I have enjoyed my time immensely and have gained invaluable experience of the online literary community, which has only been possible due to the commitment of the Railroad fans. Thank you for your continued support. Jade will now take over the inbox, website and all rights to publication. Any submissions pending approval will be honoured and considered for the next quarterly instalment of the e-mag. Unfortunately, due to work commitments, Jade and I have yet to determine a time frame for the new issue, but we will keep you posted as to any changes in format, layout or delivery. Please feel free to re-submit if you feel your submission has been overlooked. But please be patient. Ill now hand you all over to Jade and wish you all well on your creative journeys. I am still open to discussion about literature and research, so feel free to email me, or message me through my blog. It has been a pleasure.

Wishing you all success,

 Amanda  

Another quick message and update from me, your Railroad editor.

The new, quartlery Railroad e-mag will be going live on March 31st 2012. I am hoping that this new delivery will allow me to spend more time on giving you all a publication to be proud of. I am working on new software to, hopefully, create a more polished e-mag, and will be (slowly) updating your Railroad website to ensure the mission statement and submission guidelines are all in line with the new, quarterly format.

The start of 2012 has been full of changes for both the project, and myself. Please stay on board and keep the faith and the beat! I want the Railroad community to be part of the changes.

Thank you for your patience, everyone. Please continue to submit, as usual. I am still reading submissions and making decision on poets and their work for March’s issue, and future issues to come. All submissions that were successful and scheduled for publication in the FEBRUARY issue will now be rolled into the NEW, MARCH QUARTERLY issue. No one will be forgotten.

Amanda

Message from the editor:

Thank you to all who have stuck by Railroad during this break – I am really grateful to those who have continued to retweet and visit the site. Over the past month I have been adjusting the layout of the site, as well as making the ‘Community’ area more easily navigable – you’ll now find contributors are alphabetized, and stations have their own page.

Pulling away from the platform and building up to full speed will, inevitably, be slow – the inbox is full and I cannot wait to get stuck in to the submissions I have had over the past month. Thank you to all the new people who are finding their way onto the railroad. I will also be re-starting the Poet of the Month feature, and giving our  most recent poet a fair run of the page – so watch out for more articles to come.

Due to the popularity of the Railroad Poetry Project, the volume of work involved and my other commitments as a writer who also holds down a day job, I have made the difficult decision to move the Railroad e-mag to a quarterly issue, the first appearing in March, the second in June and so on. Issues will appear at the end of the month as usual, but will be bigger to accomodate three months’ worth of submissions – so no one is going to miss out. This gives me the time I need to give  my all to Railroad, and to give Railroaders the space, attention and support they all deserve.

Plans remain the same, but the track to the end goal often changes. Spread the beat, submit your genius for the first quarterly issue, due out 31st March 2012. All submissions made since the last issue will still be considered for the next issue.

Best wishes,

Amanda

First of all, thank you all from the bottom of my track-lined heart for sticking by Railroad throughout January. As many of you know, Railroad is taking a break for January – due to health concerns and other commitments. Railroad is still my #1 priority – it has grown so fast in the few months it has been live, that a month off is a necessary evil to undertake some maintenance work on the website.

So, in the next couple of weeks before Railroad pulls away from the platform of perpetual rest, please be patient. The website is undergoing some changes to make the experience more streamlined, and, as the sole member of the Railroad team, I am working on the next stage of Railroad – in terms of issues, print and competitions.

Help me get the word out there and spread the beat – I am counting on you all to be there in February, you are all immensely important to the success of Railroad!

Ignore the mess for now and stick with me, Railroad will be back full steam ahead before you know it!

Amanda

Editor

On The Road 4 Kerouac is aiming to collect as many Kerouac testimonials as possible in order to recreate the length of the original On The Road scroll, typed by Kerouac. This monumental document in celebration of Kerouac, the book  and the on-screen adaptation soon to be released, will be presented to The Beat Museum, SanFran, as a homage to the archetypal Beatnik.

I’m the U.K. Scroller for the project, and will be a point of contact for any queries – want to know more? Get in touch via email, using ‘OTR4K’ as the subject, or visit http://www.ontheroad4kerouac.org – the brand new website for the project.

