by Suzanne Cottrell
Red River Valley natives
Served as prairie borders
Desired, functional, respected
Osage orange trees
Branches bowed, interwoven
Burly, protective thorns
Excessively furrowed bark
Dense, sturdy hardwood
Disease, pest, rot resistant
Lemon-yellow heartwood
Female trees bore softball-sized,
Lime, warty fruit, hedge apples
Grooved, resembling human brains
Fleshy sphere with sticky, milky sap
Multitude of husk-wrapped seeds
Squirrels’ prized snacks
Replaced by barbed wire,
Electric fences
Now obsolete, undesired,
Yard’s nuisance
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Established May 2015
Call for Submissions
Through September 23, 2023, Plum Tree Tavern welcomes the submission of works that feature rivers as the subject (As of September 1st, this has expanded to bodies of water). Specificity is required in a submission. "The river runs beneath the bridge" is a message for a greeting card, not a poem. "The Chattahoochee River runs beneath the bridge on 141" conveys the level of detail requested by this call. Regular submissions on other subjects are also welcome. General tavern guidelines apply to all submissions.
Welcome
Plum Tree Tavern invites original and previously unpublished poetry of green witness and red protest.
Climate change and social and economic repression are inextricably linked. The crowd denying or preventing effective responses to global warming is the same crowd repressing equality within society.
For the green witness and ecopoetic half of the equation, Plum Tree seeks work focusing on specific images of physical nature. Work that focuses on the image in nature as it exists is greatly preferred over the writer’s judgments of the image.
The term “red protest” is deliberately used here to call for poetical works of leftist resistance. The tavern is not looking for wishy washy give peace a chance plea bargains but for work with a sharper edge. But manifesto, diatribe and polemic without poetical structure or elements isn’t the ticket either.
Works of up to 40 lines sounds about right. Longer work will be considered. One submission of up to three poems per month sounds about right, too. Speaking of the calendar, please submit seasonal work: in season.
Nature photography is always welcome, especially landscapes, river images, coasts and forests. Images may be placed within the Tavern's own pages or an associated gallery.
Jpegs please, around a meg. Up to four images per submission.
Please note that with all the wild beauty in the world, photographs of gardens and other arranged scenery will generally not be accepted.
This is a bar. Repeat customers are encouraged.
The editor expects that submissions will adhere to all guidelines. This includes the fine print, linked here and separately below.
To submit, send one to three works in the body of an email to plumtreetavern (at) gmail (dot) com
No word attachments, except by prior arrangement.
Climate change and social and economic repression are inextricably linked. The crowd denying or preventing effective responses to global warming is the same crowd repressing equality within society.
For the green witness and ecopoetic half of the equation, Plum Tree seeks work focusing on specific images of physical nature. Work that focuses on the image in nature as it exists is greatly preferred over the writer’s judgments of the image.
The term “red protest” is deliberately used here to call for poetical works of leftist resistance. The tavern is not looking for wishy washy give peace a chance plea bargains but for work with a sharper edge. But manifesto, diatribe and polemic without poetical structure or elements isn’t the ticket either.
Works of up to 40 lines sounds about right. Longer work will be considered. One submission of up to three poems per month sounds about right, too. Speaking of the calendar, please submit seasonal work: in season.
Nature photography is always welcome, especially landscapes, river images, coasts and forests. Images may be placed within the Tavern's own pages or an associated gallery.
Jpegs please, around a meg. Up to four images per submission.
Please note that with all the wild beauty in the world, photographs of gardens and other arranged scenery will generally not be accepted.
This is a bar. Repeat customers are encouraged.
The editor expects that submissions will adhere to all guidelines. This includes the fine print, linked here and separately below.
To submit, send one to three works in the body of an email to plumtreetavern (at) gmail (dot) com
No word attachments, except by prior arrangement.
Guidelines
Masthead Image
Branch of Blossoming Plum by Soga Shohaku, c. 1770, Edo period, Japan, ink on paper (Sackler Museum). Image in the public domain.
Comments
Comments on the posts are welcome and encouraged. Comments will be moderated by the editor and may take up to 24 hours to appear.
Publication Schedule
Plum Tree Tavern is published on Wednesdays and Sundays. Works may be posted on other days by decision of the editor.
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3 comments:
Suzanne, This poem gives the reader so much insight not only to the tree and it attributes, but to human nature as well. Once a prized tree with a noble purpose; now, replaced by something engineered by humans. Cold and harsh.
Cool poem. Made me do some research - and thank you for that. As fencing, Osage orange was described as "horse high, bull strong and pig tight."
Suzanne, your writing is so descriptive that I always learn so much and can visualize the objects as I'm reading your poems! Nicely done!
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