Posted on Jan 28, 2021 by fishclamor

“Soprano” and “Shayna,” Prose-Poems. Listed in Eastern Iowa Review’s “Favorite Prose Poems” section on their Prose Poems page. (Issue 8).

Jokes Literary Review , “The Light in the Refrigerator, or, the Ball in the Crescent Wrench,” Short Fiction. Jokes Review. Summer 2020. This is so absurd and I love it so much that I feel in some sense I have partially arrived. At my front door.

Gone Lawn “Even the Sky.” Prose poem. June 20, 2020. Issue 3.

Jokes Literary Review Summer 2020, [ask me for the pdf] “The Anthropology: What You Always Wanted To Know About Mathematicians But Were Afraid to Ask” Short Fiction. Summer 2020. [due to problems with mathematical symbols and the platform Jokes Review publishes on, sadly, the footnotes did not turn out right so please don’t read it there!!!! I will be delighted to e-mail you a perfect pdf! I mean the footnotes are the story, so]. [Or, stand by for the link]. [Well, just email me. WordPress can’t publish it, but I can send you a short pdf! 6 pages maybe! Jen /at// fish clamor Dott com. Just ask! Thank you!

The Inflectionist Review “The Late Bed,” prose poem. Jan. 2020 issue 9, p. 41 (at last you will know what the clamoring fish are all about!)

Best Microfictions 2020 Nomination from Citron Review for “Fighting with God.”

Gone Lawn, “Wake” and “Lot’s Wife,” Prose poems, December 20, 2019

*82 Review, “The Flowering Bonsai,” Prose poem, December, 2019

Best Lyric Prose Anthology from Eastern Iowa Review: Ed. By Chila Woychick, my prose poems “Soprano” and “Shayna” are included. Available now at Amazon.

The Citron Review, “Fighting with God,” Prose Poem, Sept 23, 2019

Bending Genres Journal: “Unity,” Fiction. August 2019. Issue 10

The Raw Art Review: “In the Fall, Demeter”; “Weaning”; Summer 2019; and “Fighting with God,” reprinted, thanks to Citron Review. Prose poems. Summer 2019. See pp. 117-120.

Eastern Iowa Review: “Soprano” and “Shayna,” Prose-poems. Spring, 2019. Issue 8.

Bop Dead City: “The Orange Tattoo” and “Three Fortunes.” Flash-fiction and Prose-Poem. Fall 2016. (This was available in print only). Look in my book for them, eventually.

Bop Dead City: Interview with Jennifer Woodworth. Fall, 2017.

Ginosko Literary Journal, “Halloween.” (P. 102). Lyric essay/Flash Fiction. October 2016. I love this story. You have to scroll and scroll and scroll to page 102. I think it’s worth it though. Let me know. 

Monkey Puzzle Press: How I Kiss Her Turning Head. Prose-Chapbook. May, 2014. The press is sadly closed, though I still have copies for sale, both e-book and hard-copy! You know you want one: drop me an email at Jen )at( fish clamor {dot} com Or send me a tweet @fishclamor. I will. E delighted to get ine into your hands. You’ll like it, I promise.

Review of How I Kiss Her Turning Head by A Total Stranger. With Questions for book groups! Never in my wildest dreams….Thank you Beth Castrodale! 

Review of How I Kiss Her Turning Head by an Internet writing friend. The man can write a fine essay! (Play and poem, too). Thank you Carl Nelson!

From the Editor’s Perch…by Carl Nelson

Reprinted here because you know, websites expire, …..but please read it at Carl’s site if you can!

Maternal Horror, review by Carl Nelson

Jennifer Woodworth’s newest book, How I Kiss Her Turning Head, which is just out by Monkey Puzzle Press, is a most gentle jaunt into the genre of Maternal Horror.  ‘Maternal Horror’ is a term I have had to coin myself.  But this is not Rosemary’s Baby.  This is the Brahms Lullaby of Xtreme Mothering.  The baby and child in these stories and sketches comprise a wonderful blessing – so wonderful, that we follow our first person hero as if pushing off down the pipe of some Xtreme Sport …  Right down the rabbit hole of maternal instinct, without time to say, “Hello!  Goodbye!” into a sort of mental ward where the ordinary and quotidian prerogatives of life conflict to our first person narrator’s charming wonderment.  And off we go, as the book paints a gentle rebellion for two.

“I have never wanted anything more than I want babies.”  The narrator tells us at the beginning of the first and best story, “Mother of One”.  And shortly she adds:

“I want another baby,” I say to my husband.”“I know you do,” he says. He means he does not want another child, not now, not ever.” How charged and compact that exchange is!Our author knows a subtext, and next to that, a rebellious flight of words. All of this makes for a good read. Her stories churn in the updraft of a contained conflagration. Her words and flights of fancy are cloaked like actors to carry more romantic weight. But all of the ducks here are rubber ducks. Her first person narrator “contains multitudes” of insight, but all from an idea fixee. Her first person narrator is entirely rational aside from being mostly fixated. Imagine an Asperger of mothering, with the soft voice, and gentle nudging of the genuinely aware – and you’ll be getting close to the voice of this narrator.The interest of the first story, “Mother of One” – which is a lovely jolt of maternal compulsion – is deciding partly where the horror lies. Is the Surrogate Mother, or is the Outsourcing Birth Mother the monster of this tale. Is it the narrator’s world which is a bit off kilter – or is it the narrator? The ending tale finds our heroine legally confined but still rebellious. Though it wouldn’t surprise me to hear our narrator reply from her ward – in an attractive way and with an appealing tone, (or perhaps she would just ‘suggest’), if asked, ‘how it could be “rebelling” when the world is backaswards?’.Jennifer Woodworth has a playful dramatic sense, writes a fine narrative, composes a lovely tune with her words, and is smart enough to say things worth reading. This is a small book to purchase and enjoy, and possibly to start your collection with.

Bellow Literary Journal, Volume 2.1, August 2013: “Mother of One” and “Screwing Up, Importantly,” Stories, August 2013. Print-only journal, still available! The story “Screwing Up, Importantly” is also posted on my blog, here. “Mother of One” is available in Bellow at the link above, and also in How I Kiss Her Turning Head. 

Opium For the Arts: “The God and the Bug Story.” Flash-Fiction. January 2010. Look for it in my book, one of these days!

Nassau Review, Writer’s Award for Poetry for “Crows over Wheatfield .” Jan, 2012.

The Nassau Review, “Crows Over Wheatfield.” Poem (ekphrasis, poem) December 2011. This was a print-only Journal. 

AROHO Orlando Prize: “The Rings.” Sudden Fiction. Fall, 2009

Flashquake: “Asunder.” Poem. Winter, 2009. The site is closed now. Sad. But I posted it on my blog here.

Mary, Mary, Mary: Visions of Grace. “we’re all marys” (prose poem). This book is a collection of Art and Writing about The Three Marys. Gallery Print, Virginia Beach, VA. Fall 2009. The beautiful book is now out of print, but “we’re all marys” is included in my chapbook How I Kiss Her Turning Head. 

Thank you so much for stopping by! 

—Jennifer Woodworth