Rural Fiction Magazine is (RFM) seeking short fiction and poetry that involve coffee and tea farming or are set in coffee and tea farming areas…
Rural Fiction Magazine is (RFM) seeking short fiction and poetry that involve coffee and tea farming or are set in coffee and tea farming areas. Please see RFM’s Submissions page for details on how to submit stories and poetry for publication. Of course, as always, there is no pay for any stories or poems except exposure to the English-speaking, especially American and British, markets.
RFM believes strongly that all stories are ultimately about people and that genre is secondary. Likewise any story submitted that involves coffee and tea farming should be primarily about people and human interaction and not about production methods or strategies or any technical aspect of coffee and tea farming.
These stories may be of any genre but the mainstream and literary genres stand a better chance of being accepted than experimental stories.
These stories may also be from any nation but stories from coffee and tea producing nations will be especially appreciated.
If you have questions or would like to query RFM about a possible submission, contact RFM through the Contact page or via ruralfictionmagazine@gmail.com.
Phil’s note: This is one of my favorite poems of all time. Incredibly powerful. It’s said that Nelson Mandela used to recite it to other prisoners when he was incarcerated at Robben Island to give them strength…
William Ernext Henley (1849-1903)
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
Phil’s note: This is one of my favorite poems of all time. Incredibly powerful. It’s said that Nelson Mandela used to recite it to other prisoners when he was incarcerated at Robben Island to give them strength.
William Ernest Henley (23 August 1849 – 11 July 1903) was an English poet, writer, critic and editor. Though he wrote several books of poetry, Henley is remembered most often for his 1875 poem “Invictus“. A fixture in London literary circles, the one-legged Henley might have been the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson‘s character Long John Silver (Treasure Island, 1883), while his young daughter Margaret Henley inspired J. M. Barrie‘s choice of the name Wendy for the heroine of his play Peter Pan (1904).[1][2]… [from Wikipedia]
Here is a particularly interesting snippet from the Wikipedia article: “From the age of 12, Henley had tuberculosis of the bone that resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee in 1868–69.[4]: 35 [1][7] The early years of Henley’s life were punctuated by periods of extreme pain due to the draining of his tuberculosis abscesses. However, Henley’s younger brother Joseph recalled how after draining his joints the young Henley would “Hop about the room, laughing loudly and playing with zest to pretend he was beyond the reach of pain”.[8] According to Robert Louis Stevenson‘s letters, the idea for the character of Long John Silver was inspired by Stevenson’s real-life friend Henley.[3] In a letter to Henley after the publication of Treasure Island (1883), Stevenson wrote, “I will now make a confession: It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver … the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you.”[9] Stevenson’s stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, described Henley as “… a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one’s feet.”[10]:
If you dabble in writing mainstream/literary stories and poems (or of any genre) that have a rural setting or concern rural themes, please consider submitting them to RFM. Currently, RFM is not accepting stories of over 5,000 words. There is no pay, but the author does retain all rights. Guidelines are on the website and closely resemble those of The Chamber.
Rural Fiction Magazine was established to explore the beauty and drama of rural America.
Rural Fiction Magazine seeks primarily mainstream/literary stories and poetry set in the rural US. Although it may take occasional forays into other genres (such as horror, fantasy, science fiction, etc.), all works it publishes will be related in some fashion to rural America. Therefore, the mainstream and literary genres seem most suitable for our mission.
I intend to start out by publishing a few stories either weekly or monthly, depending on the amount of submissions we receive. I am capping the word limit at 5,000. All submissions must be in standard manuscript format (you can find out the details of this on Google). Response time may range from a day to a month, but will most likely be within a week. Send all submissions and inquiries to slatterypublishing@gmail.com.
RFM will publish interviews with notable writers and poets. This may be sporadic initially. This will be by invitation only
This is a reprint of an article that originally appeared on August 25, 2021.
