FIRE HAZARD
on Twenty Bellows Lit

I am pleased to announce that Twenty Bellows Lit has chosen a second poem to include online. Check it out here: Fire Hazard.

Ready to turn off that zoom screen and get back to live poetry? South Broadway Press is turning its fundraising anthology Thought for Food into a fundraising reading! Join us at The Mercury Cafe on July 2nd. Door open at 7pm, reading starts at 7:30. I’ll be among the many readers, check out the line up and get more information here. This event is free to attend, but please consider making a donation to the Denver Food Rescue if you can.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

I am grateful to have my poem “Wrong Place, Wrong Time” posted on Twenty Bellows Lit. This piece was written after the 3/22/21 shooting in Boulder, CO, which left all of Colorado shaken.

Thank you to everyone for your patience! Breathing Fire is now available to purchase here:

• Middle Creek Publishing for $18 (plus s/h)
• Amazon for $18 (plus s/h, which is free for Prime members)

Coming Soon: Information about readings on Zoom and in person (outdoors when the weather improves).

I am excited to present the cover of my forthcoming chapbook, Breathing Fire! Design work is by David Martin of Middle Creek Publishing; original art is by the fantastic Madeleine Dodge. Check out Madeleine’s new work at Space Gallery in the show “Variants of Blue.”

I should have a release date soon…Stay Tuned!

Irish’s poems burn and singe as she attempts to reinvent a way to navigate in a dangerous world.
–Kathleen Willard, author of Cirque & Sky and Incendiary Season

Also this year, I have poems forthcoming in:

• Chiaroscuro: An Anthology of Virtue and Vice, produced by the Northern Colorado Writers
• Progenitor, an art and literary journal produced by Arapahoe Community College
• Waving Hands Review, the literature and arts magazine of Colorado Northwestern Community College
• Stories from the Age of COVID, an anthology whose proceeds will go to food banks in San Miguel County

Amy is honored to announce that Breathing Fire, a new chapbook of her work, has been chosen for publication later this year!

“Quarantine. Racial injustice. Wildfire. Chronic disease and pain…

In these poems, I admire how Amy meets the trials with inventive and creative form and language, inviting the reader into a playground where so much is at stake.”

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
author of Hush and Naked for Tea

Amy is thrilled to be included in the deliciously audacious
Spit Poet Zine, Volume 9.

Read online or receive a print copy by good old snail mail
($5 +shipping, payable via PayPal, Venmo or CashApp).
To order, email spitpoetzine@gmail.com or send a message
on their FB page .

Moth’s thrumming orbit—
this hummingbird of evening
pollinates the dark

I am honored that the Illinois State Poetry Society has celebrated this poem in its Traditional Haiku competition, and I offer many thanks to this group from my home state. I must admit, I miss the vibrant writing scene and the fantastic writers of Illinois, but not the long winters!

I am also happy to announce that I have poetry forthcoming in the following publications:

• The Northern Colorado Writers Anthology, winner of the Colorado Book award in 2019. This year’s publication is titled Chirascuro: An Anthology of Virtue and Vice.
• Spit Poet Zine, an independent voice in Colorado publishing. Past issues of the print publication are available digitally online.
• MiddleCreek Publishing, in their anthology titled The Mountain. MiddleCreek recently published the poetry chapbooks Hush by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and Cirque and Sky by Kathleen Willard, which I highly recommend.

Click HERE to enjoy the audio recording of my poem “What to Do During Lockdown,” which has been featured both online (at WriteOnColorado) and in print (Stone Gathering, Fall 2020).

I am thrilled to be able to share a haunting composition by the incredible Stacy Fahrion (Colorado’s own Whimsically Macabre). Written to accompany my poem Controlled Burn, the song also features talented musicians Maddie Ashman and Daisy Press. I am so grateful to be the inspiration for this work!

Click Here to listen — and prepare to be spellbound.

When you’re done, please check out Whimsically Macabre’s other work on bandcamp.com and dive into a “fantastically offbeat world” (which is a familiar, everyday skin for some of us).

Controlled Burn
from “The Nature of the Mother”

When advised to torch
My life’s dry brush
I never thought to find this—
Me up to my knees in the dead.

Acres of decay, and quick to kindle.
I embrace the flames, drive away
Everything that could never be.
Thirsty for the fire. Hungry to let go.

So I burn the dead and any left alive.
Burn wild morning glory, flowers
Tangling and strangling me. Burn the pennyroyal,
Mint-sweet poison, jealously uprooting all others.

Burn it all. The smoke will pass
Soon, I’m told. The ash will settle.
I’ll be able to grow something better
In stronger soil. And so I wait.

But until this desolation clears,
With every breath
I breathe in every mistake I made
And choke.

~

Composed by Stacy Fahrion in July 2020 for the Arts Letters & Numbers Creative Music Online program.

Daisy Press, improvised voice
Maddie Ashman, cello
Stacy Fahrion, piano

Find out more about Stacy Fahrion here:
https://www.facebook.com/WhimsicallyMacabreMusic/
View her sheet music here:
http://pianopronto.com/composers-community/stacy-fahrion/
Find out more about Daisy Press, a New York-based vocalist, here: https://daisyvoice.com/
Find out more about Maddie Ashman, a London-based cellist, singer, and guitarist, here: https://www.facebook.com/maddieashmanuk/

Opening on October 16th, the art show (Un)Settled will include 51 art pieces and 21 poems — including two by Amy Wray Irish.  If you are unable to travel to Windsor, CO to see the exhibit in person, you can view it online here until Dec. 19.  Amy is excited to have her poems “What I Learned at School” and “The Horse Trainer” included in this provocative collaboration between poetry and art.

Amy’s work is also currently available in the following publications:

• Stone Gathering (Fall 2020 issue), published by Danielle Dufy Literary.
• Thought for Food, an anthology of Colorado poets published by South Broadway Press. Purchase a copy here.
• The Nature of the Mother, Amy’s 2019 chapbook. There are still a few copies left in the first print run, contact Amy at lunablue_girl@msn.com to purchase.