Category Archives: December 2019

Saluting the Poetry of Matthew Borczon and The Skinny Poetry Journal

When I think about the people who have greatly impacted my life, it’s clear that a significant number of them are veterans. Many, like Lamont B. Steptoe, are Vietnam veterans–but not all–Dr. Tony Medina, case in point. For what they have suffered in the act of giving, I am very grateful. And certainly, the wisdom, generosity, knowledge, and inspiration they have given me is a gift beyond compare.

I mention all of that to say that I am, and TSPA is, edified by another soldier–Matthew Borczon. He is also a gift beyond compare to the world–this poet–this writer–for his sterling poetry of witness. Not unlike Yehuda Amichai, he writes about war from the point of view of painful personal experience. He writes to honor the sanctity of life and to remind all who will listen about the ongoing human cost of war.

As we are inches away from the second decade in the twenty-first century, in a world in constant conflict, it strikes me that Borczon’s poetry should be embraced with the reverence of a New Year’s Eve “Watch Night” Service. – t

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and that of multitudes of exceedingly talented poets
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Matthew Borczon is a poet from Erie, Pennsylvania. He has published 11 collections of poetry, the most recent being Body Bag, on Nixes Mate Books. When Borczon is not writing, he is a nurse who serves adults with developmental disabilities. He has been a Navy Hospital Corpsman for the last 18 years and often writes about his time in Afghanistan and his life after living with PTSD.

Anjanette Delgado Matters & The Skinny Poetry Journal

One of the great joys of publishing is sharing–or further sharing–the work of profoundly gifted writers with the world. Anjanette Delgado is such a writer–and her poetic voice is grand and bright and rich. TSPA is blessed by the wealth of her talent. – t
Anjanette Delgado is the author of The Heartbreak Pill (Simon & Schuster, 2008), and The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho (Kensington Publishing & Penguin Random House, 2014). She is also the 2009 winner of the Latino International Book Award. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, as well as in The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Vogue, The Hong Kong Review, and on National Public Radio.

Anne Harding Woodworth and The Skinny Poetry Anthology

Anne Harding Woodworth’s poetry is touching, wrenching, and Trouble (to borrow from the title of her forthcoming book), in the way that great art often tends to be. To that end, her work in The Skinny Poetry Anthology is as precious as gravity.
 
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Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of six books of poetry and four chapbooks. Her seventh book, Trouble, will appear in late 2020. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts, and is on the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., where she lives.

Tom Laichas in The Skinny Poetry Anthology

So yes, I think it would be fair to say that the poetry of Tom Laichas possesses imagery as rich as any silver screen storytelling frame. It’s haunting and magical. Certainly, he also keeps a great deal of California brightness under his hat–and now in the freshly-inked pages The Skinny Poetry Anthology. – t
 
Tom Laichas’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in 3.1Venice, Ambit, Masque & Spectacle, Big Window Review and elsewhere. His first collection, Empire of Eden, is due out in 2020 from High Window Press (UK).

Shaggy Flores heating up TSPA

The work of Jaime “Shaggy” Flores in The Skinny Poetry Anthology is fire. To be sure, this poet does with seeming ease what few other writers can do at all–and in two languages. CLICK HERE TO ORDER your copy of TSPA today.

A Sneak Peak from from The Skinny Poetry Anthology: “I Ask My Grandfather Why He Won’t Speak English” by Maura Alia Badji

I Ask My Grandfather Why He Won’t Speak English

He says, I keep my country in my mouth.
Exile
Sicilian-Ethiopian
Intersection
Blood
Exile
Loyal
Tongued
Vigilant
Exile
I keep my country in my mouth, he says.

Maura Alia Badji
6/2/2016

Maura Alia Badji is a poet/writer/ESL teacher. Her writing has appeared in Aeolian Harp, The Delaware Review, Pirene’s Fountain, The Buffalo NewsThe Phoenix Soul, Liberated MuseCobalt, The Wise Woman, WELTER, The Good Men Project, This City Is a Poem, Barely South Review, and other notable publications. Badji lives in Virginia Beach, with her son, Ibrahim.

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“I Never Told You” and “A Year Later” by Elizabeth Mercurio

I Never Told You

there was another suicide attempt
smoke
womb
engine
runs
smoke
warmth
whiskey
womb
smoke
another suicide attempt. there. was.

***

A Year Later

You swallowed pills down the pipe of your throat
strangers
in
scrubs
words
strangers
you
can’t
understand
strangers
Down the pipe of your throat, you swallowed pills

Elizabeth Mercurio
12/10/2019

Elizabeth Mercurio’s chapbook, Doll is forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Books in January of 2020. She earned an MFA in poetry from The Solstice Low-Residency Program of Pine Manor College. Her work has appeared in, Third Point Press, Philadelphia Stories, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Literary Nest, Fledgling Rag, and Lily Poetry Review.