January 2012

For the New Year Railroad has a brand new Poet of the Month (POTM) – welcome Joshua Pearce to our ranks! Joshua has come to Railroad through his fellow writer, Kyrsten Bean – it is great to know that Railroad is spreading through friends, networks and colleagues. So, here we have a selection of Joshua’s poetry – I think it will grab you and shake you up as it did to me when I opened the email…

About

Josh Pearce is a renegade gonzo journalist forced to return to The City after five years of effective retirement as a long-haired hermit in a compound in the mountains. Josh uses an extensive and bewildering variety of drugs ranging from mild stimulants, intellect enhancers, and mood-altering drugs to rare, exotic, futuristic drugs. As is common in his society, he is resistant or immune to many forms of drug
addiction, as well as lung cancer. He is easily angered, his displays of temper ranging from mild verbal outbursts to violent physical assault. Empire magazine quotes that “Josh is a true one-off, a character so fearless and vibrant and nonchalantly cool that Patrick Stewart is his biggest fan. And if that’s not a recommendation, we don’t know what is.”

Poetry

The Mountain

The mountain range
(she) is bare and white
and sleeps in ups and downs
like rumpled bedsheets.

From the excavated dish
of her mid (unruffled)
riff I walk toward gentle
inclines the tips of which

are alive
with roses.

Up the strata of ribs I leave
no footprints, cast no
shadow as light flecks reflect
off her every angle.

In her last dendrite trees
twitch the bluebirds
of sleep from branch to branch.

I am shorter
and shorter of breath closer
and closer to her
final summit and here

her trees alight each
dangled ganglia leaf
turning Orange Red Green Yell
with arousal of

dreams
and here

the most zen of mount
aineers would retreat,
frozen from the mound,
respect for the mountain.

But I delve her, watch
the trees blossom white
fruit flower sparks. She
mutters pleasure breaths

through the copse, washes
the flowers off
and out across her thighs.

The mountain sighs,
murmurs,
turns over in her sleep.

your vox burns

your vox
burns
down the telephone
wire

(&up also
the scales of birds’
feet

to the feathery
high notes)

&i see what
you say
in the flinches of finches

in a bowl

in a bowl
on a tall stand

two irises sink deep
their stems
and sop up their life
their light
and color

from a double fist-
ful of clay.

and when a worm
burrows through the fine
threads that root them

and unearths a concept
unearthly

(wormholes full of neurons)

flowers blink

(and tears of honey)

the positive energy of matter

:the positive energy
of matter:

says hawking

:is balanced by
the negative energy
of gravity:

a rock dropped
into a fishpond
depresses the surface
like spacetime fabric

and the splashes rise
above the water just
long enough to scream
their philosophies
at the bright white lilies
across the lake

:so you see,
the total energy
of the universe

is zero:

concentrate

out of
some

gray(stitching
her eyes
with)
threadbare

life

(railroad ties

)

comes our

buttons and soap

just made of strings

if the universe is
in fact
just made of strings

then we are knots
hung suspended
in spacetime’s cat’s
cradle

an intersection of thought

and occasionally the hands
of the gods come together
to stretch us out in jacob’s
ladders

while we remain
unmoved, unblinking, and unaware,

quite suddenly
the lattice of everything
around us

has changed

over the corded rubber bands

over the corded rubber bands
stretched over my pencil bones
I pull on a starched and stiff shirt

(you smooth our your coffee-filter skirt)
and my carbon-ribbon tie.

there’s a memorandum circulating
against the way I feel when I see you.
I paper clip my fingernails
so that I can unbutton the dial
and untie the telephone wires
that keep our bodies apart.

with the milk-carton light
of hesitant fluorescent tubes
behind my eyes, alone
we stand against the xerox
pressed hard until we’re
not alone.

you white-out the mistakes
in your body.
we’ll pass the edges of our credit cards
across our wrists
in order to make each other happy,
until you can laser-scan
my barcode scars and find out
exactly what I think about you.

and through the information
I give you my typewriter smile.

