It was the stink of men I abhorred
not their kind hearts, but virile muscularity
shape, smell, touch, without knowing why
I craved their opposite.
Smitten by you, after one day
round of your arms, tapering to wrist
dimples, ebony flesh, water lily eyes
if it was possible to paint what I saw
capture behind glass, that redolence.
By day people walked through doors
sweaty, distracted, their lips wet with thought
by night you danced beneath a yellow bulb
the sway in your hips, a new language.
Morning chimed harshly; coffee almost burnt
a memory of the way you tasted, lingering
on my hands, how can two people become
one? Against all nature. Still. Really together.
Birds fly south, leaving trees bare, emptied
skies sore and colorless, buildings like fists
pound out light and succor, streets are wounds
darkness lends disguise to the broken hearted.
Born in Europe, Candice Louisa Daquin is of Sephardi French/ Egyptian descent. Daquin was the Publishing Director at the U.S. Embassy (London) before becoming a Psychotherapist. Daquin is Senior Editor at Indie Blu(e) Publishing, a feminist micro-press and Editorial Partner with Raw Earth Ink. She’s also Writer-in-Residence for Borderless Journal, Editor of Poetry & Art for The Pine Cone Review and Poetry Editor for Parcham Literary Magazine. Daquin’s own poetic work takes its form from the confessional women poets of the 20th century as well as queer authors writing from the 1950’s onward. Her career(s) teaching critical thinking and practicing as a psychotherapist have heavily influenced her writing. As a queer woman of mixed ethnicity and passionate feminist beliefs concerning equality, Daquin’s poetry is her body of evidence.
In honor of its 5th anniversary, Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless are teaming up this November to sponsor a series of 30 daily creativity prompts, comprised of the titles of our 25 published books and four upcoming titles, along with a couple fun phrases to round it out. We think our book titles are pretty damn cool and we hope they spark your creativity. You are welcome to respond to as many that inspire you.
There is only one rule to the prompt challenge: the book title or phrase should serve as the title of your piece OR all the words in the title should be integrated into your piece somehow.
Note: Some of IB books have fabulous subtitles. Want an extra challenge? Try integrating the subtitle into your response
It is our honor and pleasure to publish your prompt responses on Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless . We welcome poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, and high-res original art inspired by the prompts.
Writing can be submitted in the body of the email or as a separate Word document or PDF
If you are submitting writing, please include a suggested image to accompany your work. Unsplash and Pixabay are two of our favorite sites for royalty-free images.
Your email should include your name EXACTLY as you want it to appear on Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless, a short biography, and any links you want shared.
SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like is an anthology of love poetry by 120 lesbian and bisexual women ranging in age from 15 to 87 from around the globe. This is a book that should be gifted. In spite of its implied audience, Smitten is not just for women who adore women. It is for those whose hearts twist and skin prickles at romance, who know the flight of butterflies in their stomachs, who long for the feeling of home in another’s heart.
“This is poetry that penetrates into the heart of not only the experience of lesbian love, but into what love means to the human psyche. These are emotions that live in each of us; that they are expressed here with a uniquely feminine interpretation truly enriches the palette of lesbian literature.
Women poets have here found a stage upon which they can present their passions and intimate feelings openly and in unison. SMITTEN brings the beauty and intricacies of women’s love for each other into a unique and captivating presentation. With the publication of this volume, Indie Blu(e) remains at the forefront of giving lesbian literature a new and important direction.
Lesbian writers have long suffered the neglect of history and the close-mindedness of the world of literature and have yet somehow managed to rise above the indifference and the prejudice to express their distinctive creativity. The women represented in SMITTEN are strong voices confidently expressing their individuality. Perhaps Sappho verbalized it best when over two thousand years ago she wrote:
“May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.“
Yes, that is the kind of poetry to be found within the pages of SMITTEN.”
“Love doesn’t have just one “look” to it and I thank SMITTEN for reminding readers of that.
Love transcends race and gender.”
– Christy Birmingham, Versions of the Self
“Too often we sideline LGBTQ+ work as a genre of its own, when it should be mainstream; literary works which are written by people to be enjoyed by people, no matter what their race, sexuality, gender and/or religion.
Yet, until this happens, I applaud Daquin and Indie Blu(e) Publishing for brazenly making a stand. Until labels are but words and not identifiers, it is important that writers like those in this collection share their voices and stories, ever-lasting love and heartbreak, and their hopes and fears, to remind the literary world they will be heard, no matter what the response may be.”
