The mourning doves are here for the winter, eight by this morning’s count at the feeder before
eight by their count now on the slight-sagged branch where they wait out the starlings with hope there is something left
that galaxy of stars like a black hole devours everything leaves morsels for small sparrows at least who will sneak back later to peck out their gratitude in code on the frost
I read it sometimes, their code of thanks, wonder if they know I timed it — spread seeds as soon as the doves arrived, before the stars descended with the moon
made myself large by the side door a warning, a warrior
let them have their take, those eight grief is a hungry thing even the weeping is enough to lay a table bare
When sleeping with a bear it is critical to pay attention to the breath — his and yours.
His will tell you when it is safe to muck about in dreams and when it is time to curl up and play dead.
Death in this case: to feign sleep is a practiced thing
slow deep breath in
slow deep breath out
slow deep breath in
slow deep breath out
Most nights, he’ll forget his hunger and roll over — you pray hands clasped around your knees making yourself small a burr in the blanket and of far less importance than himself and his sleep.
There are tractor marks in the rabbit warren, that sweet spot on the path where the bittersweet and grapevines arbored the trail, where the sounds of commerce faded just enough to hear the rabbits waiting for you to pass.
It’s bulldozed wide, now four-persons across nevermind the rabbits or the winter sparrows who found refuge there or the jays who loved the grapes or the pileated whose only recourse is to tap out an S.O.S. on a nearby dying ash
They’re building infrastructure in the woods, you see plowing back desperate saplings, piling debris where the wild asters grew flattening out the turtles’ fertile slopes
laying instead their misplaced traprock paths and sweet-smelling lumbered bridges giving us more room to tramp about another ingress marked by colored flags nailed deep into the skins of trees
Tell me please… Will the rabbits find sanctuary before the snow? Were the turtles buried alive? Do the trees weep before the hammer strikes?
“I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats,” writes Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. “Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now. Let it teach you Being. Let it teach you integrity —which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real. Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.”
THE LOLA POEMS is a limited edition, memorial issue of MANIFEST (zine) that honors the passing of my own little Zen master, Lola, by considering the lessons she taught me in our time together.
16-page, 4.25 x 5.5 booklet, Cost: $8.00or subscribe and get 4 issues for $25.00.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
Taking its theme from the William Butler Yeats poem “A Crazed Girl,” HEROICALLY FOUND considers how we improvise as we go along “no matter what disaster occurred,” finding balance, like the crazed girl, in “her music, her poetry, dancing upon the shore.” Quoting from a variety of spiritual and creative sources, HEROICALLY FOUND posits that the way to find equilibrium in these challenging times is through mindful presence — a meditation that opens our hearts and minds to art, to poetry, and to unexpected blessings. For writer Jen Payne, those blessings often include creativity, inspiration, and beautiful rays of insight revealed during her walking meditations in the woods and along the shore. Come along and see what you can find yourself!
INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, collaged elements, color copies, color scans, colored markers, digital art, ephemera, essays, found art, found objects, found poetry, hand-drawn fonts, handmade rubber stamp art, ink jet copies, land art, laser prints, original photographs, poetry, and quotes. With gratitude to Keri Smith and guest appearances by Dale Carlson, Joseph Cornell, Ami McKay, Charles Simic, William Butler Yeats, and more!
MANIFEST (zine): Heroically Found is part of THE EXCHANGE, a statewide Connecticut Artist Treasure Hunt on view, August 15 – November 1, 2022 (rain or sun). It includes GPS-tracking, QR codes, and adventuring to 15 unique public art installations by 23 participating artists. The designated sites can be accessed through a map with GPS coordinates found at www.SomethingProjects.net.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
**CAUTION** DO NOT USE WATER FOR THE FOLLOWING PURPOSES: SWIMMING AND OTHER WATER CONTACT, FISHING, IRRIGATION, LIVESTOCK WATERING, DRINKING…
Did the green heron see the sign? Or was he given advanced notice to vacate his perch on the east side of the pond?
As he left, did he call out to the wood duck brood and mallards? Warn the turtles, frogs, fish?
“It’s only moderatelytoxic they say, but I don’t want to take chances.”
(Would you?)
The swan keeps a 40-foot distance, wonders if the chemical floats downstream, wonder if it’s as harmful as the turtle who snapped up her babes last spring.
The northern water snake who often skims across the pond knows not of half-lifes or bioaccumulations.
Nor will the field mouse debate the meaning of practically non-toxic with the bees who remain.
Of course you were the one to call. It was late, I remember, a rainy night like the last time we met. Cars on the wet, weathered pavement, wipers marking time. Starshine in puddles and you, light years away, saying you knew I’d want to know, knew he’d been important. You knew despite the distance in our orbits, despite our final kiss that birthed a galaxy between us. My heart. You knew.
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL ZINE MONTH! Come on over to the Three Chairs Publishing website and join me as we celebrate a month full of zine things! Find out about zines, zine libraries, zine history, how to make your own zine and more!