The Electric Boy

boy do the girls
like to lick
the electric boy
for the tingle
thrill
of it.

the electric
boy has a glass
shadow.
he is fast as
greased
the electric boy
is lit.

what a good boy
stuck
in his thumb
what a good
idea is the electric
boy
lightbulbs overhead.

boy do the girls
see flash
bulbs
and stars boy
do the boys
see red.

the electric boy
provides
digital pleasure
beyond
measure.

the electric
boy
zaps
the electric boy
pumps
the electric boy did
and the
electric boy
can.

at automatic
dick
and automatic jack
he finds ohm
but with per
sistence

oh boy in
the girls he
sings the body
he slides
the path
of
least
resistance.

because to
electronic
jill
and ironic jane
what
an improvement
is
he
over mechanical
man!

the spider stinger

the spider stinger
of your sewing machine
spinning string
round anything
caught between needle
and treadle
sits

(as you see smokestacks
of steamships,

derricks, derelict,
and the broken fountain
pens of rigs
in oil)

waiting for you
to finish and throw
aside your apple
nuclear core

(and your thoughts go abroad
on the crazy motion
of a vanderbilt locomotive’s
everywhichway spinning
wheels)

the quickcut steel of your tongue
shields your iron
maiden head

because you’re a copper lass

(a single in a line
in a square
in a prism
of other spider spinners)

who fancies herself
brass

(you hold the thread
of fate and

challenge the gods
to do better
than you)

fermata

starting with
wholes notes on your
forehead

to dotted half
on your nose,
half and quarter
(and whole rests)
at your lips

:your body
stretched straight
and long

gets organized
into open valves,
pipes, stops,
an upshift
of your organs:

an eighth-note
walkdown your breast,
navel, bisects
your centerline

:your body is an organ,
my mouth the organist,
the poem the sheet music:

and slip
into the cleft clef

:your moans the hymnal
notes oh god:

and into sixteenth,
thirty-second,
and impossible trills
of sixty-fourth!

Coming soon – the editor’s critique of Josh’s work and a question and answer to give you access to the poet’s mind…

http://issuu.com/railroadpoetryproject/docs/issue3

I am so pleased with the standard of submissions – not just for this issue, but all the emails that are filling my inbox. Please be patient – I will get back to you. Every single submission is considered independently.

I hope you enjoy the issue! If you have any comments, queries or feedback, please drop me an email at railroadpoetryproject@gmail.com. I love to hear from you.

Issue 4 is scheduled for February 2012. Railroad needs time to take stock and catch up for 2012, so January will be focused on the Poet of the Month feature, spreading the beat of poets across the online community, and networking with all you lovely people. Get in touch if you have any ideas that can help spread the Railroad beat!

Amanda

Railroad is now looking for a new Poet of the Month, to take the stage for January 2012 (running from January 7th – February 7th).

Would you like to be considered as the next POTM? Simply email a selection of your poems (ideally 6 – 10) to railroadpoetryproject@gmail.com with ‘POTM’ in the subject line. The successful candidate will be informed by 31st December 2011, and, in the first week of January, will receive a critique from the Railroad Editor of the selected poems for the feature, and a short interview to boost interest in your work.

• As always, the successful candidate will receive maximum coverage on Twitter and Facebook.
• The successful candidate may be new to the Railroad Poetry Project, or previously published by us.
• Poems may be unpublished or published – if they have been previously published, please provide details of the publisher. These will be listed at the end of the POTM article.
• Railroad publishes under one-time electronic rights.

December 2011

Welcome to the brand new Railroad feature – Poet of the Month. The honour of the first Railroad POTM goes to Kyrsten Bean, who also featured in Issue 2 of the Railroad Poetry Project, with her poem ‘Still Affected.’ Railroad would like to thank Kyrsten for her continued support of the Railroad Poetry Project, and for sharing her poetry with the Railroaders and the rest of the World. Here’s your POTM!

About

“Writing is what I do”

Kyrsten Bean is a writer and musician raised by a pack of artists in the Bay Area. They instilled in her a need to create stuff, much to her chagrin, putting the roots so deep into her DNA and her core that she cannot possibly live any other life without precipitously self-destructing. Her work has been published here and there, you can find it on her website, kyrstenbean.com or on her blog thestifledartist.com, where she encourages other crazy wild peeps to pursue their creative stuff or die an ignominious death.

