**An overview of JL Martindale's published works, 2010 - 2015

JL Martindale, whose In Sepia graced this site in December 2010, has been published numerous times since then. These works include:

Two poems in the verse collection A Poet is a Poet No Matter How Tall: Poems by Poets of All Shapes and Sizes.

Waiting on Winter, an image-vivid, autumn-stark relationship poem, published on the Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets site on December 1, 2013.

Simple Harmonic Motion, a music-and-sensuality piece, published on the Cadence Collective site on January 25, 2014.

Spliced, an emotionally-harsh versework highlighting booze and bitterness. The Cadence Collective site published this on February 24, 2014.

Beautiful, an aggressive-in-spirit take on notions of attractiveness, dark music and romance. The Cadence Collective site published this on March 12, 2014.

Cons in Prose: A How-to Guide, a clever, funny poem about reading at open mics. The Cadence Collective site published this on April 16, 2014.

Last Line Epiphanies, about being an aging, socially "respectable" punk, and the doubts that entails. The Cadence Collective site published this on May 23, 2014.

I Lie When We Lay, an emotionally-wracked piece about troubling, complicated bonds of intimacy. The Cadence Collective site published this on June 18, 2014.

No Afterlife for Garbage, with its straight take on our material objects. The Cadence Collective site published this on January 28, 2015.

Lovers like us and ghost towns, about the past and symbolic archeology. The Cadence Collective site published this on February 4, 2015.

Martindale co-authored a verseworks anthology (The Bottle & the Boot) with Daniel McGinn. This limited-release chapbook comes with a CD of selected readings from the book. You can purchase it here.

Three of her poems -- Afterbirth; Deliverance (Birth is a Violent Lover) and I Pull You with the Weeds --  was included in the jazz-enhanced spoken-word reading CD/download Prose, Rhythm and Noise: Muliebrity, Vol. 1, released in May 2015.  (One of Martindale's works, I Pull You with the Weeds, also appears in the aforementioned The Bottle & the Boot.)

One of her poems, Like a Dog, was included in the jazz-enhanced spoken-word reading CD/download, Prose, Rhythm and Noise: Muliebrity, Vol. 2, also released in May 2015.

In Sepia

By JL Martindale


Jared dreamed in black and white. When everyone else carved "Brown Pride" on their binders, he wrote "Sepia pride" and told me I should do the same to mine because my eyes were brown even if my skin was leche sin cafe.

Jared offered me his elbow like a gentleman when we strolled home from school. He tipped his bowler and bowed slightly when strangers would stare. In public, he embraced me and clung with conviction, quoting lines from Casablanca and Rebecca.

But I wasn't his girl. He never would have me as his girl.

Jared was in love with Arika Vasquez. She was paler than me and had thick, wavy, black hair that cascaded down the side of her cinema star face, framing her full red femme fatale lips in such a way that made Jared and me both giddy with delight and envy.

Jared believed Arika was the Ava Gardner to his Burt Lancaster. He called her his only desire, his one weakness. Jared boasted that I was his best friend, his girl Friday.

Arika served us Brown Cows in frosty metal tumblers at the diner where she worked after school. When it was time to pay, she winked and said only Jared had to pay for his, that mine was free because I had prettier gams than Marlene Dietrich and the irresistible cuteness of Joan Fontaine. Later, Arika said I could be the Gretta Garbo to her Lilyan Tashman if only I'd leave Mr. Olivier at home.

Arika dreamed in black and white tinged sepia too, but she kissed in technicolor and Jared never knew.


Copyright ©2010 JLM StrangerUpstairs.com All rights reserved.

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

JL Martindale is a thirty-something geeky girl writing, blogging and existing somewhere in Southern California. She is the Stranger behind StrangerUpstairs and the Jaelyn who was anthologized in Cream: The Best of Erotica Readers and Writers Association.