Sherman Oaks Author Finds Inner Peace Through Poetry

 “For me, the very process of composing poems embodies letting go of control.”  Danny Miller

Danny Miller of Sherman Oaks, author of Losing Control, Finding Serenity has achieved an impressive share of success, but it wasn’t until he let go of control in his life that he was able to find true happiness and peace of mind.

As a highly trusted and successful real estate instructor and author of best-selling book How to Invest in Real Estate Syndicates (Dow Jones-Irwin), by his 30’s Miller was at the height of his career & had everything money could buy, but as an individual driven to control every aspect of his life, he was haunted by a proverbial unease, consumed by fear, anxiety and anger.

After a series of personal setbacks & a humbling battle with cancer, he realized his life had to change and turned 360 degrees toward a more profound success as a poet and painter. Releasing the tensions of control and choosing to move with the currents of life rather than fighting against them, Danny Miller found peace, greater understanding & true purpose.

Inspired by Khalil Gibran, reading Danny Miller’s poetry has the feeling of mantra, a poetic, zen-like reminder or ode. It’s the type of poetry you want to remember in the back of your mind as to allow it to expose itself when the hammer falls and the need bares its teeth.

LIFE’S LANTERN Obsessed with Control, We can’t let go. But shorten life's list, The more we resist. Relinquish, No longer diminish. Let things be, Begin to feel free. To travel this Path, Use its new Math. Accept and allow— Even meow. Look to the Waves, Follow their Sways. Cresting in the Wind Nature's magic Within. Sometimes in tandem, Always random. Release, Feel the Peace. Life’s Rhythm of Truth, Lost in Youth, Follows no pattern, yet Brightens Life's Lantern.

“Painting is like poetry in that they both evoke feelings and truths that are made more powerful because they are intuitively felt rather than articulated and in that sense they are both highly spiritual. They also both flourish when we are willing to let go of control of the creative process by moderating our expectations and not over-thinking the pieces. When we loosen the reins, freedom and open-ness of ideas and process seamlessly gel with knowledge and technique to produce original works of beauty and meaning.” Danny Miller

As a talented poet, painter and author of Losing Control Finding Serenity, Miller shares his journey of letting go, his first step toward true happiness. On this journey to serenity, he becomes a better person, family man and gains the inner peace he never thought possible, which he explains, is now his most valuable asset. Poetry has allowed Danny to discover his inner most truths, to express himself in a more positive way and find his true spiritual self.

In his new book, he explores the dangerous elements of control, fear & avoidance, guiding us through the lessons he has learned as he shares his secrets, his poetry and holds nothing back. Dedicated to helping others face their fears, no matter how intense, Losing Control Finding Serenity is poetic, philosophical and unselfish; a guidebook to true success, happiness and peace of mind.

We all have scars, some are more obvious than others, but Losing Control, Finding Serenity teaches us not to be defined by them. Available on Amazon, this book has achieved high acclaim and favorable reviews by mind, body, spirit publications and media and has been embraced by poetry lovers worldwide. An empowering collection of modern philosophy and poetry by a profoundly inspiring writer, highly recommended.

To find out more about this book, to view paintings or to read more of Danny Miller’s work please visit his website:

http://losingcontrolfindingserenity.com/

Wyatt Underwood: Poetry (Luna)tic

“Sometimes it seems [I have] been trying to learn the language all [my] life, but what a great game! Give it the structures and strictures of poetry and it's even more rewarding.”

~Wyatt Underwood

Wyatt Underwood, originally from Albuquerque New Mexico, spent much of his childhood in Brazil and has since migrated to southern California. He is a lover of physics who still acknowledges Pluto as a planet, a poet and the author of four books. He enjoys long motorcycle rides on his Harley and adores his wife Lindy of 28 years. Underwood, whose voice sounds a bit like James Earl Jones with a slight curl to it, has recently taken to the stage to perform at some of the valley’s favorite readings, including Soapbox Sessions & The Cobalt Cafe.

Underwood assisted in mapping 95% of the moon and if that isn’t enough he writes incredibly moving poetry. Wyatt studied physics and poetry and worked on the programs that tracked robots for several Lunar Orbiter flights, an unmanned exploration of space before the moon landing by Apollo 11 in July of 1969. During his time in the field, he worked on missions studying every planet except Mercury and Pluto.

In addition to his moon missions, Wyatt loves to write about women, which is quite evident in his more charming pieces such as How, Questions & Requiem, a very heart-felt & tear-stained letter. As a well-rounded writer you will find elements of Bukowski in Underwood’s poems such as Just Walkin’ & Bukowski, as well as a nice slice of William Carlos Williams whom he ascribes for his love of written word.

