Writing, Poetry, Short Stories, Reviews, Art Contests
Send anything you have #submissions for the Bob Dylan inspired Anthology #poetrycommunity #WritingCommunity #poetry #prose #essays #art #sketches send to feversofthemind@gmail.com with a bio. Due 5/31 to be considered
If selected they will be published in a Print Anthology that’ll be available for order through Amazon under Fevers of the Mind Press. I will send free pdfs to all contributors.
Thanks,
David L O’Nan
Our twitter is @feversof also eic @davidLONan1 Facebook Group: http://www.feversofthemind.com Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Arts Group
Paypal & Submissions e-mail: feversofthemind@gmail.com
*UPCOMING PRINT ANTHOLOGIES*
HARD RAIN POETRY: POETRY & ART INSPIRED BY BOB DYLAN (taken from web post contributions & e-mail contributions)
FEVERS OF THE MIND 6: BARE BONES WRITINGS (taken from web post contributions not previously published in a Fevers of the Mind anthology from the past)
We are unable to provide compensation at this time for any postings on this site. We have to reach out through the year for donations just to keep the site going. This is for the art of poetry, music, art & other creatives.
Some poetry/art published on this site will periodically be taken down if space is running low. Pieces that are up for Best of the Net Nominations and other award nominees will remain on the site longer. You will be guaranteed at least 6-8 months exposure on our website. No promises after that and don’t take it personal.
Submissions open: Looking for Poetry for Adhd Awareness, Mental Health, Anxiety, Culture, History, Social Justice, LGBTQ Matters/Pride, Love, Poem series, sonnets, physical health, pandemic themes, Trauma, Retro Pop Culture Music & otherwise.
Submissions Open: Bob Dylan Online blog anthology Hard Rain Poetry.
The Wolfpack Online Contributors will last from May-August of this year. Many of the pieces will be eligible for our upcoming print anthologies. Each contributor to Anthology will be given a free PDF and then there will be an option to order copies when I supply links to the books.
Submissions are for blog are poetry showcases/wolfpack contributor pieces only at this time: Poetry, Art, Book Reviews, culture pieces, rants, pre-published poetry from self-published materials, defunct lit mags, pieces from other lit mags with permissions. We will soon be straying away from pieces on website first by late Summer. We will eventually be having you send the pieces for Anthologies first, and eventually can be moved to the website.
All submissions with bio. Please let us know if something has been previously published, we will make a judgment call on whether able to include. We will not send rejection e-mails. If you have simultaneous submissions out there please keep this in mind. As long as work follows our guidelines or contests, prompts they have a good chance of being published on our site. If not accepted at first Just try again…but please just send once a month if a piece was rejected at first. We will not accept pieces that we deem racist, sexist, homophobic, or have pornographic themes, photos, or any type of nudity in submissions.
Please donate to our paypal at feversofthemind@gmail.com if you enjoy this site and our anthologies. Anything helps. Thank you!
About Editor David L O’Nan
Check out a link about my new book through Cajun Mutt Press “Before the Bridges Fell” March 2022
David L O’Nan has been writing poetry & short stories for 20 years. He is founder and editor in chief of Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art Press with his wife HilLesha. His newest book “Before the Bridges Fell” was published with Cajun Mutt Press. We have released 5 Anthologies of poetry & art since 2019. He has also Curated & edited “Avalanches in Poetry: Writings & Art Inspired by Leonard Cohen” and “Before I Turn Into Gold” He has just put out a 500 page book combining 5 of his books available on Amazon “Bending Rivers” Poetry & Short Stories from David L O’Nan. His work has appeared in Icefloe Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal,Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine, Royal Rose Magazine, Cajun Mutt Press, Dark Marrow/Rhythm & Bones Lit, Truly U, Spillwords, Punk Noir Magazine, Eat the Storms Podcast, Cajun Mutt Press features, Ghost City Press, 3 moon Publishing, Elephants Never, Nymphs Publishing, and of course at www.feversofthemind.com His books include: The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers, Our Fears in Tunnels, The Cartoon Diaries, New Disease Streets, Taking Pictures in the Dark, Lost Reflections (micro-poems), His Poetic Last Whispers
Here are the U.S. Links for Kindle & Paperback. Please check for availability for the links in your country on Amazon.