Because I currently live in a rural area, I have decided to experiment with opening another magazine: Rural Fiction Magazine. The idea came to me while I was driving to the pharmacy in the nearby (about 17 miles from my residence) town of Dumas.
While I enjoy immensely working with The Chamber Magazine, it does have a disadvantage or two. The primary disadvantage is that the local populace does not seem to be made up of the type of people that are drawn to dark fiction. But then, can you name a community that is drawn to dark fiction? To me, they seem more the type of people who would be drawn to mainstream or literary fiction, particularly that with a bent toward farm life, agriculture, hunting, etc.
Yes, I am living in the Bible belt. The nearby (five miles from my residence) town of Gillett has a population of 700 and five rather nice churches. I don’t expect a lot of horror and thriller fans live there.
Then it struck me that maybe I should try to start a magazine centered around farm life.
I grew up in a rural area in Kentucky, so I have the background for it. I am not a big farming enthusiast however. My family had small farms as sidelines back in the day to bolster the income from their standard, 40 hours/week, blue collar jobs.
Besides working with my dad and occasionally relatives in their gardens and fields, I have little experience in farming. The closest I ever came to being a farmer is when my folks wanted me to join the Future Farmers of America when I was in the sixth grade and I had to write a very boring paper on soil and erosion in order to meet the requirements. I never went to any meetings or gatherings.
Then it occurred to me that the stories in the magazine wouldn’t have to be about farming per se, but the rural life and the beauty and drama it holds. After all, all stories are first about people then about the genre. People living in rural areas have the same dramas, love stories, hopes, dreams, nightmares, and complex relationships the rest of the world does. So, the magazine would ultimately be about the same plots, but with different settings.
Later, I did a quick search of Google to see what extant magazines deal with fiction set on farms. I found nothing “farm fiction” per se. Then I had another idea and set for “rural” and “fiction”. Apparently, there is such a genre as “rural fiction”, but there doesn’t seem (at least in my quick, superficial scan) a magazine with a title anything like “rural fiction” or even specializing in it, though short rural fiction pops up here and there in various magazines. There seems to be a niche open.
Thus, I have a name for my new project: Rural Fiction Magazine (RFM).
I took a WordPress website that I had that wasn’t going anywhere and changed it rather quickly and completely into Rural Fiction Magazine. I developed a quick business plan and put up a submissions page. I am now hoping and waiting for the first submission. I am also developing a marketing and publicity plan.
Hopefully, I will be able to drum up some community support for RFM and maybe draw in a few community dollars in the form of advertising when that time comes. For now, the only sources of cash flow from this magazine I have at the moment are in the Gifts page and a few affiliate links. I hope to expand on this soon and find other ways to fund this endeavor.
Bottom line: Rural Fiction Magazine is up and running though without any stories or poems. Hopefully, they will come soon as I expand my marketing campaign.
If you dabble in writing mainstream/literary stories and poems (or of any genre) that have a rural setting or concern rural themes, please consider submitting them to RFM. Currently, RFM is not accepting stories of over 5,000 words. There is no pay, but the author does retain all rights. Guidelines are on the website.
Extraído de Alastair Reid, Weathering : poems and translations, New York : Dutton, 1978, p. 124 – – Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf At various times I have asked myself what reasons moved me to study while my night came down, without particular hope of satisfaction, the language of the blunt-tongued Anglo-Saxons. Used […]
Because I currently live in a rural area, I have decided to experiment with opening another magazine: Rural Fiction Magazine. The idea came to me while I was driving to the pharmacy in the nearby (about 17 miles from my residence) town of Dumas.
While I enjoy immensely working with The Chamber Magazine, it does have a disadvantage or two. The primary disadvantage is that the local populace does not seem to be made up of the type of people that are drawn to dark fiction. But then, can you name a community that is drawn to dark fiction? To me, they seem more the type of people who would be drawn to mainstream or literary fiction, particularly that with a bent toward farm life, agriculture, hunting, etc.
