Winter Poetry Sampler 2017-2018

These poems were written between November 2017 and April 2018.


snowing equinox 

maybe the sky

is depressed 

i’ll encourage you, firmament, 

to kiss my skin again

and weep no more in icy sorry 

they may not understand 

but i do

frankenstein (poems of an autobiographical nature viii)

i am tired of 

the frankenstein 

of ideal me

patched up in my anxious mind 

can’t accept

i’m just not this frankenstein

of better words and prettier form of sweeter lips and popularity 

knock knock 

remember who you wanna be

well you’re not

someone shoot this monster or set its ship a sail and let me sleep in peace as 

myself

new aesthetics

screw pittsburgh’s osmosis into my creative soul 

i now admire dead leaves’ curls

and smoke stained brick

people-scarred land and drug-scarred people 

truck-crunched beer cans, confetti on the cracked highways

so many sad boys here

we laugh in philadelphia

our grass is greener 

they bleed brains and gold 

pollution and wanderers 

makes sense

not all steel is magnetic 

poems for they i know (part v)

antithesis to my creative gods 

clouds to sunshine and old coffee

wearing your baggage under your eyes 

writing your soul in between all cows eat grass 

and erratic punctuation 

and kind silence as we pulled apart daisies 

not counting lovers but minutes to escape each other’s airspace 

this old empty skyline sags parallel to your shoulders 

two different kinds of alone 

but your magnetic insignificance so unreadable 

everyone knows you

but near no one knows you 

“i don’t want to be here” 

“haha that makes two of us” 

“as in, this planet.”

“also makes two of us.” 

poems for they i know part vi 

heart cries a river and eyes hold the sky,

voice fills the mind and words steel my shoulders 

sing me a storm song, lovely. 

they broke your clouds but your rains, they loved me. 

the world doesn’t end beyond the horizon. 

haiku xii - beautiful 

when a boy told me

i was beautiful i for-

got i ever was 

opened ears

silence?

why hardly.

the world is also a psalter.

summerset 

gonna watch this summerset in the golds and greens

of pennsylvania;

gonna leave this field of dustbowl dreams 

and neon signs of yesteryears;

bury myself in dead men’s memories 

and wrap myself in your arms.

r o b i n s 

joyous fury as spring rages in 

i sit in the rain and they frame me

ring around a reasoner 

can’t conjure a renewed love and drive for what i do

i only dream of bills anymore

and so with wrecked headphones and a lack of resolution

i wander through song’s successful shots at three minute self expression

someone push me off my beaten path and i’ll find the words again 

Summer/Fall Poetry Sampler 2017

These were all penned between July and December of 2017. I wrote a lot less and as a result what I did write was more raw.

*Note on dear former best friend: if you are reading it, it does not refer to you and was written during a social anxiety attack*



Colorado

i wore your old hoodie,

covered in fingerprints of memories

of stolen laughs in old libraries,

and i cut through miles and pines and storms 

into a stretched out sky 

the color of your smiling eyes

and flavored with chilled infinity.

i stand in peaks touched by sight alone

and silent they hold vigil  

on the centuries, but i

just quietly wish you were here. 

Counterculture

the past bites my view of the future 

{ paper cuts on my retinas

smog on my skyline

chains on my wrists

rocks in my nets }

america says, live dreaming till you wake up dead 

or save sleep for the grave.

i say, give another heart a reason to beat

and keep walking.

all roads go somewhere. 

mistakes

cement this resolution in the highway of my soul,

won’t look over my shoulder at the red lights i blew 

and the closed exits into goals i won’t hook nor attract,

won’t check my rearview mirror for the dead dreams

i amused my mind with on wide awake nights.

they still look closer than they appear 

but i know that’s just the vhs of memory 

distorted by dust, static, and a handful of the solar flares

i call a tendency toward self-deprecation by means 

of a sickening neon cocktail;

overconfidence with a splash of doubt over rocks 

of cold reality: stars don’t get you wishes, just neck cramps 

from staring too long. 

instead, i’m mapping out the stars in our eyes,

 pulling the top back for mouthfuls of interstate wind 

and i’ll measure my life by heart rate.

you always send it on a run anyways.

