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It’s Time for the Pulp Literature Issue 42 Poetry Round-Up!
So Far, So Fast
Pulp Literature Issue 42, Spring 2024 features the work of Leanne Boschman, Pattie Palmer-Baker, and Marri Champié — the winner and runners-up of the
“Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” ~Sylvia Plath
And these poets went so very far in the smallest of spaces. Of course, with a twenty-line limit, the Kingfisher is our contest for the littlest poetry.
Find the big in the small, with the opening lines of each of these lyrical high flyers.
‘Most of Your Stuff is Worthless’
Hutch, armoire, credenza — our offspring do not want these heavy relics, belongings that have laid such claim on us. When asked by grandchildren about my youthful chores I recount how weekly with lemon oil I anointed each hulking fixture, my parents’ old bedroom suite in my room when they upgraded. Later the nicked desks, faded dining room tables of our student days ferreted away from second-hand furniture shops — those mausoleums of what were once teeming woodlands. …
Leanne Boschman has loved the music and mystery of poetry for her entire life. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies, and her first collection, Precipitous Signs: A Rain Journal, was published in 2009. Leanne’s second collection of poems, Here at the Crux, came out in 2022. She has taught academic writing and literature in post-secondary institutions for over thirty years. Leanne participates in several writing groups and poetry reading series and is passionate about community development through the arts.
‘The Dahlia Truth’
Oh those dahlias! A drill sergeant’s dream of puffball perfection, they fold out in lemony layers, salute orange, stand straight, face the sun, size to coffee cups, and line up in a platoon of primary colors.
Pattie Palmer-Baker lives in Portland Oregon with her beloved husband. Over the years of exhibiting her artwork — paste-paper collages with poetry in calligraphic form — she was surprised and delighted to discover that people do indeed like poetry. She now concentrates on writing. Pattie has won several first prizes and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Poetry Prize. Published in many journals, she is also the author of the chapbook The Color of Goodbye and the poetry collection Five Fundamental Forces. Visit her at pattiepalmerbaker.com.
‘Kid Gloves’
Like my mother now, my hands are frail, sun-spotted. Are these blue veins just map cords of the road traveled? Once calloused, unyielding, these tools are now knotted; I’m memory-struck by a life story unravelled. Helitack guy, lightning-bolt smile, ember-lit eyes.
Marri Champié has often ridden horseback into the Sawtooth Wilderness. She is a three-time Dell Award-winning author, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2015. In 2013 she received the Boise State University President’s Writing Award for fiction and poetry, and in 2018 won an Oregon Poetry Association Award. Her novel, Silverhorn, appeared in 2018, and the sequel, Firemoon, will be released later this year. Marri works as a wildland fire-support driver and lives on a small ranch overlooking the Idaho prairie. Visit her at writeidahowriter.com.
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