Michele Root-Bernstein, Laszlo Slomovits & Jennifer Burd: “We have been writing rengay together since the start of the pandemic in 2020. A rengay is a six-verse collaborative poem, using a set alternating pattern of three-line and two-line haiku. Usually two poets compose a rengay; a threesome like ours is unusual. For each rengay, we begin by suggesting some opening haiku and posing a theme. Then the round-robin begins, as we respond to, link with, and shift from each other’s haiku. When we complete a rengay, we work together to clarify the theme, hone the language, and safeguard the space between lines and verses which allows the poem as a whole to breathe. When the rengay takes off in a direction none of us could envision on our own, it’s a sheer delight.”
Alejandro Escudé: “Human beings, in my point of view, are absolute masters of denial and distraction. The eclipse was just another event that reminded me of how well society can turn its gaze up and away from real societal issues, personal problems, true miracles, thought, insight, love, in order to participate in one more pointless venture.” (web)
Ansuya Patel & Batya Weinbaum: “We chose the theme courage. We both wrote a draft initially and used couplets to weave our experiences into one story. We had both been attacked by a stranger in a car many years ago. Writing in couplets allowed us to create the journey that changed us forever and remind us that courage has no gender. We have reclaimed our lives and the open road, proving that resilience is a formidable force in the face of adversity, and that no experience however dark can define the boundless potential within every individual.”
Herb Kitson & Ray-J Nelson: “We have been working on projects together for a long time and enjoyed working on poetry collaboration for Rattle. Ray-J (age 13) is the content/ideas man, and I’m the form-style-structure man. To borrow from Robert A. Pirsig, Ray-J is the Romantic mode of understanding; I’m the Classical mode. He either wrote down or told me what he wanted to convey, and I assisted him in putting the material in ‘poetic’ form. We had lots of fun trying to use metaphor in each poem. Each of us contributed two metaphors. He wants to be a great writer someday; I’m pushing him toward medicine because we poets are poor. Maybe he’ll be another William Carlos Williams.”
George Bilgere: “When I was eight years old my parents got divorced. My mother packed her three kids into an old Chevy station wagon and drove us from St. Louis to Riverside, California, looking for a fresh start. She had visited there when she was an Army nurse stationed in LA during the war and fell in love with the place. That cross-country car trip, full of cheap diners, cheap hotels, and desperation, changed my life. I fell in love with the vastness and beauty, the glamor and tawdriness, of America. I’ve travelled all over the country since then, on that ancient and deeply American quest, the search for home.” (web)
Mariko Kitakubo & Deborah P. Kolodji: “We started writing ‘tan-ku’ sequences and sets during the pandemic when neither of us could travel. Mariko is a tanka poet and I am a haiku poet. We started having poetic conversations via Facebook Messenger where Mariko would write a tanka and I would respond with a haiku and vice versa, often at odd hours due to the time zone differences between Tokyo and Los Angeles. Some of these poems are only two verses, but others are six, and sometimes more. We were born the same year and have common experiences, but also cultural differences which has been a learning experience for both of us. We have found that sometimes our poems take unexpected turns.”
Ryan McCarty: “I’ve been so struck by all the people I hear talking about their plans to watch the solar eclipse. Everyone is traveling, planning, convening. Thirty-one million people are supposed to be traveling to get somewhere within range. I love cosmic phenomena, but I love the way people obsess about them even more. I find myself wondering exactly what they hope to see—what they imagine—and if there’s any chance that one of these hyped-up celestial flickers might just one day change everything while we’re all standing around staring, together. Add in the almost apocalyptic warnings that accompany these kinds of events – communications breakdowns, gas shortages, traffic pileups, snack shortages—and I can’t stop imagining. That’s where this poem started.”
