Poetry: Mark McGuire-Schwartz - SURREAL!

Flying over rooftops with an alarm clock

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A post from December of 2009. Poems by Mark McGuire-Schwartz are quirky and a bit surreal, like eating pickles and pistachio ice-cream, then going to sleep and having a strange dream. I like this sort of thing apparently as  I have published seven of his poems in Bent Pin Quarterly.

"If your poems were paintings, based on their style, what painter would you be? Are you more Norman Rockwell or Miro?  Rembrandt or Picasso?" This is my stock question during Wed Night Poetry's Q & A.  It's a question that leaves many poets scratching their heads,  but  Mark gave me a truly fitting answer.

"I would be Chagall" he told me, reminding me that I had asked him this before.  Marc Chagall's  odd visions enchant and disorient at the same time, and often show people flying over quaint rooftops, or barnyard animals with luminous eyes hovering at some impossible angle...

Mark has a quirky reading style as well, featuring his self-effacing charm and an alarm clock or two. You can hear him read his work at the Monday Poetry Series t the Stamford Town Center Barnes and Noble. It's this coming Monday and it starts around 7 p.m.

>>>>>Mark has a new chapbook from his own Oy Vey Press... It's called  "Loss and Laughs, Love and Fauna." Sure the tittle is a little surreal, just like the poems it contains.  I got my copy during his reading last week at  Wed. Poetry (which is now meeting at the Blue Z Coffeehouse in Newtown), and I am enjoying it very much.

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Mark had quite a few poems in Bent Pin during its run. The archive was down for a while but is partially restored:
Here is a list of his poems with links where available in the new Bent Pin Archive:

McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 4/2007 NEW LINK Title: Black Coffee
McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 4/2007 NEW LINK Title: In Death
McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 7/1/2007 NEW LINK Title: Turkey Club
McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 10/13/2007 NEW LINK Title: What I've Been Before
McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 1/1/2008 NEW LINKTitle: 25 Short Poems
McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 4/1/2008 Title: "Is Them Things Called Stars?"
McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 7/1/2008 Title: Coatless 
McGuire-Schwartz, Mark -- 11/10/2009 Title: Heartless  

Bent Pin - my lit E-zine closes - but archive of past pages is online

Photo by Richard Nethercott:

My lit magazine online, Bent Pin, formerly Bent Pin Quarterly, has closed.  The problem is computer-related. Either software degradation or upgraded OS 10.6.2 incompatibilities with iWeb 08 or perhaps  hard drive sector  corruption or SOMETHING, caused the files that contained the editable nugget of Bent Pin on my computer to transform into a chaotic mess, missing page titles, running text down the side of the page, disappearing text or text boxes, missing titles or authors of works, missing artwork.... The back-up was in the same condition, BUT the previously published ezine pages on my iDisk are okay!  I don't know why this happened.  The problem in iWeb is, all my sites are in the program and I cannot find a way to update one site without the others. I have no desire to upload this confused mess and obliterate the archive of beautiful pages which still exists online.

I guess I could swat my head against the wall a few times. I could curse and swear, eat a gallon of vanilla, drink rum, or throw things, maybe just wallow.But I am not going to do any of those things.

 the archive is at:  ______

UPDATE Aug 22, 2011 The archive and index are both moving - visit http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com

The photo (taken over a decade ago by a friend, Richard Nethercott ) of me looking through a sculpture in the Aldrich Museum's outdoor garden, sums it up well.  Right now I am trapped behind big impenetrable artifice of technology that is not working right at this time.

-- Mar Walker

Bent Pin: The familiar discomfort - Foster Trecost & MarkMcGuire-Schwartz

The familiar unhappiness is often more comfortable for human beings than making a difficult extended change.  This week we have one humorous poem about a couple aware of their own peculiarities, and a bit of flash fiction where the narrator is seemingly unaware of his own slightly sadistic pleasure in the discomfort of those around him. The works are Thoughts At The Table by Foster Trecost and Heartless by Mark McGuire-Schwartz.

The incomplete Bent Pin Archive can now be found at http://benpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Unfortunately this page is not online as yet.

