Born from a shared love of dark humor and playful wordplay, Seesaw is a delightful balancing act of wit, whimsy, and poetic mischief. Ken Tomaro and Nolcha Fox first crossed creative paths in the Thursday Night Poets group, where their mutual knack for quirky, offbeat humor sparked an unexpected collaboration. What began as playful exchanges-plucking words and phrases from each other’s poems to craft something new-quickly evolved into a collection that swings between the light and the dark, the serious and the absurd.
Seesaw is poetry at its most spontaneous and fun, a reminder that even in life’s heavier moments, there’s always room to laugh, twist the narrative, and dance on the edge of meaning. Dive into this collection and let the playful push and pull of their voices keep you balanced-right in the middle of the seesaw.
Review of “Seesaw” by Ken Tomaro and Nolcha Fox:
“Seesaw” is a captivating and engaging poetry collection designing the collaborative efforts of Ken Tomaro and Nolcha Fox who blend their distinct voices to explore the themes of love, loss, and memory sauteed with a ‘quirky sense of humour’.
“Why am I so hard on myself?
That’s it, today’s the day!
I’m going to write a book called On Being Sympathetic to the Apathetic Empath.”
The same quirky sense of humour flows raw and poignant throughout the pages of the book. Ken Tomaro and Nolcha Fox have done a wonderful job with their shared experiences from the “Thursday Night Poets group”. The poems are arranged in a unique stanza pattern where Nolcha’s right-aligned stanzas complement Ken’s left-aligned stanzas. This visual distinction enhances the reading experience to a lofty level.
“And now I want a sandwich,
but it won’t make itself.
Maybe I can train the rats
how to cook.”
These lines remind me of Remy, the rat in the movie “Ratatouille”.
Celebrating a variety of themes from mundane life struggles to whimsical reflections on human existence this book is punctuated with a playful absurdity. Throughout the collection, the tone oscillates between melancholic and whimsical, giving way to a rich emotional tapestry.
Poems like “All I Can Think of Is Food” and “God Drops the Ball Again” reflect the authors’ penchant for irony and wit. “He is a house” and “I come to a door” permeate a lingering sadness that overshadows my senses for a long time. Poems like “Ghosts Glimmer” and “Where the Wild Goose Goes” evoke a sense of longing and nostalgia while others such as “Chimes” reflect the inevitability of change and the bittersweet rhymes of memories. “As surely as” is an anthem on the ubiquitous power of gravity on us.
The poems are like different strokes of brushes on the canvas of poetic mindscape evoking different colours of human emotions,
“Blue is the sadness
when we say our goodbyes.”
Sometimes the promised humour has turned into a grave philosophic enigma,
“Past and future,
like the branches of a tree
lead to different paths,
sometimes the same regret.”
Ken Tomaro and Nolcha Fox have played on the subtlest of chords to bring out the most mesmerizing music in the world. They play with words with such charisma that ‘sharp words slice the sunlight into little parts of butter’.
This collection is for everyone whose wallet is full of bugs and cobwebs and for those who prefer to slouch on the couch with a ‘slab of apathy sandwiched between their pillows’, or someone infected with flue sharing every small piece of him or her with each cough to this world. Ken and Tomaro have taken their readers through the rollercoaster of raw humour with an urgent poignancy of human passion, where the complexities of our decisions and the ultimate helplessness of our life left us to feel the eternity of a bottomless well.
Munmun “Sam” Samanta, Author of Yellow Chrysanthemum
It was such a pleasure to meet with Kim Dower and discuss her upcoming release: “What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria” Now Available! “Obsessive love has never been so much fun! What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria is a powerful tribute to the intensity of obsessive love, told through the trademark humor and heartbreak of bestselling poet Kim Dower.” “Following the commercial and literary success of her bestselling poetry collection, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom: Poems on Motherhood, Kim Dower delivers What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria—turning her keen eye, vibrant imagination, trademark insight, and humor to the intensity of obsessive love. These steamy and provocative poems, combining humor and heartache, run through the four phases of Limerence, the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person: Infatuation, Crystallization, Deterioration, and Ecstatic Release. From the opening poem, “She’ll do anything for food,” to the sexy title poem, “What She Wants,” the painfully funny, “His Other Girlfriend,” to the longing in “Visiting Baudelaire,” and the sad, sweet final poem, “Fish’s Lament,” Kim Dower captures the essence of what it means to be stuck on someone—even on a squirrel! Her eclectic, growing readership will savor these poems that can be read in one sitting, like a story with an arc, or separately, each one recalling the moment of falling in or out of love, the moment our hearts skipped a beat.” https://redhen.org/book_author/kim-dower/
Check out the new addition to Encore! Zaneta Varnado Johns entered her latest poetry collection, “Encore” in the American Writing Awards and received the Finalist Badge!
