the bed and the window, it still smells rien que pour toi.
On August 2021 Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose became a #1 Amazon bestseller. My deepest thanks to everyone who bought my book.
Yesterday, June 17 2022, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women became a #1 Amazon bestseller! As your editor and curator and am deeply honored and excited. So are your publisher, Ingrid Wilson, and I suspect all authors who know about.
Does it say #1 and #2 in New Releases in Poetry Anthologies? That is because both editions of Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women the kindle edition, and the paperback were #1. However, you cannot have #1 twice in Hot New Releases, so we ended up #1 and #2. Taken separately you could see both editions were running #1.
I cannot tell you how much that means to me. It humbles me and it fills my heart with joy.
Yesterday evening we were #1 in Women’s Poetry category too.
Let’s keep this book a #1 bestseller for a while. Women’s lives are important. Let’s show everyone we believe that. Let’s walk the walk.
Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women is out!
To the readers: A stunning poetry anthology. From its gorgeous pages, pain driven away by healing. Souls who endured, fought, and won. Some of them still waiting to win. Empowerment. We all need it. The life of women. We all need to read it.
To the authors: It was an honor and a pleasure to edit and curate this anthology. Your poetry showed me the way to your souls. For that I will be forever grateful. In my darkest moments, I will think about how each and one of you fought. Your fight became my candle to a better tomorrow. I’ll take my broken heart and mend it because you showed me how.
To the entire team who worked on this anthology: Ingrid Wilson of Experiments in Fiction, thank you for working on this book and for publishing it. Nick Reeves, gratitude for the gorgeous cover art, and editing expertise. It was an honor and a pleasure to work with both of you.
Yesterday, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women was running #4 in Amazon Hot New Releases [category: anthology].
Please spread the word. Help us to get these talented and brave authors to #1. They deserve it. You will not regret reading their words.
Amazon description:
Award-winning authors, Pushcart nominees, emerging poets, voices of women and men, come to the fore in this stunning, powerful, and unique anthology. These poems testify both to the challenges that women face in our society, and to their power to overcome them. A memorable collection of over 200 poems by more than 100 authors, this anthology is a must-have for anyone. We all can benefit from the poetry of survival, and of healing. We all can benefit from the experiences so beautifully evoked in this book. We can all come together to emerge triumphant from pain.
Do not forget the launching party is June 18, 3pm London time and it will be live-steamed on YouTube.
40 POEMS AT 40 by Ingrid Wilson – reviewed by Gabriela Marie Milton
40 POEMS AT 40 by Ingrid Wilson is the manifesto of an extremely intelligent, and talented, woman unafraid to explore her past and her inner and outer worlds. Ingrid’s poetry soars to the sky when the seasons change. It dwells in the most secret corners of the soul when dark moments knock on the door.
Ingrid has written 40 beautiful poems. 40 beautiful poems in which one comes face to face with yearnings to change the world, biographical notes, questions about the birth of the universe, pain, and love. Ingrid’s poems weave splendidly the ontological and the epistemological plans to create art. What, and how, come together in an unbelievable journey into the life of a woman in which children go to school and birthdays need to be celebrated.
Oh, and how the landscape plays a role in her beautiful poetry. Italy, England, Spain are not only used for decorative purposes. In Ingrid’s poetry they become intricate parts of the author’s soul.
The space and the time are perceived through intimate prisms. There is North and South, and there is the sea, with its majesty. There is a certain November sky with its colors. There are dancing ice queens and solstices of the heart. There are striking lines like: “I am the song unsung/the life unlived.”
One can almost hear the opening villanelle with her up and down tonalities. It sounds like the song of a nightingale.
The book will be released next month when Ingrid turns 40. Here are a thousand cheers for this stunning volume of poetry and for its author – a woman who knows how to ask questions about the real meaning of life. A woman who does not mince words and does not submit to stereotypes.
Read 40 POEMS AT 40. It’s a fabulous book. You will not be disappointed.
Publication date: February 11, 2022. The book will be available for pre-order before the publication date. You can find Ingrid’s work here.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose in Manhattan Book Review
In Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Gabriela Milton, presents an assorted collection that’s intended to invigorate the soul and speak to the depths of human understanding. She delineates her views on feminism, misogyny, passion, hate, spirituality, winning, and losing; while the most salient topic is love…
Milton’s poetic artistry is bold and beautiful, deep and confounding. It’s laced with gorgeous symbolism and imagery. For example, in “Love Numbers”, she writes, “We laid in the grass, shadows of poppies playing on our faces with the same rhythmicity of the waves on tranquil days.” In “Who Am I”, she notes, “I delight in the waves like a gazelle in the grasslands” and later states, “My mind spreads its wings.” Due to her gift in this area, college literature professors may find her work worthy of analysis and use. It is rich with an assortment of literary greats: personification; simile; and metaphor, just to name a few…
Overall, this collection is noteworthy in its uniqueness and eloquence. Many will likely savor the journey it invites them to travel and will gain insight into the powerful impact of poetry and prose on its connoisseurs.
Holding Your Hand – poem included in Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
I walk through the future holding your hand Barefoot I pray to a God whose name I don’t know The rain washes our hearts engraved in the wood The child is the flower of tears and of sweet blood It’s not love that we want It’s the resurrection of dead The breaths that the sea kills with her looks Your hands and the sin we will never commit The room that we rented is empty and cold You know that I came You feel that I left I hear your voice Black coffee waits for the sunrise of us And the future runs in the past
You can get my book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose on Amazon
Updates
Thank you again to those who enter the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. I hope to announce the winners at the end of October.
Help our literary community strive. Do not forget to read, like, and submit to MasticadoresUSA.
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.
Farewell to you Andalucía, to gypsy moons & to the music of your breasts. Frantic nights, wounds that never heal. White shirts, heated bodies, pulsing veins, rhythmic blood. A woman wears her wedding band around her neck. #Farewell to you my matador Te amo para siempre #vss365pic.twitter.com/ZQooDZXons
— Gabriela Marie Milton (@shortprose1) July 28, 2021
Updates on Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
Amazon US – on August 4 my poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow was in the top 17 new release bestsellers for poetry by women. Number 16 Louise Glück who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Running right behind her like on August 2. Humbled beyond words.
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Amazon Ca – Today, August 6 my poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow is in the top #19 new release bestsellers for poetry by women in Canada. Again humbled beyond words.
My dear followers, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind support.