crazy love
I have loved all of them
fingers feet breasts
minds legs hair
art children thighs
dreams birthmarks
parents courage
flowers wetnesses
trinidadian rum
who gives a damn
he rightly asks
already knowing I do
but this time it’s different
he hears me say
knowing that’s what I say
every single time
because it is different
every single time
can’t you see
I know because it’s me
my heart my groin
my belly in the field
this time I haven’t even seen her
learning how the blind see learning
except I haven’t touched her either
except with words
and photos of my dogs
so you’re losing it he says
I smile and close my eyes
first published in Poetry Super Highway
BIO: Tom Weiss
I grew up on a cattle ranch on the eastern margin of The Everglades in an area that is now suburban Ft. Lauderdale. Having attended boys boarding schools from the second grade through high school likely twisted my psyche; but, I seem to write mostly love poems, so there you go.
I moved to Knoxville in 1974 intending to stay a year, and I’ve been here ever since, so it looks like I’m here to stay.
I spent a lifetime toiling in commercial real estate management and development until the pandemic retired me kicking and screaming, kindly allowing me to come out of the literary closet. My publishing history extends all the way back to December 2021. Nine poems have been published in four journals to date as I’m also working on my short fiction voice. Appearing in this journal with these remarkable photographers is a waking wet dream.
Tom Weiss
2614 Fairmont Blvd.
Knoxville, TN 37917
865.607.5500
BIO: Susan Bryant
Susan is a professor emerita from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee where she taught analog photography for 37 years. In addition to all camera and film formats, she taught alternative and historical photographic processes; to include polaroid transfers, platinum/palladium, cyanotypes, dry tintypes and hand-coloring B&W photographs.
Her work has been included in over 100 national & international juried and invitational group exhibits and 28 solo exhibits across the United States. She is the recipient of a Tennessee Arts Commission Fellowship in photography. She is the recipient of two fellowship at the Hambidge Center Artist Residency, one fellowship at the Penland School of Craft and two residencies at A.I.R. Studio Paducah.
Since retiring from full-time teaching in 2019, Susan continues to have an active studio practice and exhibition record of juried, invitational and solo exhibitions. For the past 12 years, her personal work has included the wet plate collodion process, producing tintypes, ambrotypes, darkroom enlargements from glass negatives and she continues to experiment with a variety of ways of integrating the 19th century collodion process with 21st century digital technology.
Susan currently teaches both on-lime photography classes (Light Catchers 1 & 2) and in-person workshops in cyanotypes on paper and fabric and hand-coloring both gelatin silver and digital black & white photographs. Susan is scheduled to teach a workshop, “Hand-Coloring Black & White Photographs” at the Penland School of Craft in August 2022.
Susan Bryant
179 W. Glenwood Dr.
Clarksville, TN. 37040
931-206-0451
https://www.instagram.com/susanbryantphoto/
