Matthew Strimaitis

Posted on by Ron L. Anderson

Punkpoetry.com is pleased to introduce Matthew Strimaitis. A computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Matthew has been writing since grade school, and started penning work for the Huffington Post while still at High School. You can find more of his work at  huffingtonpost.com/author/matthew-a-strimaitis

Pretty Okay

Dance in the grey, it’s a pretty okay

A foot in the bed of an earth stamped sandal

A tattered-torn anklet like an airplane blue blanket

Treading naked the road with no peachy display

A fence that holds hostage its border and name

Looking for rightness, a neutered excitement

Or a hope that is young, imprisoned for fun

And rationed out slim to make tangibly tame

Deformed rusty mold with a texture and taste

All diseases I own will be mine to parade

But I’m looking for hope to be mined to create

While imprisoned an intimate, minor mistake

Pair a leader, a leaper, deformity way

Raise your flock to feed off the disease that you make

Then a whistle and spark and they bury me shade

To live out a sentence embark in the fade

While a half hearted lightness in rags and indictments

Said “I would be fine living day after day

Wandering Earth with no plans of a purpose

Living my life as a pretty okay”

Emily Ramser

Posted on by Ron L. Anderson

Punkpoetry.com is pleased (actually more than pleased – honoured) to introduce Emily Ramser – a California transplant poet living and writing in Denton, Texas. She teaches creative writing to middle schoolers and writes poems about flowers and being a lesbian in her spare time. She has published four books with Weasel Press, the most recent being UHaul: A Collection of Lesbian Love Poems. You can check out her work on her blog authoremilyramser.wordpress.com, or tweet her at @ChickadeePoems.

the 1950s’ lesbian pulp fiction bookcase at recycled books

each shelf filled with tales

of women lazily touching

each other’s thighs and forearms

with soft wandering fingers

in back alley motel rooms

and army barracks,

kisses hidden in shadowed corners,

hands held under the covers,

side glances in public spaces,

gentle hands cupping breasts

late at night with slow and gentle movements,

climaxes filled with women screaming

women’s names and institutionalizations and suicides

because they said

no woman could be both

happy and homosexual

 

Sudeep Adhikari

Posted on by Ron L. Anderson

Punkpoetry.com is delighted to publish this original and thoughtful composition by Sudeep Adhikari. For us, it has a defiant, questioning spirit that aligns perfectly with what we feel punk poetry at its best is all about. Sudeep is a structural engineer/Lecturer from Kathmandu, Nepal. Also a 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee, Sudeep is currently working on his 4th poetry-book ‘Hyper-Real Reboots’, which is scheduled for publication in September 2018 through Weasel Press in the USA.

 

 

machine in the ghost 

the eyes of steel-mandalas
stacked in different dimensions of
a gold-soaked space

watch the sounds
of confused stories on the
porch below. the leaves hide
behind the gossamer

green of my window
and tremble at the sight
of death-ridden anxieties,

coupled inextricably to their
silicon overlords. where does

the machine end?
how can i find the place
where men grow on the grapevines?

CE Hoffman

Posted on by Ron L. Anderson

PunkPoetry.com is delighted to introduce you to CE Hoffman, our very first Punk Poet contributor ever. This is a historic moment in the arts, ladies and gentleman. And with the current rapid disintegration of the West, it couldn’t come at a better time. We live in interesting times, and we need interesting work to represent them. Describing her work as FemmePunk Poetry, CE Hoffman also has a volume of poetry available at Amazon.com – Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948.

You can also find her at http://visceraluterus.blogspot.com

Nice Day to Get Laid*

Grown-up kid w/ groceries: cheese buns, Pepsi.
White clouds make chaos w/ sickgreen leaves.
The grass is not me, we
coexist separate-
ly.
Like how whores live alone no matter the number
of lovers they do (or don’t) take home
Like how mothers mourn while Kids get to grow
Like how whores live alone.

Grown-up girl w/ groceries: in-store sushi.
In other news, I’m making history.
In other words I’m totally
FUCKED
aka
damn lucky.

(*This title is taken from a Sex in the City quote. Seriously.)

 

 

Inviting submissions

Posted on by Ron L. Anderson

Punkpoetry.com is launching on WordPress and online to give a voice, and a location, to anyone who would like to publish their ‘punk poetry’. It’s not a fancy online publishing forum as yet – but an embryonic online cafe where the like-minded writers of a certain kind of verse can make their presence felt.

What is punk poetry?

There is no adequate definition for ‘Punk Poetry’, and I’m not inclined to be pedantic in applying one. However, we view it as poetry with a certain punk aesthetic – in other words, poetry that is steeped in the literature of rebellion, or poetry that questions prevailing norms and assumptions. My preference is for poetry that offers alternative social perspectives, that provides astute social commentary, poetry that is intelligent, and above all poetry that does not pander to the cliques that currently publish poetry.

Performance poetry and musical poetry welcome

In particular we welcome entries or recorded poetry, and music with a strong lyrical content. At this point, we at punkpoetry.com (there’s only me at present but perhaps one day there will be a ‘we’) will be accepting MP3s as well ordinary text submissions. Placing them on our site up to our (my) discretion – you will receive complete credit for everything you submit, and where possible links to any source online that you would like to link to.

This project is an effort by me to provide a location on the internet where this kind of work can have a home. It is a work in progress – there is no payment for submissions accepted, and no restrictions on what you do with your submissions elsewhere. If you wish to withdraw submissions, that’s no problem either – simply let me know. We will take this little project one step at a time. So feel free to submit work you would like represented. Please be patient as this evolves.

We won’t be accepting prose writing at this point – only performance based work that includes recitations or music (providing it fits our preconceptions of the genre), and straight poetry formats.

Selected work will be published on WordPress from this site, and also included on the site’s pages, where deemed appropriate.

Site owner/editor

Ron Lawrence Anderson