Through her poetry collection Carpathia, Cecilia Woloch becomes that rare author who can leave home without rejecting it, then return without losing what she has learned.

Many of her poems take the form of prose postcards from various European capitals, reflecting her personal travel schedule and conveying intimacy among her characters and with readers. Then, interspersed among the cityscapes and photographs are impressions from her personal life: Kentucky childhood memories and last glimpses of her sick, elderly father.

Woloch writes of her hometown with the same poetic emotion she uses for faraway countries and moments of historical poignancy. Her gently humorous reflection ‘Why I Believed … That People Had Sex in Bathrooms” describes her parents’ happy and fruitful marriage with the tenderness and unique language of her young, romantic couples. And her memories of adolescence and young adulthood in rural Kentucky leave us with the taste of sweet wine and the fading glimpse of fireflies.

The phrasing and rhythm of all of her pieces, such as ‘let us with wind on the tips of our tongues live those beginnings again and again,’ from “Postcard to Sarah” and ‘burn my beauty onto the very eye of love,” from “Girl in a Truck” gains its strength through its whispered delicacy. We read lines which first sound sweet, nostalgic, romantic – then find ourselves stopping to read them again to take in the full force of what Woloch communicates.

Carpathia experiments with form along with the free verse, including a pantoum concerning a love triangle, “Le Jardin d’ Isabelle.” We scarcely notice the constraints on word choice and rhythm, as the prescribed repetition seems to come naturally from the author’s focus on a particular time and place. Yet even the selections without a specifically named poetic form contain internal rhythm and structure, accented by italicized thoughts and words and dashes.

In Carpathia, the lines blur among childhood and adulthood, romance and domestic life, early comforts and exotic locales. Home never seems a prosaic country town Woloch throws aside for adventures elsewhere, and her faraway travels do not leave her tired and longing for the past. Every place becomes an occasion to savor, a set of moments and emotions to jot down on a postcard for future reference.

Accessible to most adult readers, Carpathia would be an excellent carry-on for a trip through Europe, or just for reading at home, and will keep readers engrossed longer than the short 75 pages suggest.

Carpathia is available through BOA Editions Ltd., Rochester, New York – and you may find Cecilia Woloch on Facebook and ask for more information.

Diverse Voices Quarterly is celebrating its second year of publishing online! Issue Five is available for a download on our website.

For Issue 6, we’re now accepting online submissions for poetry and prose:
http://www.diversevoicesquarterly.com/submissions

Artwork still must be sent directly to <submissions(at)diversevoices quarterly. com> (replace (at) with @)

Complete submission guidelines are available here:
http://www.diversevoicesquarterly.com/submission-guidelines/

Traveling in Time [a hsinku]

Traveling in time –

Continuity to the last;

Avoiding future errors,

Thoughts jump to the past.

Tangent [a pantoum]

However brief

No matter the length

They will, in disbelief

Meet, lacking strength

No matter the length

A line that blends,

Meet lacking strength

The circle of friends

A line that blends –

It exists just outside

The circle of friends

Who cannot decide

It exists just outside,

A diverging purpose

Who can decide?

With, or without trespass

A diverging purpose:

They will in disbelief,

With or without trespass

However brief

The Impossible Poem

Like a pirate on a mission of mercy

There are roses blooming every cold winter

Scarcely outside all of our perception –

Tranquility through the eye with a splinter

Like a twilight shadow reversing its course

All the nations are walking extra miles

Like a lion protecting a flock of sheep

There are militia sharing their stockpiles

Like water supporting the weight of a man

There is light beyond the shores of tomorrow

Another day I awake breathing earth’s air

Unless I am hiding frightened down below

Like a stone temple into pliable clay

All of the flawed candles melt the hearts of ice

Like a long-drawn-out line for the electric chair

There is innocence to pay everyone’s price

Like a groom on a horse coming for his bride

There is a day one will break every column –

If I give a pen to a once gnarled hand

What will thrive is the impossible poem

Dave loves to write and experiment with esoteric forms of poetry. He’d love to network with other writers and artists, and can be reached at carpevelo@gmail.com

My name is Teseleanu George and I’m a young collage artist from Romania.  My country is located in Eastern Europe. The most predominant form of art in Romania is photography, as in most countries. As a form of art, collage is rather ignored in my country, and I think that this happens world wide.

