A Muted Blue Star Muses

Monday, February 25, 2019

North/South Appalachia Poetry

So I'm part of this now. One of the editors for the Southern Appalachian Region.

More info: Poetry & Art from Northern & Southern Appalachia. North/South is a publication of Studio Appalachia *Named adopted from the North/South Appalachian Highway Official Website Blog on the Studio Appalachia site Studio Appalachia Facebook Page
North/South Poetry Facebook Page

Monday, February 18, 2019

Jim Webb Special Is(sue) Release!

Dear Kinfolk,

I am ecstatic to announce to you that our first Special Is(sue), the Jim Webb Is(sue), is live! The pieces that everyone sent were beautifully evocative of Wiley Quixote and the whole is a fitting tribute that would have tickled him pink. This is, of course, a completely Appalachian is(sue). References to WMMT.FM, Webb’s most famous collection “Get In, Jesus”, and the devastating effects of mountain top removal abound. There are even beautiful photos awash in white daylight of paw paws. Almost all the contributors were close friends and acquaintances with the poet and that personal true feeling in the is(sue) is powerful and profound. Thank you all so much! This is(sue) will be shared with his wife Katie. Hopefully, it will give her comfort and joy. To access the is(sue), click on the menu bars in the upper left corner and click “Special Is(sues)”. This is(sue) will reside there for as long as there is an AvantAppal(achia) ezine. Here is the direct link.

If you submitted between January and now and did not receive an email on or before February 14th, it is because we feel that your work is more suited to one of the regular issues and we are holding it for the June Is(sue). Speaking of which, the submission period for the June 2019 is(sue) is now officially open. So back to weird, avant-garde, experimental, Appalachian and worldwide. The deadline for the next is(sue) is May 31, 2019. Please read and follow the guidelines posted when submitting.

As usual, you all went above and beyond and made a truly Special is(sue). You are what make AvantAppal(achia) the ground-breaking leading ezine that it is. Thank you for your beautiful magic!

Sincerely,

Sabne Raznik
Poetry/Art Ed(itor)

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Final Notice of Deadline for Jim Webb Is(sue)

Dear Kinfolk,

This is your FINAL NOTICE that the deadline for the Jim Webb Special Is(sue) is JANUARY 31, 2019. We need poetry, art, and stories about Jim Webb, aka Wiley Quixote. Send us your best, zaniest, most colorful Jim Webb memories. Again, we would like to thank his wife Katie for allowing us to make this special is(sue). You will be able to access it via the menu on the AvantAppal(achia) website by clicking on “Special Is(sues)” where it will remain indefinitely. It will go live some time on February 15, 2019. Don’t miss out! Help us make this the most beautiful tribute to the Godfather of Appalachian Poetry on the world wide web!

www.avantappalachia.com

email: avantappalachia@gmail.com

The usual guidelines do apply.

Sincerely,

Sabne Raznik

Poetry/Art Ed(itor)

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Jim Webb Is(sue)

Dear Kinfolk,
The time has come and here it is: the official call for submissions for our 1st Special Is(sue)! With his wife’s permission, we seek to celebrate the life of Jim Webb aka Wiley Quixote (September 24, 1945 – October 22, 2018), the Godfather of Appalachian Poetry, with an is(sue) containing poetry, art, and anecdotes about him and things he cared about. The usual guidelines apply. Submissions deadline is January 31, 2019 and the is(sue) will go live under the Special Is(sues) tab on the AvantAppal(achia) website on February 15, 2019. Tell (or show) us your stories about this colorful soul! www.avantappalachia.com Photo credit: Malcolm J. Wilson.

We are honoured to be allowed to host this special is(sue) and we eagerly look forward to reading every submission. Please take note of the deadline and going-live dates as this is outside of our usual schedule. Share, share, share, please, and spread the word. Thank you, Kinfolk, for making our ezine a vital and living part of Appalachia and the world. You are our lifeblood!

Sincerely,

Sabne Raznik
Poetry/Art Ed(itor)

Saturday, December 15, 2018

New Is(sue) of AvantAppal(achia) Live Now!

Dear Kinfolk,

Is(sue) 6 is live at www.avantappalachia.com and it is a fine is(sue)! We have a return appearance of Gabriel Rosenstock’s ekphrastic haiku as well as a few video fusion pieces. Svein H. Skavern gives us a particularly stunning commentary with his video-art piece, especially given the “speaking in tongues” tradition in Appalachia. He also gives us a window into asemic art. T. Byron Kelly delights us again. Lorie Zientara’s deceptively simple verse graces us again. Jeff Bagato makes poetry from AI generated text and Jim Meirose fascinates us with a chapter from his ongoing novel that reads as if Joyce, Beckett, and John Nash had a wild slumber party. This is one of those is(sues) that will be nearly impossible when the time comes to archive.

