Donna J. Snyder lives and writes in the borderlands of Mexico and the United States. This page is about her books, other publications, and readings, and the work of other writers and artists she respects and admires.
Donna J. Snyder lives and writes in the borderlands of Mexico and the United States. This page is about her books, other publications, and readings, and the work of other writers and artists she respects and admires.
poetry from the frontera 
Thanks for reblogging my post and following my blog!
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Hi Donna, thanks for visiting my blog again and that you really took the time to look around!
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You’re welcome. The pleasure was mine.
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Joseph Reich is a social worker who lives with his wife and
thirteen year old son in the high-up mountains of Vermont…
He has been published in a wide variety of eclectic literary journals
both here and abroad, been nominated seven times for The Pushcart Prize,
and his books in poetry and cultural studies include, “If I Told You To Jump
Off The Brooklyn Bridge” (Flutter Press) “A Different Sort Of Distance”
(Skive Magazine Press) “Pain Diary: Working Methadone & The Life
& Times Of The Man Sawed In Half” (Brick Road Poetry Press)
“Drugstore Sushi” (Thunderclap Press) “The Derivation Of Cowboys & Indians”
(Fomite Press) “The Housing Market: a comfortable place to jump off the end
of the world” (Fomite Press) “The Hole That Runs Through Utopia” (Fomite Press)
“Connecting The Dots To Shangrila: A Postmodern Cultural Hx Of America” (Fomite
Press) “A Case Study Of Werwolves” (Fomite Press) “Taking The Fifth And Running
With It: a psychological guide for the hard of hearing and blind” (Broadstone Books) “The
Rituals Of Mummification” (Sagging Meniscus Press) “Magritte’s Missing Murals: Insomniac
Episodes” (Sagging Meniscus Press) “How To Order Chinese During A Hostage Crisis:
Dialects, Existential Essays, A Play, And Other Poems” (Hog Press) “The American
Book Of The Dead” (Xi Draconis Books) “American Existentialism” (Tuba Press)
“From Premonition To Prophecy” (Delinkwent Scholar Press)
Dear Donna,
Wondering too if can pass on to editor of Boston Poetry Magazine if at all possible why he has decided to block me, had considered him a friend and colleague, of which I contributed multiple poems to his press, find a bit bizarre and quixotic, Donna do hope you are doing well and all my best!
an eccentric urban guide to surviving,
1. add rusty nails to spice garden to help grow
2. have mom bend wire hanger around puerto rican girl’s belly
to see how much she’s growing on stoop during summer
3. make sure when lovers are strolling she walks on inside close
to buildings as opposed to street to indicate she’s not for taking
4. at wedding make sure to frisk and check for gun at door
5. put a raw chicken in crate and throw over the pier
at coney island to catch crab and for supper
add breadcrumbs & black pepper
6. for enterprising individuals holler all day by shore–“fudgie! fudgie! bud-wiza!”
7. for scraps after school rub garlic on fingernails to scratch eyes out
8. put battery on shoulder and if knocked off get ready as means war
9. the rough & tough irish brothers who really love each other
but will throw down practically anywhere throw out insults
and doesn’t matter where they are could be the inside of
drugstore and so on will beat the crap out of each other
10. gangs having fist fights in white castle at midnight
literally getting tossed through windows and being
escorted in paddywagons chained around the ankle
to destinations like bellevue & tombs & the next
morning in the courtroom will find out their fate
usually a 3-5 bid upstate at elmira, comstack, or
attica without the help of al pacino & drag queen
to melodramatically get them out on good behavior
11. during mother’s day on a fine sunday one of the wise asses
from the neighborhood in asphalt park while playing softball
will hilariously remark–“i see you’re all spending the day with
your moms” then when sliding into second pile on top of each other
12. center fielder easily distracted
with absolutely no attention span
scaling center field fence like spiderman
13. alpha-male macho man insulting effeminate drag queen
and suddenly he/she kicking the shit out of him
with broom handle used to play stickball
14. after playing hoop all day in tompkins square park
in alphabet city hang out with buddy in projects
who shows me his 25 he keeps safely stored
in converse sneaker box under his bed used
purely for defense and those who offend
15. the stud from the neighborhood hanging out on corner
snaps at the cute girl returning home from work, who
can’t help but to smile and be flattered by his dialogue
–“send me to the corner! i’ve been a very bad boy!”
