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July 30, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 35, 073024

Letter 073024 I don’t think my brothers

Dear Ethan Hawke

God moves my brain but not before it turns the bread in my stomach black. I call it sleep, but it’s not sleep. My wife is tired and my cousins are sad. The lossless, also, grieve. I call it the present. I tell my sons that all slasher movies are about homesickness. They find a sweetspot in the volume. A ghost hears an angel. I underwater tell my daughter there is hope. Men and lonely men make the same loneliness twice. The science is silent.
July 29, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 34, 072924

Letter 072924 end machine

Dear Ethan Hawke

Adam, though soundproof, could not fathom the silence of Eve. I don’t brush my teeth when I’m sad. My son is a bitemark that thinks I’m a word.
July 27, 2024 / barton smock

‘I Think I Can’t Speak For Everyone Here’ reading series, featured readers Lorcán Black and Crystal Stone, Saturday 8/3 at 12pm EST

Please join us next Saturday, 8/3, at 12pm EST for the 10th installment in the 'I Think I Can't Speak For Everyone Here' reading series, featured readers Crystal Stone and Lorcán Black.

Email bluejawedsnake@gmail.com for the Zoom info and open mic sign up.

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Lorcán Black is an Irish writer. His poetry has been published in The Tomahawk Review, Stirring, The Rush, Grim&Gilded, New Writing Scotland, The Los Angeles Review, Assaracus & The Stinging Fly, amongst numerous others. He has previously worked as a broadcast journalist as a radio newsreader, a print journalist and now works in higher education.

He is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and has been longlisted for the Black Spring Press Prize and the Two Sylvias Prize, and shortlisted for The Paris Literary Prize.

His first collection, Rituals, was published by April Gloaming Publishing in 2019. Strange Husbandy is his second poetry collection – a Forward Prize nominee & Poetry Book Society Recommendation – was published by Seren Books in 2024. He lives in London.

~

Crystal Stone is author of six collections of poetry including Knock-Off Monarch (2019), All the Places I Wish I Died (2021), Gym Bra (2022), Civic Duty (2022), This is Not a Poem (2023), and White Lies (2024). Her poems have been published in numerous national and international poetry journals including The Threepenny Review, Salamander, poetry Daily and many others. She received her MFA from Iowa State University, where she gave a TEDx talk entitled ‘The Transformative Power of Poetry.’ You can find more of her publications at her website www.crystalbstone.com.
July 27, 2024 / barton smock

7/26/24 The ‘I Think I Can’t Speak For Everyone Here’ reading series, Kristopher Biernat

What a rewarding reading yesterday with Kristopher Biernat. The reading is available to be viewed on the youtube channel HERE

Previous readings:

4/21/24 Benjamin Niespodziany and NC Smock

4/28/24 Tom Snarsky and Darren C Demaree

5/18/24 Jay Besemer and Nadia Arioli

5/19/24 Pamela Kesling and Bee Morris

5/26/24 Alina Stefanescu and Dylan Krieger


7/7/24 Devan Murphy and William Erickson

7/13/24 Saba Keramati and Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi

7/14/24 Melissa Eleftherion and Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong
July 26, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 33, 072624

Letter 072624 the end I can see it

Dear Ethan Hawke

There is a church for lost parents that keeps catching fire. Arsonists come from all over. They go so hungry. They look through my phone and argue whether it’s the videos or the photos that smell like death. Dear dark rabbit. A frog can survive in the stomach of an angel.
July 25, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 32, 072524

Letter 072524

Dear Ethan Hawke

I am sitting on a diving board with a rabbit in my lap. Most of the rabbit is dead. I try with my shadow to moan through the water. A stillness stretches god.
July 25, 2024 / barton smock

The ‘I think I can’t speak for everyone here’ reading series, Friday 7/26 9pm EST, featured readers Crystal Stone and Kristopher Biernat

Please join us for the 9th installment of the 'I think I can't speak for everyone here' reading series tomorrow at 9PM EST.

Email bluejawedsnake@gmail.com for the Zoom link and also to sign-up for the open mic if desired.

Featured readers will be Crystal Stone and Kristopher Biernat.

Kristopher Biernat is a writer and artist from North Carolina. He is the author of the silent crucifixion (Between Shadows, 2022), triskaidekaphilia (LJmcD Communications, 2023), and Orpheus' Clock of Snow (Stone Skeleton Books, forthcoming). His work has appeared in The Evergreen Review, Plethora Magazine, Phantom Kangaroo, Dadakuku, and others. He is the publisher of Lemures Books and blogs at theskyisapoem.com. He lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his wife. He is in love.

Crystal Stone is author of six collections of poetry including Knock-Off Monarch (2019), All the Places I Wish I Died (2021), Gym Bra (2022), Civic Duty (2022), This is Not a Poem (2023), and White Lies (2024). Her poems have been published in numerous national and international poetry journals including The Threepenny Review, Salamander, poetry Daily and many others. She received her MFA from Iowa State University, where she gave a TEDx talk entitled ‘The Transformative Power of Poetry.’ You can find more of her publications at her website www.crystalbstone.com.

Previous readings are here
July 24, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 31, 072424

Letter 072424

Dear Ethan Hawke

The deal may have been for him to be the son of god for a day. In Ohio, a microwave has two angels. Birth and death hear the same sound. My body and my body aren’t close.
July 23, 2024 / barton smock

obit machine

come up god
for ghost
air
July 23, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 30, 072324

Letter 072324 someone smuggled a bone into heaven

Dear Ethan Hawke

Someone smuggled a bone into heaven.