Features artwork by Geoffrey Wren, poetry & stories from David L O’Nan, Ethan McGuire, Tom Harding, Joe Kidd, Robert Frede Kenter, Joan Hawkins, Ankh Spice, Arthur L Wood, Sadie Maskery, Kari Ann Flickinger, ps pirro, Peter Hague, Lorna Wood, Benjamin Adair Murphy, Attracta Fahy, Christina Strigas, Barney-Ashton Bullock, John W. Leys, Amy Barnes, Jim Young, Elizabeth Cusack, Richard LeDue, Michael Igoe, Samantha Terrell, Lisa Alletson, Carrie Sword, Samantha Merz, Janet Beekman, Lennon Stravato, Catherine Graham, William Taylor Jr, Kat Blair, Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, S. Reeson, Shane Schick, Gerald Jatzek, Merril D. Smith, Jim Feeney
“Before the Bridges Fell” by me David L O’Nan Poetry book is out today on Cajun Mutt Press
Bending Rivers: The Poetry & Stories of David L O’Nan out now!
Fevers of the Mind founder bio: David L O’Nan (WolfPack Contributor)
Before the Bridges Fell is a series of poetry based on characters that are scrambling to figure out life before the inevitable destruction of their towns, their ideals, fantasy worlds, fame of past figures that seemed to work so well to influence and shape today’s world. Before the Bridges Fell and what is unknown is always in the back of your head, and you are still expected to life your life without worry, hardly. That unknowing is always there. The script isn’t fully written, and so the improvisation of our everyday lives can be scary.
https://amzn.to/3KQ3tfx is the link on Amazon!
Please read my debut poetry book with Cajun Mutt Press. Full of prose, stories, poetry that digs deep in imagery. Influenced by Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Jack Kerouac, Marissa Nadler, Johnny Cash, Richard Brautigan, Langston Hughes and much more. Praise blurbs from Gail Crowther author of “Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz” poets Kushal Poddar, Robin McNamara, Robert Frede-Kenter, musicians Ron Sexsmith, Austin Lucas
If you like this book go back and read my independent collections “Bending Rivers” “Lost Reflections” “The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers” my Leonard Cohen Anthologies “Before I Turn Into Gold” and “Avalanches in Poetry” and the whole Fevers of the Mind Anthologies. Currently 5 volumes.
Fevers of the Mind founder bio: David L O’Nan (WolfPack Contributor)
Bio: Lynne Jensen Lampe has poems in or forthcoming from Figure 1, Olney Magazine, Yemassee, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Also to come is her chapbook Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) about mothers, daughters, and mental illness. Her poem “Stirring the Ashes” was a finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize. She lives with her musician husband and two dogs in mid-Missouri, where she edits academic books and journals. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com. Twitter: @LJensenLampe.