Yes, I am living in the Bible belt. The nearby (five miles from my residence) town of Gillett has a population of 700 and five rather nice churches. I don’t expect a lot of horror and thriller fans live there.
Then it struck me that maybe I should try to start a magazine centered around farm life.
I grew up in a rural area in Kentucky, so I have the background for it. I am not a big farming enthusiast however. My family had small farms as sidelines back in the day to bolster the income from their standard, 40 hours/week, blue collar jobs.
Besides working with my dad and occasionally relatives in their gardens and fields, I have little experience in farming. The closest I ever came to being a farmer is when my folks wanted me to join the Future Farmers of America when I was in the sixth grade and I had to write a very boring paper on soil and erosion in order to meet the requirements. I never went to any meetings or gatherings.
Then it occurred to me that the stories in the magazine wouldn’t have to be about farming per se, but the rural life and the beauty and drama it holds. After all, all stories are first about people then about the genre. People living in rural areas have the same dramas, love stories, hopes, dreams, nightmares, and complex relationships the rest of the world does. So, the magazine would ultimately be about the same plots, but with different settings.
Later, I did a quick search of Google to see what extant magazines deal with fiction set on farms. I found nothing “farm fiction” per se. Then I had another idea and set for “rural” and “fiction”. Apparently, there is such a genre as “rural fiction”, but there doesn’t seem (at least in my quick, superficial scan) a magazine with a title anything like “rural fiction” or even specializing in it, though short rural fiction pops up here and there in various magazines. There seems to be a niche open.
Thus, I have a name for my new project: Rural Fiction Magazine (RFM).
I took a WordPress website that I had that wasn’t going anywhere and changed it rather quickly and completely into Rural Fiction Magazine. I developed a quick business plan and put up a submissions page. I am now hoping and waiting for the first submission. I am also developing a marketing and publicity plan.
Hopefully, I will be able to drum up some community support for RFM and maybe draw in a few community dollars in the form of advertising when that time comes. For now, the only sources of cash flow from this magazine I have at the moment are in the Gifts page and a few affiliate links. I hope to expand on this soon and find other ways to fund this endeavor.
Bottom line: Rural Fiction Magazine is up and running though without any stories or poems. Hopefully, they will come soon as I expand my marketing campaign.
If you dabble in writing mainstream/literary stories and poems (or of any genre) that have a rural setting or concern rural themes, please consider submitting them to RFM. Currently, RFM is not accepting stories of over 5,000 words. There is no pay, but the author does retain all rights. Guidelines are on the website.
The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 5,000 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction that demonstrates the art of writing dark fiction, whether it be prose, poetry, one-act plays, or any other form of literature. We want to showcase the genre in all its subtlety, intelligence, art, horror, terror, suspense, thrill-seeking, and gruesome detail. We will accept dark humor provided it follows the guidelines below with regards to content and good taste.
To be good short fiction, the shorter a work is, the more power it must pack.
There is no pay for publication, but the author retains all rights. Reprints are acceptable. Multiple submissions of up to three works per submission are permitted. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but you must tell us if the work has been accepted elsewhere. We usually respond within a week. Works generally appear a month after acceptance.
More details about submissions are available on the website.
Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com.
The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 5,000 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction that demonstrates the art of writing dark fiction, whether it be prose, poetry, one-act plays, or any other form of literature. We want to showcase the genre in all its subtlety, intelligence, art, horror, terror, suspense, thrill-seeking, and gruesome detail. We will accept dark humor provided it follows the guidelines below with regards to content and good taste.
To be good short fiction, the shorter a work is, the more power it must pack.
There is no pay for publication, but the author retains all rights. Reprints are acceptable. Multiple submissions of up to three works per submission are permitted. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but you must tell us if the work has been accepted elsewhere. We usually respond within a week. Works generally appear a month after acceptance.
More details about submissions are available on the website.
Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com.
