Poets Wear Prada: John J. Trause

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/.

Monday, July 21, 2008

John J. Trause | Dragonfly

Dragonfly

At the end of the play the dragonflies came out,

and he remembered that at the end of the play the dragonflies come out,

or he dreamed that he remembered that at the end of the play the dragonflies come out,

and at the end of the play in the dream the dragonflies came out,

and he saw a dragonfly and thought it would sting with its long tail,

whirring around the pool of standing rainwater by the warehouse below the man-made cliff,

whirring around the pool of standing rainwater as the evening grew cooler and he was all alone

by the warehouse below the man-made cliff, and he remembered or thought he remembered

that a dragonfly does not sting with its long tail whirring around the pool of standing rainwater by the warehouse below the man-made cliff.

He reconciled dragonflies and damselflies and damsels and remembered all this.

And he saw signs of the dragonfly on the end of a keychain on a small table in the apartment of the actress

and repeated in the pattern in the Art Nouveau lamp on a small table in the apartment of the writer

and in the earrings of the poetess who read loudly at the microphone at the reading,

and he reconciled dragonflies and damselflies and damsels and remembered all this

by John J. Trause

JOHN J. TRAUSE, the Director of the Wood-Ridge Memorial Library in Wood-Ridge, N.J. since 2000, has been writing and reciting his poetry for 25 years. His poetry, translations, and visual work have appeared in Cover, Global City Review, Parse, Radix, The Rift, Now Culture, Sensations Magazine, The North River Review, The Troubadour, Xavier Review, the artists' periodical Crossings published by the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, as well as on-line at ThePedestalMagazine.com and Sidereality.com, and is forthcoming in Sulphur River Review. In 2005, he co-founded the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, N.J., where he continues to serve as programmer and host. Aside from his professional interest in literature and the arts, Mr. Trause also enjoys film, dance, juggling, hiking, Chinese footbinding, and Afrin® nasal spray. In his adolescence, he modeled for the monolithic sculptures on Easter Island.