by Theodore Wheeler

When he saw the flat-bed trailer parked at the curb in front of his mother’s house, Scott Ritter’s stomach sank. Papier-mâché sombreros and dozens of novelty Mexican flags were packed on a trailer at the curb, along with snow cone and cotton candy machines. On the side of the trailer was a hand-lettered sign that read M&M Ministries: Games, Music, Choirs. Scott crouched next to the sign, pinching the wire frames of his glasses to make sure he was reading it right, then looked at the ad again. Petting zoo, puppies, and story-telling. Silent auction. Auditions for cherub, youth, and adult choirs. Cinco de Mayo floats!

“Oh, God,” he thought, straightening to read the sign again. He took the newspaper clipping from his pocket. A man at work had shown the classified ad to him. “Listen to this,” the co-worker said. “Christ Centered Mobile Ministries. Win prizes or C.C. Bucks. Free concert. Baby items, bicycles, books, clowns and clothing. Coloring contests.” Scott had laughed himself, reading derisively, “BYOT: bring your own trike!”

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by Jilly Dreadful

My mother slaughters rabbits.

My mother breaks their necks and spines,

Feels life slip between fingertips.

She played piano when she was young.

Such sturdy fingers.

An apron she wears to stave off blood.

Not that rabbits always bleed,

When she cripples them as they still breathe.

“But sometimes,” she said, “spine snags skin.”

Their mammalian hearts, so used to beating.

I had a fondness for rabbits.

Their soft fur and wet eyes.

The unexpected presence of claws.

“Blood is surprisingly thick in rabbits,”

My mother says.

by Jilly Dreadful

2011 Flatmancrooked Poetry Prize

Guest Judge: Forrest Gander

In 2010, Flatmancrooked introduced the FMC Poetry Prize with guest judge Mary Karr. This year we are pleased to present our guest judge for the 2011 FMC Poetry Prize: Forrest Gander.

ABOUT THE JUDGE: The author of numerous books of poetry, including Eye Against Eye, Torn Awake, and Science & Steepleflower, all from New Directions, Gander also writes novels (As a Friend), essays (A Faithful Existence) and works in translation. His most recent translations are Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho (Finalist, PEN Translation Prize), No Shelter: Selected Poems of Pura López Colomé, and, with Kent Johnson, two books by the Bolivian wunderkind Jaime Saenz: The Nightand Immanent Visitor: Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz.

Gander is the Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Literary Arts and Comparative Literature at Brown University.

THE PRIZE: The Flatmancrooked Poetry Prize will be determined over the course of three rounds. Of all the entrants, the FMC editorial staff will select a (1) a semi-final batch of 30-40 poems. These poems will be published in Flatmancrooked’s Slim Volume of Contemporary Poetry, Vol. 2 (May 2011). (2) FMC editors Josh Neely and Steve Owen will then choose the 10 finalists to send to guest judge Forrest Gander. (3) Forrest Gander will choose the FMC Poetry Prize Recipient and runner-up. The prize recipient will receive a $500 honorarium and a notation as the prize recipient upon publication. The prize will close for submissions in early April 2011. The results will be announcement shortly thereafter, with phone calls to recipients and runners up.

TO ENTER: The fee is $7.00 for three poems. Please send all entries as a single file (and the link below will walk you through the process). Of course, you don’t have to send us three. You can send one. Or two. But for the $7.00 entry fee you can send up to three.

click here to enter

Want to be informed about future prizes or notified before this prize closes? Sign-up below for regular updates about this and future prizes below.

by Geoff Schmidt

On the upper bunk awash in its moonlight, Sherm whispers to his cockroaches. He sits cross-legged; they line his legs. Franklin tosses in his sleep below. He’s been in and out lately. Never out for long. Each time back he’s a little crazier. He’s only been back for a day this time. He’s already talking about pipe bombs and poison. Sherm doesn’t want to wake him up.

The cockroaches tell him about their night, the food they’ve found, the eggs they’ve laid, the lovely cracks they’ve scuttled through, the really interesting interior wall of Warden Brown’s office with its slightly crumbling drywall.

Tell me more about that, whispers Sherm. Does Warden Brown ever hear you?

Oh no, the cockroaches chuckle. We’re very sneaky.

What is Warden Brown doing while you explore the inside of his wall?

Well, we can’t see him, but he mostly makes phone calls, anyway.

What does he say?

Who’s coming, who’s going. We knew Franklin was coming back days before he did, they say proudly.

Is anyone leaving soon?

The roaches shift uncomfortably. No, Shermie. You’re not leaving.

What about Vi?

No, Shermie. She’s not leaving either.

Sherm runs his hands through his bristly hair, looks around the moonlit cell. The walls are old stone, cool and rough, the mortar flaking onto his sheets. The bars of the window are crinkled with rust. Franklin snarls in his sleep.

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Flatmancrooked.com, along with many WordPress based sites and Godaddy hosted entities, recently came under attack by a vicious piece of malware. We’re better now but are currently updating our security and overhauling our website. So, that said, stayed tuned for our new look in 2011.
Best,
Elijah

Flatmancrooked’s staff loves a lot of stuff. In 2010, we got our love on. Here’s a list of the stuff we at FMC could not live without in 2010. Some of these things did not originate in 2010 but they certainly helped make the year a grand one!

