Una Nichols Hynum, from Volume 3:1

The poet laureate Billy Collins once called Una Nichols Hynum "the poet who made me wake up." Hynum was born in Providence, Rhode Island. A graduate of San Diego State University and a finalist for the James Hearst Poetry Prize, she has been published in Rattle, an island of egrets, A Year in Ink, San Diego Poetry Annual, Magee Park Anthology, and many poetry anthologies. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and is a member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 3:1 features three poems by Hynum: "Conversation, with Soul," "Alchemy," and "Haunting." Each piece dazzles, the language lush, terse, meditative.

From "Haunting":

The cemetery sits on a hill, crosses
stamped on the sky, round shouldered

clouds shuddering in the chill Santa Ana wind.

[...]

                                                           Hell
would be knowing, or living through something

again you cannot live through or die from.

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Read Hynum's amazing poems in full! Navigate over to Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 3:1!

Fred Longworth, from Volume 2:2

Fred Longworth never recovered from the dire influences of Mad Magazine. In spite of this, he holds a B.A. in English Literature (San Diego  State University), and an MBA (National University). Self- employed for most of his adult life, Fred succumbed  to the intoxicants of poetry in the 1990's. Does anyone really care about this stuff? His poems have been published in Able Muse, Bloodroot, California Quarterly, Comstock Review, Pearl, Rattapallax, Spillway, Stirring, and the ubiquitous "et al." In fact, his life has largely consisted of "etc." and "et al," with an  extra dash of "moreover."

Below is excerpted "Grace Notes," fropm Volume 2:2:

You try to put a first foot forward,
then the other,
but something's tied a tourniquet around one thigh,
turning it into vast numb pillar,
and the other seems to have a dozen extra knees.
[...]
Then, across the dance floor,
someone utterly beautiful forgives your lunge
and looks beyond your drag.
She smiles at you, and beckons.
You flutter like a drunken moth, tumbling toward
the only lamp on earth.

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To read "Grace Notes" in full, as well as two more of Longworth's poems, open Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 2:2!

S. Whitaker, from Volume 2:2

S. Whitaker's poetry has appeared in dozens of journals. He is the literary review editor for The Broadkill Review, and a member of The National Books Critics Circle. He is the author of three chapbooks of poetry. He lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

Here is a taste of "Sleeper Agent Love Letter," one of Whitaker's two poems in Volume 2:2:

Every other word is truth. To cipher the weal
take a pen and scratch out eyes. To shade, to cross.
My ghastly toe-headed conspirator, the pale is the knife wiped clean. 

The vowels we speak are valves for your sweet breath...

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To read this poem and Whitaker's other piece, "Spoon Is Me," peruse Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 2:2!

 

Diane Funston, from Volume 2:2

Diane Funston has been active in San Diego poetry, including the San Diego Poetry Annual, Magee Park Poets, GUTS, Summation, and most recently Lucid Moose of Long Beach. She co-founded the women's writing group SILK in Escondido, CA, and is a member of Writers and Books in Rochester, New York, her hometown. She divides her time between a home in Central Nevada and a cabin in the mountains in Tehachapi, CA. She holds a B.A. in Literature and Writing from CSU San Marcos.

Take a peek at one of Funston's two poems in Volume 2:2, "Applications":

I tone down the possession of imagination,
pledge allegiance to authority,
polish policy and procedures to a high gloss;
denounce Satan in the form of Poetry,
and declare a chain of command for the universe.

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To read Funston's poems in their entirety, navigate over to Synesthesia Literary Journal Voume 2:2!

Sharif Shakhshir, from Volume 2:2

Sharif Shakhshir is a Southern California native who suffers from an extreme case of Californication.  A hopeful screenwriter, novelist, poet, cartoonist, princess, butterfly, astronaut; he got his masters at the now stab-murdered Masters of Professional Writing program at USC which emphasized adaptability between writing forms. Sharif tends to pull together disparate ideas and make them play in the same sandbox together; usually, they play My Little Pony: Special Victims Unit. Sharif is unemployed, overweight, a person of color, a Hollywood cliché, and an intellectual. Given this combination, it is no surprise that loneliness is a prominent theme in Shakhshir’s work. Said work can be seen in other publications like The East Jasmine Review, Perceptions Magazine of the Arts, and Writing That Risks.  He is also on Twitter @Sharif12

Sharif contributed the longest piece published in Synesthesia to date, a story titled "The First Canine Uprising." Below is an excerpt.

Congregation

Once there was a boy who liked cats. This is the story about his dog. On the top of the hills behind Azusa, more than 200 canines are gathered to see this dog named “Roxie.” She is a mutt, white and mid-tone with black spots on her face, muzzle, and paws as if she had lost a fight with a fountain pen. Like many military leaders speaking to their troops before they die, she barks about freedom and tomorrows. The dogs are volunteer soldiers for her insurgency against human supremacy.
Spit falls to the soil at Roxie’s paws during the climax of her speech. She howls to the blackness of a new moon. Her congregation howls along under a giant white cross, their chorus echoing over a cliff down to the city lights below. They howl on the park benches tattooed with bad graffiti. They howl from the bushes littered with spent lighters and cigarette butts. They howl from the bottom of the westward sloping hill which makes a natural stage for the canine insurgents to see their leader.

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To read Shakhshir's tour de force in full, open up Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 2:2.

Stephen Linsteadt, from Volume 2:2

Stephen Linsteadt is a poet and a painter. He is also the founder of Scalar Heart Connection and author of the book with the same title, which is concerned with humanity’s connection, or lack thereof, with Nature, the Earth, and the global community. Linsteadt's poetry is a reflection of this outreach, and explores the process of painting as a road to self discovery.

Below is excerpted "Slipping on Wet Paint," one of the two poems Linsteadt contributed to Volume 2:2.

Existentialists make lousy painters


[...]

Perhaps they had a secret behind their painting

[...]

I only have sandstorms outside

[...]

Admittedly Van Gogh never captured light
moving through cypress

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To read Linsteadt's poems in their entirety, navigate over to Synesthesia Literary Journal Voume 2:2!

Hope Ann Valentine, from Volume 2:2

Hope Ann Valentine is a freewheeling twenty-one-year old currently living in Northern California. She is a firm believer in Bob Dylan ethics and WWJD. She'll be relocating to the East Coast this spring after she graduates with a degree in government and journalism. Her main occupation is being a child of the Earth, but she hopes to pursue a career in international affairs journalism and to keep adventuring. You can contact her, or creep on her, at www.hopeannvalentine.tumblr.com.

Below is excerpted "Butterflies for Christopher," Valentine's poem in Volume 2:2.

          "People put up walls that protect nothing."
          Ignoring this assessment, I proceed: "How are you?"

          [...]

          Maybe the canary loved my grandmother. Maybe it respected how
               she'd situated its
          existence: "I don't understand this, but this is how I ought to be,
               this is how I was placed."

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To read Valentine's quirky prose poem, peek inside Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 2:2.