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3 April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

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I’m Not Ready for This

A routine trip to the doctor

I have bad news

My heart drops through my chest to the floor

cancer

You have Diabetes

Diabetes

I can live with Diabetes

A closet with a five minute video from the 50’s

A nurse with a test kit

I’m on my own

Wait a minute

I’m not ready

I don’t know anything about Diabetes

Tears

A call to my wife

More tears

The internet

Friends

Doctors

Needles

Pills

Seminars

Conferences

I can live with Diabetes

and I Do

Every     Single     Day

~ Lori Renee

Lori Renee is a writer who is just beginning to get comfortable sharing her words with the world. She welcomes this safe space to share a piece of herself during National Poetry Month.  

2 April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

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                                                                     Reparation 

It was not my moon that watched malignly as you suffered.

My moon, when gloriously full, showed me the crystal stillness of the night.

My moon illuminated beings that moved and lived and played in the darkness.

My moon showed me the best holds as I climbed out of my attic bedroom window on warm

summer nights and down three stories to the waiting pear tree, as my parents snored peacefully

believing me locked away safely above them.

My moon cast dark shadows, dark enough for me to stand invisible to the late night

weavings of drunken adults, and the angst ridden chaos of errant teens.

My moon and the night skies were my friends, they kept my secrets and helped me find my way

back to my attic room with time to spare before the dawn tried to tattle.

But your moon…heralded terror.

Your moon signaled to an evil that it was time to grab you up.

Your moon watched with malevolent indifference as your tears rolled silently in the dust on your

face and smeared on your hands,

Your moon smiled as the fiends who should have protected you,

abused your body and your soul.

Your moon demanded this of you again and again, in what seemed a

never ending chain of torture.

And now I know.

And though I still love my moon and the night…I no longer lament the clouds that obscure them.

I give them up when this happens, in reparation for the pains you endured, are still enduring.

I give them up in compassion, not forced upon me, but driven by a need to help you heal.

And even though it was not I, it was not my moon that did you harm – I give up it up willingly,

 and in my heart I know that it will never really be enough, this reparation, but it’s a start.

~ Natalia Corres

Natalia Corres, retired tech whisperer, has written weekly web news for examiner.com for 3 years, as well as publishing a Pet Services Directory for her local area.  She enjoys writing poetry, non-fiction, and urban fiction; as well as providing creative assistance to others in film and animation projects.

1 April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

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Pastime Theatre, Bakersfield

Optical Illusion

In 1924 on the southside
of Nineteenth Street between Chester and Eye
the Pastime Theatre unveiled a sign
promoting the latest wise-guy
feature, but fourteen million years ago,
this was all a shallow saltwater sea
starring sea lion and shark, a dumbshow
one can excavate from Ant Hill to reel
in whale song, salt on the tongue, vertebrae
the temperature of sedimentary
Miocene siltstone, a fossil bouquet
the color of your slow trajectory
through anniversary sales and visits,
for glaucoma, to the optometrist.

~Matthew Woodman

Matt Woodman

Matthew Woodman, Kern County Poet Laureate, teaches writing at California State University, Bakersfield and is the founding editor of the journal Rabid Oak. He has work forthcoming in Counterclock and Dryland, and more of his writing can be found at www.matthewwoodman.com.

Month of April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

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Poets and dabblers, Writers of Kern continues the National Poetry Month tradition of the past several years—The WebPoetrySlam. On the WOK website blog, we’re posting an original poem, written by club or Facebook members, each day in April. Begin sending your poems today. Subject Line: NPM POETRY to submissions@writersofkern.com

Submission Guidelines: In a word document, please send the following: 1) your poems [40 lines or fewer] 2) a headshot 3) your 50-word bio.

15 June 2019 | Featured Speaker, Author Esther Hatch – The Pros & Cons for Small Press Publishing

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This presentation will cover the advantages and disadvantages of small press publishing.

There are more options to publishing than just self publishing or publishing with an agent and hoping to land a book with a big publishing house. Sometimes the middle road can be the right road.

Advantages: agents may not be required, quicker publishing timeline, close knit group of people you come to know and the ability to hit a niche market.

Pitfalls: smaller press runs, smaller budgets, some small presses may not do enough advertising and marketing to really sell your books in the way you imagined.

Click here to purchase tickets to the meeting online.

Bio: Esther Hatch grew up on a cherry orchard in rural Utah. After high school she alternated living in Russia teaching children English, and attending Brigham Young University in order to get a degree in Archaeology. Always an avid reader, she began writing when one of her favorite authors invited her to join a critique group. The only catch was she had to be a writer. Not one to be left out of an opportunity to socialize and try something new; she started on her first novel that week.