Hearing Wyatt recite his poem, Requiem (shown below) will bring you to tears & make you want to reach inside the poem & change the consequences. What Wyatt brings to the page is always genuine, tender and honest, a lot of which is inspired by actual events and real people. Wyatt’s work is biographical, observational and timeless. It has the ability to make you laugh and cry, sometimes even within the same poem. It’s touching and tangible and contains stories that once read will leave footprints on your soul.

Wyatt Underwood who describes his poems as “experiences” and concludes his major influences are his mentor, Keith Wilson, whom For Keith was inspired by & who was resident poet at New Mexico State University for years. in addition, he is inspired by Charles Bukowski, William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost, e. e. cummings, and many others.

Requiem

a friend's funeral happened
a thousand miles away
a dozen people held umbrellas
rain fell desultorily
a man who meant well
spoke of a life he hadn't known
I wonder what I would have said
we'd not been close nearly ten years
she loved life when I knew her
rode horses and climbed rock
sat on a cliff's edge and laughed
until I grimaced and joined her
trees I knew grew fifty feet tall at least
looked like dollhouse toys
"I'd take the fast way down"
she laughed, "if I could make the stop soft"
she grinned at me
"I couldn't stand to miss tomorrow,
what all might happen?"
but last week she put a gun into her mouth
and blew the pain away, so close friends say
I hope her way made the stop soft

Wyatt Underwood © 2011

Allerednic

I walked in darkness and an angel
found me or I found her
I never could be sure
and though she'd lost her wings and halo
she took me close enough to heaven
while she kept my feet on the ground
it is the story of my three loves
but heaven was never quite what I expected
it has its own demands and strictures
even when it stays close to Earth
I walked out of one, not sure I was ready
I lost one, sure I was unready
and so far have worked well enough
to remain in the third
thank you, angels, for all the ways you cared
for loving me when you did, and loving me as you do
I'm pretty sure no heaven awaits me when I die
but how could I need it, having shared yours?

Wyatt Underwood © 2011

For Keith

I knew a man
who warred
way back when
Korea we protected
he came back and shot flies
with a .22
because a .45
would have been overkill
he came back from that too
and found in words
in beauties
in Zen
and finally in love
a calm
that needed no flies to shoot
he played with words
until they celebrated
beauties, Zen, love,
historical houses saved
by people living in them,
secret gardens,
ranchers,
and ghosts,
ghosts of old times
and ghosts of young men
who hurried off to war
because their country sent them,
hurried off and did not return
nor shoot flies with a .22
ghosts of men buried in Korea
and men not buried anywhere
ghosts who came to him for his calm,
his Zen,
and maybe for his beauties, or his love
I knew a man

Wyatt Underwood © 2011

Wyatt Underwood’s book titles are available on Lulu. Fixes For No Problems is highly recommended as is Haiku Foryu which contains over 100 haikus. If you’d like to hear Wyatt live he will be featured at the Border’s in Woodland Hills on May 28^th at 6:00 PM.

To read more from this author follow him on Edgar & Lenore's Publishing House, Lulu, Facebook

Review by Apryl Skies 

www.EdgarAllanPoet.com

Hart D. Fisher: Poet & Horror Kingpin Spills His Guts... Again.

Reader discretion advised. The following Feature is for adults only and depicts images and poetry that may be disturbing to some readers. Readers are fore-warned, proceed at your own risk.

“I’m still just another scream walking like a man.” H.D.Fisher

Hart D. Fisher is an assault to the senses & by all accounts the most controversial figure in the poetry community. Early in his career he established his own publishing company Boneyard Press and is author of Poems for the Dead & Still Dead. Fisher has clawed through every bloody facet of the entertainment industry in both main stream & underground arenas. Besides running Glenn Danzig's comic line Verotik, he designed concept illustrations for Marilyn Manson, mentored Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance & was a key lynchpin in his comic career. Hart Fisher first published Stephen Elliott's poetry in Flowers on the Razorwire & fittingly James Franco is slated to star in an upcoming Elliott-based film. Hart has directed & developed countless films & music videos; recently editing Danzig’s "On A Wicked Night". Regarding Hart Fisher's career experience...the list goes on.

Currently, Fisher has alchemized a riveting new project American Horrors, a media juggernaut hungry to devour the world of horror & stomp it the way Disney dominates the family genre. It is a powerhouse venture set to light the horror genre ablaze by monetizing distribution, production, publishing & the television horror networks; not to mention hell-bent on testing the limits of entertainment, giving horror fans the content they truly deserve.

Life has a way of severing dreams, leaving them hanging off a butcher’s hook & that is what Hart Fisher is able to do with a pen. His poetry comes from personal struggle, be it raw or taboo Hart lives his poetry. It is honesty at its most horrific or beautiful, always “stripped to the bone, directly naked”. It is his sordid legacy to art & the pulse of his creativity. He concludes that poetry, of all his creative endeavors best describes him as an artist & has opened the most doors for him; that being a huge kiss on the brow of the poetry community.