Poetry

I really hope that this first Poet of the Month feature speaks for itself, and, as lovers of words and poetry yourselves, you are all under no illusion as to why I have chosen Kyrsten Bean as the first Railroad POTM. As followers, fans and Railroaders, you are all on the #talenttrain – and POTM is one of the ways that I hope to get this new Railroad hashtag trending. POTM will be one of the ways we can use #talenttrain – utilising Twitter to spread the beat of poets and their work. As well as this, Poet of the Month is a way for me to reach out to individuals, and to get the wider literary community engaging with writing by a poet you may not have come across so soon without Railroad. The Railroad mission has always been to spread the beat of contemporary poetry and the best way to achieve this is to heighten communication throughout the online literary community. This is the first step of many, and I hope that Kyrsten’s poetry speaks to you all as it spoke to me. So here’s my thoughts on Kyrsten’s work – why not add your own in the comment box at the bottom of this page?

The Editor’s Article – ‘Still Affected’ by Kyrsten Bean’s poetry

From submission Kyrsten’s poetry stayed with me. Right through the creation of the second issue of the Railroad e-mag I was continually drawn to ‘Still Affected’, her poem of pain, emotion and ‘falling apart’ – it did for me what all poetry should: it spoke of something I know, as a human being, but in a new way. As soon as I saw her work, she went straight to the back of my notebook – where I list the poets that really touch me.

What drew me to her work were the complicated webs of thematic interrelation that string themselves across her work. A first read of the poems listed above makes plain that Kyrsten has a penchant for the fractured and broken; scattered parts lay across her work as a whole – parts of the self (‘Wondering’ ‘My Hologram Life’ and ‘Unmoored’), whilst the ‘broken’ and ‘scattered’ is also considered through Kyrsten’s poems on identity and emotion (‘Cureless’, ’Pleurisy’, ‘Epithet’). For how ‘broken’ her poems seem to be, there is an overriding sense of unity and control: largely, I feel, through Kyrsten’s remarkable control of the writing process, as well as through the way in which the poems, as a collected works, pull together the fractious nature of the poem’s content through the criss-cross of theme that runs through all the poems.

A good example of this overlap of fragments, the ‘self’ and the sense of unity through writing that this disparity creates, is evident when one reads ‘Cureless’ and ‘Wondering’ together. ‘Cureless’, about being a ‘part’ in a “disparate society” and the “restless inner thrumming” that this creates, seems to level the sense of frustration with the unattainable self that is “always / just out of reach” through the realisation that it is the disparity that “creates / the works that the discontent / at not being me / escalates.” Similarly, ‘Wondering’ – concerned with the unattainable self and fractured identity – announces the unreachable self as a result of the ‘I’ being embodied in each and every interaction with others, as “I am another person inside this person inside this person”. This broken ‘I’ is, for Kyrsten, an inevitable consequence of circumstance “But what do I have if not this: This attempt / what I had, what I did / so many pauses and starts / so many fits and gasps”. Fragmentation is symptomatic of living; of being “smashed across the continent” – just like the unreachable ‘me’ is the precursor to creating “the works that the discontent / at not being me / escalates” in ‘Cureless’.

What really impresses me about Kyrsten’s writing, though, is her acute sense of feeling. For all the control in her poetry, this never stifles the delivery of the ‘new reality’ enlivening emotion for the reader.

The imagery in ‘Pleurisy’ haunted me for many days after the first reading: to appropriate the detachment and emotional distance that can be felt when one feels devalued, with a disease so physical as that of pleurisy, gives a new dimension of meaning to the relationship explored in this poem. As the disease spreads through the lungs, the pain of being discarded for the television, instead of “simple conversation”, spreads with it, and takes on a far more empirical angle. Even though the “x-rays reveal nothing” – a clever addition that keeps this poem on the boundary between reality (the heartbreak)  and poetic licence (pleurisy) – we watch as the virus takes over the body, eating away at the chest, and the “gray spaces behind my heart.”

