Bücher veröffentlicht von Spartan Press

When my three sons left for college, I entered the MFA program at Wichita State University. I entered the buzz saw of critique workshops full of hope. However, after a few weeks I planned to drop out of the program, Robert Dana, a visiting professor from Iowa, said I should stay in the program. I eventually learned how to write poetry. Professor Bruce Cutler became my thesis advisor. He entered of my poems to the American Academy of Poet competition. I was awarded rst place, with a check to go along with it. After I graduated with the MFA, I taught English Composition at Butler Community College, where I taught for forty plus years. I'm still writing poetry and getting published. I'm also a co-editor for three editions of 365, the anthology of poets who post to the Facebook, "365 Poems in 365 Days." I've published two books of poetry. Leap of Faith, is a self- published book with the help of my son and his MAC computer. My second book, The Sad Joy of Leaving, was published by Blue Cedar Press. As president of District 5 of the Kansas Authors Club, I've gotten to know poets from around the state. I also belong to four poetry groups, Poets in Hiding, Women Who Write, Thursday Group, and Basement Bards. I owe thanks to everyone in those groups for their close and careful reading of my work. I especially appreciate Roy Beckemeyer, Robert Dean, and Ronda Miller for their support. In May, my poem, "In Answer to W.B Yeats," I received the first place award in the Kansas Voices for the traditional poetry category, as well as winning the best poet award. My husband, our little dog Annie, and I live in Wichita's Old Town in a house that's almost a hundred years old.

Nettie Zan Powers is a poet, painter, fiction writer, event organizer, editor and founder of Stubborn Mule Press, an indie poetry press focused on working class street poets with an emphasis on radical country queers. Powers has several poetry collections published and their work can be found in numerous anthologies and journals both print and online. They also are a founding member and organizer of FountainVerse: KC Small Press Poetry Fest, a three-day festival in October of each year. Powers believes in an open hand, eye contact and dissolving into laughter, also rivers and exchanging disposable cameras.Nettie Zan Powers is a performance artist, writer and community builder in KCMO and beyond. She currently heads the generative performance venue, Uptown Arts Bar; collaborates on the annual Lit Fest Fountainverse; and is a fellow resident with Osage Arts Community near Belle, MO. She is a non-binary queer, working class artist. She has published ten books, not counting secret ones: including Earthworms & Stars, The Cosmic Lost and Found, Perfectly Good Muses, and most recently Gasconade by NightBallet Press. Her first novella, Victimless Crime, is forthcoming by Outlandish Press. She has also edited a number of successful anthologies: Finding Zen in Cowtown: Poems about KC; Desolate Country: Poets react to the inauguration; and Prompts: a spontaneous anthology.

Mark Matzeder is a Nomad, fading in and out of landscapes like a glitchy hologram or psilocybin dream. An officer's son, Mark spent his early life looking at the interiors of sundry post housing across the American South. From leprechaun height they all look much the same. At the dawn of Aquarius his family settled in the Old Dominion, whose soil, marsh, and forests scream with the blood of pioneers, revolutionaries, and rebels.Mark studied celluloid majik at Trinity U, then took to wandering again: dabbling in stage, screen, poetry, and prose. He earned his bread with a series of dead-end jobs he prefers to think of as Research for the Great American Novel or Indy film. The whirlwind touched down in Kansas City in 2002.Mark is a Linguistic Mystic seeking Truth in the space between words. He is a fledgling Bard-a lowly mage casting spells of Summoning & Binding with these glyphs.

Phillip Emanuel Frost Bounds is a poet, pilot, and a pundit for perplexity (with an emphasis on the pun). He is also an attorney, axe throwing coach, swing dancer, and intellectual adventurer with a penchant for precise word usage and anffnity for antinomies. He is a transplant from Colorado but is glad to call Kansas City home. He has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver. You can find more of his writing online at i revity.com or on Instagram at @i revity_poetry.

