Layers of Half-Sung Hymns by Aleathia Drehmer is officially available! Click the link to grab a copy of this unfathomably deep collection. Sister Drehmer did some healing while writing this one. You can feel it in her words.
After the Fall by William Teets is coming soon from Cajun Mutt Press! Recently finished painting the cover and putting the interior file together. Waiting on a proof copy. I’ll post some photos when it gets here.
After the Fall is a poetry collection that offers resurrection for a damaged Americana-spirituality: Blues music and barrooms, whiskey and smoke, rivers and haunted highways, leather jackets, hoodies, and Sunday’s best. . . and worst. William Teets’ poetry navigates corrupted streets, turns dangerous corners, and worships in darkened alleys. All in an unending quest for absolution, salvation, and answers.
“I often toss The Paris Review across the room after reading their poetry selections, because I all too often long for poetry to mean something. Nothing is more frustrating than reading poetry that is merely meter, failing to explore anything except that which the poet sees. Subtext is a rarity in today’s modern poems, and I think it may have to do with the lack of life our poets live. William Teets lacks neither life nor subtext. The poems in After the Fall are honest and hard-hitting. They may not be pretty, but you can’t look away. I will revisit these works often.”
G.W. Allison—author of The Final Round and The Sinful.
“William Teets writes poetry like a fallen jazz-blues-folk pagan priest. His narrative style is free and open and easy to read, but the subject matter deep and spiritual. I am reminded of the old Beat poets—can even see some Dylanesque qualities. His poems have that lyrical tone (Check out “Chillin’ with Chelsea” to see what I mean). After the Fall is for anyone, not just lovers of poetry.”
Gabriel Sebastian—Confetti magazine chief editor and founder and CEO of Word Werks, Inc.
I often wonder When I will die. I think It has to do with objects And my kinship with them.
One time my wife lost her blanket. She was swaddled in it As an infant. When we left the hotel room, I told her we had it with us. I thought we did. But I was in a hurry. I can’t think about that blanket Lost in the wilderness And my wife’s incandescent, round tears Without it being A watershed moment of remorse.
I think about the time I yelled at her When she wore an efflorescent blouse Pink, with roses and butterflies. She never wore it again. No balm in Gilead, no sinner’s cure Including her reassurance that a baby puked on it Has made me remember it without contrition.
There are so many places I will not go And people I will not see.
Charles Bronson once said Responsibility is a big rock that weighs a ton And it bends you until it finally buries you. I have no idea if he is right. He yelled that at some children on a Hollywood set. But I don’t think He wanted to go back To that set After all his caterwauling.
I’m not crazy. (I know that every crazy person says that). But just maybe You die When there is nothing left to swaddle you And no place to go for asylum Whether your heart stirs or not. Charles Bronson died at 81. Years after he had stopped Visiting familiar places. His hip replaced by a rock Of scrap metal.
Alexander Poster is a good, grey bureaucrat who works as a historian for a labyrinthine federal agency. He lives less than one mile from the U.S. Capitol and survived a nasty case of COVID-19, none of which inspired his writing one bit. He is a fan of Cormac McCarthy, depressing music from the 80s and 90s, and, surprisingly, marine mammals. He loves his wife, even though she has expressed concern for him being a “cynical bastard.”
Guna Moran is an internationally acclaimed poet and book reviewer. He has five published poetry books to his credit. His poems have been translated into 30 languages and featured in more than 200 hundred international magazines, journals, webzines, blogs, anthologies, and newspapers around the world. He lives in Assam, India.