american love

he’s ohio cornfields and kentucky mountain blue,

all quiet starlit forests and the loud atlantic too,

with legs to scale the mountains, and hands to catch the sky,

with eyes for appalachia and the tall girl by his side.

she’s pennsylvania chocolate, oklahoma sunset gold, 

with a taste for colorado, the nonstop and the bold, 

with a mind to race the clocks and untangle thoughts of man,

and a smile she unbottles for her sweet ohioan. 

they untie this knot of rivers to the city of steel bright,

to dance above their sorrows, to get lost in the night,

and every autumn sure as day she’ll find her way to him

and every day as sure as fall he’ll twirl her on a whim. 

love cannot be a fire

love cannot be a fire, 

for fire feasts on fuel and dies 

when nothing more can give. 

love must be a forest,

ever growing, ever blossoming,

ever standing strong 

amidst the seasons changing

dear former best friend

dear former best friend

i know the exact way to stroke your hair to make you fall asleep

and the temperature of your tears

i know your brazen soul too well

it nearly pushed me off a bridge.

(ironically the color of your eyes and 

the lake we last took a picture smiling)

now if i saw your unsorry figure

your curves you so proudly carry

sometimes i think i’d break your nose

damage your face

give a permanent mark

like you permanently

damaged

my mind

(and laughed) 

and then maybe you'd understand what's happened to me

no one'd look at you the same, either

and while in reality i am the grace that walked on me and i will opt to never

try and chain myself to your approval again

i do not understand the honey-flavored poison under your hypocritical tongue

it wrings tears from my dry eyes on late nights

peace

i know it now no thanks to you but rather thanks to your absence 

and your successor who takes my hand and shows me

you never were what i thought i loved 

how it breaks me 

break break break

how hard is it, i beg you, to say

i was wrong

school

 i get high on ancient thought

tourist

i am a tourist in this life,

just here for the food and experience,

but i know i don’t belong here.

somebody tell me when the train for the next arrives.

i think i’ve seen enough of this rain-gray place. 

haiku vi

love, the only stars

i will ever wish upon

are those in your eyes 

#PimpMyBio: Bethany Stevenson (YA, Comedic Fantasy)

Hello there!!

Mentors, past mentees, friends, CPs, PitchWars hopefuls, and writers:

My name is Bethany Stevenson and this is my #PimpMyBio:

BIO:

I hated books until I was nine. 

My sister handed me the Phantom Tollbooth and I read the whole thing in one sitting. Ever since, my imagination expanded outside the typical Narnia. (which I loved to play with my sister, despite never reading it on my own at that point) 

Since then, I've fallen in love with Joel Ross, William Joyce, Shannon Messenger, Ransom Riggs, N.D. Wilson, Leo Tolstoy, Sabaa Tahir, Eoin Colfer, Orson Scott Card (All the Ender Books people, not just the first. I read every. single. one. Bean included) Wade Albert White, Markus Zusak, Michael Ende, and a whole lot more. 

Star Wars didn't help either. When I was almost ten everything was Jedi in my life, or ninjas, or secret agents. After that, I wanted to follow my sister's footsteps and finish writing a book. 

Everything went downhill from there. 

I'm also an aspiring artist! (If you want to know more find me on youtube and Instagram )

I'm a third year PitchWars hopeful, CP, and like you, an author. Don't let my twitter following deceive you; I've only been on about 10 months. Somehow, I've made a LOT of writer connections.

I've been mentored during #NoQS (Nightmare on Query Street) for a YA Dark Fantasy and was one of those #TeenPit kids (who sadly didn't win a PW slot or as a runner up, but my mentor was literally worth the entire contest. If you're her future Mentee for PitchWars, I'm jealous.) 

I'm also the co-host to my sister's bloghop #YayYA, which some of the mentors in PitchWars have participated in before their book deals! Which is totally awesome.

The first round of YayYA was the first time I'd ever put my writing into the "real world. "I was overly nervous. But last year, after I submitted to PW, I HAD to join the community, so I set up a Twitter, and stalked the hashtag. I soon found readers, CPs, and eventually amazing friends. 