In the ruins of my cathedral I can still hear the angels sing they from their loft of branches and I on bended knee begging for absolution that will not come
not from the pine at the pulpit sheared off in the storm
not from the maple whose leaves filtered light more beautifully than glass
not from the elm or the ash who lie beneath my feet extinguished by our blaze our red hot disregard
so keenly unconcerned that we are of this and part of this and crumbling at our very foundation
the beech knows its grief spreads like sickness now
The deer in the field were startled by the first shot, were you? You in your pews a thousand feet away there praying for sins praying for life while gun club gunshots rang in the holy morning, frightened the deer
and the bobolink.
Or you, while the tactical defense cleric in police surplice preached a safety sermon to the congregation there from the sacred pulpit: carry your faith defend from evil shoot to kill all lives matter…
This special “quarantine zine” features the words and images and thoughts within which we found REFUGE last year. The literal and figurative reflections, the comforting quotes and laugh-out-loud memes that kept us breathing all those long months, and helped us regain our sea legs when it seemed like the worst was behind us. Includes a full color, 36-page booklet, fun inserts, a curated Spotify playlist, and more! Cost: $6.00.
The Annual Subscription rate of $20 includes four issues of MANIFEST (zine), and starts with the September issue REFUGE: A Quarantine Zine.
Part lit mag, part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the eclectic creation of writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. Consider it a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring writing, photography, and artwork, along with bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on themes like change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times. Each issue also includes a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
Back in the early 90s, I created a newsletter called The Latest News as a way to keep in touch with college friends and family. It had essays, quotes, photos, bits and pieces of personal news.
I didn’t know it was a “zine” until I read about the zine phenomenon and learned about Mike Gunderloy who reviewed and cataloged thousands of zines in his publication Factsheet Five. I sent him a copy of The Latest News and he reviewed it, and the next thing I knew — BAM! More than 350 people had subscribed and were reading my little 4-page, photocopied newsletter zine!
And then more BAM! The New York Times interviewed me about zines. And Tom Trusky, a professor at Boise State University invited me to be part of a zine exhibit called Some Zines: American Alternative & Underground Magazines, Newsletters & APAs. And later, The Latest News was featured in several retrospective books about the zine phenomenon: Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture and The World of Zines: A Guide to the Independent Magazine Revolution.
Flash forward…I hate to say this, OMG…30 years, and BAM! MANIFEST (zine) showed up on my creative radar.
It’s been 12 months since I launched this new project, and I can’t tell you how amazed I am at the response. Folks from all over the planet have read about Divine Intervention and Cat Lady Confessions, they’ve discovered It’s About Time and what one does about Crickets. And they’ve been enthusiastic and supportive about what comes next.
I don’t know what comes next…or should I say which idea comes next, because I have a bunch! I hope you’ll stick around for the adventure.
Did you know that each issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a Spotify playlist especially curated for readers? For the CRICKETS issue, I had fun playing off the themes of silence, finding one’s voice, and creating from the heart. It features an eclectic set of songs by artists like Disturbed, Grace Carter, Barry Manilow, John Mayer, Natasha Bedingfield, and Brandi Carlile. Take a listen now!
IMAGE: Midsummer Frolic, British Library Digital Library, When Life is Young, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, 1894.
Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” So we write. And we create. No matter who listens or responds. Crickets be damned.
MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.
INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, black-out poetry, collaged elements, color copies, colored markers, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, vintage illustrations, watercolor paints, and “11 Cute Facts About Crickets.”
With THANKS to to the British Library Digital Library, Brené Brown, Leonard Cohen, Carlo Collodi, Francis Crick, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Natalie Goldberg, Charles d. Orbigny, Pinocchio, George Selden, the Trustees of the British Museum, James Watson, and Margaret J. Wheatley.
Issue #4, Crickets 24-page, full-color 4.25 x 5.5, Cost: $6.00
If you are a dreamer, come in, If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer… If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire For we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! come in!
— Shel Silverstein
Indeed, if you are a dreamer, a wisher, a magic bean buyer…then you must visit THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center. It’s truly one of the most unique shopping destinations, offering a selection of contemporary American crafts and jewelry handmade by local artists and others from across the country. You’ll find works in glass, metal, ceramics, wood, fiber, paper, toys and much more.
Much more…like copies of MANIFEST (zine)!
I’m excited to say that MANIFEST (zine) can now be purchased at THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center, along with copies of my books and postcards. Check it out!
When I published my first book, LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, I imagined a complementary art installation: framed photos from the book, poems printed large and hung like tapestries, a CD of woodland sounds in the background.
I had other ideas, too. (I still do.)
A show at New Haven’s Kehler Liddell Gallery (2017) came close. “Random Acts of Writing: Common Ground” — featuring three of my poems and one photograph — was included in INAUGURATION NATION, an open forum exhibit that responded to the political and social climate of the time.
That same year, large framed photos from my second book, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were featured in the exhibit WHERE THE WHOLE UNIVERSE DWELLS at Perspectives, The Gallery at Whitney Center.
You might recognize the theme of my very first art installation effort. Random Acts of Writing: Pushing Time was included in the SHUFFLE & SHAKE exhibit at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery in 2016. Its three poems and wall clock all appear in MANIFEST (zine): It’s About Time.