Also, notice that the submission period is now open for AvantAppal(achia)’s first Special Is(sue). With gracious permission from the poet’s wife, AvantAppal(achia) will be compiling a special is(sue) in tribute to Jim Webb, the Godfather of Appalachian Poetry. It will feature poetry, visual art, and real anecdotes about Wiley Quixote. The deadline for submissions for it is JANUARY 31, 2019 and it will go live February 15, 2019. But don’t worry, Is(sue) 6’s time will not be shortened. The Special Is(sue) will be released on a separate page on the AvantAppal(achia) website where it will remain as long as the website. An official call for submissions will be released in a week.

Thank you, Kinfolk, for another outstanding is(sue). Dave Sykes and I really loved putting this one together for you. It is you who make it possible!

Sincerely,

Sabne Raznik

Poetry/Art Ed(itor)

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

AvantAppal(achia) Is(sue) 6 and Jim Webb

Dear Kinfolk,

Please be aware this is your FINAL notice that the deadline for the December 2018 is(sue) is November 30, 2018. We need your best experimental poetry, short stories, and artwork. With your help, we look forward to publishing our best is(sue) yet!

Also, some of you may have heard that the Godfather of Appalachian poetry, Jim Webb, also known as Wiley Quixote on WMMT.FM, passed away at his residence Wiley's Last Resort on October 22, 2018. It is fair to say that nearly every contemporary Appalachian artist, poet, and musician owe our careers to him in some way. So Dave Sykes and I thought it would be appropriate to put together a special is(sue) of AvantAppal(achia) to allow the community to pay tribute to this generous and joyful soul. We plan on making a home for the special is(sue) by adding a new page to the website for it and going live with it between our regular is(sues) of December 2018 and June 2019. We will share more details when we have them. In the meantime, send your submissions for the December 2018 is(sue) and start dusting off those tribute poems, artworks, and anecdotes for the special is(sue).

www.avantappalachia.com

Dark Horse Volume 1 Available Now!

Dark Horse Poets Vol. 1 available now. $5 for the digital album. Thank you, @ghosthouseva, for including my work! Get yours here!

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Dark Horse Poets

So I’m part of this. My poem “The Bearded Prophet” from my first collection “Following Hope”. More info when I have it!

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

AvantAppal(achia) on Weird Appalachia Podcast

Thanks to the shout out to AvantAppal(achia) ezine on Weird Appalachia podcast! Erin Alise Conley, Jessica Salyer, and Brooklynn Dyer, you girls rock!

AvantAppal(achia) and Gabriel Rosenstock

Dear Kinfolk,

AvantAppal(achia) is gearing up for Is(sue) 6 for which the submission period is open! Now that the ezine is fairly established, we are looking for even more EXPERIMENTAL work. We accept audio, video, and even HTML code. Mix medias, mix genres, stretch language, stretch grammar, have fun! As a reminder, while our focus is on Appalachian work, we strongly encourage international submissions. https://www.avantappalachia.com/submissions.html

Also, in news, Kinfolk member Gabriel Rosenstock has a new book coming out called "Stillness of Crows" which you can order here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=stillness+of+crows

Deadline for Is(sue) 6 is November 30, 2018! Send that poetry, short prose, and visual art!

Sincerely,

Sabne Raznik
Poetry/Art Ed(itor)

"Fingers" Broadside

A unique broadside designed and printed on January 4, 2014 for the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs (KASAP)'s The Rising Center's "No More" traveling art exhibit to raise awareness to end sexual and domestic violence. The art exhibit will travel throughout the state of Kentucky in 2015, after which the broadside will be auctioned off at the Rising Center's discretion. The broadside features the much-praised poem "Fingers" from the collection "Following Hope" (Xlibris, 2007). There is only one (1) "Fingers" Broadside in existence.