Hart Fisher is a multi-faceted talent but insists, it’s not a result of strict focus. A self-proclaimed “crazy Gemini” he excels having multiple projects going on at a time. With all his creative outlets he hadn’t thought of himself as a poet until the shooting of his first film The Garbage Man, during which his girlfriend was violently raped & murdered. This led to a mental breakdown, but would also shape-shift Hart’s writing career, resurrecting him a beast of extraordinary emotion & intensity. His work has been the target of censorship and damnation throughout his career, but he describes his work as a spontaneous “fit or seizure” an uncontrollable possession within him, a purge or bleed-out caused by the inhumanity of humanity, a manic urgency that “burns the methane” of grief and rage.

Moving to Los Angeles, Hart continues to shovel bones, haunting stages like a macabre character ascending from the ashes of an Anne Rice novel. Those who have seen him read live might assume he sleeps upside-down. His work is impossible to define in a traditional sense because he has the bewitching ability to blur the lines of poetry & horror. Critics always want to shove art into a box & what’s rare about Hart Fisher’s work is that it’s confessional & uncompromising, it will burn through any box it’s placed in. He is a literary necromancer whose words are seething, visceral & the hemorrhage of raw impulse. Hart Fisher’s poetry is like the taste of metal or biting a live wire, it has electricity to it...high voltage.

So, for such an insanely functional icon what could possibly be left to conquer? For Hart Fisher, a heavy-hitter in horror genre & impossible to hog-tie, American Horrors is running with full steam, his YouTube channel CrimePaysHart is in full force & you can read the inside scoop from the recent South By Southwest event in Waco Texas at American Horrors, he has new poetry on Facebook & plans to publish more titles soon, including works from otherwise out-of-print editions.

The following poems are previously unpublished works and are subject to restriction and copyright. Reader & viewer discretion advised. All Rights Reserved. Images are subject to restriction & protected and property of Hart D. Fisher

UNTITLED

I remember how I found you

Like a sleeping girl

Waiting for christmas

Waiting for morning

Tiny pink dress

Just a little worn

Stray threads like so many faded days.

I remember how I found you

Lying so still

Cheeks still rosey

Lips still pert.

Your hair was bound back with a ribbon

Crusty and dirty

A piece of some kind of dream

Some kind of hope

Threaded through straw.

I remember how I found you

Crumpled in the grass

The sun was shinning

You had one shoe

One sock

Old polish on your toes

Out of place under a blue sky

Clouds like soft fur.

I remember how I found you

Your mouth was half open

Fingers curled up tight

There was an insect

Trapped away under your eyelid

It pushed and twisted in the sun

Little legs scrabbling

And the rope…

The rope…

I began to scream.

Hart D. Fisher © 2011

white hot heat surging from the years behind

up my skin

through my nerves

crawling down the street

a thundering pulse beat that makes my vision swim.

A fire without hope

Ticks in the face

I’m watching you

I’m feeling you breathe

Shuddering

From a shadow

A black cat eager to cross your path

Carrion feeder

A mangled priest with one hand down his pants and the other on the holy mother cross

Transgressing

I howl with the wolves

A hungry beggar at the dumpster

We jump in place

Super sized and found wanting

One pimp to another

Two jungle cats eyeing meat.

In the shadow

It’s not even my smile.

It’s his

A grin with no pity

Trembling in my car I dream of all that blood on my naked skin

Out on the street

Watching your window

Waiting for the lights to go out.

Hart D. Fisher © 2011

UNTITLED

Lying at the bottom of the tub

Looking up at the sky

The rain burns like old memories

Smothering my face

Tattooing my lips

Slowly

Patiently

Without passion

Burning

Like a corpse on fire

Like a flag falling to the ground

I burn

Moving down the street

Watching the squatters shuffle and die before our eyes

So many petals before the savior

I burn

The end of the wick

The sputtering candle in her corner

Never enough to keep the night at bay

Her fears at the end of a knife

The twist of it’s edge

I burn

Slowly

Patiently

Without pity

Without you.

Hart D. Fisher © 2011

Look for more from Hart D. Fisher on the following links:

Boneyard Press

Twitter

Hart Fisher on Larry King

An Introduction to The Garbage Man with Hart D. Fisher

The Verminators Pt. 1

The Verminators pt. 2

***

 Review by Apryl Skies

www.EdgarAllanPoet.com

Poet Annie Avery Lives Life "Preciously"

Annie Avery is a tender & sincere voice, one with an urban feel and a sense of acceptance that seems far too humble for one who is clearly so strong. A woman of adversity and subtle fire she sees the world and its inhabitants in starlight. Her work is reflective and celebrates the simplistic observation that there is something precious to be found within all things, broken or otherwise.