The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 2,000 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction that demonstrates the art of writing dark fiction, whether it be prose, poetry, one-act plays, or any other form of literature. We want to showcase the genre in all its subtlety, intelligence, art, horror, terror, suspense, thrill-seeking, and gruesome detail. We will accept dark humor provided it follows the guidelines below with regards to content and good taste.
To be good short fiction, the shorter a work is, the more power it must pack.
There is no pay for publication, but the author retains all rights. Reprints are acceptable. Multiple submissions of up to three works per submission are permitted. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but you must tell us if the work has been accepted elsewhere. We usually respond within a week. Works generally appear a month after acceptance.
More details about submissions are available on the website.
Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com.
The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 5,000 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction that demonstrates the art of writing dark fiction, whether it be prose, poetry, one-act plays, or any other form of literature. We want to showcase the genre in all its subtlety, intelligence, art, horror, terror, suspense, thrill-seeking, and gruesome detail. We will accept dark humor provided it follows the guidelines below with regards to content and good taste.
To be good short fiction, the shorter a work is, the more power it must pack.
There is no pay for publication, but the author retains all rights. Reprints are acceptable. Multiple submissions of up to three works per submission are permitted. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but you must tell us if the work has been accepted elsewhere. We usually respond within a week. Works generally appear a month after acceptance.
More details about submissions are available on the website.
Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com.
I found out a few minutes ago that I received a vey favorable review for Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover from L.S. Popovich. I sent her a copy on November 17 and the review appeared today on Amazon and Goodreads. I did not pay her for the review. She should be posting the review on LibraryThing and her blog soon (the review might already be on both, but I haven’t found it yet). On Amazon and Goodreads she gave Nocturne five stars and titled the review “enjoyable poems, full of emotional resonance“. Here I quote her review:
Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2020 This collection does not pretend to be anything more than it claims, but sometimes all you need are straightforward poems to pass the time. They are like deep meditations, in the vein of Saint Augustine – who is quoted at the beginning. These poems happen to be about love, and all of the attendant moments in life appended to that deep feeling, which though transitory, run though our lives like a current. I would not hesitate to call the deep or poignant, but they possess a brooding sense of vanishing happiness, of lost sensations.
In a way this is one of the quietest collections I’ve read. The words evoke the ordinary elegance of everyday things, the certainty and uncertainty of magical moments in day-to-day life, they bring to mind summer, youth, exuberance, and melancholia.
The poems flow into one another, can be read quickly or be savored, and many images stand out as memorable set-pieces upon the pages. The rhythm of the lines are very readable, and they are not bogged down by rhyme and meter. Distinguishing between poetry and prose in this context has to do with layout and punctuation, which are both in the form of free verse. They are easy on the eyes and soft on the heart. Affecting, at times breathtaking, simple, ageless and as clear and brisk as the air on an early morning in a mountain town.
Received a review copy from the author.
Reviewed on Amazon and Goodreads, November 27, 2020
Thanks L.S. Popovich for a favorable review. It is much appreciated.
Prevent the spread of Coronavirus/COVID-19 for the sake of yourself, your friends, and your family.
While I am still working on editing Shadows and Stars, sometimes I want to take a break and work on something else, particularly if I feel I need to get something published while working on Shadows and Stars. Sometimes I write a short story when in these moods. Lately, I have gone back to writing a poem now and then.
Having completed Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night…which contains my early poetry, I am thinking I should write a sequel, which I am calling for now Remnants (of a Life). It will basically be my reflections on life and getting older and a few poems that weren’t suitable for Nocturne. I may throw in some short prose. I hope to have around a 100 poems to include in it. Currently, I have about 7-10. I may publish a few in small magazines before publishing them in a collection.
Some years back, I started on a horror novel called The Man Who Escaped from Hell. I alternated working on it and what is now Shadows and Stars and other works for several years. In the winter of 2018, when I was living in Chaco Canyon (an isolated and remote spot in the New Mexican desert), I endeavored to spend my time writing on The Man Who Escaped from Hell, but was becoming overwhelmed with it while coming up with a lot of ideas for Shadows and Stars. I decided to focus on Shadows and Stars, which I have been doing since then.