You see, it turns out, a lot of my “other ideas” fit neatly into the format that is a zine. Zines, as explained on the Wikipedia page dedicated to this phenomenon, “cover broad topics including fanfiction, politics, poetry, art & design, ephemera, personal journals, social theory, intersectional feminism, single-topic obsession” and more. They have such cultural relevance, there are dedicated zine archives/libraries at Barnard College, the University of Iowa, Duke University, the Tate Museum, the British Library, Harvard University, and at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
So many publications, so many topics, so many ideas! Check it out yourself and stay tuned!
Photo from the Sojourner Truth Library’s Zine Library at the State University of New York, New Paltz
LET’S START WITH: WHAT IS A ZINE? According to Wikipedia, a zine — pronounced zeen — is a small circulation, self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier. It has no defined shape or size, and may contain anything from poetry, prose, and essays, to comics, art, or photography.
A zine is a multi-purposed publication form that has deep roots in political, punk, feminist, artistic, and other subculture communities. Original zinesters are rumored to include Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Margaret Fuller.
SO THEN, WHAT IS MANIFEST (zine) ? Let’s consider…
MANIFEST (noun): a list of contents
MANIFEST (verb): to make a record of; to set down in permanent form
MANIFEST (adjective): easily understood or recognized by the mind
Then see alsoMANIFESTO (noun): a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer;
and see also, especially, MANIFESTING (noun) : the creative process of aligning with the energy of the Universe to co-create an experience that elevates your spirit and the spirit of the world;
at which point, you might begin to understand… Manifest (zine)!
It was rather serendipitous last year that the first issue of MANIFEST (zine) came out just in time for International Zine Month! An auspicious debut and an amazing first year! So, today we celebrate! Happy Birthday MANIFEST (zine)…and many more!
Thanks to Alex Wrek at Stolen Sharpie Revolution, we’re celebrating INTERNATIONAL ZINE MONTH! Stay tuned for lots of good zine things and consider these ways to celebrate throughout the month of July!
Maybe for breakfast you have one egg and toast without butter, and coffee without cream,
and maybe you swallow down the bitter truth of it with a token smile,
grab your bag from the hallway table, and escape into the crisp, cold morning air
breathe……….breathe for a while
because you know at supper, after work, you’ll only have one glass of wine, if that
and you’ll take those things you brought home with you today — the snips and pieces of passion — and tuck them back into that bag, that safe hiding place until tomorrow
so it’s easier tonight to be one-note and unobjectionable,
small and of no consequence to anyone’s conceit
so it’s easier to say no, no, no, it’s OK, and this is enough,
when what you wanted to say was
“I’ll have orange marmalade and butter, please, and sweet cream that whips to a peak, and three chilled glasses of Rosé.”
“I want to get up on that dance floor, darling, and make a complete fool of myself because one of us is leaving soon, and we won’t get this chance again!”
One of my favorite things about the work I get do to for my books and zines is the sleuthing. Hunting down random (often misappropriated) quotes, getting permissions to reprint, finding hard copy proof. Evidence for my readers — and myself — that I have done due diligence to make what you hold in your hands valid and true to the best of my abilities.
As a student of English literature and journalism, and as a life-long writer and citer, I feel an incredible responsibility to validate as many of my references as possible. To remind my readers, for example, that it was Henry Stanley Haskins who wrote “What lies behind us and what lies before us are but tiny matters compared to what lies within us,” not Ralph Waldo Emerson or Gandhi, and not Buddha.
When I was writing LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, in which I used that quote, I actually spent six months researching and properly attributing quotes. That task included rabbit holes like the quote sourced to a 1970s motivational poster printed by an academic publisher in Texas written by a retired social worker in Oak Park, Illinois.
I get a little geeky when it comes to that kind of thing. Like a dog with a bone. Truth be told, I love it as much Alice loved going on her adventures!
My most recent adventure involved Leonard Cohen and a 60-year-old book.
While I was working on the spring issue of MANIFEST (zine): CRICKETS, I found a beautiful poem by Cohen called “Summer Haiku.” The poem appeared in his book The Spice-Box of Earth of which there was a rare, limited edition hardcover edition that included illustrations by Frank Newfeld, a renowned Canadian illustrator and book designer.
There were several copies of the book available online starting at around $200, which is a tad higher than my budget for the zine project. Less expensive copies did not include the Newfeld illustrations, and by this point in the adventure those were key.
I did find and purchase issue number 56 of The Devil’s Artisan: A Journal of the Printing Arts that featured Newfeld’s work on delicious, offset-printed, antique laid pages. It even included a letterpressed color keepsake of Newfeld’s illustration for Cohen’s poem “The Gift,” which appears in The Spice-Box of Earth.
I went on to find a bookseller in Canada, Steven Temple, who owns a copy of the 1961 edition. Searching through the 10,000 books he attends to in his home-based bookshop, he found and took the photo of “Summer Haiku” that appears in CRICKETS.
Of course, I was still curious. What did the rest of the book look like? How many poems were there? How many illustrations? How could I see it? Read it?
My local library did not have a copy of the book, nor did Google Books. According to a 2016 article in Toronto Life, the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is “home to 140 banker’s boxes worth of Cohen’s archives” including “handwritten notes and letters, portraits, CDs, paintings, novel manuscripts, books, early drafts of his poetry and lyrics, and even art he made when he lived as a Buddhist monk.” Would it include a digital copy of The Spice-Box of Earth?
It did not.
