A. Lynn Blumer's Blog

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Hey Everyone! Pyre Publishing is opening it's submissions again after a complicated, fan-hitting hiatus. But I'm back and looking to make another zine!

Ez.P.Zine II: Issue Eight is open for poetry and flash fiction. The topic is Cyber//Reality

Looking for anything that juxtaposes within the theme. Paired poems are allowed, but be sure to specify if they are coupled. No longer than 70 lines per poem and a limit of five pieces submitted per author.

Flash fiction limit is 300 words. No more than five pieces submitted per author.

Please follow the submission guidelines on our website.

Deadline is Oct. 8th

Working All The Time

Armillaria Mellea

Enter the feeding ground
greeting yellow caps

our host, a meal
of honey upon decay.

You are many
& the same-- creep

devouring this serving
of the woods.

I am here to take
a few of your fingers-- severed

to my skillet
to my satisfaction.

Myco, come with me
your table is vast

the day is falling
& we all need to gorge.

.......
Hey GoodReads! I know I've been out of the loop for a while but I promise, I'm working on getting back in. The problem is work, and more work, and my own work, but at least I'm still working on my poetry when I can! So, I wanted to share the most recent piece that I had constructed a whole image/backdrop for in order to keep up with Instagram and facebook, but.... photobucket now puts watermarks on every image they host unless you give them money and GoodReads doesn't seem to have another way to share picture, at least not a way I've discovered yet.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my mushroom poem. I wrote it after finding a pretty big one with a co-worker on our way home, and then harvesting enough to feed two people for three days! yum! I won't explain my poem too much, but if you don't know anything about Armillarias, you should look them up! They're very interesting lifeforms.

Take care,
A. Lynn

EZPZ Issue Four Now Available!

Damn, it feels good to have the final issue of the Ez.P.Zine series done... especially since this means I can start the Review now!

Working on this project has been an excellent learning experience for me and a great path to expanding my network! The new writers I've met have provided a wonderful variety of work that melded well with the writers who have been with Pyre from the beginning. I couldn't be more grateful for all of you!

Keep Reading / Keep Writing / Keep Submitting <3

Physical and Digital copies of the Ez.P.Zine series are available here!

RESOLVE CALL

The fourth & final issue for the year is open for submissions! I know it's not the traditional year (Jan-Dec) but it's close enough, I'll wager. After this we'll be doing a special edition "Year In Review" of all the best submissions from EZ.P.ZINE, so get your work on the table while you can!

-A. Lynn

EZPZ Issue Three is Here!

REAP WHAT YOU SOW

Issue Three of this stunning and unique zine series is now available to order or download on Pyre's Website!

I am continuously pleased with how this project is panning out. The submissions have been wonderful--BIG shout-out to all of the writers in EZPZ--and this little zine has even begun to open doors and grow with Pyre. I have begun networking with my fellow, local craftsmen and ya'll might just see Pyre's Zine game go to the next level after the fourth/final issue is released.

Stay tuned!

Poetry Month Gallery Show

Officially set-up and ready to go in the Huron Mountain Club Gallery for the month of April! It feels to good to have the pressure off in that department. It's been a busy month and poetry month is always the busiest! WOO! Bring it on. I got this... but first, I need a vacation. I need. A vacation. The Gallery looks beautiful, a couple pyre writer (plus myself) will be representin' and it's time to disappear out west for a week :) Gonna see some beautiful mountains, some beautiful people, and hike/drink/smoke my ass off.. but first:

Here's a peak at the Gallery we got up today, as well as the link to the digital version complete with recorded readings ;)

HMC Digital Galley

Enjoy!

Fun Times (&getting tipsy on the ride)

This was a fun start to last weekend! These people have been great to me and have taught me a lot over the course of a year.

And then there's Bob Polzin (aka Tom Samsa), the asshole in the back.... He's been an alright writer friend, I guess. ;P

Update: Love Show

Update from the Love Show: Nailed it all around, even outside my particular department. We raised over $1300 dollars for The Warming Center to start a new/better location for our homeless community. With all the State Hospitals shutting down and just turning the tame ones loose, this has been an issue I was SO happy to help with!

Jaymie Depew Did a wonderful reading of her piece "Jumbo" from N: Volume Three Jumbo was a Marquette Icon/schizophrenic/con-artist/utter gem in our community until he passed away. I had several interesting run-ins with the man myself. For a piece of his story and some heat-breaking reality, check out Depew's short. The reading of this at this particular Love Show was almost where the piece belonged and was working it's way towards (you know, how stories have a way of doing that). Also, great reading from Nate D. Meadows! He's only done it a small handful of times now but he did a swell job and I love the text I got later that read "I feel great!" :) This is what I live for as a Publisher.