Rabbit Hole

"I want the reader to imagine a dream, a dream of the sort that is not quite a nightmare where the dreamer wakes in terror but rather a dream where the dreamer is led on from curiosity to curiosity, image to image, and, confused perhaps but no less surprised by the images, wakes with a head scratch and begins the day, thinking about the world as a much stranger place than when the reader laid down to sleep ... [In the poems where the language is more] extreme . . . the deconstruction of language . . . [mirrors] the shattered state of language today and the impossibility to understand discourse of any kind anymore. It is as if language itself is designed to disguise meaning rather than convey it.” - George Fillingham

Renaissance: Visual Art 2005 - 2019

“Renaissance” is an emotional collection of work. Sabne Raznik’s pieces present the human experience in a thought-provoking and abstract way through body shapes and delicate hues. A mix of digital and traditional media, Raznik’s work is compelling in a way that makes the viewer’s eyes want to linger - taking all the details in. The traditional drawings of the “Salome Series” capture movement and exotic femininity with only the use of line and simple shading, while mixed media pieces like “Beautiful Tatters” find beauty in the mundane or unusual, like a scrap of paper soaked in wine. Raznik’s digital paintings feel like one is looking at a human emotion depicted in soft fields of color. Raznik is well known for her written word, but is proving herself to be quite the visual storyteller as well. This body of work is an excellent addition to any collection.-- Erin Alise ConleyMixed Media Artist, Host of "Weird Appalachia" Podcast

Renaissance: Positivity Cards for an Uplifting Day

"Dreaming of Bono" (VoiceLux, 2022)

A little girl, a young lady, and a mature woman walk into a bar and order a pint of Guinness. Only the mature woman leaves. Why? Because "hope has wings" and only the mature woman has the experience enough to manipulate "the sadness in our will : the courage of noble righteous doomed, who defy and defy ... because we must, if only for those who lack the strength to fight". Because, as I told you, "she's lived more than you'll ever read". The collection is a taste of mental growth in action, weaving dreams, reality and over the top stardom into a father figure only to outgrow him in the most superlative way. A carry in your pocket lifting of burdens to peruse over and over again. Why? Because "hope" is making a ruckus to get your attention! -- Marica, Artist

Fingers/Dedos Bilingual Selected Poems (English/Spanish)

Sabne Raznik’s latest collection of poetry Fingers, Selected Poems / Dedos, Poemas Seleccionados contains four powerfully emotive poems (“The Bearded Prophet,” “Poetry,” “Through Our Skin,” and “Fingers”). The English original of each poem is followed by an illustration and then by a Spanish translation by María Del Castillo Sucerquia. It concludes with a photo of the author followed by a one-paragraph biography in English and then its Spanish translation. The four poems are extremely different thematically and make use of different poetic languages. The common denominator between them is an underlying existential anxiety resulting from the inability of human beings collectively to understand each other and set aside greed and self-interest, and individually, in the case of the poet, to find consummation in love, and to discover the language in words and images to capture and communicate the essence of her experience. The poet notes in “Bearded Prophet,” she finds herself in “the era of pain -stampeding pain,” one which paradoxically leads her to identify with the “dumb hillbilly,” the bearded prophet who wears a sign that says “The End of the World Is Near.” Impending doom is suggested by images of the destruction of the environment, the open gashes of Appalachian strip mines, trees stripped bear of life to a height of eight feet by herbicide, and the violent midwestern storms intensified by climate change. “Poetry,” the most abstract of the four poems, prescribes in the form of a series of commands (“arm yourself, “leave the figure,” “Virgin love grow bold” which do not lead to consummation; they prove impotent. “Through the Skin” evokes the locus of creativity, where books, and papers, paint and turpentine are present on a table along with cup and saucer, the place where the written word and the painted image are crafted. The poem leaves the reader with a sense of a purpose shared by the “us” of the poem: “to sketch an idea to live by.” The last poem “Fingers” evokes images of a painful, repeated sexual encounter described as a violation, “like cactus thorns raking down my shapeless lines,” but the violation seems not to result from the violent impulse of the other, rather from the inability of the speaking subject to make good on the promise to the self with the words “Never again, never again.” The four poems are satisfying both as individual compositions and as panels of a multi-media whole. – Yndiana Montes Fogelquist and Jim Fogelquist, Appalachian Latinidad Fingers/Dedos is a powerful chapbook with 4 elaborate poems in English, with the same poems being translated into Spanish. The poetry captures strong images and emotions: "You sat cross-legged in the grass/And the earth framed your face." I was pulled into these poems and transformed into a cocoon waiting to be released into something with such fingers that would "Feel the bone crack,/Grind against my teeth/As I scream [...]" and become new in the aftermath. – John Compton, the castration of a minor god and how we liberated what secrets we modified