Michael Jon Khandelwal: “When I lived in Los Angeles, every day, a man would walk by my house shouting—I investigated and found he was selling fresh corn. Something about that touched me, reminded me of my days living in Virginia, days when I would explore the cornfields. I was astonished by this man, and how his words—in a language I didn’t know—sparked my memory so vividly. Of course, I wrote a poem about this man and his corn, as poems, for me, come from the astonishing experience of living.”
Brent Schaeffer: “Lying belly down on the grey rug after church one Sunday, I fell in love with the big words from comic books (uncanny, expatriate, macabre). On camping trips, I’d play with those words telling stories to thrill my friends. Autumn, decay, woodsmoke, hot cocoa: words are still my favorite toys and poetry the best game.”
Isabella DeSendi: “I wrote this poem after telling two of my poet friends the story of my tio’s death, including his vision of being abducted by aliens just days after we’d received the news about his deportation. My mom was still trying to figure out how to fight the government’s decision, how to break the news. My friends and I were huddled in a small circle during the intermission of a reading when I decided to share the story with them. One friend, Cat, turned to me and said, ‘Bella, this is a poem.’ She was right. This piece is an elegy for my tio, but it’s also a lamentation for immigrants in this country—and ultimately a song of praise for my mother, whose strength, generosity, and capacity for enduring I am constantly in awe of.” (web)
Joanne McCarthy: “I write bi-lingually, in Irish and English. My English is a Hiberno-English that I inherited from my family in West Cork. I came to poetry through the Irish language first and I continue to read and write in Irish. My engagement in Irish language poetry continues to echo through my work in English.” (web)
Michael Meyerhofer: “The first time I read the poems in What the Living Do by Marie Howe, I was so blown away that I said something like ‘Holy shit…’ after pretty much every one. This was followed, naturally, by a desire to share those poems with everyone—and to try and pull off the same miracle, if humanly possible. There’s a lot to be said for making somebody so stunned (hopefully in a good way) by something as seemingly innocuous as writing that all they can do is raise their eyebrows and swear like a sailor.” (web)
“The Addiction Bird” by Agnes Hanying OngPosted by Rattle
Image: “Shadowland” by Arthur Lawrence. “The Addiction Bird” was written by Agnes Hanying Ong for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
__________
Agnes Hanying Ong
THE ADDICTION BIRD
In a dream
someone calling your name
from a far sea. A sign
from Allah. Says the book
of which, oriole, people.
To Allah, I pray everyday
that you will find the way and live
a life without the drink. It is
the only speaker of an
anguish, anguish of
idyllic geese. How do birds say good
bye to their chicks? When
the black birds came, they wore
colors of a rainbow and
the colors fell off on
everything. Live like a bird I keep
having this dream of
school shooting, no, it takes
place in a drugstore, where
the usual girl, who is there, says
Look, look, that guy is
coming. Do you hear gunshots. What’s
that? Flickering in the distance?
Wait, that’s gunfire. Okay, so
what now? Are we supposed to
run out? He is outside. So
should we run in? In this literal
drugstore rimmed with aisles
of bottles to be
walking, where you
might think this is holy
temple of genies, we are
running past: genies or, jinn
or jaan, sentenced
to life as numerous
drinks in bottles all full, same
place where I once witnessed a
bird die, having flown
into glass, less than a minute
ago. Here, we arrive at: an empty
room, which has a lock, on the
metal door. So we ought to
be safe here. Just lock the door, lock
the door. I lock the door, realizing
there is another room inside this room
which has no windows. The room is
walled with just cold, concrete
surprising in this town, like it is a miniature
medieval castle. It is like, nightly, we can
warm our hands here, stay low and close
to the ground, while setting a pile of
silverfish on fire and say: This is living. This is
Comment from the artist, Arthur Lawrence: “This poem is chock-full of poetic imagery and delightful word play like ‘the usual girl, genies or, jinn or jann.’ The line spacing is purposeful and not stressed. The painting that I provided is somewhat nightmarish and surrealistic, qualities this poem elicits. The poem begs the question, what are we addicted to … guns, war, drugs, mindless violence, mindless adherence to doctrine? From the war in Gaza to the war in our schools, and on our streets, this is the nightmare our children and grandchildren live with every day. Just ask the young and they will tell you that you are too old to understand.”
Brent Fisk: “I try to nail down a time and place with words. I want an image to walk down a dark hall with just the tip of a cigarette to let you know it’s coming. I want the right words to rise like moths from the grass. Sometimes when you get close enough to accomplishing that readers tap into a poem. They hear the floorboards creak. They hear the window rattle. They see the moon exactly as I describe it. Getting that close is like finding a wad of money in an old shirt’s pocket.”