–Kristiana Reed, Flowers on the Wall
To purchase SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like: Poetry by Women for Women an Anthology, click here.
It’s impolite I know … to accuse
Despite formalities when years hence
Your savagery remained a chapter stuck
In my throat, wild thorns, without succor.
We danced in broken tread, my composition
And womanhood, cut into paper girls each
Missing a part; arm, chest, hand, kidney
Smothered by the need in you to destroy
Bluntly like butter knife, unable to cut clean through.
My severed head lolled on my flayed neck
Dissected lungs breathed glass as gored heart
Dried on sharp pike, where among the dying at the battlefield
You plunged its metal deep into rigur soil and stood back
To admire your awful coup.
I am older now, my fingers ache when the weather turns
The scars you bequeathed sit like dried flowers on my breast
I can’t smell your brand of cigarettes without lurching
Toward a bathroom, these little green drinks of memory
Invisible to most, staying as memory is wont
Even when we seek to sieve it from the river
And let others make gold temples.
You wouldn’t seek me now, years have seen to that
The proclivity you had, was to chew on youth like a wolf
Espie a young fawn and lope silent through trees
Finding method in murder.
I am safe by default, and that burns in my stomach
With a molten rage
For men like you who disturb innocence
Who live on without apology or shame
Just the feral stink of a twisted brand of desire
One I know the name of too well
Are flagrant in your joy to mistreat with impunity.
If we met on a street, you’d no more know me
Than a stranger, and I would recognize you immediately
As holding heavy sword in two hands, muscles trembling
I’d scythe you into fragments taken by the wind.
You see, I rebuke that we are hunter or hunted
It seems to me; one leads into the other
And you’ve had your turn at the chase.
Born in Europe, Candice Louisa Daquin is of Sephardi French/ Egyptian descent. Daquin was the Publishing Director at the U.S. Embassy (London) before becoming a Psychotherapist. Daquin is Senior Editor at Indie Blu(e) Publishing, a feminist micro-press and Editorial Partner with Raw Earth Ink. She’s also Writer-in-Residence for Borderless Journal, Editor of Poetry & Art for The Pine Cone Review and Poetry Editor for Parcham Literary Magazine. Daquin’s own poetic work takes its form from the confessional women poets of the 20th century as well as queer authors writing from the 1950’s onward. Her career(s) teaching critical thinking and practicing as a psychotherapist have heavily influenced her writing. As a queer woman of mixed ethnicity and passionate feminist beliefs concerning equality, Daquin’s poetry is her body of evidence.
In honor of its 5th anniversary, Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless are teaming up this November to sponsor a series of 30 daily creativity prompts, comprised of the titles of our 25 published books and four upcoming titles, along with a couple fun phrases to round it out. We think our book titles are pretty damn cool and we hope they spark your creativity. You are welcome to respond to as many that inspire you.
There is only one rule to the prompt challenge: the book title or phrase should serve as the title of your piece OR all the words in the title should be integrated into your piece somehow.
Note: Some of IB books have fabulous subtitles. Want an extra challenge? Try integrating the subtitle into your response
It is our honor and pleasure to publish your prompt responses on Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless . We welcome poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, and high-res original art inspired by the prompts.
Writing can be submitted in the body of the email or as a separate Word document or PDF
If you are submitting writing, please include a suggested image to accompany your work. Unsplash and Pixabay are two of our favorite sites for royalty-free images.
Your email should include your name EXACTLY as you want it to appear on Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless, a short biography, and any links you want shared.
Christine E. Ray’s award-winning debut poetry collection Composition of a Woman has been rereleased by Indie Blu(e) Publishing with 36 stunning new pieces of poetry and prose. Originally released in 2018 and awarded a Bronze Medal from the Readers Favorites Book Awards, Composition has been described as “an extraordinary glimpse into the essence of what it takes to make, and sometimes simultaneously break, a woman as strikingly powerful as she is beautiful.”
“Poet Christine Ray’s first printed collection of poetry Composition of a Woman . . . is a striking, fearless foray into the psyche of womanhood, both highly relatable and intensely personal for female readers and achingly candid and fascinating for male.”
-Candice Louisa Daquin, Pinch the Lock
“Christine Ray brilliantly split Composition into five thoughtful sections that work together beautifully to deliver the maximum impact of each poem while taking the reader deeper into a stunning journey of the mind, the body, the very soul of this person. In Composition, Christine Ray reveals so much of what we try to hide, and she does so while dancing between ruthlessly beautiful and heartbreakingly painful.”