I was born and raised in New York City, attending the public schools there-a pretty typical kid, gabby and obnoxious, who loved to play with his friends. But when I was eight years old, my four-year-old sister Carole Anne was diagnosed with liver cancer. We watched her wither away to a living skeleton, then die in agony. The soul of our family was shattered. The poetry I began writing as an adolescent seeped from that grieving wound, expressed that stark alienation. And that's where my essential self remained until, as a 32-year old atheist, my soul was suddenly cracked open. I experienced an overwhelming mystical awakening which forever changed my life.Well before this great turning point, I'd graduated from Queens College, N. Y., earning a B.A. In Creative Writing while winning a couple of literary awards: The Dwight V. Durling Poetry Prize, and The Peter Pauper Press Award. I was also very active in college theater, playing several leading roles. Prior to graduating however, I dropped out for a while, studied acting at HB Studios in Greenwich Village, then served in the U.S. Army Military Police, gaining an honorable discharge. Eventually, I moved to Kansas City, Mo., completing most classes toward a Masters in English Lit. at UMKC, but not taking a degree. Except for three years in the St. Louis area, I've lived in Kansas City ever since.

Joseph Anthony Davis has lived most of his life in Kansas City, Mo, where he attended Bishop Hogan High School and went on to somehow con(vince) the monks and nuns and Benedictine College in Atchsion, Ks, to give him a B.A. in English. When not writing poetry, he tries his hand (and sometimes his voice) at music, with songwriting, composing, and the electric bass getting the most attention. He works for the Broadway District of MainCor, a blue shirt counterpart to the ubiquitous red shirts seen helping to make midtown Kansas City clean and inviting for residents and visitors alike. Black Lives Matter and Other Poems is his first attempt at literary adulting, and it shan't be his last.

Brett Lars Underwood is a bartender and a gadabout whowrites, promotes and produces happenings and mishaps in St. Louis. Once upon a time, he co-published a 'zine en- titled Lick My Squaggle Noose, Clam Tick. He penned Zen koans for the Riverfront Times and St. Louis Magazine as well as Curator. He has performed in back rooms, backyards, ball rooms, barrooms, basements, coffee houses, courtyards, galleries, museums, rock venues and taverns. His verse and riddles have been published by the Bicycle Review, 52nd City, The Subterranean, Bad Shoe and included in Flood Stage: An Anthology of Saint Louis Poets and The Gasconade Review presents 39 Feet And Rising. He unleashed Sunlit Insult, his first chapbook, in 2011 and Its Bush Lent Subtle Hints in October, 2013. He can be reached at brettlarsunderwood@gmail.com

Joe McKenzie grew up in Philadelphia, went to colleges in Pennsylvania, Kansas and Colorado. He enjoyed a long career in libraries, while writing as many poems as would come, retiring as Director of the Salina Public Library. He has been active in the community and continues to volunteer. He has been commissioned to write and read a series of poems on Andy Warhol's electric chair paintings at the Salina Art Center. He was a New Voice Award winner as part of the Annual Spring Poetry Reading Series in Salina, Ks. He lives with his wife, Mary Lou, in Salina, visits his granddaughters in Kansas City often and enjoys traveling to see his son and daughter-in-law in France and his family on the east coast.

Boyd Bauman grew up on a small ranch south of the town of Bern, Kansas (population 200). His dad was a storyteller and his mom the family scribe. Grist for the mill included stints as a flight attendant out of New York City, dude ranch worker and ski bum in Colorado, and King Salmon sherman in Alaska. Boyd has taught English in Hiroshima, Japan and Saigon, Vietnam. He is currently a librarian and writer in the Kansas City area. Boyd lives with his lovely wife Lisa and their little poets Haven and Milly. Visit him at boydbauman.weebly.com.

Roy J. Beckemeyer is a retired engineer and scientific journal editor who lives in Wichita, Kansas. He currently studies the Paleozoic insect fossils of Alabama, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and writes poetry. His first book of poetry, Music I Once Could Dance To (Coal City Press, Lawrence, KS, 2014) was selected as a 2015 Kansas Notable Book. He won the Beecher's Magazine Poetry Contest in 2014, and the Kansas Voices Poetry Award in 2016. He recently co-edited (with Caryn Mirriam- Goldberg) Kansas Time+Place: An Anthology of Heart- land Poetry (Little Balkans Press, Pittsburg, KS, 2017).

Wm. Anthony Connolly is the author of three novels The Jenny Muck, Get Back and The Obituaries, which was a Canadian bestseller. His work has appeared in The Rumpus, Intellectual Refuge and Elephant Journal to name a few. This is his debut poetry collection. He is on the faculty of the MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University, St. Charles, Missouri, and has taught academic writing in Texas and Kansas. A first-generation university student, he has earned a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri, and an MFA in Writing from Goddard College in Plain Field, Vermont. He and his wife Dyan and their two dogs, Hemingway Short Story and Professor Leo Tolstoy, currently reside in the Lone Star State.