A triumph in the balance of form and emotion, where one does not surpass the other, Kyrsten’s poetry touches me on the levels of feeling and formality – a precise blending of control and emotional release. On her website, Kyrsten proclaims that “Writing is what I do” – not only does she ‘write’, she does it justice, too.

Railroad Interview with Kyrsten

“Jagged, raw, incredible”

ACE: Kyrsten, thank you for becoming the first Railroad POTM –it’s a real privilege to be showcasing your work to the Railroad fan base, and beyond. What is your personal take on the Railroad Mission, and what do you think you can gain from being the first POTM?

KB: When I first heard about the Railroad Poetry Project – through Joe Clifford’s blog, which I also recently discovered, so thanks Joe – I was intrigued. The project felt right, and close to my own feelings about how undervalued many of us are today as writers. I don’t tend to submit my poems to the highfalutin publications; I sometimes got such empty, awful replies, if any at all. I mean, “Sorry, but we won’t be using this.” Such conviction: It’s like being spit on. But when I sent my work to other poets, like myself, they asked for more, even if the first few batches didn’t fit, they still had a kindness and sincerity about them, that human touch.

I support the small, the indie, as you can see from my poems; I support the broken and the disenchanted. It’s been my lot in life to understand the darker underbellies, to reach out to those who are a little “off.” I’m probably too gritty, and I also hate poetry that is obtuse and hard to connect with. If you throw in a bunch of obscure imagery that I can’t relate to, I’m going to space out. I want real life: jagged, raw, incredible.

The Railroad Poetry Project is a beautiful concept born out of frustration and hope, and I feel that many great things are born this way. Instead of trying to join an overcrowded bandwagon, I’d like to push along with something fresh, something with endless potential. Poetry, to me, is song. It is expression. It is open to anyone, not a select few. Yes, there needs to be some objectivity, and I feel the Railroad Poetry Project has that objectivity, but I don’t want people out there to lose the very form of expression that might be saving their lives, because of endless rejection from snotty venues too obsessed with being cool to really hear what the poets submitting are trying to say. Everyone has to start somewhere. The history of poetry seems to be that many great poets are not heard in their lifetime, at least not to big accolades.

ACE: Communication is the heart of the Railroad ethos and Railroad hopes to become an online resource for poets wanting to access the literary community – are there any tips you can give our readers for spreading the beat of their work and getting their name out there?

KB: Tell all of your friends. Post links on facebook. Submit your poems, even though you’re scared and don’t think they’re good enough (if they say exactly what you intended to say and you like reading them without cringing, they are probably good enough). Post to twitter. Join a local writing group, or start one. You don’t have to be alone. Ask if you can help in any way.

ACE: For me, your poetry displays carefully controlled disparity through carefully sculpted poems. Where do you think this focus on fragmentation comes from – is there a particular time, image or occurrence you can pinpoint as the genesis of your acute awareness of the disunity in the self?

KB: I started writing poems and songs at a very young age. Like many artists, I didn’t feel I fit in anywhere. There was always something I didn’t do or say right, some part that was different. When I was a teenager, I started travelling across the United States without my parents blessing, to see the world, and I saw the divide between wanderers, like myself, and structured society. When I was sent to a reform school in Jamaica, I started writing poetry again with a vengeance. In class, I would look up words and copy them down in my dictionary. I tried to use all these big words I found in my poems. They were weird and crazy poems. But they explained the intensity of what I felt in a way I could never convey through simply talking to people. I felt like an old soul trapped in a young body.

I grew up with an outcast family of sorts. We weren’t like other families for a number of reasons; you can fill in the blanks with your imagination. I would say it was a sense of loss at 14, when I sat down and decided that the world was a strange place and maybe no one was on my side or was reliable, but I would try to love it anyway. And I would try to talk about it in a way that was accessible to others. I also had this group of girls, former friends and some of their older sisters, who were trying to beat up on me almost every day, I ended up transferring schools because though I fought back, there was one of me and so many of them. It toughened me up, but made it hard to trust for a long time. I found solace in my music and writing and I still do, 16 years later. It’s the most important part of my life. And I decided I wanted other teenagers, other little “me’s” to have someone on their side. I also write for them. I’ve always known I would write a book for teenagers, about those experiences, because I know that many of them are going through it and feel that they have absolutely no one.