Nor did the online Library and Archives of Canada or the Canadian Electronic Library. But on the Hathi Trust Digital Library website there was a helpful “Find in a Library” link that, when clicked, revealed some familiar and within-driving-distance names: Yale University, Wesleyan University, Connecticut College.
Lightbulb! I immediately emailed a woman I know at our local library, Deb Trofatter, who is the Associate Librarian for Reference Services and Technology, and asked…by any chance…can you get a copy of…
Which is how, on May 15, I came to have in my hands a 60-year-old hardcover copy of Leonard Cohen’s The Spice-Box of Earth to savor and share.
NOTES & LINKS
• The Spice-Box of Earth, illustrated by Frank Newfeld. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1961).
Alice photo from a Fortnum & Mason (London) holiday window display, possibly 2006. Photographer not found yet.
MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure. Click here to order your copy today!
Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” So we write. And we create. No matter who listens or responds. Crickets be damned.
MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.
INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, black-out poetry, collaged elements, color copies, colored markers, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, vintage illustrations, watercolor paints, and “11 Cute Facts About Crickets.”
With THANKS to to the British Library Digital Library, Brené Brown, Leonard Cohen, Carlo Collodi, Francis Crick, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Natalie Goldberg, Charles d. Orbigny, Pinocchio, George Selden, the Trustees of the British Museum, James Watson, and Margaret J. Wheatley.
Issue #4, Crickets 24-page, full-color 4.25 x 5.5, Cost: $6.00
Emily Fletcher, author of the awesome book Stress Less, Accomplish More: Meditation for Extraordinary Performance, writes “When we create something — whether it’s dinner for a friend, a presentation at work, a self-published memoir, or a new company — we’re stepping into the unknown and making ourselves vulnerable by putting into concrete terms something we had nurtured in our mind.”
MANIFEST (zine) is just that.
Emerging from creative inspirations and the solitude of the pandemic, this colorful, eclectic publication features my own writing and artwork, along with thoughts and images from a host of guest artists and authors, all dancing loosely around themes like change, time, and silence. The result — what has been manifest especially for you — is a thought-full, tactile journey of consideration and contemplation.
Curious? You can buy individual issues below for just $6.00 or SUBSCRIBE now and get 4 issues for $20.00.
The newest issue — Crickets — should be ready in June. I can’t wait for you to see it! Until then, sending wishes for good inspiration and steady health!
Love,
Jen Payne
Writer / Poet / Artist
Three Chairs Publishing
Issue #4, CRICKETS
Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” Issue #4 of MANIFEST (zine) presents a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery.
PREORDER – Ships June 1
24-Page, Color, 4.25 x 5.5 Booklet, curated Spotify playlist, $6.00 BUY NOW!
Issue #3, IT’S ABOUT TIME
We humans sure are creative with time, aren’t we? This arbitrary turning clocks backward and forward twice a year, assigning time to zones and lines and frames. I myself try to trick time, setting clocks randomly wrong and always fast as if I can somehow control the hours, beat the unwinnable Kobayashi Maru of time. Even Albert Einstein said time is an illusion — “a stubbornly persistent illusion” — that time and space are merely “modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” Of course, if you think too hard on things like that you end up down rabbit holes and worm holes…want to come along?
Issue #2, CAT LADY CONFESSIONS
Poor Cat Lady. She always gets a bum rap. No one ever makes fun of Ernest Hemingway, whose Key West home was filled with cats — and he of a certain age. His strapping action figure includes a typewriter and a shotgun. Cat Lady? She gets six cats, bed head, and a ratty bathrobe. Doesn’t she earn points for opening her heart wide open? for loving even the most unlovable? for her strong, independent nature; Her patience and acceptance? for her superpower ability to nurture trust, stillness, solitude, balance? This issue of MANIFEST (zine) explores the oft-maligned life of the cat lady: crazy or contemplative? recluse or dancing to the beat of her own drum? You decide.
Issue #1, DIVINE INTERVENTION
What is the force that moves us? Changes us? Propels us with such acceleration that we hardly recognize ourselves. Is it grief, heartbreak, indignation? Or joy, courage, determination? Perhaps it is DIVINE INTERVENTION — masked for our benefit as demon or angel or a hurried white rabbit who intrigues us just enough to move. To trip, fall, test the waters, grow up, expand, explore. And praise be to that because often, so very often, those big and unexpected transitions become our greatest and most profound adventures.
Damn those little murders,
those small infractions
to which we pay no mind
save for the evidence markers
placed at the foot of the moment this, here, remember.
Wise or not wise we file them away
in a box called Misdemeanors
until the shelf bends and breaks
and proof bears witness;
only then do we see the trail of blood
from that first red flag
to a catalog of minor injuries
and shallow stab wounds,
enough to leave us only hobbled,
the walking wounded.
In court, they’d present the facts
prove we didn’t plan for this
to any known degree;
a crime of accident and
unintended consequences;
suggest Self-Defense,
and we’d both just nod to agree.
I am sure the red fox wonders,
as does the otter and friends,
what happened to the horizon,
why the light that’s not a star shines
from sun down to sun up
with no seeming purpose,
why the fresh salt air is slow to come
The gulls know, of course
They see from the sky
the new and larger rooftops,
the wide expanses of useless green,
the decks and porches and drives,
the construction constructed from the edge of their pond to the edge of the harbor
They see even, in the biggest living room
of the biggest house
the big screen TV,
which,
on certain mornings,
lights the horizon just like a sun,
casts shadows on the fox
and the otter
who will never know again
the rush of first light and certain breezes.
