Camille E. Colpitts
dead is
the forest
on birch ashes
a single sparrow
folds into winter
and melts
a wolves’ breath
covers sounds
of petrified leafs
of shallow roots
on borrowed time
come the laughing winds
we think tomorrow lends
the sun an extension
a flawed misprint on the map
without compass are these
wooded pavements
when she cries
here, alone.
Maggi McGettiganFiction Contributor
Maggi McGettigan is a writer and educator living in Pennsylvania, where she enjoys the beautiful woodlands of Chester County. Her work can be seen in Halfway Down the Stairs, The Stonecrop Review, and Flora Fiction.
Nurse Logs, and Other Lessons from Nature
In the leadup to our eigthth issue, woodland, we shared a series of micropoems from some talented submitters:
This past spring, N&S opened for full-length manuscript submissions. Despite the chaos across the globe, we were thrilled to receive thousands of pages of poetry and other genres to consider for 2020-2021 publication.
We are so grateful to each and every author who sent in their work—compiling this list was made incredibly difficult by the quality of each and every manuscript. With every batch of submissions we receive, we’re faced with the inevitable heartbreak of having to turn away work that speaks to us. We truly wish we could accept all of the below titles and more!
As always, manuscripts were reviewed without identifying information, so it was especially exciting to find that a few of our former contributors were the authors behind these works—and even more so to discover several names that are entirely new to us here at N&S!
From the following manuscripts, we’ll create our shortlist of full-lengths before choosing our final selections, which will be published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press through 2021.
Ave Mater Militantis – Sarra Culleno
cups in the cupboard – Clarissa R. Sutton
I Hear Your Music Playing Night and Day – Dave O’Leary
In Between Places: A Memoir in Essays – Lucy Bryan
Lamplight in the Fog – Daniel Mark Patterson
Larkspur Queen and Other Songs – Megan Leonard
Life is But a Moment in Time – Essie Dee
Mark. – Shannon Frost Greenstein
Maybe Birds Would Carry It Away – Christopher Woods
Mothership – Emily Uduwana
Open Zero – Sophia Naz
Out of Time – Aiden Heung
River Ghosts – Merril D. Smith
Sea Me – Adwaita Das
STRANGERS IN LOVE – Rebecca Ruth Gould
Thirty Years – David Hay
Too Much World, Not Enough Chocolate – Peggy Landsman
Uproot the Hobbling Magic – Hibah Shabkhez
We Could Be Lovers – Kim Malinowski
We Will Meet the Sun Again – Kevin A. Risner
ephemeralPublication Date: 10 November 2020
Nightingale & Sparrow Press
10 Pages
Genre: Poetry
Have you ever longed for something you could never touch? Have you ever touched something you knew you’d never hold?
Sometimes it can feel as though being in the world consists of nothing more than passively watching people pass through from behind a glass wall, coming and going too quickly for us to fully realize the gravity of their presence. Life can also be described as a seemingly infinite series of moments woven together by the dizzying hand of time, and getting stuck in the details is somehow always easier than seeing the big picture. Seeing the big picture almost never occurs unless through the 20/20 vision that is hindsight.
And in those moments when you did manage to hold onto something, is the time we have with that thing, that dream, that person, ever enough?
I wrote this book on the premise that the answer to that last question is always “no.” The tragedy of existence is that the time we have in this lifetime will never be enough. Time is fleeting, and so are love and loss. Ephemeral is my attempt to explore themes of love, longing, loneliness, and endings, while a the same time, memorializing them. Everything is ephemeral – even this book – and we must remember not to miss the love in front of us, while also coming to terms with the fact that nothing – the good or the bad – lasts forever.
This tiny book contains ten short poems and measures approximately 2.125 x 2.75 inches. Each book is handmade and numbered, representing its place in the limited 100-copy run.
Each copy is uniquely hand-crafted/folded; because of this, some uneven edges do occur. We think it gives them more character!
Samantha Rose has a BA in sociology and philosophy from George Fox University and resides in Portland, OR with her cat, Tuna. Unsurprisingly, she often writes about topics surrounding existence and meaning, sociopolitical criticisms, and the beautiful complexity of human relationships. Her work has been featured in journals such as Feminine Collective, Quail Bell, and Mojave He[art] Review. She enjoys art of all forms, and you can often find her painting with coffee when she’s not drinking it with her nose in a book
Heal My Way HomePublication Date: 27 October 2020
Nightingale & Sparrow Press
Genre: Poetry
Heal My Way Home explores mental health issues and physical health issues in the context of everyday life. The topics (ranging from buying jewelry to letting cats be in a wedding party) weave in and out of broader themes of illness and healing, just as life continues in and around chronic illness.
Take a sneak peek at some of the poems included in this chapbook:
Rachel Tanner’s work has recently appeared in Barren Magazine, Moonchild Magazine, Porridge Mag, and elsewhere. She lives in Alabama with her two cats, Samson and Cady. Writing bios makes her nervous.
Nightingale & Sparrow is excited to announce our nominations for this year’s Best of the Net anthology!
Because our print and digital issues are published simultaneously, our quarterly issues aren’t eligible for this opportunity. However, as online exclusives, our micropoem selections are!
And so, without further ado, we present our Best of the Net nominations, in no particular order:
Queer Girl FallsPublication Date: 22 September 2020
Nightingale & Sparrow Press
10 Pages
Genre: Poetry
Queer Girl Falls is a brief but vivid story about a young girl discovering hunger. It starts with a scramble to name the pangs in her maturing body and ends in the confident swallow of a personal truth.
This tiny book contains ten short poems and measures approximately 2.125 x 2.75 inches. Each book is handmade and numbered, representing its place in the limited 100-copy run.
Each copy is uniquely hand-crafted/folded; because of this, some uneven edges do occur. We think it gives them more character!
Lannie Stabile (she/her), a queer Detroiter, often says while some write like a turtleneck sweater, she writes like a Hawaiian shirt. A finalist for the 2019/2020 Glass Chapbook Series and semifinalist for the Button Poetry 2018 Chapbook Contest, Lannie’s first published collection, Little Masticated Darlings is now out with Wild Pressed Books. Individual works are published/forthcoming in Entropy, Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, Okay Donkey, and more. Lannie currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Barren Magazine and is a member of the MMPR Collective. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee.