Surviving adolescent homelessness, Annie recounts her life in blessings from God and credits much of her resiliency on poetry giving her “a way to make something beautiful and meaningful with the chaos that life sometimes is…a way to send [her] pain and joy out into the heavens…and hopefully touching other people”.

 Published by Poetry Super Highway, as well as Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House, Annie has gained local acclaim. Her performances include Beyond Baroque and Cobalt Café where she continues to inspire others by exploring emotion on a very tangible level. 

Some of Annie’s influences include Anis Mojgani's "Shake The Dust" and John Masefield's "Sea Fever" and her poems, such as Preciously, showcased below, reflect the beauty Annie sees in the mundane circles of city life. A writer deeply connected to her work, she is able to recognize the unexpected treasures of life others often overlook. 

To Avery poetry is the most honest form of expression and a touching tribute to the world which surrounds her. The following poem is part of the upcoming women’s anthology, In The Company Of Women (Available 2012)

Preciously

Wonderland everyday on the street
Disguised beauties, but really they’re plain old beautiful
Just injured children put back together with scotch tape
But they are beautiful and could grow into the grandest trees just wait

Every day we walk dirty streets
Underneath laughs the miracle daring you to see it

I must have fallen in love a million times 

and I couldn’t believe you said you never had
Some love stories last a minute and I have lived them
I saw a man who was four feet tall and beautiful
The world told you he wasn’t but they lied
I loved him for a minute
Still do

To enjoy more of Annie Avery’s poetic works please visit the following link:

http://annie-avery.livejournal.com/

Poet Annie Avery: Q & A - regarding child & adolescent homelessness:

If you are or know a teen who needs help finding refuge from homelessness or poverty please use the following resources to guide them on their way to a better fate and a more promising future.

• Q: I understand you are a woman of resiliency, an individual who has overcome adversity. Can you tell me about your history and what brought you to where you are today?

• Annie Avery: Yes, I was homeless as a teenager as I chose to run and live on the street rather than with a very abusive step-parent. Living on the streets opens one up to bad entities and unfortunately I almost lost my life because of it. God used people to rescue me basically, in a truly miraculous way.

• Q: What advice would you have for others who may find themselves in a similar situation?

• Annie Avery: It's hard when you're in that situation because you're just trying to survive each day... when I was a homeless kid, I didn't even know that there were organizations to help. Today there are wonderful shelters, the Los Angeles Youth Network http://www.layn.org/ and TEEN LINE http://teenlineonline.org/teens/youth-yellow-pages/running-away-and-shelters both have some wonderful resources for children that need help. I would encourage kids that find themselves homeless to reach out to organizations such as these for help. Also, to remember who they are, that they do not deserve to be homeless and are good people, to never give up on their dreams and to know they will get through it, that God has their back.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

www.edgarallanpoet.com

Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House Submissions Guidelines

Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House is now accepting submissions locally, nationally and internationally. *Art submissions are also accepted by following the guidelines below (no minimum for art submissions).

Submission Guidelines: 

Whether you are submitting poems or art for consideration as a featured guest , for the Examiner.com (Local writer's in the Los Angeles Area only) or submitting a full manuscript, please read and follow the guidelines below carefully.

Send via email with "SUBMISSION" in the subject to:

eappublishing@gmail.com

or via postal service to:

Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House

Attn: Apryl Skies - Editor

13547 Ventura Boulevard

Sherman Oaks CA 91423

For featured guest poet submissions: Please clarify if this is a “Local Submission” (Los Angeles) for the Examiner.com

• ·         Submit 3-5 poems
• ·         A brief bio – Please include your current city.
• ·         Photo of yourself
• ·         Publication history- Where can we view your work? Your website, blog, or links containing published works.
• ·         Contact information

For author publishing submissions or book reviews:

Please clarify if this is a “Local Submission” for the Examiner.com. If your submission is a request for book review please indicate that in your cover letter or initial email.

• ·         Submit a polished manuscript
• ·         A brief bio - Please include your current city.
• ·         Photo of yourself
• ·         Publication history- Where can we view your work? Your website, blog, or links   containing your original published works.
• ·         Publication history- A list of previously published work, Amazon links etc. Where else can we view your work? Your website, blog, or links containing published works.  

• ·         Book cover art
• ·         Contact information

For Book Reviews: We will only review professionally published books. All book reviews will be submitted to Amazon where applicable.


Thank you. 
Looking forward to all the poetry to come pouring in. 


Be (Inspire)d

~Apryl Skies 
www.EdgarAllanPoet.com