The Esme Poems

I've been meaning to mention this chapbook for a minute now. It's put out by Peninsulas Now Press. You can read about the press here on Joe Hall's blog. This chapbook is a collab between Joe Hall & Cheryl Quimba.

Here's a sample:

Esme on a Cruise Ship



Fits perfectly into a deck chair.

Then paces and smokes

a cigarette and beholds the orange sun. Will
never get married, will want

to live inside her own

private movie, watching sea gulls circling
for hours at a time.

Without speaking them,
continually forms the shapes
of words inside her mouth.


Esme: Inharmonic


---she sees
a person lock the door behind
him, look both ways and begin strolling or
a mammal browsing in and out of the shadows of
the tree line--deep, running algorithms
black engine of things
bang bang bang on her drums
she always has her reasons
before a friend comes
and then the singing