March 2017 Vol. II No. III
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
ModPo & Experimental Poetry
Thousand Dollar Handbags, Hundred Dollar Lives
the thrusters to nowhere are always
operational
flights never cancelled
expected ETAs
expected
the chubby kid
on the front lawn
playing cops and robbers
with himself
knows what I am talking
about.
Running
from one side of the lawn
to the other
taking shots at
himself.
​
Ryan Quinn Flanagan lives in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and Horror Sleaze Trash.
it is time to try and tell you what happened to me
her eyes? cat’s paws
batting the string
that holds me together
so I sing
no longer a package
no longer a thing
just breath moving
through everything
the thin tissue-paper
covering my grief
lifts like a torn scrap of nothing
I am exposed...
She sharpens her claws...
LoveisaCurseLoveisaDreamLoveisaPillowLoveisaScream
Seamus Duggan is an Irish poet and blogger, a winner of the Goodreads Newsletter Poet of the Month, October 2013, an original BTSer from Shelfari days, and an all around good guy, and oh yeah, a respectable musician.
Frost's Blue-white Morning
​
Acquainted luminary Watchman
Unwillingly came
Before frozen other
He promises
Darkness, but
Like ingredients
Blue-white morning
One because
On as way
​
Robin Cohn of Boca Raton, Florida and is a poet who enjoys experimenting with both traditional and non-traditional poetic forms, but doesn't like to leave too much to chance.
This is a poetic mash-up of lines randomly generated from four Robert Frost poems. The lines were then un-randomly chosen and edited.
Reach by Kathleen Martin
​
i reach and stretch
and reach farther still
even on tiptoe and
pulled out of myself
i can't get there
maybe i'm not supposed to touch
maybe reaching is what it's all about
or maybe i just need to get a ladder
​
Kathleen Martin
​
​
#1.
​
I lost myself somewhere
along the lines on shore
doing things out of
the greed or the lust
and the responsibilities of life
seemed like a monster to me
losing myself to the unknown
do I run away
or stand in the crowd
not of the people but my own thoughts
for I have no interest whatsoever
in the things once seemed exciting
and all I want to do is
start afresh
leaving behind the ashes of the past
secured and peaceful
just like the feel in the mothers lap
for her love is unprecedented and pure
and may God forgive all of my sins
so that I can Begin Again
​
Deepak Garg
Better than Starbucks began wholly as a creation in my mind. Now the wonderful collaboration of four dedicated editors is creating a monthly magazine that I could have only dreamed about when I was starting out as a one person organization.
Having said that, there are no direct connections between U Penn, Al Filreis, KWH (Kelly Writers House), ModPo (Modern & Contemporary American Poetry), or any of the actual affiliated programs to ModPo and this magazine, other than I have been a part of ModPo for several years now. There is, however, a strong spiritual and intellectual connection between BTS and ModPo.
If I had not gotten involved in the larger community of ModPo, I don't think I would have restarted a literary publication. I am certain I would not have added a Formal & Rhyming Page, and probably not a Translations page. I have a pretty narrow preference for poetry, but the course and the people at ModPo have expanded my view of poetry to the point that I decided if I could find good people to help me do it, we would make BTS as broad of a source of styles and genres as possible. We have been fortunate to establish a team of talented editors and are in the process of an ever expanding quest to find poetry wherever it may be.
​
Thus, it seems fitting that we dedicate a page to my fellow students at ModPo, and/or anyone who wants to share experimental poems. The thing about experiments is, they often fail, but as the point is to learn, not to create perfection, even failed experiments in the lab or on this page, will offer something for us, if we will find it. and when the experiment doesn't fail... well, you will see! - Anthony Watkins