Time Suspended- #Publication

_{Time Suspended-, gel pen & biro on paper, 2022, © N Nazir 2023, Sketchbooks 2022
(Text source: A Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry by Gregory Orr, p.104)}

I, sleepless,
feel the ripening swell
of unrest.

Is it loneliness?
or am I shifting again

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I meant to share this earlier. I had an unexpected publication with Ink Sweat and Tears last month with my word + image poem Time Suspended-. I’d submitted it months ago so to get an acceptance quite out of the blue, and on Eid too, was a pleasant surprise. Especially when it’s an erasure piece as not many journals publish those. Hope you like it.

I started doodling this during an overly long zoom meeting last year, the host of which probably thought I was earnestly making notes. Not so. I was poeming the whole time. It’s the little things in life, isn’t it?

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*Unrelated but what sad news about the powerhouse that was the inimitable Tina Turner. I know this isn’t one of her songs but I had trouble picking one to share, and I love her performance here with Robert Palmer. RIP Tina ❤

Unmoored #Publication

_{Unmoored, watercolour & gel pen on paper, © N Nazir 2023, Sketchbooks 2023
(Text source: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, p.80-81)}

He smiled
then asked me
where do you belong?

Who knows,
I replied
I am not lost
and yet
it seems that I am.

*

My greatest thanks to Free Verse Revolution for publishing my erasure poem Unmoored for their latest issue Anchor IX (page 38). You can download a free digital copy here, or purchase a print copy via the Lulu store.

They also published a painting of mine, Two Ships Passing on a Lonesome Night, which you can view on page 41. It’s a lovely issue and it’s so pleasing to have the clean white pages punctuated with my artwork. I hope you like them! 🙂

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(*For enquiring minds: I just want to confirm that all my work is hand-drawn and painted down to every last detail (usually onto photocopy paper which has been pasted down onto watercolour or craft paper) and I never use digital tools to enhance my work in any way. I don’t believe the artwork should need it. When I photograph my work, I try and ensure it looks as close to the original as possible).

The World is Your Lobster #Visual Verse Publication

_{^{Image by Adriaen van Utrecht / Rijksmuseum}}

Yes. Feast your eyes. I am centrepiece, after all. Summer’s expanding belly come to laze, somnolent. The sun, a kind benevolence on this good life. Eat your fill and be done. I siesta, waiting for you, of all the ways you’ll bite . . .

. . . you can read the rest of the poem here.

_{^{© N Nazir 2023}}

*My greatest thanks to Visual Verse for publishing my poem this month ❤ And so nice to see many of my fellow bloggers also make it in! It’s like we’ve got VV covered! From all the submissions in the world, the WP bloggers are all over it 🙂

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*Shared for dVerse Open Link Night, hosted by Bjorn.

Left My Soul There #Publication

_{^{© Giorgi Iremadze (Unsplash)}}

I heard
Saturn ate his babies
to stop them taking his power.
Icy moons
with hearts of fire
they ruptured
then hung
in orbit
reborn and broken.
Saturn nestles
into rings
of resculpted newborns.

…you can read the rest of the poem here.

^{_{© N Nazir 2023}}

*February’s been kind of unreal for publications! Sometimes, you don’t hear back from editors at all and then you get more than one acceptance in the same month. It’s made up for a stressful month. I hope you like this latest offering. Though I actually wrote it about two years ago. I’d change the title if I could, I just couldn’t think of a better title. My greatest thanks to Green Ink Poetry for publishing it in their latest Collection: Cosmos ❤

Oceanic #Publication

_{^{Oceanic, Erasure Poem #79, gel pen on paper, (Sketchbooks 2022), © N Nazir 2022
Text source: Indigo by Marina Warner, p.110}}

We are fugitives
for our art.

Stay with me
my unruly indigo lover.

My greatest thanks to Unlost Journal for publishing my erasure poem, Oceanic, for their latest issue The Motivation of Winter ❤