VWA: Available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon and CreateSpace Now!

VWA: POEMS FOR HAITI AVAILABLE!!

BUY
CreateSpace
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Why? It’s less than 10 dollars, and it’s
filled with Caper’s emerging and established poets!

Vwa: Poems for Haiti Available NOW!

The gorgeous work collected in Vwa: Poems for Haiti can now be purchased. All proceeds go toward Haiti’s charity relief.

ORDER HERE.

(Available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon soon!)

Vwa: Poems for Haiti Update

Vwa: Poems for Haiti . . .

is almost ready. It’s in its final proofing stages and can be purchased in about a week or so. Thank you to everyone who requested copies, written about it, spread the word and inspired us writers to keep writing.

Check out “What People Are Saying” tab to read a few of the blog posts. And check out the CreateSpace link to check out the contributor list!

Remember to leave your name if you’re interested in being notified about copies here.

Pre-Order Vwa: Poems for Ayiti

Are you interested in purchasing Vwa: Poems for Ayiti? It’s a gorgeous, compassionate collection of poetry by 30+ writers from all over the world, edited by Lisa Marie Basile and released by Caper Literary Journal.  

There are words from doctors, desert dwellers, Haitians, laywers, educators, mothers, lovers, friends, professors, and poets. There are words from people who are affected by the tragedy, and words by those who have seen it. There are emerging authors and published poets. But what each writer has in common is their desire to give light to something dark. Won’t you be a part of that?

The proceeds go to charity. Sadly the printer will take their cost. However, royalties will be given to American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and Yele.

Support Haiti by purchasing this book. Why?

• You get some spectacular work to read,
• it’s cheap (under 10 dollars)
• and it will support the beautiful, strong people of Haiti.

It’s not available online just yet, since it’s in its final stages of proofing. But, you can let us know you’re interested, and we’ll email you when the book is available!

LET US KNOW YOU WANT THE BOOK
CONTACT CAPER (just fill out the form, mention Haiti) OR LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST WITH YOUR NAME AND EMAIL.

Cheers, and thank you.
Lisa Marie Basile

More Poems To Come

Vwa: Poems For Haiti is coming along! Caper is proud to feature several poets for this project,
with more coming along today. The print anthology will be available soon as well!

A sincere thanks to all readers, writers and bloggers,
Lisa Marie Basile — Caper Literary Journal Editor

A Plea For Haiti — James G. Piatt

Come to Haiti’s bruised buildings of rubble
Grab hands to help those underneath
Sing and pray together as you labor
Tunnel deeply below for the hearty souls
Who still harbor the furious will to live
Use your backs and prayers to dig deep
So beautiful black souls can survive
Watch and listen to faint sounds of hearts
Of those still living in the depths of the debris
For they have the resiliency to survive

Bring your doctors to heal their wounds
Bring your goodwill and caring acts
To help those who have gone through hell
So often during dark times of broken thunder

Provide steadfast optimism so hopeless minds
Can develop optimism for better tomorrows
Bring your nation’s riches to this poor land
Bring your ships laden with food and water
Bring your cooks clergy and counselors
To find feed and console those that survive

For they are a resilient and deserving people
Do not forsake the hearty souls who
Have gone through such agony and pain
Watch over their crying scarred children and
Aid the mothers with bitter tears in their eyes
Stay until all is well again in this broken ragged city
Remain until the misery and sorrow is gone
Help them rebuild a bright future of possibilities

How Can the Desperate Eat Poetry? — Martin Willitts, Jr.

