Gimme Your Lunch Money: Heartland Poets Speak out against Bullies - Tapa blanda

More than 30 Heartland poets—including two former Kansas Poet Laureates—speak out against bullying, a pervasive evil. These poems range from illustrating bullying, not only during childhood and adolescence, but illustrate bullying in the workplace, in culture, in politics, in facing the -isms (sexism, racism, ageism, able-ism, etc.), religion, marital status, military service status, animals, and, even in scientific labs for humanity’s “greater good.” And bullies can be diseases (such as cancer). And voices inside our heads may bully us, too. Some poems also reveal a bully's point-of-view.

Editors Dennis Etzel, Jr. and Lindsey Martin-Bowen, established authors who teach in Midwest colleges compiled this group of poems from poets participating in Gary Lechliter's Facebook page, Poets and Poems against Bullies and Bullying. Coal City Press has just released Dennis Etzel Jr's FAST-FOOD SONNETS . The KANSAS CITY STAR named his MY SECRET WARS OF 1984 (BlazeVOX Books 2015) one of the 10 “Best Reads” for 2015. ELJ Publications released his chapbook, The SUM OF TWO MOTHERS in 2013. He teaches at Washburn University and holds an MFA from the University of Kansas and an MA and Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Kansas State University. His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, BlazeVOX, Fact-Simile, 1913, 3 AM, Tarpaulin Sky, DIAGRAM and others. Lindsey Martin-Bowen’s “Bonsai Tree Gone Awry” in her INSIDE VIRGIL’S GARAGE (Chatter House Press 2013) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The book was a runner-up in the 2015 Nelson Poetry Prize. Her book CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison (in chapbook form) was a semi-finalist in the QuillsEdge Press 2015-2016 Chapbook Contest. McClatchy Newspapers (The Kansas City Star) named her STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (Woodley Press) one of the Ten Top Poetry Books of 2008. Her poems have run in New Letters, I-70 Review, Thorny Locust, Amethyst Arsenic, Flint Hills Review, Coal City Review, Bare Root Review, Rockhurst Review, nine anthologies, and other literary magazines. She taught at the University of Missouri-Kansas City 18 years and teaches at MCC-Longview.