Finalist: 2024 American Writing Awards
Internationally recognized poet and author Zaneta Varnado Johns is back, fueled by passion, purpose, and steady acclaim. She is spiritually grounded, filled with love, appreciation and awe. In response to the loud applause garnered by her two previous poetry collections, Johns presents Encore: A Collection of Poetry. Featuring ninety-nine select poems, Encore is a gift from the author’s heart. In the book’s Dedication, Johns states, “For every relative, friend, poet, and organizational leader who pushed, prodded, nudged, and encouraged me: this one’s for you. I titled this book to acknowledge your applause. I heard it. I loved it. I responded. This is your encore-from my heart to yours.” Some poems, previously featured globally in anthologies, make an encore appearance in this collection.
Take your seat and prepare to be enchanted by Encore’s stellar performance. Encore begins with romantic musings and essences sparked by the poet’s life and thoughtful interpretations of the lives of others. Poetic threads are woven through lyrics inspired by favored locales. From Hawaii to Boston’s Cape Cod, Colorado to Greece, Johns writes as she marvels at her surroundings and experiences. Her compassion for people is beautifully expressed either as poetic observations or unique tributes found in the chapter titled, “In Awe.” The heartwarming “Joy in Her Swing” celebrates the resilience of five-year-old Azaria whose mother and grandmother passed away within three years of each other, entrusting her care to her grandmother’s devoted selfless childhood friend. Johns’ prose poem, “She Speaks for Me,” is a masterpiece showcasing renowned African and African American women poets who persuade her writing.
Johns has a lot to say about the human condition. Some poems are concise while others are grouped in the chapters titled “Rants and Spiels” or “Keynotes.” She passionately addresses hunger, gun violence, women’s empowerment, and prejudice, among other contemporary issues. Anyone with a heart will be stirred by “Hunger, a Global Tragedy” and “It Has to Stop,” two poignant poems illuminating the realities of hunger and the poet’s gut-wrenching reaction to yet another senseless school shooting. Johns is a personal figure in “Not Eclipsed” and “Life as a Breeze,” expressions concerning skin color and prejudice.
Johns imparts the spirit of Hawaii’s aloha in Encore’s message. “My Walk Along the Ocean” and “Blessed Life” are examples of poems reflecting tranquil moments of immense gratitude. Encore’s expressions are accompanied by complementary images and quotes-the poet’s signature accent found in her two previous collections. With Encore, Zaneta Varnado Johns leaves an indelible mark with every word and artistic rendering.
The Stars Will Remember, a review of End of Earth by Nolcha Fox, art by Mike Armstrong. Prolific Pulse Press, Raleigh, NC. 2024. $15.95 paper, $4.99 Kindle.
Perhaps in a future ions away, the stars will remember life on earth, the life of planets, animals, and humans, which is precisely what Nolcha Fox is writing about in End of Earth, a document of that life in poetic lines about people, places, and things in her past and present. Her poems, each of them, are complimented by Mike Armstrong’s paintings, that are vivid, abstract, and evoke impressions suited to the particular mood of each poem. In her point of view, sensibilities, and brevity, Fox is our contemporary Emily Dickinson, and very much herself, her own person. Three devices that make her utterances poems in End of Earth are metaphors, personification, and repetition.
Greed is the subject of “They Circle.” Hucksters, charlatans, thieves who misrepresent themselves, preying upon the vulnerable, are “money vampires.” Fox sets up a scene of roadkill and vultures. Outrageously, the roadkill, a dead possum? is speaking. With three words “a second look” Fox shifts the scene, from outdoors to indoors, and a person, perhaps by a computer, and perhaps indoors. Part of the poem’s economy lies in this ambiguity. The speaker could be indoors, or in an outdoors market, or even in a mall. Then she smoothly goes back to the roadkill. Form and content meld. Just as vultures circle in the sky, imagery takes the reader back to the beginning. And then also, there’s the “cook” and “spatula” kitchen diction, adding another dimension, evoking the density of texture needed to make a poem about greed that is powerful in that less says more. Fox indeed knows her way around a metaphor.
