About Founder, J.K. Shawhan
You can all read my bio on the Call for Submissions page, read my comedy blog, friend me on Goodreads, or follow me on Twitter, but since I have started accepting submissions for The Basil O' Flaherty, contributors have been asking me what type of work I am looking for. Honestly, the only thing I can say is that I like what I like. I want to read something humorous, something dramatic, something lyrical, something musical, etc. I read everything in my free time, from poetry to plays, classic literature to modern comedies, to sci-fi to science writing!
I know this isn't helpful, so I will include this: my favorite living poets are Mary Oliver, Edward Hirsch, Billy Collins, and Ellen Hagan. My favorite living novelists are Elizabeth Rosner, Ann Patchett, and J.K. Rowling. I read everything, though, and of course there are my other favorites, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. E. Cummings, Walt Whitman, Billy Shakespeare, and Emily Dickinson.
If you want to know more about my own work, here are some of my published pieces:
Church Service to an Atheist's Daughter
-previously published in Mosaic Art & Literary Journal
Because they gave me a script--
lines to say, stage directions to perform--
sit stand listen read
these words in St. Paul's Cathedral,
in Southwark Cathedral,
in Temple Church,
it wasn't strange.
Pretty stained glass props
enclosed the platform and beyond--
set the scene for Jesus' passing,
tell tales with the actors.
Light Act I with their candles and flames.
The audience was all thespians, all
an old school Greek chorus, in unison, monotone,
interactive musical.
We recited after the organ whined,
sang its own sad lines,
and no one knew I wasn't
ChristianCatholicProtestant,
a Luther-man.
The play wasn't
alien or foreign or off
until everyone but me knew
to sing verses not written in the
pamphlet handout script—the lines
artistic directors in red bathrobes passed around,
and it became improv. I
don't do improv,
and it was time to turn in my script,
exit stage left,
out the wooden
theatre doors.
Girlfriend Looking Very Closely at Boyfriend's Abstract Art
— somewhat based off Josef Albers' Homage to the Square series
-previously published in Mosaic Art & Literary Journal
Slit in the leg, was that
what you were thinking
when you were staring
at your canvas, or at
your music sheets. I'm
just trying to picture
what type of girl you
picture, when sculpting
clay with Pygmalion--
would Venus give her curves?
I think I'd be jealous
if you wrote sonnets like
Shakes, revolving around
suns clearly not my pale
skin, no. I'm just trying
to see what you fancy,
Mr. Conductor, when
you wave your wand. I can't
sit through this symphony
of bouncing, of flouncing
girls. Sometimes it's hard
for me because I don't
dream what you dream and your
end products are just pure-
coloured blocks covering
one another. Should I
read things into your
optical illusions?
My Picasso-ed Poem
-previously published in Wordgathering
I grew up crooked,
Picasso-ed, cubed
as a woman with protruding ribs,
forward and tilted hips,
her left shoulder jutted up, right shoulder
pulled down and back as far as it can.
I felt abstract in my natural sensation of fire and pain,
but now, labeled, I'm a mix of impressionist and
deformed-ist, my massage therapist
needs pictures to study
my odd form before she falls asleep at night.
Dreams of hunchbacks and my one long leg, I'm sure.
Scoliosis is an ancient Greek word,
obliquity, bending, yodeling--
someone yodeled to my spine,
an avalanche of back muscles, ribs,
abdomens and collarbones came crashing down,
sent a tingling chill down my fingers--
frostbite or roused by the music--
that's how I feel standing shirt and pants-less.
Turn right, turn right, face away from me.
Picasso or Gogh or Degas or whatever, I
am not a trained model.
I'm lop-y. My bones always
falling around me—can't
be captured without blurred corners.
Can't be drawn like your pretty,
solid girls.
I'm hopeful, a collector
of avalanched ribs,
collage them above
a lead-&-watercolor-beating heart,
glue 'n' paint 'em with knives 'n' forks
instead of soft-tipped brushes.
Broken pieces to piece my body,
make me normal. Make me stand straight.
Make me a pretty solid chick.
Stuck
-previously published by Bradley University
Sometimes, in the cold,
I stand still.
Hold fast to
the silver drops and sullen tops
of bare trees.
I stand still
to winter walks, wandering flocks
of birds in the sky.
They leave like the sun--
don't think, just go.
Sacred ritual.
You know weather is rough
when birds fly like humans,
restless. Bored. First class
somewhere warm
and tourist-y.
You know weather is bad
when you can hold a wild animal
by the hand.
Pick him up.
Stare with a snow-covered deer
into the silent wind.
They trust you
are cold and stuck
too.
If I were a James Bond villain
-previously published in Silver Birch Press's Me, In Fiction Series
I would have better clothes, a
Chanel suit & Italian loafers.
My hands & lips would be scarred
by some terrible explosion, a
furious childhood trauma.
My parents divorced.
My girlfriend dumped me
for some author or artist or
other nonsense like that. Why
would she leave me? Naturally,
I don't understand. I'm rich. Desire
for her love turns into desire to kill.
The world. An agent. All the agents.
I would be given the chance to destroy
007. He stumbles, he falls, he
does go to work drunk, & I
could end him with one bullet--
but, if I were a James Bond villain,
I would suddenly gain a taste for tea.
My goons would knock him unconscious.
Without stabbing him dead, they tie
his back to the chair. Set the tea party up.
