Willie James King: “Mary Oliver’s American Primitive became my first writing teacher. Reading her poems taught me that it was okay to write about the things that really moved, that I cared about. Once I was bitten by the bug, although it started decades ago, I haven’t tired of it since.”
“Insomnia Chronicles XXVI” by Erin MurphyPosted by Rattle
Erin Murphy
INSOMNIA CHRONICLES XXVI
The night is full of insomniacs googling insomnia. Some of my friends are trying Dry January. Dryuary. Others are sober curious. There’s a mock cocktail called a Phony Negroni. It’s made with non-alcoholic gin. Phony Negroni. Phony baloney. When I was eight, my brother and I were walking by a house in our neighborhood when suddenly a slab of baloney sailed through the air and stuck to a chain link fence. There were no people or animals in sight. Such a funny word, baloney. What’s Biden’s favorite saying? Malarkey. So hokey. But then, even the word hokey is hokey. Monday we’ll inaugurate a felon the same day we celebrate Martin Luther King. Felonious Trump. For years we’d pass the brick rancher and say There’s the baloney house the way you might observe that it’s raining or snowing. We humans can normalize anything.
Erin Murphy: “The baloney house was a mid-century brick ranch that was nearly identical to my childhood home. I’ve wanted to write about it for years, and the upcoming inauguration finally gave me the opportunity.” (web)
Mathias Nelson: “When I was little I used to act like a monkey, holding my mother’s hand and doing chimp talk. Things have changed, but I still act like an idiot in attempt to make her smile when I can.Sometimes it works, and, well, other times … she calls me a stupid sonof- a-bitch.” (web)
Philip Levine: “I’d like to be remembered as a good teacher and a good father and a good poet and a good husband and a good brother. There are a lot of things I’d like to be remembered for, come to think of it. But I suppose chief among them would be as a good poet, or somebody who advanced American poetry or somebody who took it into areas where it hadn’t been.”
“A Letter to My Friend After Swimming” by Stephanie GlassPosted by Rattle
Stephanie Glass
A LETTER TO MY FRIEND AFTER SWIMMING
hey girl/ so I keep taking Milo to the pool/ he’s on the swim team now/ level one/ he’s still learning to blow bubbles and float and breathe/ while he swims I swim/ freestyle and breaststroke and butterfly/ and/ I’m learning to breathe too/ learning to breathe/ seems like it should be easy/ but it’s like/ like learning to walk/ like learning to blink/ learning to look at someone and know that you love them/ like learning to pick up the pieces/ after that person disappears/ I always pick up the pieces/ get my son to the pool on time/ the dentist on time/ the doctor on time/ school on time/ I am on time/ I’m learning how to breathe/ and every breath is ten thoughts right now/ isn’t that just how it works sometimes?/ sometimes a breath is just a breath and/ sometimes it’s everything/ you can do to inhale without drowning/ but at the end of my swim/ he comes through the double doors toward me/ running the way you run when you can’t run by the pool/ to stand over me/ where I’m waiting after finishing my lap/ and my watch is counting down to the next repetition/ the next series of strokes through the sterile blue/ the next exhalation of everything I’ve got into bubbles and motion/ and I’m inhaling the scent of chlorine like it’s peace/ and there he is/ smiling like he’s won the lottery because it’s the end of the lesson and he/ gets to swim/ with his mom/ and girl, I gotta tell you/ in that moment/ I don’t have to think/ about breathing.
Stephanie Glass: “I am an 8th-grade English teacher in Chadron, Nebraska. The majority of my time is spent with my child and with my students. In my moments of free time, I dedicate myself to nature, to music, to literature, and to the exploration of self. My son and I spend quite a bit of time at the pool or fishing local creeks, rivers, and lakes. We live with four cats (Fred, Jelly Bean, Pants, and Mr. Darcy) and two guinea pigs (Sun Cake and Moon Nibbles). I am quite grateful for my peaceful life, and I write to capture and acknowledge the simplicity I find so beautiful.” (web)
Denise Duhamel: “I started writing the poems from In Which after reading Emily Carr’s brilliant essay ‘Another World Is Not Only Possible, She Is on Her Way on a Quiet Day I Can Hear Her Breathing.’ (American Poetry Review, Volume 51, No. 3, May/June 2022) Carr borrows her title from Arundhati Roy, political activist and novelist. In her delightfully unconventional essay, Carr talks about rekindling intuition in poems, offering ‘a welcome antidote to whatever personal hell you, too, are in.’ Carr’s invitation to be unapologetic, even impolite, gave me new ways of entering my narratives. Soon I was imagining I was someone else completely. Or sometimes I looked back at my earlier self, at someone I no longer recognized.”