I've been a writer my whole life. (I know that's not very long if you know the entry age limit to TeenPit, but I finished my first 100 page novel at age 9 and have completed about 37 full first drafts since. They're not great, but I'm proud of each one)

But this time, I'm not submitting the YA Dark Fantasy I've been writing and revising and throwing into other contest slush piles for a year now. I originally planned to, but something new came along...

So I'm submitting something that is literally it's opposite. 

A YA Comedic Fantasy. 

And I love it. 

Let me introduce you to my new book baby: FIGHTING CLICHÉS...

First, here's my first photoshop job, a wallpaper inspired by the book:

*stops staring* Okay, guess I better tell you what it features:

In a world where adventures are published into novels and where being original is key to being noticed, is a quick-witted girl named Brianna. 

Her parents are famous novel heroes; their adventures, mysteries, and quests have been filling library shelves in the world of Novella for years. And now that Brianna is 15, old enough for an adventure, it's her turn. 

She’s day dreamed of what her adventure might entail. Seafaring-griffon hunts or rescuing lost relics in deserts or anything whimsical is preferable. But she's declared a Chosen One and sent off with a typical mentor wizard, a glowing sword, and a ridiculously annoying comedic-sidekick to fulfill a prophecy by defeating a necromancer in a tower. 

Brianna's dreams are crushed. 

No Great Author will want to write her into a story once her adventure is complete: cliché tropes don't sell. 

As things start to look like Brianna will be sent to work in a one-shot-fluff fanfiction theater for the rest of her life, she decides to ruin her own story. By leaving the elf parties, losing heir trials, and breaking the hearts of love interests, she takes control of her own adventure, twisting things into the way she wanted them to be. 

If she doesn’t complete the prophecy, the necromancer will kill her. Except, finishing the prophecy as proclaimed might ruin her chances to attract a future writer to publish her novel. 

Here's some more my book features that I know you're gonna want:

If my book were a mash up of other stories/movies it would be: GALAXY QUEST meets MY LADY JANE, with the oddity of THE ADVENTURER'S GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL ESCAPES and the humor of the YA BROODING HERO. 

It also has references to: Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Star Wars, Star Trek, Cinder, An Ember in the Ashes, Princess Bride, Disney Villains, Lord of the Rings, Ms. Peregrine's, Hans Zimmer, and more... I just forgot. 

But you, as the reader, (and mentor, right? <3) get to find them all!! 

When I came up with this idea, I literally researched every blog post on avoiding clichés and what to look out for in novels for tropes... and used. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. 

On purpose. 

(Boy, did Brianna get ticked about that.)

Want to know even MORE?

It features:

1. Smart-witted girl MC who takes matters into her own hands without kicking everyone's butt all the time. Brianna doesn't need to be heartless or have blood on her hands to be tough. She'll blow a place up though if it really annoys her.
2. Genre mash-ups. (I mean, Lake Town meets Divergent, people.)
3. Ninja, elf princess bounty hunter, who loves fashion and friends.
4. Complex world. The World of Novella contains every genre possible to imagine. 
5. Light-hearted Fantasy 
6. Voice. Brianna mixes snark and concern. 
7. Twists on tropes, as noted.
8. Subtle retelling hints throughout. Like a castle transformation similar to Beauty and the Beast. 
9. Dragons and wolves and elves and princesses and mages... I mean, c'mon! 
10. Girl BFFs working together. 
11. Unique places and characters. Trust me, Try combining Twilight and Tinkerbell. When you've got a Gandalf type character arguing with an Olaf type character or a redheaded rebel ranger trying to apply into a rip off Hogwarts, it gets crazy. 
12. Tight families
13. Teamwork
14. anti-heroes
15. pop culture references
16. The Fourth Wall
17. Author groups
18. An ending message for any struggling artistic person.

Brianna struggles with the passion to get out there in the novel world, but she's got to be noticed first, and she has to work hard. This book is almost like the life of an author trying to become published, except, from a character's POV to be in the book. And she's not going to give up on her journey. 

So let's go get them PitchWars people!!

This is me and my story...

 What's yours?

*side note* this is NOT my blog. I'm borrowing my sister's because she's amazing. Thanks Rachel!!