And lastly, I started writing poems for friends who I felt were going through it. I always had an innate sense of perception for struggle in others, and a poem was my way of saying, “Hey, I get it. But I’m not going to pressure you to talk about it. Here’s a poem.”  Recently, a friend sent me a book of poems I’d made for her when I was 19. I’d forgotten about them. They were horrible poems, mostly made as school class assignments, and the structure broke my poetry. I cringed, reading back through them, but I had used what tools I had available at the time.

ACE:  Could you tell me a bit about ‘Epithet’? For me it shows tension between wanting to be a part of someone, whilst still being free and an individual: again, another example of your way of writing about identity, the ‘self’ and fragmentation. How do you feel about this poem- what does it communicate for you?

KB: This poem was one of those that almost came out exactly right on first try. There was a person in my life a number of years ago who I loved very much, but in a naïve way. I didn’t really know who this person was at all. The conflict of loving a person who I didn’t trust or know — who did things on purpose to tear me down, but also showed such a deep, loving side at times – I can’t explain it, it’s like loving a phantom. And in the end, this comes down to loving a part of yourself that you made up and projected on the other person maybe, not the other person at all. And it’s that sense of wanting to become a person completely, wanting to lose yourself in them, wanting to make as much of an impact on their lives as they did on yours, but wanting to be free of them, too, and how you can never know whether either will happen. But more than anything, it’s about a feeling, and it’s about resolution, about finally breaking free from the insanity of being dependant on a person who meant everything to you, but doesn’t care that they broke you, or maybe broke you on purpose.

ACE: What inspires you as a poet and writer? Do you take inspiration from your own personal experiences, or do you write as an exercise, developing a written piece from a single image?

KB: I’m always observing. I have a cabinet full of ghosts, people I’ve met, stories, things I’ve seen, that I put in my poems. Poetry is similar to songwriting for me, the creations need to stand up for themselves. They have a life of their own. My defining factor is I spew something – an idea, a subconscious struggle, an observation, an emotion – onto the page and I leave it there for quite some time. Then I come back and tweak it until it makes me feel something. If I’m bored, if I can’t read through it, if I get stuck at certain words that don’t seem to make sense, other people will, too. If I love it, someone else is going to get it. It seems this is the truth. And the power of poetry is that even though mine are of me, someone reading them is going to put themselves in it, and relate to parts of their own life.

What inspires me is life: the duality of existence. I think that everyone has a darker side, though they pretend not to. Incongruence intrigues me. For whatever reason we all do things that are messed up, but for some reason, something amazingly perfect comes from all the disparity, all of the broken chaotic beauty, and for some reason, I need to write poetry and music about it, it’s something I absolutely have to do in order to survive, whether it’s a coping mechanism I came up with at a young age or because it’s my calling, I don’t know, but it feels right. And I think when you feel that clear stream of Zen while doing something, when it feels true, or like the universe has come full circle, you should just do it, otherwise you’re like that old bible myth of Jonah and the whale, where you have a calling, but you’re hiding from it, and there’s going to be hell to pay. You might as well face up to it or you’re going to be miserable. Ask me how I know.

ACE: What are your final words for the Railroaders out there?

KB: Please, give your poems a chance. I believe that many people I know are talented, but keep their talents hidden under a bucket because they are afraid. Your truth will help other people, somehow, in some simple, imperfect way. If anything, creation helps you cope with this crazy, crazy world that often doesn’t make any sense at all. It needs your creativity.

Spread the beat!
@kyrstenbean
Retweet this page and #talenttrain

From now on, the Railroad Poetry Project will showcase the Poet of the Month, giving first-time visitors to the RRPP website the chance to sample some of our Railroaders’ hard work straight away. Poet of the Month will get maximum coverage on Twitter and Facebook and, eventually, as Railroad moves forward, will feature in a Railroad newsletter (in development, I will keep you posted!)

For now, POTM will be taken from the Railroad archive – but as the feature moves forward, Railroad would like to encourage all poets to submit – just email a selection of your poetry to railroadpoetryproject@gmail.com with ‘POTM’ in the subject line.

Here’s to the beat…

Amanda