Put It To Rest: Highlights of April Poetry Month
Newsletter 23
Put It To Rest is pleased to highlight the featured poetry submissions to the April Poetry Month Prompt Challenge on rewriting and rewiring our own narrative to find empowerment. From relationships, mental health, healing trauma, and working through body image towards body positivity, there is a lot of raw and vulnerable emotive writing to reflect on.
We would also like to welcome our most recent new contributors, Mon Esprit, Desiree Batiste, Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld, Josh Crummer, Stefany, Mark Juarez French, and Amanda Justice.
Poetry
Richard Steele’s “No More PhotoShopping”:
I learned to love the mirror’s reflection
despite the wounds and scars which really
were mostly self-inflicted.
I tell of the good and constructive works
and what I have learned from the dark.
Margie Willis’s “If You Can’t Take My Heart”:
If you have a reaction to something I write
an experience you don’t consider a delight
not my responsibility to mollify your plight
your mindfuck is not my edict to retreat.
Lindsay Soberano Wilson’s “Truth Teller”:
Sorry, not sorry
that my story
forces you
to change your life story
but that’s none of my concern.
Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld’s “The Moment I Learned I Was Fat”:
why can’t you cross your legs like your mother?
my thighs burned into the now bluer couchmy cheeks burst in heart pumped red
mother’s legs — folded knee over knee, as neat as an ironed hanky
Desiree Batiste’s “The Phoenix”:
Why I couldn’t see the beauty within me
Why I couldn’t allow love to grow as fast as hate did
Why I thought I couldn’t handle any of it
Why I decided to give up, knowing it would change nothing
asking why I can’t talk normal, act normal,
be normal to any god that’s listening.
Open for Submissions
Put It To Rest celebrates the light after the rain and inspires writers to explore their voices to tell their stories and finally “put them to rest.”
If your writing is raw and vulnerable, consider joining our growing community of poets, essayists, and short story writers.
Put It To Rest accepts personal essays, poetry, and short stories about life experiences that have weighed on your mental health and that you wish to explore through writing as a therapeutic endeavor.
House your work here to Put It To Rest where you can grow as a writer and eventually be featured on Our Writers page.
I’m happy to be an editor and help others grow their audience and improve their writing. I want to also help those who consider themselves new to writing to tell their story and reap the benefits of this exercise.
I want to help you to tell your story.
*Please follow the submission guidelines so we can do so together!*
Support the Put It To Rest writing community by following us across all social media platforms, including Medium, Twitter, and Instagram.
Lindsay Soberano-Wilson’s debut full-length book of poetry Hoods of Motherhood: A Collection of Poems (Prolific Pulse Press LLC) was recently released, and is a book for everyone who ever had to learn to love themselves the way they love others. Casa de mi Corazón: A Travel Journal of Poetry and Memoir explores inner and outer travel in discovering self-identity as a Jewish Canadian. Her poems and articles have appeared in Fine Lines Literary Journal, FreshVoices, Embrace of Dawn, Poetry 365, PoetryPause, Quills Erotic Canadian Poetry Magazine, Canadian Woman Studies Journal, Fevers of the Mind, and Poetica.
Thank you to all our writers for their contributions and support of other writers.
GB Rogut Jac Harmony KooKooBananas Maggie Bowyer Lover Boy in Space Justin Farley Shirley Glassgirl Michael Centrone TC Hails Emmanuel Lomax Margie Willis Theodore McDowell Rebecca N. Herz Jennifer L. Charlie Cole Anthony O'Dugan Dr. Gabriella Danna Z kasey sparks Rina Zhubi Stephanie Parry NEBOH Katharine Reece Beckett Fox Verity Simmons Aimée Brown Gramblin Chris Patton Mark Juárez French Amanda Justice Dominik Formanowicz
