Bio: Jessica Weyer Bentley is an author, poet, and photographer. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. Her chapbook, Down Below Where the Canary Sings was published May 2, 2023 by Sage Owl Publishing in Massachusetts. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries, including Poetry and Prose, and Hit by a Drunk Driver. Jessica’s work has been anthologized in Women Speak Vol. 6 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Summer Gallery of Shoes (Highland Park Poetry), Common Threads 2020 and 2022 Editions (Ohio Poetry Association), Pegasus 2022 Journal (Kentucky State Poetry Society) Appalachian Witness Volume 24 and Appalachian Unmasked Volume 25 (Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel) and Made and Dream (Of Rust and Glass) 2021 and 2022. She has been published in several publications by Alien Buddha Press including anthologies and magazines. She has contributed work to online blogs including Global Poemic, Lotherian Journal, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and was a Wolfpack contributor for the online journal, Fevers of the Mind. Jessica currently resides in Northwest Ohio.
Transience of the Empath
I see the fade,
the ellipses on the lavender horizon.
The calendar years collapse,
sharp burnt vegetation of a majestic oak.
I detether from this round indigo orb,
reeling,
a rogue hot air balloon,
a brain full of helium.
The mortar and brick have dissolved to mere chemistry,
the nativity lay open.
The bone and sinew years fragment,
infinity,
infinity.
Flora's Hierarchy
Does the willow weep,
or simply bow in admiration,
of summer’s warming ages,
bending in gratitude to the crimson cardinal,
as he ushers it in with a summoning call.
The willow offers a curtsey to the queen of terms,
the blades shine in an effervescent tone.
The humble and sage guardian is not weeping,
kneeling to allow those in its eclipse to rise.
Q1: When did you start writing and whom influenced you the most now and currently?
Jessica: I remember knowing that I was going to be a writer/poet when I was six years old. I had always had poetry forming in my mind at a very young age. I have been influenced by so many poets throughout my life. I remember as a child being immersed in work by Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Jesse Stuart. I would spend hours at the college library in Morehead, Kentucky reading over Jesse Stuarts papers in a special collection they store there. As time went on, I was influenced by Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver and many of my poet friends who I currently read. I have an eclectic taste in poetry.
Q2: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Jessica: I believe I was born a writer/poet. I honestly don’t have many memories where poetry was not forming in my brain. I do believe the death of my father at the age of 5 brought in reflection of myself which may have led to the writing, but I do believe it has always been who I am.
Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?
Jessica: I had an amazing composition teacher in high school who truly fed my creativity in poetry. She would enter my work into contests and introduced me to the world of poetry, creative writing, editing, and how to create my work into chapbooks. A teacher can change a life. She did guide mine for sure.
Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?
Jessica: I was born in Hardin County, Ohio but at the age of four we relocated to the Appalachian Hills of Eastern, Kentucky. Growing up in the mountains has influenced my writing quite a bit as I write about the wonderful people of Appalachia and the hardships they face there. I also draw a lot of my work from the beautiful and mystic land of the mountains.
Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?
Jessica: My most meaningful work creatively to me would be the book I am currently working on, Down Below Where the Canary Sings, which is poetry derived from growing up back home in Appalachia. I have to say all of my work has gotten me to where I am today, but this book means a lot to me.
Q6: What are your favorite activities to relax?
Jessica: I love to listen to music to relax and visit the mountains as often as I can. Music helps me creatively to open my mind for work to come through. I will go back home to Eastern Kentucky and spend time in the peace and quiet of the mountains which helps reflection. Watching the wildlife there and just basking in nature refuels me.
Q7: What is a favorite line/ stanza/lyric from your writing?
Jessica: I do have a hard time choosing a favorite stanza or line from my work as I am quite critical of myself and what I write but I would have to say this stanza from a poem, “Leonard’s Juliet” which has recently been chosen to be published in, Appalachia Unmasked, published by Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel does strike me.
A marriage of dearth and whimsy,
charted in the incandescent night,
far above the charred world of slate dumps.Q8: What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song or songs that always come back to you as an inspiration?
Jessica: I was and am forever a drummer. I listen to every kind of music under the sun from classical, jazz, pop, rock, rap, R&B, blue grass, country, alternative; all of it. I have a very eclectic musical ear. My husband and son are also musicians, so all music is on our radar.
Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events, projects that you would like to promote?
Jessica: I am currently working on my next collection of poetry, Down Below Where the Canary Sings. It is a collection of work from growing up in Appalachia and through that lens. I am aiming for 2023 with my daughter, Laura Bentley, illustrating the cover art like she did for Crimson Sunshine by AlyBlue Media 2020.