BETHANY - Intern (PR/Promotions)

1. Vancouvor Winter Olympics, 2. chicken flavored top ramen, 3. KeSha, 4. The Big Bang Theory (the tv show), 5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 1, 6. Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 7. Old Spice Commercials, 8. Venice Beach, CA, 9. 80′s style comeback, 10. Netflix

JONATHAN - Intern (Editorial)

1. Brett Favre returning, only to get the crap kicked out of him every
week, over and over again 2. Red Dead Redemption 3. The new Arcade
Fire 4. The idea of a new Interpol album. The actual album, not so
much 5. Rediscovering J.D. Salinger (after he died, which is on my non-
top ten list) 6. Getting an internship at Flatmancrooked (and fine
tuning my ass kissing abilities) 7. Taking a road trip from Sacramento
to Mississippi and back again with my Dad 8. Getting into grad school
9. Germans doctors curing HIV 10. Harry Potter!!!

MERIDETH - Copy Editor

1. Californians defeated proposition 23, 2. Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs, 3. Jeanette Winterson’s books - in particular Written on the Body and The Passion, 4. Philip Pullman’s latest - The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, 5. Judgeoverturns proposition 8, 6. XKCD.com - A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language, 7. Ntozake Shange’s incredible choreopoem, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, 8. The Cornucopia Institute: Promoting Economic Justice for Family Scale Farming, 9. Edan Lepucki’s fantastic debut, If You’re Not Yet Like Me, 10. Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Ladies Shaver. It’s pretty darn awesome.

JOSH - Poetry Editor

1. Flatmancrooked’s Slim Volume of Contemporary Poetics, 2. SF Giants World Series Champions, 3. Arcade Fire w/Calexico at the Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA, 4. The Walking Dead, Landon Donovan’s goal vs. Algeria in stoppage time to put the US through to the knock-out round and create millions of new fans of American soccer.

STEVE - Fiction Editor

Peter Grandbois’ novella School Bus, as serialized by Neccesary Fiction, Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Stephen Graham Jones’ The Ones That Got Away and It Came From Del Rio, Winter’s Bone, and Black Swan.

DEENA - Senior Editor (in no particular order)

A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter, ”High Violet” — The National, A Visit From the Good Squad by Jennifer Egan, ”Forgiveness Rock Record” — Broken Social Scene, Bored to Death, Last Night by James Salter, the Giants winning the World Series, Preservation Hall, Shakespeare’s Kitchen by Lore Segal, and having brunch across from a man who was almost definitely Salman Rushdie.

ELIJAH - Executive Editor

The Big Short by Michael Lewis, The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, The Bees by Dan Chaon - as found in Poe’s Children: The New Horror, edited by Peter Straub, all things Brooks Brothers, Highball Bouldering (this is an every year sort of love), Autotune the News’ Bed Intruder Song, ‘Evil Boy’ by Die Antword, Cee Lo’s cover of ‘No One’s Gonna Love You‘, Prosseco & Jameson (same night, not same time), AM/PM by Amelia Gray, Marlin’s Bolt Action .22 rifle with carbon-fiber stock, the World Cup, all things Gibson.

by Will Dowd

Will you be a reader, a student merely,

or a seer?

—Henry David Thoreau

Seers win a trip to the school psychologist.

Tell me, son, about your alternate ending,

the one you scribbled in the margins.

Tell me about the night of first snow,

the flurry of strange footprints,

the grunt at the window sill.

Tell me about Thoreau’s white body

drifting across the night sky

at the end of a fishing line.

Tell me about the tall

reeds of downward

rushing stars.

by Will Dowd

by Kirk Curnutt

The first thing he did after tossing the shotgun, ditching his F-450 at the quarry, shaving his goatee, and dyeing his hair, was Google himself.

Three hours and two hundred miles earlier, Jarvis Murple had shot his father and three of his father’s poker buddies at point-blank range. The men had mocked his negligible skills at Omaha Hi once too often, Murple had snapped, and now he needed to know if he was wanted for murder or merely attempting it.

What he couldn’t quite admit was that he was also eager to see what people were saying about him.

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by Anna Clarke

I’m reading, I suppose, and I notice

a middle aged couple sit down quietly

to butter their bagels. Their conversation

is limited to weather and the glare of the sun

hitting the window beside them.

I don’t think they’re tired,

I think they’ve just run out of things

to say. Silent on Saturday,

nothing but baked goods between them.

What happened here, somewhere

between her red curls and his long legs,

maybe found in college, a park,

a loud, smoky road-side bar.

I notice a fly that lands on their table.

They both try to brush it away, missing hands.

by Anna Clarke

Congratulations to this year’s nominations from Flatmancrooked for the Pushcart Prize. Support these authors and pick up a copy of the book in which their work is featured.

1. If You’re Not Yet Like Me by Edan Lepucki, from the book of the same name.
[Buy Now]
(read Salt Lick by Lepucki)

2. We’re Getting On by James Kaelan, rom the book of the same name.
[Buy Now]
(read excerpt of WGO by Kaelan)

and from Flatmancrooked #3 (Lit Journal) titled not about Vampires: An Anthology of New Fiction Concerning Everything Else
[Buy Now]
(preview book here)

3. The Sladen Suit by Brian Evenson [read an interview with Evenson]

4. Boundaries by N.A. Jong [read full story]

5. Who Gets Which Nice Something by Shya Scanlon

6. Unlove Letters by Kevin Walsh [read full story]