-- MM Walker

Bent Pin: Poetry & Fiction - Jess Del Balzo & Bonnie Thompson Enes

Table dressings and undressings that didn't come off, so to speak. Here we have some novel metaphor by Jess Del Balzo in her work "What does one do with a butter swan anyway?"  and Bonnie Enes in her poem "Hermaphrodite" which features some lush words about tabletop lilies.   The page decor is a bit out of season but fall is rather blah this year so why not....

NOTE: The incomplete Bent Pin Archive is now found at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com but this particular month is not as yet online....

-- MM Walker

Bent Pin: Christina Hoag, Jim Harrington - murder & mayhem!

OLD POST about my dead ezine:

I've put a new page up on my E-zine Bent Pin, called "death's messengers" Both works on the page highlight damaged human beings caught in undertow of  their own narratives.  The Target by Jim Harrington is a short fiction on the death-for-hire theme.  The other is an experiment by a news writer from AP. about "your average run-of-the-mill drug murder in Los Angeles." The work is called LA Doggs by Christina Hoag. The style is something she calls "Minific" which she says is short for Minimalist fiction. She defines that as a story told in words - nouns and verbs, as opposed to sentences.
   Read their work on Bent Pin
The photo in the background (above) --  I took that in a drug store. It's an inexpensive Halloween decoration.  With a little cropping and digital tweaking it looks pretty spooky. I have another more editorial picture  featuring the same item hanging in front of boxes of junk food....

-- MM Walker

Bent Pin: D. Jason Cooper & Karl Miller, post mortem on divinity - newlink

NOTE THIS PAGE IS NOT YET IN THE NEW ARCHIVE. MAYBE LATER.

A new page is up on Bent Pin featuring a very funny bit of writing called God's Will by D. Jason Cooper as well as two poetic shorts by Karl Miller, called Communion Obsolescence and Once Last Insult.  The combination twists the meaning of the works just a bit. Take a peek.  <--this link has been repaired for the second time!!!!


UPDATE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

Bent Pin: Cortney Davis, Stephen Muret, Ken Pobo, Lisa Siedlarz

POST ABOUT MY NOW DEAD EZINE: 

This week's Bent Pin is unusual in that it features four writers instead of the usual pair. Each work offers a different twist on religion. I have titled the page brand loyalties, since there are so many competing varieties of religion. Take a peek

Bent Pin: Howie Good and T.G. Mazur, over the edge of something...

Post about my dead ezine: 

Went with some hardwood flooring and a few fall leaves for the front of Bent Pin. There 's a new page up too, "over the edge, one way or the other"  one poem incorporates dying words from famous folk (by Howie Good) and the second (by T.G. Mazur), features the faith of the hang-glider & hang-gliding instructor as they leap from a cliff.....


UPDATE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

Bent Pin: Nature Poems by Polly Brody

Nature poems and bird photos by Polly Brody are up on Bent Pin.  Follow this link to take a look


UPDATE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

Bent Pin will be changing

Well, after two years of publication and eight issues, Bent Pin is going to change at bit. The word "quarterly" will be dropped from the title. This e-zine will move from a quarterly "edition" based periodical that happens to live online to a continuously published web-style publication where pages are put up year round as they are created. I think one page per week should do it yeilding about 52 pages per year... Now, we have about 15 pages per issue for around 60 pages a year. It's close.... Who knows, I might throw in a special feature like an interview or two.....

UPDATE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

Bent Pin Quarterly Vol 2, No 1 now online!

The January 2008 issue is now live - view the table of contents and follow the links:
http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/2008/01/january-2008-contents-with-links.html

NOTE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:
http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

Bent Pin Quarterly Vol 1 No 3 !

View the table of contents and follow the links to read the entire issue:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/2007/10/october-2007-contents-with-links.html

Bent Pin Quarterly Vol 1, No 2 Online!

View the table of contents and follow the links to read the entire issue!

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/2007/07/july-2007-contents-with-links.html

First issue of Bent Pin Quarterly Vol 1 No 1 !

   

Check out the wonderful titles and authors - view the table of contents with page links:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/2007/04/april-2007-contents-with-links.html