Hello, Miracle readers!
Welcome is the first on a series of features showcasing the wonderful Miracle team. Today we will be getting to know Steven Fortune, one of our Poetry Editors.
Interview
Questions by Elizabeth Gibson
EG: Could you briefly introduce yourself? SF: My name is Steven Fortune and I hail from Nova Scotia, Canada.
I live in a town called Glace Bay and have experimented with city life, but was ultimately drawn back to my home province, or chased back, depending on my mood as I reflect on those days. I have a degree in English Literature and History.
EG: What sort of writing do you do? SF: I write poetry, mostly free verse but I dabble in fixed forms to keep the pencil sharp. As a proud holder of no musical talent whatsoever, I'm a Bernie Taupin hoping to cross paths with an Elton John one of these days. That would be my dream job.
EG: What does writing mean to you? SF: Discovery. Discovery of self, of new worlds within worlds, of the latest universe in the infinity of the imagination.
EG: How did you get into writing? SF: Like many writers, I got into writing through reading and music. My parents were music lovers, and their record collection was my first muse.
EG: Who or what inspires you? SF: My late Dad. It was not until he passed away that I began to find myself in magazines after countless failed attempts at being found in them. My Mom also remains an inspiration and a source of unconditional support, along with a small group of friends who make up an informal literary circle. I also find inspiration in my living room window; the scenery has not changed as long as I've lived here, yet most of my ideas come to me while looking out.
EG: What are your current projects? SF: I recently signed a deal for my first book, which I'm slated to begin working on in the Fall. The Summer will be spent working on the manuscript, which will be in flux as I rediscover old pieces and concieve new ones. This whole writing gig started as a hobby and will finish as one when I do, but never would I have imagined it evolving to this stage.
EG: What are your plans for the future? SF: To wake up tomorrow; if I do that, hopefully I'll write. If I can't write, hopefully I'll read. If I can't read, I'll look out the window.
EG: What advice do you have for writers? SF: Don't be afraid to be yourself. Don't be afraid to be someone else. Don't be afraid to be yourself pretending to be someone else. And look out any window you may come across; every one is a story waiting to be told.
EG: What do you look for in submissions? SF: As a poetry editor, I look for subtlety in poetic devices: rhyme schemes that are hardly noticeable in their seamlessness, inverted rhymes in free verse, big words that become small within a rhythm and flow..."endearment" instead of "love," "existence" instead of "life," "darling" instead of "baby."
A selection of Steven's work
A YES-MAN'S MOMENT OF CLARITY The grains with which I accept all insistences are disassembled assemblages of the sweetest salt Nothing like an oxymoron to consign a benign blackball to the trifle of silence deemed to be awkward by the insisters And by benign I mean merciful In my circumstantial mercy they'll find an ante-inflating irony hungry for the hand of the oxymorons I am capable of spawning The ruins of the bed in which I made nullified love to my precious Psyche are what they should be studying If they aspire to prolong their insistent rhetoric in my verbal vicinity I will poison them with the sweet salt left behind by my beloved Psyche when the flower of her being was inhaled with a failed vacuum of vengeance Satisfaction and timidity I thought I could comingle to seduce I won't make that mistake again
CANDLE LOGIC Let's apply oblation to our hardships Obliterate the temptation to trip on languid lower lips imprisoning our stiffer upper lips Let's apply oblation to our grief Freeze the imitation waterfalls of hot wax sliding through the slippery stalagmites scaling the perimeters of our duet of melting candles Let us groom the fire for oblation like the old Greeks did and take a flyer on the possibility of comfort Let us take a lesson from the pond of hot wax destined to rebel and drown the wick before it brands lethargy on the local phoenix
INTROVERT A painless day An extreme haircut A graphic pierce Immaculate sunblock greasing up the impact of night's thud from the morning freefall Stares of admiration open-ended for the lack of notice or acknowledgement but a painless day of numbed moods and nil to lose in loss of mind 06 25 02