The sun is personified as feminine, as in the adage “when the fat lady sings,” in “The sun throws,” again with great economy. So, in the middle the euphony of “singing snow into icicles” signals a shift in imagery. In eight lines, a roof, a mountain, and a stage all fit wonderfully into this poem, with its structure of personification, a poetic device Fox uses satirically in “Gardening.” The wonder of “Gardening” is that the statement it makes is not only for today, but for times past. The human characteristic of stupidity is given to plant life. It’s a thing people cultivate, thus the garden itself becomes society, a broader and abstract entity, as in social media. The gardener “tells her friends stupidity” is a good thing, that it will provide nourishment and health, like a squash. The colloquial “buy” followed by the agricultural “stalk” conclude this poem in which the speaker means the opposite of what she says, and the import of what she says is achieved by personification: an attribute of human nature manifests itself in the form of a plant.
Fox employs repetition with variation well in “Pieces and Parts.” “No one sees…No one takes…When each one walks…,” a poem in which a “thingamabob” coexists with a “coffin” and the self interacts with the other. The tone in “Pieces and Parts” is defiant, the speaker defies nothing less than…death, (which is perhaps why Emily Dickinson wrote poems). In Fox’s “If I Can’t Overcome” the tone is resolved. Its structure of repetition, “let me be…let me be…let me be…let me breathe…let me welcome” lends to its elegance.
…let me be the stillness
that seeps into the clouds
before the rain.
Let me be the silence
that soothes the branches
just before the wind
announces snow…
Just as Mike Armstrong creates lines, angles, circles, squares, and other shapes that move through a visual pattern, Nolcha Fox creates lines that move through a verbal pattern. Reading her poems and coming back to each yields appreciation as well as pleasure. Whether light-hearted or dead serious, she is always exacting. She runs a gamut of human emotions and experience in poems that stand not just for today but for times past and times to come.
About Peter Mladinic:
Peter Mladinic lives in Hobbs, New Mexico. He was born and raised in New Jersey and has lived in the Midwest and in the South. He enlisted in the United States Navy and served for four years. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas in 1985, and taught English for thirty years at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs. He has edited two books: Love, Death, and the Plains; and Ethnic Lea: Southeast New Mexico Stories, which are available from the Lea County Museum Press, as are his three volumes of poetry: Lost in Lea, Dressed for Winter, and his most recent book, co-authored with Charles Behlen, Falling Awake in Lovington. He is a past board member of the Lea County Museum and a former president of the Lea County Humane Society. An animal activist, he supports numerous animal rescue groups. Two of his main concerns are to bring an end to the euthanizing of animals in shelters and to help get animals in shelters adopted into caring homes. In his spare time, he enjoys yoga, listening to music, reading, and spending time with his six dogs. Recently, his poems have been published in numerous online journals in the US, Canada, England, Ireland, and Australia
You’ve already learned of the new release of “End of Earth” but in case you missed it… it’s right HERE
This is the first of Two interviews. This first interview is with Nolcha Fox, the Poetry Contributor of the poetry and art collection by Nolcha Fox and Mike Armstrong.
Let’s learn about Nolcha Fox:
– Please tell us a bit about yourself and your journey as a poet and writer,
I started writing as a toddler, using poop on the walls. I also tried to write on myself using my mother’s red lipstick. She told me it took a little while before the red tint disappeared from my face and hair.
When I was a little older, I returned to walls with crayons. I must have been potty-trained.
I expanded my writing to the margins of pages, a little embarrassing to my father, who borrowed the book. That may have been when I fell in love with reading, too.
In school, I expanded my skills through writing assignments. I had a wonderful teacher who encouraged us to write in the style of different authors. I wrote in the style of Charles Dickens for a bit. Poor Dickens.
I journaled in my early 20s and 30s. My journals included some awful poetry. So awful, I eventually tossed a small library of journals into a dumpster and never looked back.
My poetry was awful because I didn’t write like myself. I didn’t trust my intuition to guide me.
Plus, the angst in my poems was over the top. Hormones will do that.
Finally, I stumbled into technical writing. What an education in learning how to write! Much of my career was a black hole that squashed my creative writing. After 8+ hours working at a computer, my eyes were too tired to stare at another screen.
I didn’t seriously write until I retired. I had to wait for my hormones to move to a tropical island before I could truly write instead of emote.
– What inspired you to start writing poetry?
A dear poet friend of mine suggested poetry when the pain of daily migraines made it next to impossible for me to write any short fiction.
My first poem was published, and I thought, hey, I can do this!
– How would you describe your writing style and the themes you often explore in your poetry?
I write about whatever comes to mind. When I start a poem, I have no idea where it will end. I went through a period of writing about grief after my mother died last year. Otherwise, my themes are all over the place.