All in a Day
A friend had a tortoise named Cecil whose best trick was that he could be still. His life ran amok when his innards were sucked and now he is naught but a seashell. On the Side of the Road The dead cow seemed as big as a house. All its owners could do was grouse. They stuck a knife in the bloat to cut burgers and roasts, wore the skin as a beautiful blouse. End of the Line We once trained a healthy young stallion whose ancestors were brought on a galleon. On a romp in the rain he got hit by a train and that was the end of his dallyin’. A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview 1. When did you start writing and first influences? I loved to read, but I don’t think I thought of writing on my own until I was 8 or 9 years old and began writing limericks. My Grandpa Sam, who usually had a very analytical and serious demeanor, loved to tell stories and recite limericks. He must’ve told me to read Ogden Nash—one of the first poems I remember is “A flea and a fly in a flue, they didn’t know what to do.” And actually, when I’m stuck now I write grimericks, the macabre version of limericks. Other early influences were A.A. Milne, Joan Aiken, Dalton Trumbo, Sylvia Plath, and my mother—her severe mental illness and frequent hospitalizations certainly shaped me from day 1. 2. Who are your biggest influences today? Gregory Orr tops the list—his Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry changed my life with its talk of order and disorder and looking at poetry in terms of naming, singing, saying, imagining. I really admire the poems of Dorianne Laux, Diane Seuss, and Ansel Elkins—quiet yet powerful, everyday vocabulary used in striking combinations. torrin a. greathouse writes vividly about pain, danger, and change—I’d like my poems to balance craft and emotion so deftly. As I try to move toward the lyric, I look to Sabrina Orah Mark and Michael Credico and French filmmakers such as Alain Resnais to help me jog free of expectation and conventional thought. 3. Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer? When I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a tree surgeon or an architect, so it was later than that! At 15, I started wondering about journalism. That was in 1974, the year Woodward and Bernstein published All the President’s Men about Nixon and Watergate. Right around then, maybe the year before, I started writing poetry. 4. Who has helped you the most with writing? Gosh, so many people. My high school journalism teacher, Steven Fitzgerald, encouraged me. A few of us would hang out in his classroom after school, writing in our journals and talking with him about life. Sophomore year of college I took an intro to poetry workshop with Marcia Southwick—first time I heard “show, don’t tell.” She nurtured me as a writer and helped me believe in myself as a poet. More recently, Amie Whittemore and Ed Skoog as well as two critique groups, one local and one online—shout out to Inflections writers and the Poet Sisters! I’m also part of an accountability group, Dame Good Writers. 5. Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing and did any travels away from influence your work? I grew up mostly in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Southerners seem to be natural storytellers, stretching out more than syllables when they speak. Maybe that’s why my poems tend toward narrative. People put a premium on politeness (and euphemism), regardless of real feelings or facts, and I think that’s one reason I soften the power of my early drafts with unnecessary words. Also, when I write or read poems with Southern imagery, my diction and accent change. 6. What do you consider your most meaningful work you’ve done creatively so far? Definitely the poems I’ve written about my mother and mental illness. 7. Favorite activities to relax? I love reading mysteries (especially Sherlock Holmes pastiches), bike riding, cooking, hiking, and browsing at thrift stores or grocery stores. Oh, and playing with our two dogs. 8. What is a favorite line/stanza from a poem/writing of yours or others? I first read “Hush” by David St. John decades ago. These lines have stayed with me: Well, I go everywhere Picking the dust out of the dust, scraping the breezes Up off the floor, & gather them into a doll 9. Any recent or forthcoming projects you’d like to promote? Thanks for asking! An ekphrastic poem of mine based on Marilyn Monroe’s Conté drawings is in the current issue of Figure 1 (https://thefigureone.com). I sent that one out more than 25 times! It was quite a journey from the first draft to the version that was accepted. Also, Ice Floe Press (https://icefloepress.net) is publishing my first chapbook, Talk Smack to a Hurricane, in a few months. The 34 poems deal with my mother’s mental illness, our relationship, psychiatric treatments, and power.
No Second Chance
The winter had brought me darkness, made me cold to the bones, kept me hidden inside. A need for warmth set my desire for kindling. A wigwam of newspaper and dried twigs waited in the grate. And there was the axe, weapon-ready from the night before when I feared an intruder in the cellar. I swung and missed first time. The log wobbled, rocked before settling like the last vibrations of a saucepan lid dropped on the kitchen floor. So I held it still; thick log suddenly dainty between my thumb and forefinger. Next swing hit. Metal threatening my veins with black paint and mud. I needed to bleed. The air, fresh with evergreens and lingering frost held my mind sharp. I couldn’t look. I just raised my hand as if to ask a question and began pacing. Wash it under the tap, she said. Too fragile. Hardly joined. I refused. I saved my fainting for the doctor, for the moment he wielded metal trimmers to scissor my finger straight. Bio: Sue Finch’s debut collection, ‘Magnifying Glass’, was published in 2020. She loves the coast and the scent of ice-cream freezers. You can follow Sue on Twitter: @soopoftheday.