Lastly, we made the front page! All that cramming to get the booth just right was rewarded! I mean, yeah, the journalist on site was also Jaymie Depew, but It's still a front page photo. It's still Pyre Publishing and my scruffy head in it, and it still counts!

That All Love Time of Year (again)!

Hot-damn. It's time for the 2018 Love Show again! Pyre can proudly announce they will be helping/ vending/ reading at the event this year! :)

I'm so glad The Collective has taken back the reins after one year off of being the non-profit behind this event, and all the money raised is going towards a new warming center building for the Upper Peninsula's homeless community (YAY). Things are coming together much more smoothly and I very much prefer to work with these wonderful folk.



Gotta say, I can feel this town taking off somewhere, I don't know where, but Pyre might just have a real role in where it goes. Timing is everything, right?? Not just with the Love Show, but other awesome things going on with other creative small business. It's been one hell of an experience watching Pyre Publishing grow in the way it has, and I sure as shit can't wait to see where it goes.

.
The new deadline for our third issue of EZPZ wil be APRIL 15th

I will make a separate post about the matter when it gets a little closer to April.

Well, keep on keepin on GR. I know I will be busy still with a reading/book launch of Maiden Voyage in St. Ignace on FRIDAY. Good godless, it never ends.... at least the Marquette Poet Circle was awesome enough to rent a bus for the trip seeing as most of the MPC peeps are a little too old for a drive like that without a hotel. No hotels! Just reading poetry and partying with another generation of writers on a three hour return trip (O_O) This is going to be gold.

Whiskey Dick, a story about the cycle of abuse and how it influences rape.

[ I'm sure everyone still remembers the "Me Too" movement on Facebook. If you're strictly a GR person, it was a massive act of standing up in the face of rape. "Me Too" meant it had happened to you too, and the amount of responses made the issue very clear. I abstained even though I could speak because I felt like two words was not enough. I could speak volumes and two words felt like we were being cheated. So here's my "Me too", one of them, and I hope you take the time to read this, and I hope you are brave enough to comment your thoughts. I would love to talk. ]

Whiskey Dick

It was my birthday.
I had a wonderful night
with a wonderful friend
& his sauna
& his bed.

I left around midnight.
Checked my phone in the driveway
& you had blown it up.

“Help”
You coherently portrayed a need to get away.
“I have nowhere to go.”

(Note: No Typos)

“Whoa… okay, uhh, I have to work
in the morning but you can crash
with me. I do need to sleep.”

“Are you home?”

“Soon. I’ll text you” … “Let yourself in.
I’m down in my bed.”

Big mistake, missy.
you invited him past every barrier—
man-made check-points
& all the way into your bed.

When he walked right in,
I knew he couldn’t even see
my bedroom straight.
My first thought was fuck…
he drove here & now I can’t let him leave.

I should’ve let you leave.
I should’ve let you burn on your own,
because then, you got in my bed
& I reminded you I needed to sleep
but you didn’t hear me,
you just grabbed me
& began pulling at my clothes
& I pushed your hands away
& you pulled at my clothes
& I shoved your hands away
& then you shoved back with
just enough force to make yourself known.
So, I raised my voice—just enough for you
but maybe it should’ve been for a roommate—
but, you weren’t there.
So, I still tried…
& I tried
& I tried
& I tried to not get violent
& I was scared, so inevitably
I had to just give in.

Instantly, I was pissed.
Fine! Take it!
But that didn’t change
the way it felt
when you tried to get it in,
that didn’t change what it dug up
when you shoved your hand in first
& then you tried with your cock…
& you tried
& you tried
& you tried
& you tried
but I was saved, in a way, by
Whiskey Dick.
But you still tried
& I lied defeated
I let you
because what if I did try to fight?
What if this whiskey dick got pissed?

I didn’t know you that well /
I had never seen you like this.

So I let you exhaust yourself
& eventually I fell asleep.

You were gone when
the alarm clock beeped.
I still went to work,
looking forward to keeping my head down,
but when I walked in the door
I found a birthday cake
& smiles
& hoorays
& I cried
over my birthday cake—
in front of all my co-workers/
people who have no idea why I cried.

Then I ran outside
& my boss followed
& I asked to be let go for the day
& he said okay
& then some bitch
ate my fucking birthday cake.

But. I need to change gears,
because sometimes there are
two sides to this coin:

You apologized but didn’t know why.
I had to remind you,
but you could only remember
walking in
& that was it.
You listened but I didn’t
entirely fill you in.

I just forgave you
Like my offenders in high school,
but maybe
I should’ve helped you.

Because that wasn’t you.

You adore, spoil, nourish,
& worship women.

That was the whiskey.
That was a blacked-out
man desperate to self-destruct.

I remember how much
she abused you.
The girlfriend at home
you couldn’t go to.

She was so far
in your head, the look on your face
when she would text
was really hard to watch,
so I still saved you—
I saved you from that,
at the very least.