Bio:
Jessica Weyer Bentley is an poet, author, and public speaker. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries, including Poetry and Prose, and Hit by a Drunk Driver. Jessica’s work has been anthologized in Women Speak Vol. 6 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Summer Gallery of Shoes (Highland Park Poetry), Common Threads 2020 Edition (Ohio Poetry Association), Appalachian Witness Volume 24 (Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel) and Made and Dream (Of Rust and Glass), Psalms of the Alien Buddha Part 2 (Alien Buddha) and online blogs including Global Poemic and Fevers of the Mind Poetry Showcase and a Wolfpack Contributor 2022. She recently was featured in her first magazine entitled Summer 2022 (Of Rust and Glass). She is currently penning her second collection, Down Below Where the Canary Sings slated to be out in 2023. Jessica currently resides in Northwest Ohio.
3 poems from Jessica Weyer BentleyPoetry influenced by Sylvia Plath from Jessica Weyer-BentleyPoetry: Materfamilias by Jessica Weyer BentleyNew Poetry by Jessica Weyer Bentleyhttps://www.amazon.com/Jessica-Weyer-Bentley/e/B088T4PDHS%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_sharehttps://alybluemedia.com/bentley/https://deadmule.com/jessica-weyer-bentley-poem-july-2022/https://www.alibris.com/Crimson-Sunshine-Jessica-Weyer-Bentley/book/47643019https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crimson-sunshine-jessica-weyer-bentley/1137054459
Book Review from Every Poem a Potion, Every Song a Spell by Stephanie Parent (Querencia Press, LLC Chicago, IL 2022)
A Review of “Every Poem a Potion, Every Song A Spell” by David L O’Nan
As I began reading to foreword to Stephanie’s book I knew I wasn’t about to read just any collection of poetry.
I was about to read into the heart of a girl growing up that had equal fascinations with the beauty of
The characters and the macabre of the stories. The Light, the darkness, the fairytales, the evening falling back in the coals.
The perception that life can be beautiful, but with the cloud of doubt simmering by.
Influenced by folktales of Gretchen and Disney movies. These are poetry based on truisms and fantasy.
Are they all really that different?
While Hollywood tried their best to glam up the Cinderella, the Sleeping Beauty, the Snow White and Little Mermaid and so on, it seemed there was someone’s haunting voice that said that wasn’t my image when I began to write about what is NOT happening. How life is NOT treating everyone equally.
And women of the day could fell every bit of this dismal falsehoods of love and everafters, only to find the abuses of wars and Princes who could never life up to sainthood.
The examples:
From “When Everything Else Was Gone”
“Girls who walked barefoot through the snow
Girls who wove cloth fine enough the fit through the eye Of a needle”
Girls who found the treasure within
A Million grains of rice” … The Key to their own Salvation.
From Into the Forest:
The common theme of woods enters the picture from folklore.
“Conjures scraped knees, ripped dresses
Pounding hearts
Secrets and monsters and
Salvation”…
“Men might march through
With axes and torchs
“But women slip sidewise
Through the branches
Welcoming fear and shadow
As familiar friends”
The constant slurs and abuse from the older women. “The Evil stepmothers” and a consistent view of how men wouldn’t push past boundaries to be stronger humans and enforce what has always been taught to be brawny and fearless and at times abusive.
From Part One: Strange Creatures:
How womanhood changes at a young age affect a personality and confidence or a shame at least temporarily.
“I never wanted to be a human girl
Who sweated under her arms
Grew prickly hairs on her legs
Bled between her thighs”
She just wanted to be a mermaid. To live the fantasy of not having to deal with the tragedies and triumphs. The fragility of humankind much like a bird with weathered wings.
From Crack Nuts:
This tells of a girl fleeing for the first time away from the consistency that has been the hurt and try
To reshape herself into her own identity, away from what has been perceived upon her.
“When I left home for the first time
I went a little nuts”
“I didn’t find the castles or cottages or huntsmen I hoped for
In my forest, which was actually a city
Bordered by salty oceans and ashy mountains”
To reach out for mother when you needed her, the idea that she was ready to start anew left
Even more bruising and less fairytales.
From Red Hood in the Woods (Little Red Riding Hood):
A piece based on a woman wanting to create an identity for herself, to be who she wanted to be.
But prowlers and miscreants could only see her as an object.
“Look: She wouldn’t have worn red
If she didn’t want the wolf to notice her.
Right?”
“We didn’t’ ask to be trapped
Within the rank flesh
Of the wolf’s belly
Tucked into ourselves, knees kissing temples
Breathing blood and acid and fear
Waiting for some huntsman to slit the fur
See that red hood”
The metaphors drip off this page beautifully. And paint the picture of the wanted posters that should be out there in more and more cities.
From Clawed Creatures: (Beauty and the Beast)
“Last Spring, her father had arrived home
Holding a rose with petals the color of blood –
A rose that never withered
Though the frost still crunched beneath his boots
The half-frozen gate still creaked on its hinges
As he stepped back into his bedraggled garden
Telling tales of a monster
That no one quite believed”
From Little Cages (Jorinda and Joringel, Part One);
(her singing birds
Transformed by her own hands
To resemble creatures native to exotic
Worlds.
