Thank you to the great great weather for MEDIA for nominating my poem, quadratic equation, for a 2016 Pushcart Prize
I was never very good at math; in fact, it almost kept me from graduating from high school. Numbers never remain in me and it has been a language I have been hesitant to learn. Sometimes things are easier to learn when pressed into poems.
Linda Camplese – My Father’s Gun 
Aimee Herman – quadratic equation
Ron Kolm – Bird and Me
Puma Perl – Stories from the Big Black Shoes
John W. Snyder – To the Girl Who Called Me a Faggot
John Sibley Williams – In the Pitch Bright Darkness
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Want a taster? Here are the first few lines…
He was a cash and carry kind of man
cash business, cashed in, cashed out
carried a big, fat, American-style handgun
and he was right when he thought
it made him look tough.
– Linda Camplese
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I used my fingers longer than it was socially acceptable. I cannot recall if it’s because I clouded my brain with the smoke of drugs, but numbers and names have a difficult time remaining in me.
– Aimee Herman
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I read somewhere
That Charlie Parker
Ate a rose.
– Ron Kolm
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William Burroughs’ untied shoelace
cracks my morning dream.
Sad as Coca Cola and a can of Pringles.
– Puma Perl
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To the girl who called me a faggot
that day at Six Flags
when I decided to wear
my super-fabulous.
skin-tight,
women’s pants
with yellow and pink animal print on them.
– John W. Snyder
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What a strange music sounds
from the dead birds frozen to the wire!
– John Sibley Williams
Aimee Herman 