Subprimal Poetry Art ● Home
Welcome. Subprimal Poetry Art looks toward poetry, flash fiction, music, and art work that takes the reader / viewer / listener out of the ordinary and into a place altered from that which they normally experience. In an enjoyable, thought-provoking way. Many of our written pieces are set to a custom musical composition to complement the author's recording. We pay our contributors.
Submissions are currently open. See the guidelines for more info.
The Spring 2017 issue of Subprimal Poetry Art is now available. Many thanks to our contributors of the written word and art work:
Loria Mendoza, Esteban Colon, Mark Danowsky, George Moore, Toti O'Brien, Ingi House, Heikki Huotari, Wayne-Daniel Berard,
Rowan Johnson, Richard Vyse, Lois Marie Harrod, Darren Demaree, Meredith Lindgren, Anna Feldstein, Thomas Park, Elizabeth Sackett,
Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka, Jennifer L Freed, and Shoshauna Shy.
Several of the pieces have author's readings set to custom musical compositions. Here's some excerpts from this latest issue. Enjoy!
Belief
by Ingi House
A church next to a hotel
tells the story of my city
of my country
of myself
though I have long ago lost
belief in the steeple.
I can’t help but think
of the loneliness
that would make gods
themselves cry down
a sanctuary
of their love.
The Same
by Toti O'Brien
I was three or four years old, spending whole afternoons by the water pipe. Just an open groove of concrete—meant for irrigation—it spread throughout the orchards, branching off in intricate nets. To me it was a labyrinth, a freeway leading everywhere, a tool of discovery.
I sat there... for how long? Time didn’t make sense. I sat there enchanted, my hand brushing the green, muddy stream—as majestic as a Mississippi or a Nile, which I didn’t know existed…
Speaking of the Weather
by Meredith Lindgren
At this point it was very hot. On the way out the stretcher popped one of the balloons. If it weren’t startling no one would have noticed. Under the circumstances no one cared. Patricio’s mother, Sally, let out screaming sobs.
Just before that, in the backyard, the paramedics lifted the body of Patricio, age five, onto the stretcher after zipping up the bag. Planes flew overhead in and out of McCarran.
But first the paramedics attempted CPR. They tried the shock paddles. Both these and the paramedic’s hands made the child’s chest look even smaller. It was already too late. The party guests stood out of the way just to feel like they were doing something helpful, but they leaned in.
Right before the paramedics were called, the birthday girl, Lily…
Tribute
by George Moore
I am dreaming of Gabriela Mistral again and her children,
those orphaned poems that became people who loved her
and left her happy. Emergency was what saved her.
On any day, the tree spreads its wings to cover the sky,
and a clutter of crows wakes to her song of loneliness.
But the vast canopy becomes a kind of family.
In the morning, she is gone, but the laughing and light
screams of children linger over the ocean here. A word
can be a grain of sand, or a small hand.
