Gnashing Teeth Publishing

| words that get in your teeth

Contact Tracing by Yrik Max Valentonis

I use my favorite songs as ringtones because I don't plan on answering...
telemarketers don't keep me company
Spam Likely is my only contact
I grew up with Green Stamps but my friend had the Green Book
My family isn't Jewish yet my Grandparents spoke Yiddish at home
Esperanto was supposed to be the language of the future
	Ebonics at school
	Spanglish on the streets
	Pinyin at the shops
It is too easy to allow a title to become a definition and a definition be exclusive
My Grandparents lived through the Great Depression and World War 2
	Fascism
My parents lived through the Korean conflict, Vietnam war, and the Cold War
	Communism 
I lived through the trickle-down economic recession, the dot-com bubble bursting, and housing market crash
	Capitalism
Ebola, Avian Flu, and a reemergence of the Bubonic Plague, AIDS, and COVID-19 pandemic
	Anti-Vax
my house is painted green and blue to disappear into the lawn
there is no doorbell only a camera to watch you
a locked obelisk door in a field
I have withdrawn

BIO: Yrik-Max Valentonis’s poetry collection Cranium Theatre and novella 120 Days of Gomorrah are available from Alien Buddha Press. He has work in several anthologies including Heat the Grease We’re Frying Up Some Poetry from Gnashing Teeth Press. His photo essay about writing an erasure poem is available on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl5NLz8FIEw

Sarah White Joins Gnashing Teeth Publishing

We here at Gnashing Teeth Publishing are so excited to announce our newest team member – Sarah White. She joins us as a Social Media Intern. She’ll be working hard

shadow image of a man pushing a cart with a large wheel and small umbrella

Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2023

Gnashing Teeth Publishing is proud to submit the following poems for consideration of the Pushcart Prize. Each of these nominees had work published by us in 2023, whether online or

BOOK REVIEW: gossypiin by Ra Malika Imhotep

Roots, ancestors, bending limbs and time. Ra Malika Imhotep’s gossypiin is a harvest of the experiences and discussions of black women. The meaning of the title, like many of her

The Reflection by Nadia Nunez

What an obscurity energy there’s no serenity A smile is what you’ll never see All you’ll hear is “In memory” Not a single ring on the telephone All you see

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