Poets Wear Prada: Colette Inez | Witness to a Meadow in Virginia

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, October 27, 2008

Colette Inez | Witness to a Meadow in Virginia

Witness to a Meadow in Virginia

Cows kneel in fields
fireflies have abandoned.
Soon another year of flickering,
a comet's shower of flowers in the grass.

I was born in another country,
Leopold, the cruel king.
I embroidered butterflies
on handkerchiefs

sold by the African missions.
A child, I said papillon,
and fluttered my wrists,
imagining shiny coins in boxes

shipped to the Congo
where children dreamed
severed hands of their ancestors
took wing on the path.

Today I bow to the swallowtails,
spangled fritillaries and sulphurs
as if they were royalty.

by Colette Inez

Colette Inez has authored 9 poetry collections, most recently Spinoza Doesn’t Come Here Anymore (Melville House Books). She is widely anthologized and received fellowships from both the Guggenheim and the Rockefeller Foundations, twice from the NEA and won 2 Pushcart Prizes. Previously a visiting professor at Cornell, Ohio, Bucknell and Colgate Universities, she is currently on the faculty of Columbia University. She has appeared on public radio and TV. Her memoir The Secret of M. Dulong was published in 2005 by The University of Wisconsin Press.