Most of my poetry is short (10 lines or less), unless I’m working with a form, such as a pantoum.
– Congratulations on your latest poetry book! Can you give us an overview of what readers can expect from it?
It’s a collection of short poems written to Mike’s paintings. His paintings draw the reader in visually, and the poetry draws the reader in mentally/emotionally.
– What was the inspiration behind this particular collection of poems?
Mike, don’t kill me. My mother inspired the collection. She recommended writing to Mike’s art. At first, I protested, because I typically write to images that aren’t abstract, like Mike’s. She laughed and said I could write anything I wanted, and nobody would know the difference.
However, when I began the project, I found myself responding to colors and forms, so it was easier to do than I originally thought.
– Please share your poetry from this book.
They circle
Artist: Mike Armstrong
thinking I taste good,
at first, I think they’re vultures.
A second look reveals teeth.
Ah, they are money vampires.
They tell me they can hook me up,
no, cook me up in style.
They see me as some roadkill
and they’re a spatula.
***
Don’t let the light
Artist: Mike Armstrong
seep through the sutures of your skull,
don’t let it set your hair ablaze.
It’s hard enough to fit
into this dark and dreary world
without everybody noticing your fire.
– Could you walk us through your creative process when crafting a new poem?
Often, an unrelated object or experience comes to mind as I mull over a prompt or an experience/feeling. For example, I wanted to write to the prompt “bond,” but blueberries popped into my head. So, I wrote a line that included blueberries, and the whole poem fell into place.
I only take a couple of minutes to decide where to start, and I write quickly. I usually give a poem one editorial pass, and then get it out to the world. It’s similar to explosive barfing.
If I find myself struggling with a poem, I put it away. It’s not ready to be born yet.
– Do you have any rituals or routines that help you get into the right mindset for writing poetry?
I attend to anything that will distract me from writing (such as laundry, hungry dogs, or emails). And then I write. I usually write two poems a day between distractions. The most I ever wrote was seven poems in a day.
– How do you know when a poem is “finished” and ready to be included in your book?
I call a poem finished when I have no more to write. I read through it once to see if it makes me laugh or if I respond emotionally. Sometimes I think it’s garbage and ask a poet friend to give me his thoughts. I’m usually wrong.
– Many poets infuse their work with personal experiences or social commentary. Are there any recurring themes or messages in your poetry?
My personal experiences are usually boring. I never have enough understanding to engage in social commentary. I rely on my imagination to lead me into and through a poem. In End of Earth, I couldn’t tell you if there are any recurring anythings. I don’t know how to step outside my poetry and observe it critically, so I let other people analyze what I wrote. I’m moving on to the next poem.
– How do you balance the personal with the universal in your poems?
I stick to everyday, specific images. If the universal creeps in, yay for me. It wasn’t intentional.
– Are there any messages you hope readers take away from your poetry book?
I hope readers enjoy the feast Mike and I laid out for them.
– Who are some poets or writers that have influenced your work?
My top influences are Alice in Wonderland and The Cat in the Hat. I love the rhythm and imaginative storytelling.
– Are there any other art forms or sources of inspiration that impact your poetry?
I often write to photographs or art.
– How do you navigate the fine line between drawing inspiration from others’ work and maintaining your own unique voice as a poet?
I read other poets’ work voraciously. I now have an idea or phrase in a poem as a springboard. And delete the poem to save my poor computer from becoming a literary porker.
– Who do you envision as your target audience for this poetry book?
Readers who enjoy art and writing.
– What do you hope readers will gain or feel after reading your poems?
Enjoyment
– How do you handle feedback or criticism of your poetry, both positive and negative?
I say thank you.
– Can you share a bit about your experience with the publishing process for this book?
Working with Lisa is wonderful. Everything went smoothly.
– What advice would you give to aspiring poets who are looking to publish their own work?
Carefully consider how much writing time you’re willing to give up to promote your book. And don’t expect to become an overnight sensation.
– How do you approach marketing and promoting your poetry book to reach a wider audience?
I live in Wyoming, where I have to drive long distances to participate in readings, and local opportunities are few. I rely on social media to get the word out.
– Are there any upcoming projects or future plans you can share with us?
Lisa is publishing a collaborative book with poetry by Ken Tomaro and me in 2025. I have one more book in the queue, and then I plan to take a breather from book publishing.
– How do you see your poetry evolving or changing in the future?
No idea. My intuition doesn’t like to share her plans.
– Where can listeners find your poetry book and connect with you online?
My book will be available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and with other booksellers.
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