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 scheduled to be released on June 18, 2022
Dear Readers,
I am delighted to announce that Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women is scheduled to be released on June 18, 2022.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to edit and curate this anthology. Every day I hear women speaking about the adversities they face. Every day I see most of them triumphing. To read the unbelievable poetry of women and men who understand how many obstacles need to be overcome in a society that is still patriarchal brought me to tears. Thank you for submitting your incredible poetry to this anthology. Thank you for opening your hearts.
Below is the description of the anthology as it will appear on Amazon.
Award-winning authors, Pushcart nominees, emerging poets, voices of women and men, come to the fore in this stunning, powerful, and unique anthology. Their poems testify 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.
This anthology has been a team effort. Many thanks to Ingrid Wilson at Experiments in Fictionfor agreeing to publish this book. Ingrid, you work relentlessly and you are a wonderful poet. Many thanks to Nick Reeves for his wonderful art and for his proofreading expertise. My deepest gratitude to everyone who spread the word about this anthology. Thank you to those of you who joined our Twitter Space.
On June 18, the day of the release, we will have a launch party via Zoom. Contributors are invited to read their poems. An email with more info will go out soon.
The event will be live-streamed via social media, so anyone will have a chance to hear poems from the anthology read by the poets themselves. For further updates check my blog, Ingrid’s, and the following social media accounts:
Twitter: @shortprose1 (Gabriela Marie Milton) @Experimentsinfc (Ingrid Wilson)
Cover Design/ArtWork @2022 Experiments in Fiction/ Nick Reeves
Dear All,
Thank you for your submissions to the anthology Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women. I am privileged and honored to be your editor. Your poems and your talent brought me to tears.
Thank you to our publisher Ingrid Wilson, and toNick Reeves for the beautiful cover book. I am thrilled to work with Ingrid on this anthology.
Submissions are open until April 15. You can read the submissions guidelines here and find more info here.
You will receive a notification of acceptance or rejection in the beginning of May.
“Dear Mama: An Immigrant’s Secret Cry” author Shailja Sharma, published by Pittsburgh-based Setu Publications, a merit-based, peer-reviewed publisher with a preface by Gabriela Marie Milton.
When Shailja sent me the manuscript of her book and asked me to write a preface I was sure I was not going to do it. I had too much work to do: too much research, too many responsibilities, too many hours helping various communities, including the poetry community. I definitely was not going to do it. That was valid before I opened the manuscript. The moment I opened it I could not put it down.
First, here is Shailja talking about her book:
“Dear Mama: An Immigrant’s Secret Cry” is a secret tear flowing from an immigrant’s heart. It’s the tear that is hidden from mama for many years while settling in a land away from home. It feels better when it finally flows. These poems depict lacks and memories, struggles and hardships, as well as hopes, promises, potential, and empowerment. Some of these pieces were recently published world-wide. Due to an excellent readership, the author was compelled to extend and compile this book.”
Below is my preface and the Amazon link where you can find the book.
In 2017, Jessica Traynor, wrote an opinion piece in The Irish Times entitled “James Joyce, the emigrant who left Dublin in body but not in mind.” The theme of immigration has been a constant presence in world literature. Most recently, contemporary novels such as Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic, and Cristina Henriquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans excellently depict the challenges and struggles of immigrants.
Shailja Sharma (Ph.D.), a psychologist practicing in the USA, steps on the same roads with her beautiful poetry volume entitled Dear Mama: An Immigrant’s Secret Cry. The book reflects the trauma immigrants endure when settling in new lands. The opening poem screams alienation: “I missed telling you how much I missed you.”
In order for the new life to keep as least a semblance of past – a past where the familiar lies – the author tries to reproduce in her place of settlement Indian customs. Lines like: Hold your Deepak/Flaunt the sari, are representative. Shailja decries the lack of free-play, discrimination, prejudice, and longs for the smoothness and protection that once she felt at home.
Dear Mama: An Immigrant’s Secret Cry, stands apart not only because of the theme the author addresses – immigration being a major subject in multiple societies these days – but also by the power of its astonishing verse, the talent of its author, and the empowerment the author offers. In the pages of this book the reader will find poetry at its best. Shailja Sharma’s verses are the mirror in which immigrants can find themselves and, equally, the highest expression of poetic endeavor.
Here is a snippet from the book
There used to be a wall with a hook that anchored my belongings. Some wet memories have pickled over the years. It’s raining and my feet are running to the backyard to save grandmother’s pickle jars. I know it’s too late, but I continue to stand in prickly rain drops. My wounds are wet and I am shivering. I am crying for the concrete floor, on which, sat a folded towel holding her steaming pressure-cooker. I have lost that floor…
A Gentle Reminder – Please do not forget to submit to the anthology Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women.
