Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty-year writer and the author of 12 published books of fiction and poetry and 5 stage plays. She has been nominated 21 times for the Pushcart Prize in both fiction and poetry. Her play ‘The Crooked Heart’ concerning artist Jackson Pollock premiered on October 25, 2022 at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Another play, LADY IN A POST BOX, co-written with poet and writer Ciaran O’Driscoll is moving toward production. Tepper’s Novel satire titled ‘Office’ has been released as a Second Edition by Wilderness House Press. A new Novel ‘Hair of a Fallen Angel’ will be out soon from Spuyten Duyvil Books. Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review. http://www.susantepper.com
BLUESCAPE
By Susan Isla Tepper
It took some doing to get you out.
I’m the last to complain but
the sex was atrocious—
Let’s face facts
I began seeing you as a caged beast
the pacing intolerable—
I swallowed a variety of pills to sleep.
In the morning you paced the apartment
wearing only shave cream, waving paperwork
I found meaningless.
What is the meaning of this? I asked
thinking how basically unattractive
you are—
How a really good looking man
could pull off the nudity and shave cream
Then something else about leaking tires
how screwed you are
every time the car gets serviced.
Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, Diode, The American Journal of Poetry, Spillway, Nashville Review, Poetry East, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. She’s authored ten poetry collections, most recently, TRIGGERED, 2023 (MacQueen’s Publishing); BRAZEN, 2023 (NYQ Books); and DUETS, (2022) an illustrated, ekphrastic chapbook collaboration with poet Cynthia Atkins, published by Harbor Editions. Alexis’s photographs are featured worldwide including the covers of The Pedestal Magazine, Witness, Heyday, Pithead Chapel, and The Net ne Mas Tequila Review. www.alexisrhonefancher.com
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