Bill Garten
Bill Garten's first book of poetry,
Black Snow, is a book rich with imagery. As a poet, Bill is searching and reaching to tell you as a reader a new way to look at the world and not to take each day for granted. This book is full of clear, concise poems that share a very confessional style like we have seen in Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Weldon Kees. There is a philosophical river running through Bill Garten's writing and you will be wishing you had a travel guide once you hit the rapid white waters of these poems.
Bill Garten is the winner of the Emerson Prize for Poetry and the Margaret Ward Martin Prize for Creative Writing. He has published in hundreds of literary magazines such as Rattle, Antietam Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Hawaii Review, Interim, Poet Lore, Red Rock Review, Chaminade Literary Review, Wisconsin Review and others. Bill is the author of three other books of poetry: Symptoms, Red Rain and Eventually previously all published by Cork Hill Press and now AuthorHouse.
Bill has also been anthologized in Wild Sweet Notes, Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950-1999; And Now The Magpie, a selection of winning entries of the West Virginia Writers' Annual Awards Competition and What The Mountains Yield, a collection from West Virginia Writers.
Bill has lived in West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Maryland. He is previously a college professor of English and Business and has taught numerous creative writing workshops. A graduate from Marietta College Bill lives in Hudson, Ohio when he is not traveling and giving poetry readings and teaching at creative writing workshops. His hobbies include swimming, hiking, snow skiing and fishing. His email address is redlol2@aol.com.
Evenings With Juanita
I drown out kitchen sounds with rambling
Piano keys. Foundation lotion, coffee, and
Eggs. Your fingers skate over my ice skin.
Let me in. Let me in. Scratch my back, dig,
Dig. I call across several states to my old
Philosophy professor, who leaves for Greece
Tomorrow today this beast cries out for the
Touch of your skin. Your fingers are still
Here. Your fingers are gliding. Gliding.
I undo the knots of your summer cotton dress.
The strings fall lightly behind you. I strum
And chords begin to quiver. Your legs hum.
My thumb. Your pearls. Unknown music.
The white cat yawning on the black leather
Couch next to my red sweater.
