I have just posted the first issue of Asphalt Sky! It took a bit longer than I expected (as every project always does), but I’m really proud of the result. Kate, Jo, and I worked very hard to find the best poetry, art, and fiction possible, and I think we have a lovely diversity of artists, poets, and storytellers.
I hope you check it out! If you like what you see, I’ve opened submissions for Volume 1, Issue 2. Please submit by September 1. Find out more at the submissions guidelines page over at our new and improved site. Thanks!
On Sunday, I was hanging out with some friends, and one of my really good friends lent me the greatest book. It’s called Look! Up in the Sky! and it is an anthology of comic book poetry. As soon as he turned it over to me, I thought, I wonder if Jeannine Hall Gailey has any poetry in here, because she wrote an entire book of comic book poetry. In fact, she is! She has two of her poems from Becoming the Villainess in there. I felt smart and in the know, for a moment. Don’t worry, it passed.
Throughout the past couple of days, I’ve been flipping through the book, and it has some great poems in here. I think it stretches the theme a bit, to include all sorts of heroes and villains. But I’ve enjoyed much of the poetry inside. My favorite, for now, is a poem by Samer Saliba called “The Pussy Doctor,” which describes what it feels like to grow up with a father who is a gynecologist. (This is the the stretching it part — the dad is a hero, in the poem.) The best line: “Whenever my dad saw me crying and called me a pussy, I had to take his word for it.” Brilliant!
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