Nicholas Gagnier's Blog

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“Georgia’s blunt and clear pronouncement style is endearing and cleaves a place for itself in your subconscious, a little like all good poets who know how to say what we may already know, in such a way it will be a piece of art. I personally related to the quiet voice that spoke of Georgia’s desire to publish and be known for her writing, and how you talk to yourself as you go through the highs and lows of daring to be a writer. I found that very honest, it pried open my sympathies as well as showing the savage reality of trying to attain this status in today’s oversaturated world.”

Candice Louisa Daquin, Pinch the Lock

“Georgia Park returns with her whimsical poetry and deadpan humour in the 2nd edition of Quit Your Job and Become a Poet (Out of Spite!), including new content and less typos. This is a book full of heart, illustrations, laughs and heartbreak as Park makes her transition from an arrogant young woman to one of the most powerful feminist poets today.”

Nicholas Gagnier, Free Verse Revolution/Blank Paper Press

There’s something wrong with you if these poems don’t speak to you. If they don’t speak to you it means you are not vulnerable. It means you are uncomfortable when someone is completely honest with you. It means someone sitting next to you on an airplane who is about to tell you the most incredible story you’ve heard in your life and is silenced because you are too busy to listen. Truth is, you are not too busy, but you don’t want to listen to the person next to you in the airplane because you are too busy pretending to read the in-flight magazine. You’re a unlucky sap who flips pages about the Taquerias in Atlanta, that you will never eat or speak about. It’s too bad because you have passed on some real life.

Timothy Gager, an Amazon Review

Honest, witty and clever, Park’s story comes vividly alive through her unique style. She’ll have you chuckling along with her through her journey and nodding your head “yes” with her the whole time. This book serves as an inspiration to aspiring writers everywhere.

Cat, an Amazon Review

QUIT YOUR JOB AND BECOME A POET IS NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON AS A PAPERBACK AND ON KINDLE

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Like a monk

walking barefoot at dawn

to collect his alms

I collect notes of recommendation

based on small acts of kindness and

a bald faced willingness to lie,

transcripts

bills I can’t begin to pay

and anticipate rejection slips

from several publications

– I wait by the mailbox to intercept these

before my roommates see them-

 

So…not like a monk, exactly.

Sorry.

 

but every one of them is

piling up

I will be typecast in lettering

by my brand new season

they will say, “There she goes,

a poet!

And an American, just like

the rest of those warmongering bastards.”

 

Like a monk collecting alms

in Thailand

I have become décor and decorum

to the scenery of my homeland

I amble past the red lights

and through the pirates that stumble

drunkenly upon me

I walk stiltedly on my old streets

instead of all that drifting

drifting out to sea

 

The second edition of Georgia Park’s Quit Your Job and Become a Poet is out today!

To buy:

 

“Founding Fathers is a terrifyingly believable story of a supremacist uprising. The characters perpetuate acts of extreme violence whilst an anti-hero in the guise of Peter York is thrust before us, looking helplessly on, passively enabling events. This is Peter’s great conflict and through him Gagnier forces us to face the frightening truth that Peter is us.”
John de Gruyther, The World Outside the Window

“Nicholas Gagnier has weaved fire into Founding Fathers, and I dare anyone who reads it to step away and try not to check themselves and everything they believe.”
Nicole Lyons, The Lithium Chronicles

“The gritty, urban, naturalistic settings and details are my favorite quality of Gagnier’s writing, he doesn’t just take you there, he writes with uncanny visual acumen and the people he creates, stay with you long after finishing his book.”
Candice Daquin, Pinch the Lock

US- https://amzn.to/2NQV4PT

UK- https://amzn.to/2RbLViO

Canada- https://amzn.to/2DJ5s7v

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jomillyArt

Water gone poverty in the rise

you gave the people of Flint nothing and told them lies

Heroin ODs and people who have been poisoned with lead

the government might as well have wished you dead

Babies get sick while white men get paid

Rick Snyder is hoping the Black race fades

Higher drop out rates come with it which isn’t a surprise

people not being able to leave which makes them feel paralyzed

Target practice and bombings go on

that our government inflicts strait from the pentagon

No one helps them no one seems to care

which means there is no hope for humanity

it’s not fair

This was written by my daughter

Sara Cohen 2018

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The Notion of Love

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“I think the universe is conspiring in our favor,”
you whispered, smiling, as we walked across
the vast expanse, the call of autumn shook
the trees as leaves took their final dance in
elegant pirouettes, like a twist of magic with
their own orchestral beat. Today's forecast was
supposed to be thunderstorms, but here we are,
hand-in-hand, holding on to each other, in a
season where everything seems to be falling.

