Tag: Rusty Barnes

Rusty Barnes: “Homage to Jim Harrison”

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Homage to Jim Harrison

The grackle with its blue head
dunks violently his beak

in the bird bath while chickadees
and starlings battle the squirrels

for sustenance. Cars power by here
in the city and squirrels rush the street

for lack of places to run. On the porch
with my one-eyed dog,

I run my weathered hand on his
head and search fruitlessly for

the Zen moment like Jim Harrison's
dogs betray their owner's point of view.

I keep his grizzled nose pointed at
the source and breathe in his wisdom.

About the Author: Rusty Barnes lives with his family and a horde of cats in Revere MA. His work appears widely, and his most recent chapbook is DEAR SO & SO.

Image Credit: John James Audubon “Purple Grackle” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Revisiting 2020: Our 50 Most Popular Posts of the Year

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

Dear As It Ought To Be Readers,

 

Despite everything 2020 threw at us, AIOTB Magazine was fortunate to receive so many brilliant poems, essays, interviews, and book reviews from writers around the world. Below, I have assembled the 50 most popular posts of the year based on the amount of hits they received. I know that few people will look back at 2020 with fondness, but maybe reviewing these posts from the year is a reminder of the resilience people have to continue to create in a crisis, and to channel the anxiety of the world into writing that connects us.

AIOTB Magazine was perhaps the only constant I had in 2020 that began and ended the year exactly the same, and completely intact. I have all of you contributors and readers to thank for that. Thanks for keeping me sane and connected to a community of writers when I most needed stability, creativity, and human connection in my life.

I have no idea what 2021 will look like, but if you keep reading and supporting each other’s work, you’ll at least have three new pieces a week on AIOTB Magazine to count on.

 

-Chase Dimock
Managing Editor

 

Poetry

Omobolanle Alashe:

Jason Baldinger:

Rusty Barnes:

Jean Biegun:

Victor Clevenger:

John Dorsey:

Ajah Henry Ekene:

Loisa Fenichell:

Jeff Hardin:

John Haugh:

Mike James:

Jennifer R. Lloyd:

John Macker:

Tessah Melamed:

THE NU PROFIT$ OF P/O/E/T/I/C DI$CHORD:

Hilary Otto:

Dan Overgaard:

Rob Plath:

Daniel Romo:

Diana Rosen:

Damian Rucci:

Leslie M. Rupracht:

Anna Saunders:

Sheila Saunders:

Alan Semerdjian:

Delora Sales Simbajon:

Nathanael Stolte:

Timothy Tarkelly

William Taylor Jr.:

Bunkong Tuon:

Peggy Turnbull:

Brian Chander Wiora:

 

 

Reviews

Chase Dimock:

Mike James:

Arthur Hoyle:

 

 

Interviews

Chase Dimock:

 

Nonfiction

Brian Connor:

Cody Sexton:

 

 

Micro Fiction

Meg Pokrass:

AIOTB Magazine Announces our Nominees for the 2020 Best of the Net Anthology

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

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As It Ought to Be Magazine is proud to nominate the following poems and essays for the 2020 Best of the Net Anthology

 

Poetry

 

Rusty Barnes: The Act of Working

Caroliena Cabada: True Story

Leslie M. Rupracht: Hess Trucks and the End of the Double Standard

Anna Saunders: The Delusion of Glass

Dameion Wagner: I Have Returned Home

Brian Chander Wiora: We Might Have Existed

 

 

Nonfiction

 

Cody Sexton: The Body of Shirley Ann Sexton

Carrie Thompson: I Don’t Want Your Hug

 

 

Thanks to all of our nominees for sharing their work with As It Ought It To Be Magazine!

– Chase Dimock
Managing Editor

 

 

 

Image Credit: O.F. Baxter “Pointer Dog” (1860s) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program

 

Rusty Barnes: “The Act of Working”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

The Act of Working

The act of working occupied 
my father like an obsession,

a crushing sixty hours a week,
running a loader over and over

again into heaps of gravel
and sand, piling dump trucks

full and sending them out into
the world. Rock he loaded built

prisons and roads all over 
the states of NY and PA

but he came home every night
dirty and so exhausted he’d

eat then fall asleep, cigarette
still in his fingers and  I write

this poem over and over,
seeing my father lie there,

hoping somehow this poem,
this time, will end differently.

 

About the Author: Rusty Barnes lives in Revere MA with his family. His poems appear widely, in Plumb, Heavy Feather Review, and Black Coffee Review, most recently. His latest chapbook, Apocalypse in A-Minor, is out from Analog Submission Press.

 

Image Credit: Lewis Hine “Factory Worker” (1931) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.