One of my concepts of cover art for The Man Who Escaped from Hell using an alternate title.
My wife loved the ideas behind The Man Who… and kept urging me to finish it. She said that if I didn’t publish it while still alive, she would publish it after I was gone. That started some wheels turning in my head.
The protagonist’s name is Jake Brody. I went through several arguments with myself over whether to write The Man Who… in first or third person, sometimes going through the current draft and changing it from one person to the other. I finally settled on the first person, as it would make things more personal and dramatic. I kept writing down ideas and notes but was having a difficult time making a cohesive narrative out of them. Somewhere along the line, probably stimulated by my wife’s statement, I came up with the idea of publishing the novel in a very rough pre-first-draft form. So long as I kept a perceptible storyline, I could keep the entire work in finished pieces, rough pieces, and notes. Then, if I did die before finishing it completely, my wife could go ahead and publish it as a finished work. I adapted the plot to account for this. In the novel, Jake has been working on an autobiography/confession of sorts, but dies before completing it. The reader learns this in the foreword, so I am not spoiling the novel by saying that. In fact, the foreword is by a fictional friend of Jake’s named Malcolm Flynn, who explains that this is Jake’s draft autobiography he was writing when he died and that was found among his papers. Now that I am thinking of it, Jake may will this draft and a few other things to Malcolm.
So, yesterday I was thinking that maybe I should just go ahead and publish The Man Who… as it stands now. However, there would be a few plot holes. Now, I am thinking that if I come up with something to fill those holes, I may go ahead and publish it. It also needs a little more editing for grammar, spelling, and conciseness.
We will see which I publish first. It’s sort of a race at this point. You will be reading more about The Man Who…in the coming weeks as I have learned that I need to start publicizing a book from the get-go. I will probably be posting a few cover ideas and other illustrations as they occur to me.
As I may have mentioned, sometime back I decided to publish a print edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror on Ingram Spark as well as with Amazon. I have been working diligently toward that goal over the last few weeks. As I get ready to go to publication, there are a few things I would like to point out:
As I may have mentioned, sometime back I decided to publish a print edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror on Ingram Spark as well as with Amazon. I have been working diligently toward that goal over the last few weeks. As I get ready to go to publication, there are a few things I would like to point out:
This new edition will be a glossy paperback 5″x8″ in size and 238 pages. The cover design is below. I am still working out the price (somewhere around $15-$20 maybe), but I am keeping it as low as I reasonably can and still make a reasonable amount off each book sold.
I am finding out that shipping costs make the biggest part of a book’s price.
I am enjoying working with Ingram Spark much more than I did with Amazon. Amazon’s process is faster, much simpler, and easier, but I don’t think the product is as good as Ingram Spark’s will be. Ingram Spark gives you much more control over the final product. They also give you much better advice on how to maximize sales.
Although Amazon supposedly uses the same distribution network as Ingram Spark, I suspect/hope that I will have much better print sales. Amazon requires an author to price his/her print book at least 20% more than the Kindle version. Apparently, they are pushing their ebooks over print because they are cheaper to produce and probably much easier to distribute. I suspect they may be doing the same in distribution.
After A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror comes out on Ingram Spark, I plan to publish Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover with them as well. That may be in about a month more or less.
I am going to experiment with advertising on Pinterest by promoting the cover design for A Tale of Hell… on there. I am also considering just developing a spectacular but subtle ad and seeing how that does.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
You can also order the beautiful paperback Nocturne… (with a different cover) through many bookstores as it is print on demand. Ask your local bookstore to order it or to carry it.
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems written during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of a narrator who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
You can also order the beautiful paperback Nocturne… (with a different cover) through many bookstores as it is print on demand. Ask your local bookstore to order it or to carry it.
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems written during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of a narrator who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 