Author’s Note: “The poem began with a prompt—to show the beauty of something ugly. Having lived in the DMV all my life, and recently read a history of the Chesapeake Bay, I thought of the oyster. It is not attractive, but it is vital to the bay and, of course, delicious to eat. The poem imagines life from the oyster’s point of view.” ...[Continue Story]
Author’s note: “After I saw images of the small Hebrew dictionary William Bradford created in his notebook, I was drawn to imagine his later life. And though the parallels may not seem obvious, I ... [Continue Story]
Author’s note: “As a narrative poet, the process of creating this piece was somewhat of a departure for me. Lately, I have been intrigued by absence—what is not visible, not said, not done—even my own mental absence from much of what is going on around me. This appeal to ‘white space’ is especially strong on the page. It allows readers to fill in the blanks, interpret, create their own meaning"... [Continue Story]
Author’s note: “Each day, a young woman runs past my home. What drives her pace, pushes her on? She runs fifteen miles a day alone, on country roads. I tried stepping into her shoes, tried to understand, imagined a past that could not be faced, a hurt that could not be undone. The repeated pounding of soles on pavement became a meditation, a saving grace"... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “We were driving back to Delaware from D.C. along Route 301 one night in November during the Leonid meteor shower. The Eastern Shore contains dark-sky patches along there, so I saw the shooting star. M’sing is a mysterious Lenape figure, somewhat deer and somewhat human, thought to have been a local forest guardian. The poem aims to evoke a disquieting unknowability and our human desire for some bright-lit gate (in this instance, the Delaware City Refinery) to protect us from that, even though it doesn’t, really”...[Continue Story]
Author’s note: “Poetry for me is often a way to write about and cope with things that are emotionally fraught, painful, frightening, things that are too hard to approach head-on. This is one of those ... [Continue Story]
Authors Note: “‘Natalie’ plays with the concept of reality: a highly subjective and individual experience, yet a noun carrying meaning in our collective consciousness. When it loses touch with what most of us agree is the truth, we call this experience a psychosis. My unnamed narrator tells the story of existence from her point of view, and it is up to the reader to pick the version that agrees with them. I hope that I convey my compassion for this lost soul who is temporarily overwhelmed by her shame, fear and the weight of being human.”[Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “When I wrote “Debris” I was working on a series of poems about things we leave behind. When I started to research space junk, I was taken by the notion of something so small being capable of immense damage. The poem took off from there.”... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “Dostoevsky, Rubenstein, Mussorgsky—Russia’s titans of literature, music & art—have lain in repose in an antique cemetery in Saint Petersburg since the 19th century. Visitors stroll through, ooh-ing & ahh-ing over the elaborate statuary, and they snap a few pix, but nobody cries. It takes a person with fresh grief to shed tears there... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “Wend is a sijo, a traditional Korean syllabic verse form that emerged in the Goryeo period (918 – 1392) and is still popular today. Themes range from the bucolic to the metaphysical. The standard pattern is three lines (each broken into two half lines) that average 14–16 syllables, for a total of 42–48: theme (3, 4, 4, 4); elaboration (3, 4, 4, 4); counter-theme (3, 5) and completion (4 ,3).” [Continue Story]
