Ephemera Newsletter Iss Sept.4

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, Ijniuamej! (Nahuatl for “friends”)

A fourth and final shortened issue basking in the poetry of Avren Keating, Ephemera’s poet for the month of September! If you haven’t yet, please check out her artist statement and bio on this dedicated post. We thank you for your presence.

Currently, we have 8 submissions out of a possible 100 spots. Submit to Poetry November.

On to our standard content matters: Won’t you please check out last week’s issue if you missed it.

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In Brief…this week’s features:

• Briefly: quick thoughts on the Hirshhorn Museum past and present

• Listening to “Quiet Sunset” by Miguel Castro et al.

• July’s poet, Avren Keating and her fourth of four poems, “Death of a Karaoke Singer”

• Our weekly lists:

  • 3 magazines with open calls

  • 3 awards/prizes

  • 3 recent job listings for editors and writers.

• More ephemera:

  • Interesante! Introducing ourselves to the so-called “Five Hour Rule.”

  • Book Recs,

    • Support us on Bookshop - See our past book recs and others. A highly curated list.

• Mini Essay

• Last Week’s Issue.

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Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.

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Ephemera

Dear Readers,

Quickly! Quickly now. The storms they do come. And we’re late with our final thoughts for our September series. Quickly the seasons waft over us. Here and gone, gone for a while, changing us, changed themselves upon return, here again. We’re ensconced in fall now for sure, remembering seasons past and marveling anew at the constancy of eternal reoccurrence, how the enormous bodies governing our tiny experience continue to deliver cool breeze and foliage afire in the right locales, yet spinning, yet turning, yet racing, yet pulled upon themselves. Everything is transition—the wafting is a constancy that brightens within our recognition stronger at certain times than others, which we demarcate with ritual—but we savor certain moments as their seem to be stronger currents, pools of time that connect ourselves with selves past, with friends and family of yore, inching us closer to those here, around us now, amplify feeling, open our senses or chakras or spirits. Details emerge, which, now bolder, imbue with more affect, color, intensity, verve. We become vessels, in a way, for the god’s eye, if you like. Maybe, we’re apertures temporally opening to further capture the multitudinous expressions of and experience of light.

Sage readers, aim your lenses. Capture what you can in these moments. Follow the impulses brimming within. Make light of them, these stored, yet often unreachable and many times unreadable bits and pieces of the entity that is you. Maybe these times offer the expression of cellular wisdom, memories stored in the neural pathways of the heart and gut and anywhere else we’ve yet to discover brain-like cells in the body. These transitions can serve us writers. To each their own when writing and inspiration is concerned, but surely one actionable limb of advice is to flow: let what springs forth keep coming and keep an aperture eye on yourself, the font of the genius you you may not always have available to fill your cupped writerly hands. Be at attention. Be accessible for reoccurring feelings. The beach and lapping waves surely suffices as metaphor. Let your feet sink into the sand. Record. Write. On occasion, wash out with the tide when the time is right, but, remember, you are the writer, the eye, the pen of the universe. We feel so as to translate light into ink. We are not the ones that let ourselves go. We pretend wild. Lonely, at times, is the aperture. Yet, rich in inspiration, in serviceability, in heart. Makes use of these times.

Tlaxolkamakayotl!
(Gratitude)

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Poetry by Avren Keating

Death of a Karaoke Singer
For S.R.

The intros are the hardest part,
worse than the “ooo”s and “ahhh”s
that guide us. Oh, but alone 
they’d stood in winter and braved “Blue Monday”
and I hollered with the rest of the bar. 

In our skins deep blues pulse.
In our evenings we call for each other. 
The karaoke singer
ate the darkened star in July—
became a sea tide in the hospital.

No day, I can’t see the door’s light.
I stink of eve–all bitter.
No guide now, oh, alone
I took my own delight tonight.
I’ll keep my songs for late at night.

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Or please join us as paid subscribers:

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Prizes/Awards/Stipends Winter ‘24

Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowships grants $3,000-$5,000 across 9 fellowships each year with a residency through a juried process of selection. There are a few other specific fellowships. $3k-$5k + stay. $25 fee. DEADLINE OCTOBER 15

California Book Awards awards $5,000 prizes each across poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The longstanding award gives multiple published books a platform since 1931. There is no entry fee.  DEADLINE NOVEMBER 15

Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Chapbook / Novelette Contest awards $1,000 & publication for a stories or a novelette with fantastical & non-realistic elements. Open worldwide. $1K + Pub. + 100 copies. $18 fee.  DEADLINE DECEMBER 31

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Bookstore: Guides, Gifts & Classics

Please consider supporting our letter and literature by buying books. It helps us and others! Bookstore via Bookshop.

Revisiting one of our favorites: The Hour of the Star

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Featured Music: Miguel Castro et al