The Crooked Circular: Issue 1
soon to be a collector’s item
Welcome to the first edition of The Crooked Circular, the newsletter of The Crooked Circle on Medium. I’ll be putting out issues on a strict schedule of every so often. Today is 7 DC (Day of our Circle), and our contributors have posted eight brand new poems, each somehow both more impressive than the last and the next. We choose to not slavishly obey the arrow of time here. We don’t observe daylight saving, but we change the clocks as needed.
It would be my utmost pleasure to introduce you to those who have contributed so far.
First was… well, me… but in all fairness, I was the only one who knew this was coming. I’m Thomas James. I write a lot of poetry and a bit of nonfiction that’s usually some combination of settings on the humor and philosophy dials. I have published “Rewrites,” “Prospects,” and “What if I’d Been Me?”.
Next up was Allisonn Church, who is my eighth-oldest follow on Medium. I’ve been reading her since 2022. Charles Baudelaire said, “Always be a poet, even in prose,” and Allisonn embodies that ideal more than anyone else I’ve found on this platform. When actually writing poetry on purpose, she brings a voice that is somehow soothing regardless of subject matter and a finely-tuned knack for metaphor. She offered “Unrequited.”
The irrepressible Doodleslice was next to enter the Circle. He is a visual artist, as well as a writer, and his written work spans the gamut in terms of tone and style. If anyone puts the fun in proFoUNd, it’s him. I’d asked the writers to “take chances” in my invitation to them, and he rose to the occasion with “Absinthe,” a unique and creative poem composed of one-word lines, a trick rarely landed by amateurs. It also features a dare-I-say idiosyncratic illustration of a green fairy (inside joke).
Wolf Eberhardt, who I followed right after Allisonn, back in my early days here, contributed “Old Horses Go out to Pasture,” a touching tribute to a car whose last breaths did not meet New York State emissions standards. Wolf is the most innovative poet I know, combining poetic techniques in ways rarely seen and making up new ones with shocking regularity. He is the owner and editor of Iceberg’s Poetry. If The Circle has sister publications, I consider that to be one. Wolf has an as-yet-untitled collection of poetry coming out later this year from Crooked Circle Press.
Juliet James is my wife of… oh, man… it’s been… carry the three… twenty years now. She has been on Medium far longer than I have and also has the street cred of ten published pieces on Huff Post Personal. She was my very first medium follow, but I think the marriage at least warrants an asterisk. She is a triple-threat, writing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. “Prey” is a relatable poem about her personal childhood experiences with a macabre religious ritual you may have heard of. Her first novel (it’s really not a novel) Cravings: A Mostly Fictional Memoir will be released this year by Crooked Circle Press. If you want to see a bit of the cover or apply to receive an advance review copy, you can do that here.
Jenny Blue made the most recent contribution with Boi/Fire, a poem accompanied by visual artwork from the poet herself. Jenny’s verse is tight, concentrated, impactful, evocative, and consistent. This is not sipping poetry; this is the hard stuff, but it burns just right on the way down. Sometimes it has to hurt if it’s to heal.
Four other participants have agreed to humor me but have not yet submitted anything. I can’t wait to introduce you to them next time. Subscribe to the newsletter if you don’t want to miss it. Until then, to… honestly, paraphrase seems far too strong of a word… Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Write Well, Laugh Often, Clap Much.”
