Tony Gloeggler: “I started writing poetry because I was always pretty quiet and no one was really talking about things I was feeling and thinking. Trying to turn my thoughts into a poem helped me understand myself and how I fit and didn’t fit in the world. That’s still what I’m doing whenever I write. This one’s about the guys in the group home I managed (the place I fit best, where things made the most sense) and how so few people outside the residence viewed them like they viewed anyone else, how they’re mostly just like everybody else. A little nicer or nuttier, funnier, weirder, less guarded. How a couple of them are two of my favorite people ever, how they could sometimes annoy the crap out of me. And how I miss them (apologies to Lee and Florencio for not letting them in the poem but luckily they don’t read poetry just like nearly everybody else) and the staff. Especially Larry.” (web)
John Arthur: “The Lakers lost in the NBA playoffs and my news feeds have been inundated with debate over whether Lebron James is the greatest basketball player of all time or whether it’s Michael Jordan. That prompted the ‘I’m the Lebron James of local bureaucrats’ opening, and the rest of the poem just came out basically as is. By the way, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the greatest of all time.”
Lynne Thompson: “Although I was a civil litigator for more than fourteen years, the practice of law seldom, if ever, enters my poems. It’s as though that person has gone off for a long (and well-deserved) sleep and this poet—always bemused—has taken her place. I like her.” (web)
Judith Fox: “I wrote nonfiction articles for national magazines, but didn’t start studying and writing poetry seriously until the spare text I wrote for my photography book, I Still Do: Loving and Living with Alzheimer’s rekindled my life-long love of poetry. (My father gave me A Child’s Garden of Verses on my fifth birthday; don’t ask me to recite ‘My Shadow’ unless you really want to hear it.) I’m twice-widowed and live in Los Angeles.” (web)
Tim Suermondt: “The day after a February snow storm the sun came out, and I watched a group of high school students standing on the street corner, all of whom would soon have to face ‘the real world’ and all that that entailed. And despite the years between us, I felt like those teenagers: ready to go—damn the disappointments and worse. And like me, they’d learn to hang in and even occasionally triumph.” (web)
Luigi Coppola: “While unpacking some (decade old?) boxes since our last house move (the scene from The Incredibles springs to mind), I was inspired by the title and headings used for an article from the HomeOwners Alliance website to write about the process, the headaches, the joy of a new house and then home. Various memories came flooding back, from childhood to adulthood, all compartmentalised but through various literal/metaphoric/symbolic lens, recalling Marianne Moore’s ars poetica within the longer version of her poem ‘Poetry’: ‘imaginary gardens with real toads.’” (web)
“Synapses and Stardust” by Brandy NorrbomPosted by Rattle
Image: “Alignment II” by John Paul Caponigro. “Synapses and Stardust” was written by Brandy Norrbom for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “I love the idea of the ‘spaces between us humming like synapses,’ and the way one can almost sense that kind of electricity between the objects in this image. The thoughtful lack of punctuation makes the poem flow as if it’s all being said in one breath, which reflects the ‘suspended in space and time’ feeling of the artwork. The last two lines are beautiful and moving, and take the reader by surprise with their candid vulnerability. The ending seems to hang in the air after the poem is over, again perfectly mirroring the scene in the image.”