TALK ABOUT MANIFESTING…they hadn’t yet come out with the action figure when I was first called a “Cat Lady.” Besides, at 23, I was hardly the poster child for “a cultural archetype most often depicted as a woman, a middle-aged or elderly spinster, who has many cats.” I was young and dancing to the beat of some wicked good 80s music, just being me, coloring a little outside of the lines. And I only had one cat.
Truth be told, back then I thought “Cat Lady” was a term of endearment — sweet, soft, cuddly — not a derisive comment meant to make me feel less valid or valuable. Crazy, even; abnormal and somehow unable to abide by cultural expectations.
Poor Cat Lady. She always gets a bum rap. No one ever makes fun of Ernest Hemingway, whose Key West home was filled with cats — and he of a certain age. His strapping action figure includes a typewriter and a shotgun. Cat Lady? She gets six cats, bed head, and a ratty bathrobe.
Doesn’t she earn points for opening her heart wide open? for loving even the most unlovable? for her strong, independent nature; Her patience and acceptance? for her superpower ability to nurture trust, stillness, solitude, balance?
Her action figure should be quietly fierce. And wearing a purple silk kimono…just like me!
Curious? Then get your copy of the latest issue of MANFEST (zine) today!
Issue #2, CAT LADY CONFESSIONS explores the oft-maligned life of the cat lady: crazy or contemplative? recluse or dancing to the beat of her own drum? You decide. Includes a curated Spotify playlist. (Color, 24-page booklet)
Part of the Coin-Operated Press Christmas Zine Fair
JEN PAYNE is no stranger to the zine phenomenon. Her first zine —The Latest News — came out in the early 1990s during the golden age of Factsheet Five and Mike Gunderloy. Since those early days writing The Latest News, Jen has enjoyed putting her writing out into the world through the online lit/art journal Creative Soup, her blog Random Acts of Writing, and as part of art installations, literary magazines, and anthologies. Her most recent effort, Three Chairs Publishing, is a vehicle for her four published books and other creative projects, like MANIFEST (zine).
Click below to read the full interview by Coin-Operated Press!
As the cold winter nights draw in, Coin-Operated Press is showcasing fellow zine-makers just in time for the Hollyday season! Their first annual Christmas Zine Fair is online THIS weekend, Saturday December 5 and Sunday December 6.
Visit the Christmas Zine Fair to check out our zine-makers at their virtual tables.
The folks at Coin-Operated Press will be live throughout the day with loads of cool zine happenings! So, do visit the fair a few times, and/or make sure you turn on your notification for this event on Facebook so you don’t miss out on any of the festive fun!
MANIFEST (zine) will make a special appearance on Sunday at 6am GMT. We’ll add a link when we’re live!
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5
10:00 Welcome/Opening Post from Coin-Op Press 11:00 Christmas Zine Shop Launch 12:00 Caw & Paw 13:00 Charlie Birch 14:00 Chloe Henderson 15:00 Drawn Poorly Zine 16:00 Dungeon Maven Games 17:00 Coin-Operated Press Interview Video on YouTube 18:00 Echo Zines 19:00 Fuzzy Cherry Zines 20:00 Thank you for coming/see you tomorrow from Coin-Op Press
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6
10am Welcome/Opening Post Day 2 11:00 MANIFEST (zine) 12:00 Mini-Komix 13:00 Regional by Sam 14:00 Sean Dempsey 15:00 Sublunam 16:00 Tentaclerental 17:00 Weirdo Brigade 19:00 Thank you for coming/goodbye from Coin-Op Press!
MANIFEST (zine) presents Cat Lady Confessions, a full-color exposé that explores the oft-maligned life of the cat lady: crazy or contemplative? recluse or dancing to the beat of her own drum? You decide.
Now on sale, this 24-page, color booklet includes essays, poetry, and mixed media collage pieces. You’ll get to make your own Cat Lady mask, and dance around to a Spotify playlist curated especially for this issue.
Part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the creation of writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. It’s a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring Jen’s creative efforts along with inspirational quotes, and bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on a theme.
Layered with colors, textures, and meanings, each issue is handmade then color-copied and embellished. The result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
Cat Lady Confessions costs $6.00, but you can subscribe to MANIFEST (zine) and get four issues for just $20.00. Support the project as a $30.00 Sponsor and get four issues plus a special gift!
CLICK HERE for more information or order your copy today!
Issue #2, CAT LADY CONFESSIONS explores the oft-maligned life of the cat lady: crazy or contemplative? recluse or dancing to the beat of her own drum? You decide. Includes a curated Spotify playlist. (Color, 24-page booklet)
The Spotify playlist that’s included with this issue includes 10 familiar songs, sung as only a cat lady can. Enjoy this classic, sung by Psapp, now.
The 6am bird outside my window
knows nothing of this angst,
the heavy beat of my heart,
it just sings peter-peter-peter
peter-peter-peter
and sings some more,
but I have no song
not this day, not this week
I am speechless
and songless
and almost…
almost
hopeless.
