Poets Wear Prada: Gerald Schwartz | Trichoptera (Caddis fly)

Submission Policy

Submissions to THE BUG BOOK are now closed. However, we will continue to post a sampling of poems accepted for the anthology as we continue to work our way through the flood of last minute submissions.

Poetry (any form or style) and Micro or Flash Fictions wanted for an anthology on SMOKE. Not just the black clouds rising from the five-alarm fire next door, or the billowing plumes of smoke warning us of a forest fire, or the emissions from factory smoke stacks, apartment house incinerators, and crematoriums, smoke rings rise from cigarettes, smoke pours out of headshops, pipe shops & cigar stores--see that purple haze rising over the fields of poppies and marijuana we just planted--we've used it to communicate via smoke signals and skywriting, to cover our tracks and disappear with and without mirrors, combat the enemy on and off the battlefield, kill bugs, flavor food, cure illness, declare peace treaties, and fragrance our homes. Got the idea? Release it onto the page.

Guidelines: Submit up to three poems/micro fictions or two flash fictions at a time with a fascinating bio of 35 words or less, not just limited to publication credits, copy/pasted in the body of an e-mail (no attachments, please) to roxy533 at yahoo dot com & violetwrites at nyc dot rr dot com. We will also entertain up to six one-liners or 2 short stand up routines at time. Previously published work is OK as long as authors have retained the copyright, which will be returned to them after publication. Simultaneous submissions are encouraged. If your work is accepted elsewhere, and you still have obtained rights to republish, just let us know where and we'll be happy to acknowledge the other publication.

If you do not receive a response from us within a month of your submission considered it rejected and feel free to submit again. Due to the volume of submissions we cannot respond to each and every individual submission. Selection for the on-line edition are made on a ongoing basis as we receive your submissions. However, final selections for the print edition will made after the October 31st deadline. (In otherwords not everything that made the cut for the online edition will appear in print.) Please do not query. When in doubt, send the submission to roxy533 at yahoo dot com & violetwrites at nyc dot rr dot com.

Visit the online edition of SMOKE at:
http://thesmokingbook.blogspot.com/.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Gerald Schwartz | Trichoptera (Caddis fly)

Trichoptera (Caddis fly)

My hairy legs are not downy, not moth in miniature; are incise, wrinkled mouths. With limited time, I compound the wet and wait for sedge. I came from an egg laid in georgette, in a skein of bald-faced mucus, unsupported. I am a larvae spiral in an eddy, alone, portable, an enclosed hangnail, a pupa, my membrane affixed to rock, in a stupor and some kind of life. More life's at stake in my cocoon divide, here in this starry pool of emergence, emerald most moist. What has gone before shakes in the midst of my dizzy hatch of invisible sift surface. My liquid phase is soon ending. In service to air, I no longer burrow: twig, sediment, needle. I am as a leggy fig now, rising on moving waters, shuddering. In trailing ballast, whiter, am dropping my catch net. See me as a silver flier, beading and alighting, attired in provision and superfluid. Clean, I have two tailless months, near colorless, green, not knowing how it will all go, although I will live as though I might.

By Gerald Schwartz

Gerald Schwartz, born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania,is the author of Only Others Are: Poems (Legible Books), as well as World (Furniture Press). He has extensively collaborated in performance with Damian Catera, Steve Swell, Flaming Lips, Nick Cave, Eugene Chadbourne, Ed's Redeeming Qualities, Tibetan Monks, as well as a host musicians and dancers. He is co-founder of Solomons Ramada, as well as Faking Trains.