photo of Sharon Tate re-imagined through Pop Art
first published in IceFloe Press & currently in “Before the Bridges Fell” from Cajun Mutt Press
Those Hazels, They Slice
Remembering, those memories Before the seclusion To memories of you, Somehow you made it from Limerick to Lane Fork A creek full of snakes They intrigued you to say More snakes than angels here Then you laughed Níos mó nathracha ná aingil anseo In our early twenties with hazels that wondered Remembering, for many months Trying to catch the butterfly To dance with before the thunder bled on us I had you within sight, You were a millennial hippy in bellbottoms on Thursdays By Friday you were vintage chic in a La Mendola dress I’d long for you while hearing Sarah’s song playing in my head Sharon from the Vampire Killers, Your passion was to be Sharon from the Valley of the Dolls And you, you drifted with hazels that sliced Now we are children of 27. You the Irish starlet searching for the dream Stuck with a follower in love, a boy created in the dirt of the Midwest Gravel chaffing your boho chick boots We have to keep moving to keep your mind still From Nashville to Kansas City to Yokohama for a week We bled money from mud caves to gold mines Until we shelved ourselves and began to pity as rats – On the skim of the raising floods of New Orleans The comedy of fools we entered drunk for many years And your hazels lined with red in the castle of your soul Twenties to Thirties, Drinking and falling deeper to the sins In passions you ran away, I lay dire as the lone wolf And still give you chance after chance Dreaming of our rainjackets clashing on Toulouse Wasting away in the downpours, Our shoes getting stuck in sewer grates Where are you now? To new protectors, to new thieves To talent scouts on Magazine Street Your hazels looked to me and you say sorry, no more kisses. I have to say goodbye brón orm, gan póga níos mó. Caithfidh mé slán a fhágáil What a tease as I fall to a prayer Memories aren’t easy in the Big Easy in a lockdown Coltrane’s “Blue Train” is growing more static and hisses I just see those hazels, slice and say goodbye Like your dizzy wake-ups before you drink your first drink This song plays me like a straitjacket And I dream of escaping on a ferry boat and hiding away To one day escape your eyes and fall into the waters that’ll sway – Sway me back to my youth and the worries I did not have. The memories are my seizures To my madman bones melted into your old Mahogany chair Are you in your destiny, Are you in love Are you protected from the diseases, Have the diseases took your identity Has your fashion turned to rags Have your men gone from Polanski to a black & white photo of our past Are you enfolded to someone to cling to in the dying days of sunsets? I’m not sure I can move past those hazels that sliced Not knowing is just as bad as ever having you around. The ashes spit down from the attic. The dust settles down my feet It all becomes a haven for the depression to circulate within me. And I whisper to myself, as if I were talking to the memory of you like a ghost. to live alone, I don’t really know if I can. Without you, can I? le maireachtáil liom féin, níl a fhios agam an féidir liom. Gan tú, an féidir liom?
For a copy of “Before the Bridges Fell” by David L O’Nan https://tinyurl.com/yckj66hk
David L O’ Nan’s dreamscapes in Before the Bridges Fell begin and end with a wild incantatory mythic tone: the book opens w/a hitchhiker, an internal monologist-Cassandra, a prophet journeying thru small town America. We enter w/them into a shotgun ride through Hell. With a visionary sensibility that never lets up, whether it’s broken nostalgia, the neon memories of punk or mid-west beats & NYC dreamers, this book is a responsive mix, its pop-inflected ballads, flash-surreal gorgeously stimulating epics pummeling the frontal cortex and the rear-view mirror of the reader’s brain.
O’Nan perfects a highly personal image-repertoire, including the balladic, to entertain dark, indie-infused jagged tales of ecstatic & failed love. Poet & short story writer, publisher, photographer, O’Nan’s work emits a howling phosphorescent, Dylanesque rock-n-roll bardic presence, taking us a step or three further along saturated highways with poetic raconteurs soaked in their pharma-dystopic imaginations.