Kansas Poet Laureate (2017-2019), Kevin Rabas teaches at Emporia State University, where he leads the poetry and playwriting tracks and chairs the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism. He has ten books, including Lisa's Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner, and All That Jazz.

RC Patterson is a St. Louis resident. He attained a master's in Philosophy from the University of Missouri St. Louis. RC Patterson is an Adjunct professor at Harris-Stowe State University. He has six published books including, Black Lives Splatter, Jim CroMagnon Man, and Elegies. He is an artist, a writer and a teacher.

Michael Hathaway lives in St. John, Kansas in his childhood home with his family of felines. By day, he works as Keeper of History for Stafford County, and by night edits and publishes Chiron Review literary journal which he founded in 1982. He's worked many day jobs to enable his poetry habit including newspaper typesetter/compositor, society editor, librarian, janitor, chauffeur, painter, wall-paperer, ladies clothing store clerk, babysitter, pet-sitter, house-sitter, and living assistant to the mentally disabled. He served 12 years on the Goodman Library city board, and currently serves as secretary/treasurer for the Stafford County Central Democratic Party. In 2008, he accidentally became an ordained minister of Spiritual Science (which has its roots in Theosophy and Gnosticism). He's had 12 books of poetry and prose published, as well as 300+ poems in journals and anthologies. He was founding chairman of Poetry Rendezvous that celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2018. For more information about Chiron Review: http://www.chironreview.com.

Antony V. Plocido (Tony) was born in Minneapolis, MN. He's been writing poetry since he was a child. In 2011, he decided to move to Kansas City to further expand his poetry. He published his first book, Sucker Punch Wisdom (Write the Future Press), with two other Kansas City poets, Jeremy O'Neal & William Peck on Halloween, 2012. He has since moved back to the Twin Cities in Minnesota and released his second book, Aging and Other Side Projects, in December 2016. Tony continues to be the webmaster for the Poets & Pints series in Minneapolis (3rd Wed). He has an old cat which is probably a metaphor but he doesn't know for what. You can reach him at www.mentalvalley.com.

[An Idiot's Sonnet by the Sea]With me you walk through brutal daysboth of us confined to our separate minds.While netted, trapped within these crabbed lines,I thought of you and those nights in which you raged.As if you'd seen another world that collapsed & layat your feet in order to be sorted out by time.It wasn't so. The errors we had made were blind,like Homer's catalogue of ships -undone by the ocean's play -the sea it claps against the hull,seawater spits out the bay.I did not want things to pan out like this,the hit of water against another boat,our dreadful, waterlogged days and nights.It was your drenched naming of each and every kiss.You'd lean, and lip-to-lip, touch what you had hoped:and in the drooling night you groped to finda darker sort of bliss.

"In Jacob Johanson's latest book of poetry, Billboards in the Wasteland, two strong poems reach out from the middle of the book that illuminate Jacob's reckoning with the legacies of two late masters he admires, Kell Robertson and Lew Welch. Sure, they're formidable presences but their influence has never overwhelmed Jacob's journey as a poet. His tributes to them are substantial and passionate. Jacob writes from the burial grounds of the Shawnee, the Kansa, the Osage. In one short powerful poem, a haiku almost, Jacob imagines the Lakota admitting the violated spirit of Tamir Rice to their circle. In another poem, he "saw an oncoming storm/divide the desert/into before and after/just to learn/the importance of now." There are long drives across an insensate America he assures us with vibrant, plain-spoken language, that its wrecked and beautiful mythology is still intact, that wastelands are in the eye of the beholder." -John Macker, author of The Blues Drink Your Dreams Away, Selected Poems 1983-2018 and Atlas of Wolves."There's something in the waters of the Kansas / Missouri borders these days, and Jacob Johanson is drinking freely of it, which is to our benefit. He is the man of early middle age, realizing regrets, well entrenched in daily routine, with lots of time ahead to contemplate. His poems can be read as, "...old constellations on old stars," familiar territory explored with new eyes. There are the women, just out of understanding, to tango with in minefields. There are the Shawnee sages, as well as an exchange with our friend the Moon, no sage at all in these pages. Johanson, writing in, "... an era of forgotten atrocities," expresses the fears, hopes, and memories of those often without a voice. In Billboards, the signs are there for all to see, and to find a kindred spirit."-Cheryl A. Rice, author of Love's Compass"Jacob Johanson's poems are tiny billboards illuminating the consciousness of Americans in the early 21st Century with quick hit, short lined, revelatory poems full of humor, hope and horror. His poems unite the rational and the surreal. A man finds god on a small square of paper that melts on the tongue another is moved to write by an angel thankful there's enough change on the dashboard to make it home. Reading Jacobson I find myself angry and laughing sometimes simultaneously. For example, open this book to page 27 and read Blowing Out Headspace, Move Along. Despite the craziness of our culture, he ends the poem with these tender lines: "close your eyes/and you can feel/I promise/ individual blades of grass/pushing between your toes." That's soul brothers and sisters. That's soul."-John Knoll, Black Mesa Blues (Spartan Press, 2020)

