Poets Wear Prada: Valery Oisteanu

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/.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Valery Oisteanu | The Golden Roaches

The Golden Roaches

The wilderness of the East Village encroaches into my apartment
I hunt mice and cockroaches, swipe at flies and bugs
They are all the local kind, mostly native Manhattan species
The turtle dove lands on my terrace, next to the birdfeeder
The mad squirrel climbs on my fire escape,
Violently ripping open the window screens
The pigeons invade my windowsill, leaving deadly droppings
Sparrows drop in to rest on the ledge of the air-conditioning
The wildlife of New York City continues to multiply
While indoors wildlife gets too close for comfort
I have a live water bug in my bathroom, behind the tub
A spider in my garden, suspended between the plants
And lastly a family of big roaches in my stove dial
Where it says Bake and Broil
I smashed one of them under the glass
Because he was so unappetizing
And he remained encased there forever
Then after it dried and crumbled, another big roach crawled in
I killed that one too by banging on the dials
He was crashed and I inadvertently started the stove
The entombed roach was constantly staring at me
So to conceal them I covered the dials
With gold cockroach stickers
An existential tombstone of sorts
Then I wrote a poem for the “Midas Bugs”
And for the useful bugs of my world.

by Valery Oisteanu

Valery Oisteanu is a writer, poet, performer and artist with international flavor. Born in Russia (1943) and educated in Romania and France, he adopted Dada and Surrealism as a philosophy of art and life. Emigrating to New York City in 1972, he is the author of 10 books of poetry, a book of short fiction and a book of art-essays in progress. He appears regularly at poetry readings in various New York venues, where he presents original performances of Zen and Dada-inspired Jazzoetry. He is a freelance art critic on the permanent staff at several arts magazines, including The Brooklyn Rail, NY ARTS, Rain Taxi, the Spanish publication art.es, and the Canadian magazine D'Art International. He is a member of Poets and Writers Inc. in New York and the founder and president of PASS-Poets and Artists Surrealist Society.