The cinder block are crying out.
It is nothing more than my imagination
after digging out so many bodies
only to bury thousands of chalky dusted limbs
in a mass grave using a bulldozer.
The cinder blocks are crying out for rescue.
A person has been digging in a rubble for someone missing,
hands clawing and tossing the shattered pieces
like chicken wing bones, besides himself with frenzy.
The cinder blocks are losing their voice.
It longs for some water where there is only cinder.
A woman is wailing after finding a rag-doll of a child.
She thinks the smashed face belongs to her.
A reporter records the facts, numb as a laptop keyboard.
The cinder block asks for a few pieces of rice.
The ground shakes with a bulldozer, or is it an aftershock.
The jail has fallen into itself and there is no order.
There is restlessness in long lines waiting for assistance.
A doctor does not know where to begin.
The cinder blocks have resigned to despair.
Miracles are things no one can afford.
There is shock on many faces, the color of soot.
There is a shortage of everything essential.
The only things in abundance are death and uncertainty.
A Marine is too late to rescue anyone.
There are more orphans than a person can count.
I have been removing death through sleeplessness.
A cinder block died under the weight of other blocks.
Or was it another crushed arm?
I have lost my voice in the unsettled crowd.
The shovel is heavy from so much digging, it sighs.
Someone thinks they have found a survivor.
By the time we begin removing piles,
the person passes away. A wail sounds like a poem
no one wants to write. It shrieks
as a seagull without a port.
I have forgotten what it was like to rest
and it reminds me I am still alive,
scratching at the scab of rubble.
It is the digging that matters now, the endless
digging, the drumming of fingers on bricks,
the heartbeat of digging. I think the cinder blocks
communicate with the dead.

Dear Ayiti — Jabou McCoy

dear Ayiti,
do you know who you are?

do you remember what they want you to forget?
you are the 1st
you are the first child
and u know the first child is always forgotten, ignored after the newborn arrives.
they ignore and forget you
because you beat them at their own game, with their own rules, on their own turf.
and to this day, they’re still holding a 206 year grudge.
who would have thought an island could cause so much trouble?

natural disasters may destroy your land
but human callousness tries to destroy your spirit
poverty, corruption, coups–
how do u go on, when such misery surrounds you?
you smile
yet your mouth yearns for food and water
you dance
to the beats of buildings crumbling
to the sounds of guns fired
to the cries of the children
to the rhythms of fear and death.
you’ve been written off
yet you keep writing new stories.

Ayiti
the place where the sun and the moon go for inspiration.

dear Ayiti,
do you know who you are?

Untitled — David Murphy

People of Haiti you are so brave
Courage willpower fight and save
The earthquake shook your world in two
Our hearts and tears go out to you

Your peace was shattered on the day
The earth it shook and broke away
Peoples minds were ripped apart
Broken limbs and broken hearts

Children sleeping in there bed
Houses shaking knocked to shreads
No food or water none at all
This hell on earth has touched us all

A week had gone
A child was saved
He was pulled from rubble
His hands were raised

Our hearts and souls are with you now
We will help each other and this is how
We’ll fight together to get you through
This nightmare thats surrounding you

Haiti, January 2010 — Mary Jackson

as if broken glass
shattered itself onto trees
and cut leaves in odd shapes
that hurt the senses

an ugly collage
lay across the land overlapping
sharp and dusty pieces

and underneath
a hand reaches out

Mary Strong Jackson

Bio

Mary Strong Jackson lives in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Her work has appeared in various journals in the United States and England, and in the anthologies: At Our Core, Woman Writing about Power, Papier-Mache Press, Times of Sorrow, Times of Grace, Backwaters Press, and In the Arms of Words, Sherman Asher Publishing. Pudding House Magazine published Mary’s chapbook, Clippings.  The Chapbooks Between Door and Frame and No Buried Dogs were published by Foothills Publishing.  Her poem “Soldier Trees” was chosen as one of the poems of the month for October 2009 for Poets Against the War. Denver art collector, Dr. Charles Hamlin commissioned Mary to write a poem to accompany a visual art piece for the 11th Annual Corporate Collections 07 in Denver, Colorado, February 14 – April 11, 2007.

Mary was one of four Nebraska poets included in a Nebraska Education Television program featuring United States Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, and Nebraska Poet Laureate, William Kloefkorn. The program aired on NETV in December 2005, and the DVD was presented to all high schools and libraries in Nebraska.