Do you think the titmouse
would still sing if it
could see the foreshadow of winter,
the deception of sunshine days,
and the unkind cold of darkness?
Would the lilt of peter-peter-peter
peter-peter-peter
be just as joyful,
playful even as birds skip
from branch to branch
this November morning?
Will I be joyful
or playful even, in the shadow
of what comes or doesn’t come,
what hides hungry in wait,
or what the fresh sky offers
as holy compensation?
In the long space between cars
from the Sunday road,
I could hear the bell buoy
just off shore,
the breeze from the Sound
pushed curtains aside
allowing a view south
to see, from my window,
the fall migration,
to wonder at how things change
so quickly and so slowly
while I folded, carefully,
in meditation……….and mediation
each and every sheet
in my possession
the cool cottons and soft flannels,
the cooperative flats,
and grumbly fitteds
housekeeping
housekeeping
housekeeping
as if in the folding
I could lose the grief,
misplace the pain,
find comfort in neat tucked corners
and sweet even stacks
knowing that they’ll return —
the birds — in spring,
and life goes on.
Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.
My nephew, fresh from the pages of Tolkien,
sees a fish carcass on the beach,
predicts Gollum! though we both wonder.
He considers the waves left from a storm,
the wind that blows us each askew,
thinks with furrowed brow, like me
as I sift through those things I know:
the trespass of raw sewage
and slick film of leached oil,
the change of warming waters,
our persistent lack of rain.
But he’s off on a new adventure now,
throwing boulders with grunts and gasps, Take that! he yells, a holler into the wind
as loud as mine would be if allowed
to grieve the things he cannot see.
There was snow
and she was her usual
ornery self about the matter — I don’t like snow
in a sweet huffy fit
mirroring her petulant I don’t like trees
when she’d sneeze.
How I miss all of that,
but I digress…
There was snow
and she was her usual:
the smile-and-laugh
approach to hard hard life,
a big and bold disguise
a wink even, I think,
and then she left.
She left and then
the living room light
turned on by itself
lit from a beam of sun
she never saw coming
coming through the window
then the radio lit for morning…
Tell me all your thoughts on God ‘Cause I’m on my way to see her
What is life without poetry? What is life without music?
Sponsor MANIFEST (zine) today for just $25.00 and get 2 issue of this new art/poetry zine PLUS a FREE Spotify playlist that dances around the themes of change and Divine Intervention.
In the pieces of memory
and scraps of conversations
transcribed in situ
I will tell you about
the headless groom
and the dead dog,
about the failure of Saint Raphael
and the irony of the phrase
“you could get hit by a bus.”
I’ll tell you the 15,000 words that broke me
and the ones that almost put me back together
until I realized my heart was better
cracked wide-open like that anyhow.
Now all I need to do is type
Part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the creation of Branford, CT writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. Consider it a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring Jen’s writing and mixed-media collage work, along with photography, quotes, and bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on a theme.
Layered with colors, textures, and meanings, each issue is handmade then color-copied, embellished, and intricately folded. The result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
Issue #1, DIVINE INTERVENTION asks the reader to consider the catalysts and consequences of Change: What are the forces that move us? Change us? Propel us with such acceleration that we hardly recognize ourselves?
The new white tuft in my hair
reminds me of the rabbit
who lived in my yard last spring.
I called her Idiom,
soft brown fur, also white tufted,
she taking time to smell roses
when I could not.
Now there is all the time in the world
to smell roses,
to smell daffodils, tulips, lilacs, iris, peonies
each in succession, not waiting for us
or virus or waves or protests or
the great collective consciousness to
wake the fuck up and see how it’s all connected
the microscopic virus,
the pandemics of greed and hate,
the white tuft in my hair,
the small new rabbit,
the small new baby, even
who mews like all new creatures
white, black, furred, feathered
who may or may not outrun the fox
to meet the multiflora rose next June
introduce themselves to the clover
its bumble and honey companions
I step softly over so as not to disturb
their humble prayers or mine
to a god who needs no standard,
requires no bloodletting,
asks no more than sweet, simple reverence
I SWEAR I DIDN’T PLAN IT! I swear I didn’t plan to launch my new zine, MANIFEST (zine), on the cusp of International Zine Month (thanks Alex Wrekk). But sometimes really good things happen that way!
WHAT IS A ZINE, YOU ASK? A zine — pronounced zeen — is a small circulation, self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier. It has no defined shape or size, and may contain anything from poetry, prose, and essays, to comics, art, or photography.
A zine is a multi-purposed publication form that has deep roots in political, punk, feminist, artistic, and other subculture communities. Original zinesters are rumored to include Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Margaret Fuller. Google it. You’ll be surprised by what you find!
NOW, TALK ABOUT REALLY GOOD THINGS HAPPENING… Back in the early 90s, I created a newsletter called The Latest News as a way to keep in touch with college friends and family. It had essays, quotes, photos, bits and pieces of personal news. I didn’t know it was a zine until I read about the zine phenomenon and learned about Mike Gunderloy who reviewed and cataloged thousands of zines in his publication Factsheet Five. Then I sent him a copy of The Latest News and he reviewed it, and the next thing I knew — BAM! More than 350 people had subscribed and were reading my little 4-page, photocopied zine!