You can find the call for submissions HERE. Please follow the guidelines for submissions. Poetry that does not follow the guidelines will not be taken in consideration.
The Judges have spoken. Here are the winners of the Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose. Congratulations to those who won prizes and to those who won Honorable Mentions. Your poems are fabulous. I am beyond grateful you entered the contest. In my heart you are all winners. Thank you!
This post features only the poems of the winners.
My Friday post will feature the poems of those who received Honorable Mentions.
The Winners of The Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose are:
First Place Virginia Mateias
Second Place Ingrid Wilson Eric Daniel Clarke
Third place D. Wallace Peach Timothy Price
Honorable Mentions [in no particular order]
Joni Caggiano Cindy Georgakas Jeff Flesch Karima Hoisan Carrie Yang
The Poems of the Winners:
Virginia Mateias, Crystals from the absurd [Inspired by Moonlight love]
I couldn’t see the dawn. The bed was too far away from the sky. Fallen angels had covered the window with forlorn crystals absurdly beautiful. Out of them our own feelings were watching us askance.
The air was talking to me somewhere: Wait, he’ll be coming! But, you see, your arm locked me in like an arch and I fell asleep to the earth’s heavy core.
I couldn’t see the dawn. In the murky moonlight fallen angels crystallized in silence are keeping vigil. Only the razor-smile of the Seller of Time taunts me from crystals. It is always midnight now.
Ingrid Wilson, Event Horizon [Inspired by You in Other Life]
The moon and I trade glances beneath the light of ages reflections of our phases, we traverse boundaries of shadow the birth and death of stars adorns our voyage my course uncharted on a shoreless sea.
She is the sand-dollar storyteller of sirens and undertows hidden caves beneath blooms of coral, troves of stolen gold a moon-faced child unblemished by the salt of tears she weaves tales of faithfulness sung to the sea’s rhythmic strum.
A seductress, she trades in the caress of madness and liquid kisses when a timorous heart flares and passion burns by torchlight skin and wings consumed, I surrender to the mariner’s lure drown in the tide’s curling crush and gull’s lonesome cry.
She is the gibbous years, molding castles of compromise sand towers dripping through faults in cupped hands I comb the half-moon beach for luminous abalone craft a chime of common jingle shells, all that I find.
She is the windborne balloon of my daughter’s dream awakening a boy fishes upon the crescent of her smile sea-smoothed glass tumbles at their feet for sorting, for choosing for all my devotion, iron ships founder like paper-sailed toys.
She whispers a harmony of waxing and waning an old crone’s serenade in her waves’ refrain when sea thrift and violets yield petals to sheer bluffs she chants from the conch cupped to my ear:
You are the nautilus spinning outward eternal feminine on a string of pearls iridescent ’til the sun succumbs to midnight deep when a silken wind sweeps over lunar dunes erasing your footprints rolls you into darkness eclipsed.
Timothy Price, One Side Sacred The Other Side Profane [inspired by Between Sacred and Profane]
Quicksilver shimmers, dances — it’s mesmerizing, mad Stealthily slithered made its way slowly to the bay Dumped in fact for many years A disease so mysterious, unexplained One side sacred. The other side profane
Shoulders bare in her bath of darkened waters stilled Quicksilver’s spawn crippled lies in darkness no free will Mother cuddles her loved, her badly damaged daughter A mystery in her mother’s arms distorted from the pain Industry is sacred, her life made profane
A man of vision documented, published all the strife For his efforts he was beaten to within inches of his life Trying to enlighten the world he gave up his sight He died for the cause, was his martyrdom in vain? Jobs are sacred, his life’s end profane
Thousands fell from Quicksilver’s seeds inside their mothers’ wombs Those children grew up oh so numb, fell blinded, deaf and dumb Ostracized, outcasts convulsing from their awful curse It was “cat dance fever” so many said that made them go insane Society is Sacred. Their lives were profane
Announcements:
To all winners: please send your PayPal accounts to shortprose12@gmail.com. Vita Brevis Press will disburse the prizes from my royalties no later than the end of the week.
The selection of the winners was a very difficult task. My deepest thanks to the judges.
Please remember to help our literary community and buy a book or two. If you do so please save this post and leave in the comment area the Amazon link of the book(s) you bought.
The Honorable Mention poems will post on Friday. Please read my Friday post. The poetry of those who received Honorable Mentions is also stunning.
Next Tuesday I will announce another initiative to help our community strive more.
Finalists of the Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose
My Dear Readers,
Congratulations to the 13 finalists of the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose!
I am thrilled to present you with their names, the titles of their poems, and the title of the poems from Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose that inspired them. The finalists are listed in no particular order.
Ingrid Wilson, Event Horizon, inspired by the poem You in Another Life.