She could never see)
…No girl ends up in a beautiful cage.
From Poissonnier (the Little Mermaid):
“All Knives
Our Human legs are things of violence
They kick and scramble and open wide”
I could keep going on but you have to read for yourself to realize the metaphors in these re-telling of fairytales are not what a young woman is told will happen. These are realities and fairytales need to be taken as serious and cautious and not expected. Dangerous people, situations beyond our control is out there to try and derail the happiness. It is up to the reader to search for the hope that Stephanie provides within the books in small inklings.
Many of these stories have been previously published before in wonderful litmags throughout the years. Stephanie has a wonderful talent for re-imagining a true world view on what a fairytale wishes it were.
Every Single Poem a Potion, Every Song a Spell by Stephanie Parent is a enigmatic creation of imagery and spell bound twist of tales. The poetry speaks to the romantic and mystic persona of the individual, the distant lands, and of the elusive creature. Stephanie reveals mirrors with stanzas of a universe just beyond the haze. A breathtaking gaze into the globe of the faint edges of belief. From “Everything Else is Gone” to “The Answer” Stephanie calls you into the unknown as a Pied Piper of literary imaginings. A truly mesmerizing read that continuously surprises you with a scope of a splendorous and cerebral fairyland.
Jessica Weyer Bentley
Every Poem a Potion, Every Song a Spell is available through Querencia Press, LLC in Chicago, IL (2022)
You can find this wonderful book through the normal avenues of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, amongst Stephanie’s own website.
You found your beekeeper that February morning,
in the London gray,
silencing your confessions.
Carbon monoxide just a wet towel away from your most esteemed epitaphs.
The cathodes could not eradicate the ache,
your albatross,
your only affliction that no man could climb beyond.
His grasp so dire,
you could not refrain from his grievous beacon,
succumbing to his grim demand.
Bio: Jessica Weyer Bentley is an poet, author, and public speaker. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries, including Poetry and Prose, and Hit by a Drunk Driver. Jessica’s work has been anthologized in Women Speak Vol. 6 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Summer Gallery of Shoes (Highland Park Poetry), Common Threads 2020 Edition (Ohio Poetry Association), Appalachian Witness Volume 24 (Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel) and Made and Dream (Of Rust and Glass), Psalms of the Alien Buddha Part 2 (Alien Buddha) and online blogs including Global Poemic and Fevers of the Mind Poetry Showcase and a Wolfpack Contributor 2022. She recently was featured in her first magazine entitled Summer 2022 (Of Rust and Glass). She is currently penning her second collection, Down Below Where the Canary Sings slated to be out in 2023. Jessica currently resides in Northwest Ohio.
I dare to bask in the wake of you,
your experience of a thousand little things.
Broken glass.
Malt whiskey.
Riven seams.
To witness the eclipse as it casts away,
to ruminate that labor,
embracing the shards.
So intimate,
so dear,
I procure a thousand cuts.
Mae
On any given Saturday at the corner of the local IGA,
Mae would pace as she grasped her ivory clutch purse,
cursing the brisk wind anticipating her next ride.
She would step inside his Chevy Impala to earn her first pack of Marlboros,
a rosy plastic barrette in her matted hair.
A 52-year-old deaf mute with no other way to persevere,
destitute and flailing through the rotted planked gaps of society.
She would stroll the coal tracks to our back screen door,
giggling as she gazed toward the little ones playing house.
She caressed a baby doll against her lime polyester blouse.
In this twinkling of glee, she eluded the reality of her next meal,
then would steel away back to her space,
of brake lights on hushed backstreets,
another day of revolving existence.
A rusted Ford would stop to sway open the heavy steel door,
Just one more day.
Mae, just one more.
Archer Park
He had my skate key,
hand in hand floating,
to Bon Jovi.
We were living on a prayer,
there in that desolate landscape-
puppy love against poverty.
We pushed against the despair,
a pair in love’s delusion.
That steel building and wood floor
kept at bay the decaying storefronts,
set against the aging tracks-
permanent coal gons sprouting golden rods.
Bio: Jessica Weyer Bentley is an poet, author, and public speaker. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries, including Poetry and Prose, and Hit by a Drunk Driver. Jessica’s work has been anthologized in Women Speak Vol. 6 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Summer Gallery of Shoes (Highland Park Poetry), Common Threads 2020 Edition (Ohio Poetry Association), Appalachian Witness Volume 24 (Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel) and Made and Dream (Of Rust and Glass), Psalms of the Alien Buddha Part 2 (Alien Buddha) and online blogs including Global Poemic and Fevers of the Mind Poetry Showcase and a Wolfpack Contributor 2022. She recently was featured in her first magazine entitled Summer 2022 (Of Rust and Glass). She is currently penning her second collection, Down Below Where the Canary Sings slated to be out in 2023. Jessica currently resides in Northwest Ohio.
Fevers of the Mind 