Call of autumn – for #septemberfalls18 hosted by @breath_words_ and @a_sea_of_words_

A twist of magic – for #septcmchallengehosted by @cerynnmccain

Autumn – for #maessept18 hosted by @maespoetry

Beat – for #lyricallinesseptember hosted @aracelimream

Fall – for #ourpoetryjourneysep18
Autumn Awakening

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choices in error

Your laughter,

my blue plump vein,

the catch in your voice

when you say my name.

I found all the hidden meanings

in your mouth with my tongue

The barbed wire finger tipped traces

etch your name into my thighs,

whispers of words we never said

inked into every sigh.

Ocean waves are braided into our kisses, intimated absolutes are weaved into our chemistry. In this space is where we sketch forever.

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A Global Divergent Literary Collective

Far from my mind is the thought

of what I may possess

or what others have not

A place between understanding,

perhaps

education is not the measure

of a man’s knowledge

and experience is only one of many

I cannot find the sound of reverence

echoing down hallowed halls;

as though none had been before

today sounded the first call

Close to my hands

I keep a record of my worth,

in the breadth of time

only a penny,

or a half

For my version of verse

or lines of ordered rhyme

my price to pay is most dear;

what value placed by history

is never mine to proclaim

nor fear

In certainty I match sounds

with color, emotion and sight

a garden grown from flesh and bone

through darkness, death and plight

misery and ecstasy

joined in militant march;

to fight a battle not my own
and take a…

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I’ve made an executive decision

I’m taking no more shit

As a sufferer of depression

I’m content to recognise it

 

I’m fed up of the way

That it takes hold of me

Anxiety and panic attacks

No more, I have to break free

 

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing

I’ve known for a long time now

The shadows that trigger my fear

Oppression I can no longer allow

 

History is history

It can’t hurt me any more

And the future is not yet made

It’s the place I can start to explore

 

But now I need to remember

Be mindful of this day

Of everyone around me

All special in their own way

 

I thought I knew my pathway

I’ve walked it for long enough

But life is not what it seems

And I’ve had my share of tough

 

So with one foot in front of the other

And one mindful day at a time

I’m putting depression on a leash

I’m labelling it a crime

 

It’s going back in the cage

In the dark recesses of my mind

Only to be fed once in a while

Keep it controlled, keep it aligned

 

It may be a part of me

But no more will it take control

I’m taking charge from now on

Balance my ultimate goal

 

Free; Free; you’ll never be Free

Can’t you see?

You and I are we

You have nowhere to flee

The Organ Grinder or the monkey

You will never choose to be…

 

Copyright © JRFC September 2018

John is a Welsh poet from South Wales. He gets inspiration from many of life’s moments with a whole load of imaginative nightmares and daydreams thrown in to spice things up a little. You can read more of John’s work at The Mush from the Hill.

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Olga is a photographer based in Bonn, Germany, and one of Nicholas’ friends. We are incredibly pleased to showcase her amazing work behind the camera, and bring a new art medium into the FVR portfolio.

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I’m sat by a river

on a tree trunk

too big for me.

Listening – to failed rowing,

the sound of dog hair

shaking water into the air

and a small boy marvelling

at a grass snake.

It’s sunny.

It’s beautiful.

It’s the first blue sky

we’ve had in days.

 

And yet, listening –

I overhear

a solemn omen

of our time.

Our wall street car crash

Tory white man’s glory society.

Our oil drums of Frappuccino

war torn convenience store battle.

Our countryside losing, baby boomer

snowflakes in bushfires and no rain change.

Our skinny, skinny lollipop self-love

please stop privatisation and

the sexualisation of heartbeats and breathing –

our twenty first century world.

 

Three girls.

Young girls, led

by iPhones not maps.

The middle says she feels

disconnected

struggles to fit in

with what we’ve become.

The left agrees

and with the sobriety

of a confessional says

‘Yeah –

I think I’ve only ever seen you cry

on Snapchat.’