Wait for Bond to wake. Gift him with
the evil spiel. I hate you, you will die,
I will terminate your family, la la la. . . .
After tea, leave him in the dark.
Alone with his empty cup and finger sandwiches.
If I were a James Bond villain.
I know this isn't helpful, so I will include this: my favorite living poets are Mary Oliver, Edward Hirsch, Billy Collins, and Ellen Hagan. My favorite living novelists are Elizabeth Rosner, Ann Patchett, and J.K. Rowling. I read everything, though, and of course there are my other favorites, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. E. Cummings, Walt Whitman, Billy Shakespeare, and Emily Dickinson.
If you want to know more about my own work, here are some of my published pieces:
Church Service to an Atheist's Daughter
-previously published in Mosaic Art & Literary Journal
Because they gave me a script--
lines to say, stage directions to perform--
sit stand listen read
these words in St. Paul's Cathedral,
in Southwark Cathedral,
in Temple Church,
it wasn't strange.
Pretty stained glass props
enclosed the platform and beyond--
set the scene for Jesus' passing,
tell tales with the actors.
Light Act I with their candles and flames.
The audience was all thespians, all
an old school Greek chorus, in unison, monotone,
interactive musical.
We recited after the organ whined,
sang its own sad lines,
and no one knew I wasn't
ChristianCatholicProtestant,
a Luther-man.
The play wasn't
alien or foreign or off
until everyone but me knew
to sing verses not written in the
pamphlet handout script—the lines
artistic directors in red bathrobes passed around,
and it became improv. I
don't do improv,
and it was time to turn in my script,
exit stage left,
out the wooden
theatre doors.
Girlfriend Looking Very Closely at Boyfriend's Abstract Art
— somewhat based off Josef Albers' Homage to the Square series
-previously published in Mosaic Art & Literary Journal
Slit in the leg, was that
what you were thinking
when you were staring
at your canvas, or at
your music sheets. I'm
just trying to picture
what type of girl you
picture, when sculpting
clay with Pygmalion--
would Venus give her curves?
I think I'd be jealous
if you wrote sonnets like
Shakes, revolving around
suns clearly not my pale
skin, no. I'm just trying
to see what you fancy,
Mr. Conductor, when
you wave your wand. I can't
sit through this symphony
of bouncing, of flouncing
girls. Sometimes it's hard
for me because I don't
dream what you dream and your
end products are just pure-
coloured blocks covering
one another. Should I
read things into your
optical illusions?
My Picasso-ed Poem
-previously published in Wordgathering
I grew up crooked,
Picasso-ed, cubed
as a woman with protruding ribs,
forward and tilted hips,
her left shoulder jutted up, right shoulder
pulled down and back as far as it can.
I felt abstract in my natural sensation of fire and pain,
but now, labeled, I'm a mix of impressionist and
deformed-ist, my massage therapist
needs pictures to study
my odd form before she falls asleep at night.
Dreams of hunchbacks and my one long leg, I'm sure.
Scoliosis is an ancient Greek word,
obliquity, bending, yodeling--
someone yodeled to my spine,
an avalanche of back muscles, ribs,
abdomens and collarbones came crashing down,
sent a tingling chill down my fingers--
frostbite or roused by the music--
that's how I feel standing shirt and pants-less.
Turn right, turn right, face away from me.
Picasso or Gogh or Degas or whatever, I
am not a trained model.
I'm lop-y. My bones always
falling around me—can't
be captured without blurred corners.
Can't be drawn like your pretty,
solid girls.
I'm hopeful, a collector
of avalanched ribs,
collage them above
a lead-&-watercolor-beating heart,
glue 'n' paint 'em with knives 'n' forks
instead of soft-tipped brushes.
Broken pieces to piece my body,
make me normal. Make me stand straight.
Make me a pretty solid chick.
Stuck
-previously published by Bradley University
Sometimes, in the cold,
I stand still.
Hold fast to
the silver drops and sullen tops
of bare trees.
I stand still
to winter walks, wandering flocks
of birds in the sky.
They leave like the sun--
don't think, just go.
Sacred ritual.
You know weather is rough
when birds fly like humans,
restless. Bored. First class
somewhere warm
and tourist-y.
You know weather is bad
when you can hold a wild animal
by the hand.
Pick him up.
Stare with a snow-covered deer
into the silent wind.
They trust you
are cold and stuck
too.
If I were a James Bond villain
-previously published in Silver Birch Press's Me, In Fiction Series
I would have better clothes, a
Chanel suit & Italian loafers.
My hands & lips would be scarred
by some terrible explosion, a
furious childhood trauma.
My parents divorced.
My girlfriend dumped me
for some author or artist or
other nonsense like that. Why
would she leave me? Naturally,
I don't understand. I'm rich. Desire
for her love turns into desire to kill.
The world. An agent. All the agents.
I would be given the chance to destroy
007. He stumbles, he falls, he
does go to work drunk, & I
could end him with one bullet--
but, if I were a James Bond villain,
I would suddenly gain a taste for tea.
My goons would knock him unconscious.
Without stabbing him dead, they tie
his back to the chair. Set the tea party up.
Wait for Bond to wake. Gift him with
the evil spiel. I hate you, you will die,
I will terminate your family, la la la. . . .
After tea, leave him in the dark.
Alone with his empty cup and finger sandwiches.
If I were a James Bond villain.