Doug Washer was born and raised in Southeast Missouri on a farm and attended a one room school house located on that farm for the first eight grades. He graduated from Charleston High School then attended what was then Southwest Missouri State College, graduating with the first B.A. in Philosophy awarded by that institution. He earned a Master's degree in Philosophy from the University of Missouri / Columbia before entering the United States Air force for four years. Upon leaving the USAF he began teaching Philosophy and other disciplines in the greater Kansas City area, including eleven years for Park University and twenty for Longview Community College. At the latter school, he received the Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, an award of which he is especially proud because it was voted by his peers. He has written poetry for some thirty years and is now working on a novel. He is married to his true love and has grown children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

April Pameticky moved to Wichita in 2003 and was swept up in the creative Vortex. The mother of two shares time between her high school English classroom and the burgeoning community of artists and writers in Kansas. She facilitated the Wichita Broadside Project 2017 and currently serves as editor of River City Poetry, an online poetry journal. Her own work can be seen in journals like Malpais Review, KONZA, and Turtle Island Quarterly. She is also the author of several chapbooks, Sand River and Other Places I've Been (2013, Finishing Line Press); and Anatomy of a Sea Star (2015, Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press).

Joel E Matthews is a Nebraska-born farm-boy who left the corn fields for the wheat fields of Kansas. His first life was as a psychotherapist, where he learned how to put ego aside and walk for miles in shoes not his own. His second, and current, life is as a university instructor where he gets paid to be a nerd about science, culture, and other cool things. You can frequently find him standing outside talking to birds, bugs, squirrels, and the many rabbits who live in his unkempt backyard. He can also be found in his other natural habitat: the couch; where he reads, writes, watches documentaries, and plays with Lego bricks.

Copyright (c) Paul Koniecki, Nadia Wolnisty, Abigail Beaudelle, Dan Provost 2018First Edition 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2ISBN: 978-1-946642-54-7LCCN: 2018943912Design, edits and layout: Jason Ryberg,Cover and title page image: unknown, but believed to have been photographed from the patio outside Frank's North Star Tavern in Lawrence, KS.Author photos: Paul Koniecki, Roselyn Hoang, Jacob Johanson, Brian from Zygote in My CoffeeAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording or by info retrieval system, without priorwritten permission from the author.

JUST SHY OF STARS is Annette Billings' eagerly awaited third book. This collection of poetry reads like ajourney across the continuum of human emotion with stops at the most poignant places in life. In thisbook, as with previous ones, Billings writes about sorrow with the same bravado as joy and humor.Annette Hope Billings is an award-winning poet and actress from the Midwest. Her dynamic style of reciting has led fans to dub her "the Maya of the Midwest." Her first book of poetry, A Net Full of Hope (2015), garnered the 2015 ARTSConnect ARTY Award in Literature. Her next book, Descants for a Daughter (2016), was a collection of affirmations. Her poetry can also appears in the following anthologies: Gimme Your Lunch Money: Heart land Poets Respond to Bullying (2016), Twisting Topeka (2016), Our Last Walk: Using Poetry for Grieving and Remembering Our Pets.(2016), and Kansas Time + Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry (Balkans Press, 2017). Billings' poetry can also be found in both online and print publications including Coal City Press (2016) and Konza Magazine (2016 and 2017). To view short videos of her poetry performances, visit tinyurl.com/anfohvideos, her website at http://anetfullo ope.com /, her facebook: anetfullo ope, or on Twitter: @AnnetteBilling3