After a whole year reading this book, I have taken the time to make a selection to share with you, out of this great Anthology brought to us by Marlow Peerse Weaver.

As for this 8th Volume, published in 2010, mpw tells us:

This generation is cynically aware that past attempts to remedy the world´s most significant problems have come unraveled, including the flowerchild/hippie/student revolution of the preceding generation. Perhaps this explains a lingering hesitancy to grasp an empty canvas to paint their own utopic visions, as if death and spiritual otherworlds offer more fascination, and distraction. This is perhaps the greatest tension welling within, asking whether this generation will drift along inconsequentially, in the grand scheme of things, or it will grasp control and attempt to redefine mankind and its social structures? These are chapters still to unfold, and as such the justification to publish future volumes of this series.


The so-called "X Generation" which has been under mpw ´s attention for the last 10 years, giving this Anthology a significant value and meaning in order to understand and study our day and the generation.

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Next the selection. Hope you enjoy it.
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when I was a little girl
my first poem resounded
in the ears of my neighbors
like a street vendor

everything useful
spreads out on the large and sharp
tongue of the afternoon

if there had been water to wash
the silky mane of the sun
the silver work that the desire
stationed on the square of a motionless
existence

ah thighs of stripped dunes
to cross the dense tapestry of the fog
that the palms impregnate
of an incomprehensible bothersome
industriousness

to blow up the moons

it is true

there was no water for a garden
the desert was that humanity
and the dust

that my mother shoves with a broom

from the collection Ludy D (editiones Flora Tristain)
translated by Karen Bernedo

Roxana Crisólogo (Lima, Perú / Helsinki, Finland)
.:::

Bewitched

Bewitched eyes in silent call
Them twin sparks regard me
Bearing truths, she´d rather hid
Veils of pain closed

Etched I am, hot lead profile
stamped on her mind´s wall,
Lending her study essence to shame
Picasso´s detailed study

Joints that would´ve swiveled
Locked, to hold bay knowledge
Lending scrutiny precious minutes
Within which, details looms real

Indecisions fights surmountable fear
That sprouts to drown reasn.
Erasing paths not trod
By feet devoid of hope´s light

Time flies before procrastinator´s face
Leaving gray streaks upon
My longing heart´s root
To lend words my soul fails to

Chiagozie F Nwonwu (Lagos, Nigeria)

.:::

Marking Time

You must intone the litany of bodies
those exposed in the glare of the headlights
those gatheres in the marble of the ossuaries

you must find your way through amorphous byways
among the shelves of stores in the mall
mark the time of days that are unequal

you must adapt to the rhythm of the sirens
leave the shelters, expose yourself to clashes
yield to the song of antitheft devices

be startled by the glimmer of the merchandise
be rocked by the gentle flow of the carts
dream animal and body parts

you must feed on organs and fetishes
border every crevice with lattice
pay the bill and clean up with care

recite the rosary of absent faces
empty the eyes, cut out the mouths
adhere to the flesh and crack your knuckles.

translated from Italian by Luigi Bonaffini from New Review of Literature, Spring 2008

Italo Testa (Milano, Italy)

.:::

Skyland Boulevard

Slip inside this house the road inside the road
Where the burdock & weevil seem a chattering
Of what is really here a dead ground, swollen
With the late sounds of war the religious right
The bridges to Babylon Tuscumbia & so many
Red lights set like Stations of the Cross a holy
Victual like "Holy smokes, Batman!!!" how far
We are from heaven It´s a manner of measure
A mere chattel of time, to us what difference?
Put a good foot forward & the highway opens
Up a little slip inside this house, this road this
Tiptoed through tulips & tell me what you see

previously published in Six Little Things

John Pursley III (Greenville, SC, USA)

.:::

Lost soul

Time was so busy
engraving lines
showing age on her face

That she forgot the memories
of the heart and soul
They wander now, lost.

translation by Libby Volke

Ester Leibbrand (Heerhugowaard, Holland)