Maria Sebastian

 Don't be surprised if a lot of these links don't work anymore. Poetry publications turn over like lunch tables.

10/20/2023 - Thanks to Slipstream for publishing my poem “The Colony, Est. 1929”.

2/9/2020 -- Thanks to The Buffalo News for posting my poem, "A Refugee's Ode to Yet." 

8/13/2019 -- Finishing Line Press (Georgetown, KY) has just published my new chapbook, The Scenery of Saviors. Copies can be ordered at this link, or on Amazon (upcoming), and I will have copies for sale at select shows. These 25 poems feature folks who endeavor to improve or inspire the lives of others whether out of love or civic duty, obligation or adoration, and sometimes in spite of themselves. PSSST: They're cheaper here. See the store link at the bottom of this page.

5/7/2019 -- Broad River Review at Gardner-Webb University has accepted "I Heard a Woman" (Boliing Springs, NC).

5/2/2019 -- The Showbear Family Circus accepted my poem for poet Archibald MacLeish, "Man Made Art" (5/25 pub. date)

4/11/2019 --Thanks to Hobart Literary Journal for accepting my three-word baseball poem "A Good Game" for its April 24th edition. 

4/2/2019 -- I am thrilled to announce that The University of Kent's arts magazine has just accepted one of my new poems for its June 5th edition. https://thementeur.com/ (Paris, France)

4/1/2019 -- "Is Maria There" and "After a Funeral for a Man in his Twenties" were just graciously accepted by The University of Wyoming's Owen Wister Review.

3/15/2019 -- One of my newest poems will be published in the coming weeks by Spectrum Literary Journal (University of California at Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies).

2/28/2019 -- "Squirrel Hill Tunnel" will be published in an upcoming edition of Toronto's White Wall Review

2/3/2019 -- "From a Western Woman to a Middle Eastern One" will be published in Universal Oneness: An Anthology of Magnum Opus Poems from around the World’ (360 poems by 360 poets from 60 Countries) to be published by Authorspress, New Delhi, India

01/06/2019 -- "A Portrait of Your Boy And Mine" was published in the winter edition of Mothers Always Write. The journal was unable to use this image which was the inspiration for the poem.

12/29/2018 -- One of my favorite recent poems, "Ode to the House Dress" will be published in an upcoming print edition of Lily Poetry Review.

12/17/2018 -- "I Want to Ask..." will be published in the Spring 2019 issue of Metonym Literary Journal published by William Jessup University.

9/27/2018 -- Coming Soon: "The Refugee's Ode to Yet" will be published in the upcoming anthology, The Larger Geometry, published by San Antonio peaceCENTER Press.

8/28/2018 -- Thanks to About Place Journal for accepting "Zaynab in the Community College Writing Lab" for publication in their October/November issue. 

8/24/2018 -- I am happy to have heard today that "She Met a Guy" was published by The Stirling Spoon. 

A recent poem inspired by Charles Bukowski was published by Ramingo's Porch: (May, 2018).

https://www.amazon.com/Ramingos-Porch-Issue-3/dp/1948920042

I am honored that "Haunting the Audubon," my poem with a Malcolm X theme, has been published in an Afro-Futurism Anthology edited by Dr. Scott Williams and published by The Writer's Den.

My poems have been published by Crack the Spine, Every Writer Magazine, The Buffalo News, Willard and Maple (Spring, 2019 / Burlington, Vermont), the above publications, and The Healing Muse. 

Fun Interview: https://ramingoblog.com/ramingos-porch-submissions/issue-3-fuck-bukowski/maria-sebastian/

For Erik, After

I no longer say
I didn't know him well.
If you knew him five minutes, 
you knew him all the way.

We had a few barstool chats,
a couple I'll giggle about forever, 
then one glued itself to me;
he confided so completely

though I knew him "well" but not long. 
I worried for him, then he was gone. 
He was as Beat as any poet 
any generation ever saw.

Sixties boots.
Seventies sideburns.
Eighties cigarettes. 
Nineties plaid.

Ginsberg would've loved him. 
Kerouac? Immortalized. 
Burroughs would've tried to shoot 
an apple off his head, but Erik

would've caught with his teeth
a bullet souvenir to roll around
the drawer of his nightstand that sits 
now among friends on a stage as an altar.