-Nicole Lyons, The Lithium Chronicles Volumes One and Two
Christine E. Ray (She/Her) lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A former Managing Editor of Sudden Denouement Publications, she co-founded Indie Blu(e) Publishing with Kindra M. Austin in September 2018. Ray is author of Composition of a Woman and The Myths of Girlhood. Her writing has also been featured in But You Don’t Look Sick: The Real Life Adventures of Fibro Bitches, Lupus Warriors, and other Superheroes Battling Invisible Illness, Through The Looking Glass: Reflecting on Madness and Chaos Within, As The World Burns: Writers and Artists Reflect on a World Gone Mad, SMITTEN: This Is What Love Looks Like, We Will Not Be Silenced: The Lived Experience of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Told Powerfully Through Poetry, Prose, Essay, and Art, Anthology Volume I: Writings from the Sudden Denouement Literary Collective, Swear to Me (Nicholas Gagnier), and All the Lonely People (Nicholas Gagnier).
Christine is a passionate fiber artist who has rarely met a craft supply she doesn’t like or a pattern she can’t alter. Currently yarn obsessed, over the decades she has learned to knit, crochet, quilt, weave, bead, and has dabbled in mixed media. Christine doesn’t have a spinning wheel… yet.
In honor of its 5th anniversary, Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless are teaming up this November to sponsor a series of 30 daily creativity prompts, comprised of the titles of our 25 published books and four upcoming titles, along with a couple fun phrases to round it out. We think our book titles are pretty damn cool and we hope they spark your creativity. You are welcome to respond to as many that inspire you.
There is only one rule to the prompt challenge: the book title or phrase should serve as the title of your piece OR all the words in the title should be integrated into your piece somehow.
Note: Some of IB books have fabulous subtitles. Want an extra challenge? Try integrating the subtitle into your response
It is our honor and pleasure to publish your prompt responses on Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless . We welcome poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, and high-res original art inspired by the prompts.
Writing can be submitted in the body of the email or as a separate Word document or PDF
If you are submitting writing, please include a suggested image to accompany your work. Unsplash and Pixabay are two of our favorite sites for royalty-free images.
Your email should include your name EXACTLY as you want it to appear on Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless, a short biography, and any links you want shared.
All the Beginnings of Everything is a tour du force, one woman carrying the kaleidoscope of her family tree. In many ways, phantasmagoric in its debt to allegory, metaphor, and visceral self-talk. It’s a world outside of time, revealing how everything started and the patterns we never see tattooed beneath our skin, multiplying with every choice. All beg the questions, what is fate, and what is within our control? Can we save ourselves and others from prior outcomes? Will the tapestry of our ancestors dictate our own destiny, irrespective of our effort to be free?
“Austin has, yet again, created a masterpiece. All the Beginnings of Everything is a sensational collection which spans what feels like a lifetime. Separated into seven parts, Austin explores more in this collection than I feel she ever has done before, without sacrificing her trademark style. Her words remain sharp, raw and honest.”
-Kristiana Reed, Flowers on the Wall
“There’s something infinitely unpredictable and erotic about an unapologetic, hot-under-the-collar female writer who takes no prisoners; “I’ve defiled my own name.” (Slick).
Austin knows how much spice to add and swims between the blatantly sensual to the darkest coves, and then out into the light where she exposes her truths. Her voice doesn’t remain the same, there’s obvious influences, but she’s all things, the female Bukowski, the smart Joan Didion, then Tennyson takes over and gets epic. It never gets staid. Austin is a writer you want to befriend and talk to all night long over many drinks. You feel you’d find the riddle to the universe if you survived it.”
-Candice Louisa Daquin, Pinch the Lock
To purchase All the Beginnings of Everything, click here.
Publication Date: July 26, 2019
ISBN-13: 978-1732800090
Kindra M. Austin is a poet and gothic fiction author from Mid-Michigan. She co-founded Indie Blu(e) Publishing with Christine E. Ray in 2018. Her published works include two novels, (The Black Naught and The Killing Holiday), and six books of poetry (Constant Muses, TWELVE, All the Beginnings of Everything, Heavy Mental, I Am a War, and Little Book of Blackness). It’s her dream to open a bookstore/craft beer bar. She will call it, Get Lit. You can follow Kindra M. Austin on Instagram: @gothic.poser
Indie Blu(e) Publishing 