Vast, jagged, oracular, these are stories-as-song, of a nightmarish-Americana, cold, yet somehow hopeful, the propulsive experiments asking, how is it that a vengeance of truths can capture what it means today to live beyond salvation’s increasing twisted reach.
– Robert Frede Kenter, author of EDEN (Floodlight Editions), publisher & EIC Ice Floe Press, http://www.icefloepress.net.
Fevers of the Mind founder bio: David L O’Nan (WolfPack Contributor)
David L O’Nan is a poet, short story writer, editor living in Newburgh,IN he has lived in Evansville, Indiana, Henderson, KY and New Orleans, LA. He is the editor along with his wife HilLesha for the Poetry & Art Anthologies “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art. and has also edited & curated other Anthologies including 2 inspired by Leonard Cohen with original artwork by friend of Leonard’s Geoffrey Wren. He has self-published works under the Fevers of the Mind Press “The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers” “The Cartoon Diaries” & “New Disease Streets” (2020). A compilation of 4 books “Bending Rivers” a micro poem collection “Lost Reflections” and new book “Before the Bridges Fell” under Cajun Mutt Press. He is a Best of the Net Nominee for his poem “I honored You in Pennyrile Forest” in Icefloe Press. David has had work published in Icefloe Press, Dark Marrow, Truly U, 3 Moon Magazine, Elephants Never, Royal Rose Magazine, Spillwords, Anti-Heroin Chic, Cajun Mutt Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Voices From the Fire, He has interviewed Comedian Paul Gilmartin from Mental Illness Happy Hour Podcast, Brett Siler head of Rebore Records, Ron Sexsmith, Anne Casey, Jessie Lynn McMains, Ron Whitehead, Austin Lucas and more. He has read in public for nearly 20 years in Southern Indiana, Illinois, Nashville, New Orleans & Kentucky. Including tribute nights to John Lennon, Bukowski, Feminist Poets, & Jeff Buckley. His website an be found at www.feversofthemind.com which details info on both upcoming projects & with Anthology submissions info. Twitter is @davidLONan1 and for the book @feversof Join Facebook Group: Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Arts Group . Facebook Author page DavidLONan1 and goodreads page is https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18366060.David_L_O_Nan
*just released the book ‘His Poetic Last Whispers’ a combination book of “the Cartoon Diaries” (only available on kindle now) and a few selections from Our Fears in Tunnels and Taking Pictures in the Dark.
photos by Nick Da Barber t-shirt @Dbl_img
I’M OKAY
In My Opinion Kindness Affects You They say kill ‘em with kindness But gloss over the fact what it does to you What God has meant for me ain’t necessarily meant for you Sometimes you damned if you don’t and you damned if you do Been through too many things Seen too many things And people want to marvel at the pain But you ain’t Shang Chi looking for ten rings In My Opinion Kindness Affects You You either lead by example Or be the example Wished for positive vibes And the support is ample No longer putting the weight of the world On my shoulders Nothing more than I can handle Take a walk in my shoes Gonna need more than some sandals Bottom of these soles Shows the journey of a tired soul Being better than what I was The purpose that’s sole Driven through too many points Guess it finally took a toll Take a walk in my shoes But you couldn’t fit the mod In My Opinion Kindness Affects You Just what I think, and what I say That’s what I mean when someone asks How are you? Well, I’M O.K.A.Y. Bio:Follow R.D. Johnson on twitter @r_d_Johnson R.D. Johnson is a pushcart nominee, a best of the net nominee for Fevers of the Mind "(Not Just On) Juneteenth" Reggie is an author reigning out of Cincinnati, Ohio. At the age of 9, he found a love for writing while on summer vacation. With influences from music, Reggie has created a rhythmic style of writing to tell his personal experiences and beyond. Reggie has several books available on all major online retailers and his work can be seen in various literary magazines. He currently has two columns, Drunken Karaoke featured on Daily Drunk Magazine & REPLAYS featured on The Poetry Question. https://thepoetryquestion.com/category/replay-rdj/
Fevers of the Mind 