Poet José Alejandro Peña edits The Refined Savage Poetry Review in Scott Depot, W.Va. From Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Peña is a Marshall University grad student. Four issues of the review are available so far.

In 1986, he received the National Poetry Prize for his book “The Dreamt Retaliation” (National Library, 1986).

He is looking for well-written, engaging poems. Send three to five short poems (32 lines or fewer) with a brief biography and a photo (optional).

To e-mail submissions, click here.

For those without e-mail, the address is 124 Meadow Drive, Scott Depot, WV 25560.

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SELF-PORTRAIT

We imagine a bridge and we go through it
where we want.

But once there,
in the distance,
the heart is broken
like old planks.

A man is like a light stain
underground.

His looks to never return
to the rotten hive of the nights.

A man is like a thousand sunken cathedrals,
without memories, without friends,
without one more day
in a desert of hours.

– José Alejandro Peña, from his new book “Blasphemies of the flute” (2007), translated by Joni R. Radcliff

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