And then more BAM! The New York Times interviewed me about zines once. And Tom Trusky, a professor at Boise State University invited me to be part of a zine exhibit called Some Zines: American Alternative & Underground Magazines, Newsletters & APAs. And later, The Latest News was featured in several retrospective books about the zine phenomenon: Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture and The World of Zines: A Guide to the Independent Magazine Revolution.
Flash forward…I hate to say this, OMG…30 years, and here we are: MANIFEST (zine) and International Zine Month. Go figure!
The experience of MANIFEST (zine) so far has been pretty go-figure magical. Maybe enchanted? The idea to do a zine (again) just appeared. The first issue, Divine Intervention, practically gathered itself together — one piece inspiring the next and the next. The final printed piece makes me smile every time I look at it, and folks who have read it so far seem to feel the same way.
Bottom line? It’s really, really good to be back!
So Happy International Zine Month!
ONE ISSUE July 2020 Divine Intervention $5.00
SUBSCRIPTION Annual, 2020 2 issues $10.00
PROJECT SPONSOR 2 issues, 2020 plus a special gift $25.00
I’m reading Mary Oliver again
and for the first time, too, it seems,
meeting once more my kindred
in these quieter, solitary days —
only she likes dogs and I’m allergic, so
I think of the love I’ve shared with cats
and superimpose that over
what she so easily offers on the page,
allowing me to sink my feet
deep into the sand of beaches we love,
find borrowed respite and fresh salt air
as she walks and they walk and we walk.
This is not unlike my general effort of late,
translating dogs into cats,
crumbs into cake, lemons into aid,
finding devotion somewhere
in the twists and turns of what is,
of here and now, of no I don’t love dogs but I do love you,
and damn it someone should write that down
to remember before it’s too late.
Like Mary did:
gathered up all of her words
her favorite words, her treasured words
her words so precious and important
they required devotion
in this heavy record
of everything she wanted to say
and everything she held in silence
“This,” my friend says, “is lovely.”
Lovely is never a word
I use to describe the ugly afghan
crocheted by my grandmother
and dragged out of storage
when guests sleep on the sofa.
It is avocado green and orange,
milk chocolate brown,
and amber gold,
like the gold my parents
painted the kitchen
of our new house back then.
“She picked each color herself,”
my friend explains,
as she carefully runs her fingers
up and over the zigzag pattern
with awe and affection,
though she never
met my grandmother.
It is the color palette
of my seventies family,
when Mom and Dad
were almost-happy still,
my sister played with Barbie
by the sliding glass window,
and my bangs were
appropriately feathered
away from my face.
“She thought about
you and your family
with each stitch.”
I could see her then,
sitting in her green recliner,
counting stitches like
the beads on her Rosary. Love Boat on the Sylvania,
drinking instant iced tea
while a cigarette smokes
from the ashtray.
It was after her husband died,
and she traveled with her dog Coco,
bringing Shoo Fly Pie and
Moravian Sugar Cake from
Pennsylvania to our house
in Connecticut.
That Christmas,
she crocheted ponchos for us, too,
and took me to Hawaii
to see my Grandfather’s name
carved in marble at the
Pearl Harbor Memorial,
watch as she traced his name
with her fingers, slowly.
The same deft hands
that crafted this blanket
raised a son and daughter
independently in the fifties;
folded in prayer
for neighbors and friends;
prepared feasts
with love
for grandchildren.
“So much thought went into this,”
my friend continues,
as we carefully fold the afghan
and place it on top
of the antique hope chest
in the corner.
The contrast of
misty gray
against
May green
in the treetops
out the window
tells me it’s raining
before I even hear
the gentle tapping
on leaves
and grass
and spring flowers
bowed in gratitude
for the veil of quiet
descending
even poets bow
for the respite stay inside
the rain says, there’s a poem waiting
I drove the get-away car that day,
left it on idle in the parking space
closest to the electronic OUT door
of Porter’s Grocery there in Alpine.
It was a bright Texas day, hot,
the car angled in shade enough
for a clear-on view of the lobby,
bulletin board, handbills, and tacks.
We’d scoped out the joint before,
cased the aisles for jerky
and a bottle of wine for dinner
back in Marfa at the Thunderbird.
There was a nice patio
outside our room with blue lights
like the alien spaceships
you could see there sometimes?
Funny things in that part of Texas:
spaceships and meteors,
a roadside Prada shoe outlet,
Chinati’s take on art, and ours.
Ours was her, Viva Terlingua!
in her sunset-red cowboy hat,
hand-strung turquoise beads, and
that witty West Texas smile.
It’s a smile that says just about all
you want to say about West Texas,
about the wild Trans-Pecos
and its wide expanse of stars.
It’s a promise of whiskey at La Kiva,
or hot coffee while the sun rises
over Terlingua and Study Butte
over Big Bend and the Rio Grande.
It’s a smile that remembers solitude,
the promise of oddity and isolation,
of community, maybe, companionship —
two friends on the road laughing.
It’s the awesome sound a car makes solo
on a nighttime desert highway,
or peeling out from the Porter’s, Viva Terlingua! rolled up in the back seat.