Eric Daniel Clarke, Somewhere Stations, inspired by The Train to Vienna.
Cindy Georgakas, Chance Meeting, inspired by Self-Indulgence.
Virginia Mateias, Crystals from the absurd, inspired by Moonlight love.
D. Wallace Peach, Eclipsed, inspired by The moon and I.
Joni Caggiano, You Were The Best of Us, inspired by The child to be.
Jeff Flesch, and… love… is seen, inspired by And.. love…
Karima Hoisan, The Stars of Wadi Rum, inspired by Sahara.
Carrie Yang, Yellow, inspired by Yellow.
Vipul Vij, Hues of Emotions, inspired by September Tango.
Timothy Price, One Side Sacred The Other Side Profane, inspired by Between Sacred and Profane.
JayaAvendel, I met you before, inspired by The Orphic Egg.
Eunice Aformanor, Let your heart …, inspired by Daughter of this Earth.
Thank you to everyone who enter the contest. It was no easy task for the reviewers to come up with 13 finalists. Yet, they did. The next stage in the process is for the reviewers to select the winners. I will feature all poems on my blog after the winners are announced and their work is featured.
As a reminder here is how the selection of the winners is done:
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 the following steps were taken:
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.
Prizes:
First Place: $300
Second Place: $150
Third Place: $75
Funding for the prizes comes from my royalties.
The winners will be announced soon!
Reminders:
Please help our literary community strive. Do not forget to read, like, and submit to MasticadoresUSA.
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 included in 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.
Good luck to everyone who wishes to participate and thank you again for your support.
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.
poem included in my book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis Press, April 2020) available on Amazon here
my eyes are water wells mirroring your body into a time which shrinks my lips shine on stained glass windows to the sea a virgin violin faints into your lap sick with jealousy the summer hangs in trees seduction fantasy
MasticadoresUSA Update
A gorgeous poem by M. Taggart is up at MasticadoresUSA. Please read it here and please subscribe to MasticadoresUSA.
Do you want to submit? Please read the guidelines here Thank you Gabriela
I am thrilled that my two poems Prayerand A Night of Marble and of Gingerbread were included in Issue I of Free Verse Revolution: Hebe (the fountain of youth)
Prayer by Gabriela Marie Milton
you, fountain of youth, forgive me I am the one made from mud and from the skin of Attica’s flutes at night, my existence feels like an impertinence or perhaps like an interlinear a language half-imagined half adulterated by the bloom of the olive trees under the sticky wing of an angel I was born in the swamps where the tombs of the prophets sunk I am blood and bones when I smell the sea and the meat from the grill church bell toll and speak of death, and of the mystique of oblique winds you, goddess of youth, source of life from where four rivers flow your child-like body stands some days on the top of the mountains and others on the top of the fountains your skin is dewed and flowered with love my skin haunts the night of the deserts your destiny is that of the innocents mine is that of the sinners forgive me, you, Hebe that I do not ask for the gift of youth give it to the children give it to the sick and throw what is left into the sea the fish will be happy
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A Night of Marble and of Gingerbread by Gabriela Marie Milton
on the top of the mountain the pines silhouette against the whisper of the rocks the night is cut from marble, and from gingerbread the wind stops on a branch touched by a naked star I take the measure of that which forever youth gives red poppies that never wither seeds that never impregnate the ground a love that still plays with toys, and lights candles in a Christmas tree in the middle of summer the moon is mortal and concerned with trivial matters and so am I Hebe, how many know that you are the bud of incest and patricide? how many know your child’s eyes witnessed so many crimes? filled with pain, you stop growing up, isn’t it so? oh, don’t cry here is my impermanent heart wear it for one day in the morning you will see the old oak dying in the rain at noon butterflies will sit on your hair in the night a Lethean forgetfulness will lecture on the beauty of transitory love kisses will feel like honey on the tongue the breath of love will rest on your skin you will grow up what? you do not want your forever youth back? dream it’s spring
My book – Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings – was published.
Thank you to all my followers who’ve supported me. I wish I could make the sky rain blessings on all of you. I wish I could heal all wounds with my words. I wish I could send you a rose hidden in whispers of love every day.
I will try. I will never give up. You’ve showed me love. I’ll return your love. Every day I’ll try to give you more than I take. That’s my promise to you.
Yours
Gabriela
Shiver (a poem from my book)
A full moon weeps cold fragrant oil on my face.
Shiver.
The cicadas’ song penetrates the membranes of the space.
On one of my arms a purple mark sighs and then falls asleep.
Looking for prey a snake’s tongue splits the time in two.
I feel the bite.
You.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings contains new poems, poems published in various venues, and a few excerpts from my manuscript “Glass Lovers.”