16. the old timers from the social club pretending
to hit each other over the head with wooden chairs
17. strange neglected kid standing on his head
within the fence of his brownstone
as if welcoming guests
18. one sign reads “confession” and the other “italian ice”
both just as legitimate and helping to heal vice
19. ballerina deliberately hangs brazzieres & panties
on dripping clothesline as has a crush on guy upstairs
20. old lady married to nice & kind retired merchant-marine
rubs olive oil from the old country into the aching
belly of cat persistently purring
21. pit bulls planted on roofs trained to detect and sniff
out the brave men in blue barking like mad when they
show up in riot gear for their choreographed drug busts
22. taking baths with black girl in clawfoot tub
whose father was a blind man from yonkers
who owned a string of bodegas and eventually
sent me postcards from san francisco telling me
about the real bums so blue & down in the dumps
23. watch angelic boys drop g.i. joe from ghetto windows
with sisters blown-up tampons into alley of dead dolls
24. chase dope addicts back up fire escapes right where
they belong and threaten to kill them if you ever see them
again disappearing frightened like a flock of origami pigeons
25. wander through snowy sacred silent streets of brooklyn to russian
supermarket from the old country to pick up your weekly dose of
cheap chicken, booze, babka & babushka cookies written in slavic
26. return back reborn with a whole new outlook
of sorts of subtle prayers & promises; mantras
of echoing foghorns blasting down blessed alleys
27. listen to female roommates above you through paper-thin ceiling
one a ballerina and the other an opera singer, sometimes belting
soprano and when most down & out & lonesome getting familiar
28. watch melting snow flow like a revelation
down gushing hills of cobblestone seeing seasons
slowly shift outside south brooklyn casket & alfred tickle co.
29. tables & chairs being put out in front of mafioso social clubs
30. transistors for oldies station & sports radio
31. the lines start to build up and get longer
for o.t.b. & diabetic bakeries down the street
32. put cooling witch hazel onto burn you got at the pool
on pitt st. followed by a feast of black sausage & plantain
stuffed with chopped meat washed down with coco-rico soft drink
straight from the machine and that joint which just reads “spanish
& chinese” right on delancey huddled beneath the manhattan bridge
33. watch best friend from hoboken climb up the inside of the spine
of the girders at night of the williamsburg bridge and literally leap
over parts which haven’t been filled in because of contracts & corruption
& organized crime constantly changing their mind over that span of time
34. wonder why the union of doormen & custodians
get paid so much better than school teachers
35. pace yourself to get through the evening as a doorman
for your graveyard shift camped-out in bellman’s closet
slightly open for the sleazy salesmen from the midwest
staggering in trying to sneak in unsavory guests nodding
out with your slice of stolen key lime pie from the kitchen
ezra pound’s cantos kerouac’s desolation angels like a religion
36. wake yourself up and rearrange the lobby which includes
primping pillows, unloading ashtrays, polishing brass handles
of luggage carriers, and putting up the letters for cosmetologist and
pharmaceutical conventions; like a phantom slip bills under guest doors
37. greet whole hoard of gorgeous puerto rican girls
to die for entering doors for housekeeping chores
38. bring in whole stack of morning papers, sweep up outside
in front of hotel and hose down curb, don’t forget to pick up
luggage in hall for german & asian tour groups and bring bags to bus
39. take subway home to brooklyn with great big ball
of blinding sun rising beaming & bouncing off of
navy-blue windows of drowsy red brick factories
40. morning mists burning off majestic bridges
connecting manhattan to nostalgic transcendent
boroughs & new jersey looking southward to lady
liberty the atlantic & old country & up north where
that brilliant miraculous hudson rambles right past
ulysses s. grant tombstone, young teddy roosevelt
mansion and into the expansive adirondack mountains
which holds millionaires & madmen, prisons & institutions
in no man nomad never never land of the forgotten & forgiven
41. old distinguished white-bearded black man with eyes of kindness
& wisdom whose white girl walked out on him and left him in
the park when used to give art exhibits at the whitney & frick
42. hookers & homeless & penniless hoteliers literally scrubbing up
with bars of lava soap and gee your hair smell terrific shampoo
with fire hydrants opened up in a half-crazed hysterical commune
43. ghosts in 10th avenue hell’s kitchen boxcar diner
that part of the nightlife when city’s
most abandoned & silent
44. if slumlords refuse to give you heat for the winter
deduct it from the rent in existential increments
45. if slumlords refuse to fix your buzzer
attach an extra key to sock and toss it out
window watching it sail like a carrier pigeon
46. to survive the wild heat of a summer in brooklyn
all you need is a refrigerator full of milk & seltzer
with leftover fried fish & plantain & gizzard, multiple
cold showers and stick your head in the freezer, drop
naked dripping to your futon on the floor with your
muted tv of edward g. robinson, bogie & bacall
47. cab crashed through café window on 3rd avenue
while pale-faced party girl coming off a night of
coke & blunts still mechanically serves blue plate
special & coffee on a bleary-eyed sunday morning
48. poor princess beneath parasol who works for pierre-deux
on lexington whose man tragically walked out on her gets
suddenly knocked over by a deaf boy doing sign language
resembling a busted tumbling umbrella blowing in the wind
49. for sadistic discipline when inviting relatives over make daughter
kneel naked on rice in corner while balancing a bible on each hand
50. bring kid to movie theater and make him look down
at floor and avert eyes the whole time film’s playing
51. put banner up made up of bed sheets swinging from apartment building
over city pool during sweltering summer to indicate brother’s returning
home from upstate doing a bid for robbing a whole string of friendly’s.
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I think the Boston Poetry ‘zine no longer publishes. The editor has fallen out Of contact with me.
This page is not the proper venue for such a long personal blog entry, by the way.
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