Viva Terlingua! was featured on a 2010 poster from the Original Terlingua Chili Championship. The artwork is by Texas-based artist Frank X. Tolbert 2. You can see more of his amazing work on his website, here. The Original Terlingua Chili Championship ( link ) was started in 1967 by his father Frank X. Tolbert Sr. and a group of local men. Special thanks to his daughter, Kathleen Ryan, for filling in these details on a recent serendipitous Saturday.
Serendipity Part 2: While searching for the artist who created the original for this poster, I emailed the folks at the Original Terlingua Chili Championship. The woman I contacted was Kathleen Ryan, who turned out to be the daughter of the one of the event’s founders, and sister of the artist. Now I just found out she is also THE WOMAN IN THE PAINTING! Unbelievable!
It’s hard to hide from yourself
in a pandemic, day in day out
living without distractions,
your reflection suddenly more real
reveals the things you forgot,
like age
or your grandmother
stooped over the sink too,
her familiar refrain
your familiar refrain Oh god, you wake one morning
realize this is the same day, again
day in day out day in day out
and not just because of some virus
but because you, YOU have
worn down a path from the bed
to the bath to the sink
where you stoop now
see your reflections in the mirror
as the sun rises and the birds sing
and trickster fox laughs from the yard
laughs at you, your bucket list,
your not-now-someday-maybe,
that wisp of gray descending
so long you can’t ignore.
She assumes the thin space
between me and the keyboard,
in front of anything I had to do right now,
her tail swooped against my hand resting
on the mouse that does all of the work.
I think to push her away but
her fur is soft and comforting
something to hold and touch,
her breath is purry and hypnotic,
and she is patient in her morning
meditation or prayer, insistence
here, this next day in the series of days
we keep together in this space
she in her routine and I in mine
like yesterday and its day before
or tomorrow and its day after
we assume, god and virus willing,
oh, for the company of this cat
So I just let go of my things to do,
wrap both arms around and
lean into her small warm body
as it expands and contracts
gently against my chest,
snuggle my face into the sweet
spot she loves between her ears
at the top her head, close my eyes
and listen to her breath, and mine
this singular hug of the day.
I’m in the woods.
Grandgirl says
as she steps her
wee self off the trail
and into the leaves
then gallops
ahead to chase
the butterfly
see the meadow I’m in the woods!
he says, too,
as Nephew leaps
from the inside
breathes the outside
and careens
down a path
in front of us
climbing rocks
light saber at the ready
running
running
running
She won’t remember
these days I didn’t play,
didn’t get down on the floor
with Abby and Coda
to rock the babies,
didn’t bark like a dog,
hide her from Grandpa lion,
or make the earth quake Boom Boom Boom!
She’ll forget the missing
hide-and-seek,
the blanket tent,
the book we didn’t read,
the one of us who wasn’t
stealing blocks
or great little hugs
or selfies……….not again
For now she just remembers
to seek the mask-hid smile
to lean hard in for half a hug,
to blow a kiss, six feet big
to sing a See ya later!
as I turn away to leave
this sweetest little blessing
is the memory I get to keep.
She worries most, she says
about salvation
— afterlife, eternal life —
rarely this one
this precious one,
except about her
rights and wrongs,
her delicate walk
inside the lines;
says she worries
about me, too,
my wayward path,
its final stop,
but we agree
most days
to disagree,
find comfort in
our common path
of grade school steps
and wonderings,
of nature and of art,
of familiar faces
that look the same —
but probably don’t
now 40 years gone by —
these are the things
that just won’t change
come what may
and never mind.
Grandmother Maple
at the eastern corner of my yard
blinks with her feathered yellow lids
into the sparkling blue sky day,
embraces a family of Squirrels this year,
once it was an Owl, and long ago Raccoons.
She watches over the lone Chipmunk
who comes up late mornings to sun himself,
grass waist high and eyes alert
for the Red Tail who soars through less
now that the Osprey have returned,
and nested again nearby.
Also nesting are the pack of Jays
who ruckused all winter by the feeder,
and Mama Robin, her brood-to-be
in the Privet — oh how I try not to startle her
on my way to the mailbox,
she flies so low across the street
and I worry for her safety
most days, these days that blend
one to the next and the next.
Do you think they know?
Wonder why we’re so quiet,
not ruckusing ourselves as much?
Did the Spider who fell on my pillow last night
disregard my weighty self out of pity, leave her to her deep, deep sleep,
her long, thick dreams,
weave a bit of compassion in her web
or leave to party with the Peepers,
dance in the moonlight under
these quiet, clear skies —
hardly missing us at all,
our heavy, unkind footsteps
upon divine Mother Earth.
And so returns the machine,
its slow metal grind,
its teeth too hungry to wait,
for there are coffers to fill,
coffins, too, but pay no mind,
sacrifice a percent or two
for the Republic,
tithe your blood and breath
for the common good — for god’s sake a haircut,
and a chance to worship
your false gods once more
on the courts, the screens,
in the checkout line,
at the pulpit, praise the lord,
get down on your knees
in gratitude to the great, bloated men
who saved you with empty words,
wore down your mettle
with false science,
gave up your many
to jerk off the few —
the few who won’t ever notice
your last vassal breath
as it seeps from the machine,
the sad, foul exhaust
that clouds the skies once more.
What is life without poetry?
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