Poetose

"Slow Dissolve" by Gerry Sloan: https://www.poetose.com/pub/slow-dissolve-gerry-sloan #/

Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in the Arkansas Ozarks. His poetry collections are PAPER LANTERNS (2011), CROSSINGS: A MEMOIR IN VERSE (2017), and CEMETERY PLUMS (2026). Recent work appears in Tar River Poetry, Cave Region Review, and Slant Poetry Journal.

Gerry writes of the poem: "This poem is very minimalistic. In music we would call it a text painting because the text unspools to reflect the way sugar granules dissolve in liquid. The title also flirts with a term from film editing. The dedication is to my 9-year-old grandson who recently discovered the charms of tea culture."

"Making Love as an Old Man" by David Radavich: https://www.poetose.com/pub/making-love-as-an-old-man-david-radavich #/

David Radavich has published a variety of poetry, drama, and essays. His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe. His latest books are UNTER DER SONNE / UNDER THE SUN: GERMAN POEMS (Deutscher Lyrik, 2021) and HERE'S PLENTY (Cervena Barva, 2023).

We're delighted to announce that THE CALLING by Sarah Schwartz is available for pre-order!: https://www.poetose.com/store/p17/the-calling-sarah-schwartz.html #/ The pub date is August 1.

THE CALLING is an exquisite and often humorous catalogue of poems that offer an array of ways we might see the world and by extension, our place in it.

Schwartz's beautiful debut collection of poems contends that we are each called to a way of seeing the world. Moving from the microscopic view of a chemist to the macroscopic view of a geologist, the mathematical view of an architect to the exuberant view of a painter, these poems both delight in and resist the notion of an “occupation.” Schwartz writes: "We are made of many strange shapes, and we don’t even think about it." These poems ponder our abundant strangeness and don't shy away from "what is most radical about human existence."

“With THE CALLING, Sarah Schwartz takes on the guises of various professions, ranging from ‘The Astronaut’ to ‘The Matriarch’ to ‘The Poet,’ to ask meditative questions about what it means to be human and the lines between ‘biological essentialism versus cultural socialization.’ The speakers in these poems are seeking answers about life’s abounding mysteries: the nature of desire, how to form meaningful connections, among others. Schwartz’s poems are like little jewels, finely shaped and expertly polished.” -Stevie Edwards, author of THE WEATHER INSIDE and QUIET ARMOR

“These poems are dedicated to different professions, their jargon, their trade secrets. In a community of highly specialized workers, Schwartz’s speaker is unique, since the vocation of The Poet is both a job among other jobs and the special title of the one who turns the others into life narratives: ‘not just these fifteen / fish, I am the whole / aquarium.’ As Ion put it in Plato’s dialogue, the greatest poet may turn out to be the greatest general.” -Aaron Kunin, author of LOVE THREE

Sarah Schwartz’s poetry has been published in various nationally recognized journals. She earned her BA in English at Pomona College, MFA in Poetry at Brown University, and MA in English at University of California, Irvine. She teaches English at The Park School of Baltimore.

The beautiful cover art is by Vanessa Cecil.

"I think place informs a piece, even indirectly, and I believe that feeling of disconnect between where you’re raised and where the motherland is is something many of the diaspora struggle with. I’m out of place where I was born, and I’m out of place in the motherland – there’s a liminal quality to it, always being stuck between worlds and never able to fully fit into one or the other."

A wonderful interview with Poetose author Soon Jones and writer E Ce Miller: https://fourwayreview.com/interview-with-soon-jones/