About Place Journal
@aboutplacejournal
A literary journal published by the Black Earth Institute blackearthinst.bsky.social | Dedicated to re-forging the links between art and spirit, earth and society. Black Earth, Wisconsin | aboutplacejournal.org
Call for Submissions: This issue of About Place Journal—The Power of Art in a Changing World—seeks poetry, prose, music (video and recorded), and visual and performance art that speaks to how art challenges, responds, represents, and critiques changes in culture. aboutplacejournal.org/submissions/
Packs the wound, fills the space with mountains that rejected you to begin with. In a broken whisper you catch their attention ask them when the mountains abandoned you, how did you feel? From 'Appalachian Dystopia' by Anna Bohn aboutplacejournal.org/issues/the-g...
Alone here, I am charged to the eyelids. Time comes and goes in waves and pleats, like the water I stand in. Time is moving through me, not me through time. From 'The Sea Remembers My Scars' by Adelina Basile aboutplacejournal.org/issues/the-g...
Winter as it used to be purpled, blurred by cold I miss that, now How, the far hills become lavender in the sky of palest rose Snows, everywhere snows From 'Winter Solastalgia' by Catherine Young aboutplacejournal.org/issues/the-g...
I was born on the edge of death, a ghost forest lit from the bayou below I was born over-exposed underground, in the roots of a dying cypress tree From 'Oree' by Stacey Balkun Read the full poem in the lastest edition of About Place Journal. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/the-g...
Split in radials for shipping a century ago, you look like an eleven-hour clock but vast and quieter than time. You require a scaffold and team of small brushes, grand in your deterioration as the finest Renaissance fresco... - Laura Donnelly ✍️📃⬇️ aboutplacejournal.org/issues/the-g...
"Buffalo Autumn' by Santa Fe #Artist Kathleen Frank. 🎨 Frank travels throughout the American West, seeking inspiration for her landscape paintings. Using vibrant hues, she captures light and pattern in her search for logic within complex terrains. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/the-g...
In my eighty years I have seen many threats to our freedoms, from foreign tyrants to governmental witch hunters, from nuclear tragedy to environmental disaster, from unchecked power to unbridled greed. Today, I fear I see them all gathered before me. Janet Ryan aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
'Giving Comfort' by Sherry Shahan Shahan has spent decades wandering the globe as a travel journalist, quietly watching the world and its people from behind. Her collages have appeared in Rattle, Josephine Quarterly, Orion’s Belt & elsewhere. #Photography aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
🖌️ Icarus Reborn (feel the burning light) Joseph Laurro's recent works take the form of resilience. Perhaps a myth rewritten in defiance of fate or the freedom of a swimmer late in life. Meditations on movement—turn to folklore, science, and the sacred. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
🎨 Dancing with Fireflies/down here below by Joseph Laurro Laurro searches while painting, making visual decisions directly in the process. His work is visceral, open-ended, allowing anything to feel possible. Recent works take the form of resilience. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
Young twins, somber eyes below scuffed foreheads. The artist’s painting holds you amid the ship’s sway before disembarkment from a porthole you’ll never stop looking through. Poet - Theresa Senato Edwards / Artist - Lori Schreiner aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
Churches constructed along riverbanks, helped with waterborne escapes, becoming havens for all who entered. Finding strength through faith, within the hallowed walls, worshippers found solace there that no one could ever take away. -Marjory Wentworth aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
I am a branch grown wild far from ancient groves— Olive roots watered by distant sun, Shadowed now by London rain. Even here, the keffiyeh’s threads run under my skin— heredity memory stitched into mornings dense with tea From 'Roots in exile' - Adam Suleiman aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
These days, our only sanctuary might be with one another. Wherever the women are calling us, fear can galvanize action, impelling us to take risks, to voice our dread when even everyday life becomes paralyzing. _ From 'Anthem for the Silenced' by Gail Tyson aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
'There’s a door' artwork by Crash Solo. Solo is a collage artist/poet/playwright in Bellingham, Washington. He has made thousands of small collages...most of which have been added to little booklets mailed all over the world to other artists. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
Miranda Anthem (erasure) by Davin Faris [You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you... #Poetry aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
Father’s gone, and the legs are out. She blesses the tabletop with twin aces and forgets to call the others her sisters— their lingerie, already hanging from the crucifix. Down to garters and double veils From 'Nuns Playing Strip Poker' by Harrison Hamm aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
In our latest issue ➡️Crossings: In this section many works speak to new areas to express challenges and freedom from self-doubt. There are many to choose from. Which one moves you most? ( ✒️ Section artwork: There’s a door by Crash Solo) #LitMag aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr...
The artwork for the section 'Succession: Young Authors & Artists' was done by Iranian photographer, storyteller, and poet Zohreh Zadbood. ➡️ The piece is titled 'Color in Wind,' in our latest edition. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/on-fr... 🔗 Discover more of her creative work at zohrehzadbood.com
When I stand before my mirror, ready to attack my tangled locks, I see dozens of well-groomed soldiers with purple picks stowed safely in kit bags as they attack. I see the enemy striking back. From 'Combing My Hair, Operation Desert Storm' - Jill Barrie aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...
How do our movements create resonance(s) between us? asks issue editor Dr. Mita Mahato. ➡️Resonance. I am thinking about insects. Their buzzing, winging, rubbing, clicking, scurrying fill my ears. At its most fundamental, “resonance” means sound again. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...
-Our Table - Orchestra - Marulas Three poems from 'body,' a #poetry manuscript by Erica Waters "challenges 'myths of exceptional individualism as constructed within colonial and capitalist contexts.'” Waters is an Assistant Teaching Professor at CSU. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...
We’re already all here, the lot of us, more than the sum of our parts, oneness not sameness, diversity that spins. Shared meal persists, even when we trust too much in knives, even when we break dishes, spill wine __ From 'Our Table' by Erica Waters aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...
Shelter from the Storms: Quiet Collaborations Renga 1 Storm Clouds 2/2/24 Storm clouds loom heavy across distant horizons — ominous portents. Wind and lightning fly fearsome as bountiful rain destroys. ______ ➡️ Dana JS Washington & Janet N. Ryan aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...
Mounds of fruit melt in the tired Friday afternoon, and our feet enliven, dance on fermentation grapes, bubbling juices coloring the toes warm, yellow colors; the soles yelp like child-play From 'An Ode on Wine Grapes' by Austin Thornton aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...
I am like this beetle, tentative and a little blue, or is that the reflection of sky on her back or is it the reflection of my cup as she wanders toward my warm hand? From 'A Whispering Beetle' by Nancy Takacs aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...
"Shot in stop motion after Randall’s motion was stopped due to hip surgery fall 2020, this work reveals and revels in the “broken” body, a body replete with the markings of its 40-year career in the dance trenches..." Candy Dish, in our latest edition. aboutplacejournal.org/issues/caref...