I started doing collages two years ago, as child’s play, but soon realized that using this technique I can easily express my imagination. I can’t draw or paint, so collage offered me the opportunity to create. My inspiration, mostly comes from the surrealist and dada movement, that translates in dream like ideas and anti-logic thoughts. I  don’t sell my works, mostly because I worked so hard on them and I feel that I left I part of me in every each of them.

If you want to see all my works you can visit my gallery: http://hrn.deviantart.com and if you have any questions or suggestions you can contact me at: blana_de_maimutza@yahoo.com.

Emprise Review is looking for Non-Fiction submissions in three categories
http://emprisereview.com/

1. Book reviews–Texts from any period but contemporary works in particular. 500-1000 word reviews that focus primarily on the text itself and make use of the reviewer’s opinion.

2. Film reviews–300- 1000 word reviews are preferable, as well as reviews that focus on the film and make use of the reviewer’s opinion.

3. Lists–Use your creativity as there are few rules, though in general we’d prefer lists that don’t go into the hundreds or thousands.

Works selected for publication will be featured on the front page/blogging portion of the website and would be seen by the majority of our visitors. Not only are we looking for submissions in the non-fiction category, we are also in search of some regular non-fiction contributors or bloggers to help bolster the critical portion of our website. Visit our non-fiction guidelines for further details.

Furthermore, as always, Emprise Review is open for submissions in original poetry and non-fiction. Please visit our Submit page for further details regarding our submission guidelines. You can also visit our magazine to read some of our previously published content to get some idea of what we’ve selected in the past, though don’t feel limited by our previous selections, we are always in search of new voices, modes, and genres.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact Patrick McAllaster, at <pmcalla(at) gmail.com> (replace (at) with @)

Autumn Dawn

Once rain comes, it’s autumn’s dawn

Sacred Mountain – Cougar Run

Into the sky – the arrow flies

Warrior Revenge

Savage Eye –

Prudent but Loyal

The Eagle will fly

Hawk to meet the Ancestors

To protect the skies

Buffalo to feed the hunger of man

Teepee paintings

In Vision I touched with my hand

Hold Selah in the heart of the night

Bring the Sky Angel to morning light

The dew in the meadow

Selah, Sing Selah

Once the Rain Comes

It’s Autumn’s Dawn

Twilight bestowed on children’s eyes

Selah Cry

Tear of Beloved

To Live to Love

To Love Selah

Cry – Die – Cry

Live life to sigh

To Cry

To Die

To you, my mother

To you, my mother

Whether the rain falls

or the sun shines

you are in my heart

to live and breathe

Each day you are alive

In the moment

of harshness

I said some things

that I did not mean

and all the while

I was loving you.

You are a windsong

a sonnet, a poem writer

a storyteller and a friend

I love you

to the very end.

— For Carolyn’s mother, deceased May 8, 2009.

The Beginning 

Would you take a gift in hand

and leave it in the sand?

Unopened? Unused? Would you?

Would you take a heart away

have nothing to say

not even goodbye?

Would you? Could you?

I never believed it would be

like this –

It hurts –

Eternally –

No one to see –

I will rediscover

my dignity

Carolyn Havenhill is a survivor of domestic violence and currently incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility (part of the U.S. prison system) for a crime which she regrets. She’s working to transform her life through writing and education, and would love to network with other writers. She’s seeking a volunteer editor to take a look at her poetry to prepare it for publication, as well as further submission opportunities.

You may find more of her story at www.freebatteredwomen.org and/or through searching her name online.

She may be reached through this address (postal mail is the best way to reach U.S. prisoners):

Carolyn Havenhill

W-57827

514-01-04L

Central California Women’s Facility

P.O. Box 1508

Chowchilla, CA 93610

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I put my finger in
and feel the tug
while the water runs up my hand.

I pull away startled.
Notice something different: a surprise.

Tingling sparking,
water moving,
electric.

I put my hand in.
It washes my arm.
I can feel it’s living.
The water is alive.

I put my toes in to
feel it crawling, sneaking up me.

Finally, I take a sip and can feel it
within me.

A new drink for a new person
as it changes from
the inside out.

Glorious firework reaction,
wash over me.