v8

Lullaby for the Bereaved

Your hours of tears won’t let you follow
Those who’ve left you alone.
Tonight your head lies on a pillow,
Not beneath earth and stone.

The dead won’t be returning,
Not for all of your pleas,
Nor for all your candles burning.
Get up off your knees.

J.D. Smith has published two collections, The Hypothetical Landscape (1999) and Settling for Beauty (2005), and in 2007 he was awarded a Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. His first children's book, The Best Mariachi in the World, was published in bilingual, Spanish and English editions in 2008.

Smith lives near the Southwest Waterfront of Washington, DC with his wife Paula Van Lare and their rescue dog, Roo.

The Best Mariachi in the World/El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo

The Best Mariachi in the World / El mejor mariachi del mundo is bilingual (English/Spanish) embedded text picture book that incorporates cultural tradition, wishes, and the happiness that can be found when a person s talent is valued. Spunk and Everyone in Gustavo s family is in a mariachi band. Everyone except Gustavo, that is. They all play violÃns, trompetas and guitarrones. They all make wonderful music in restaurants and at wedding parties. Gustavo would love to join the band, but he can t play any of the instruments. What s a wannabe mariachi to do?

author: J. D. Smith
ASIN or ISBN-10: 0979446244
binding: Paperback
list price: $7.95 USD
amazon price: $7.95 USD

The Best Mariachi in the World

Everyone in Gustavo s family is in a mariachi band. Everyone except Gustavo, that is. They all play violÃns, trompetas and guitarrones. They all make wonderful music in restaurants and at wedding parties. Gustavo would love to join the band, but he can t play any of the instruments. What s a wannabe mariachi to do? Illustrator Dani Jones uses bright, warm colors to show the hot desert landscape. She also incorporates the styles of art and patterns from the Southwestern area to help illustrate the story.

author: J. D. Smith
ASIN or ISBN-10: 1887744991
binding: Hardcover
list price: $16.95 USD
amazon price: $16.95 USD

Settling for Beauty

author: J.D. Smith
ASIN or ISBN-10: 1933456051
binding: Paperback
list price: $17.00 USD
amazon price: $8.95 USD

Face Down In History

Then the gypsies abandoned their camp
and the stars sank down to candles.
All I could see was what could be
surmised from circumstance,
a dancing bear with a head scarf
and one gold earring climbing into a cab.
I was never so young again.
The banished Polish princess
who shared her orange
spit the seeds out on the floor.
She said rule number one was simple,
like the valley between her breasts.
There was no rule number two.

That Summer

The roof burned continuously.
I passed long hours learning

the names of various shades of blue –
Air Force blue, cornflower blue,

Persian blue, periwinkle.
Night came early where I lived

with my mother and three brothers
and no one to read to me to sleep,

though the herd of clouds grazing
at the end of the street would always

lift their big, shaggy heads to listen.

Howie Good

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of nine poetry chapbooks, including Police and Questions from Right Hand Pointing (2008), Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks, and Visiting the Dead (2009) from Flutter Press. He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for the Best of the Net anthology. His first full-length book of poetry, Lovesick, is forthcoming from The Poetry Press of Press Americana.

Lovesick

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of eight poetry chapbooks, including Police and Questions (2008) from Right Hand Pointing, Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks, The Torturer's Horse (2009) from Recycled Karma Press, and Love Is a UFO (2009) from Pudding House. He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for the Best of the Net anthology. Lovesick is his first full-length book of poetry.