October 3, 2023

Alison Davis

IF THE POINT WERE TO TELL IT STRAIGHT, NOT SLANT

In our first session, I told my tutor how much I used to love to take my siblings to the park when they were little. He said, Oh, so you had to help raise them? No, not really, it was just for fun. Climbing trees and picking apricots and playing fetch with the dalmatians that were always there on Saturday mornings. He said, So you needed to get out of the house to have fun? Tell me more about that. He asked questions that didn’t fit my life so I could write a story that didn’t fit my life but did fit the genre. Everyone embellishes, he said. The struggle is what makes the hero. Then maybe I should write about my parent’s divorce? A frown. Oh, God, no. That’s been done to death.
 
*
 
I wasn’t the star of the play, but I was in it. I wasn’t the star of the team, but I was on it. I wasn’t the president of the club, but I went to all the meetings. I didn’t win the competition, but I tried. I’m good at public speaking and applying liquid eyeliner. I rotate my date night underwear, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in love. My parents still brag that I potty-trained myself, that I was the first person in my class to learn to read. My favorite thing about school is when it’s over. In the hollow of a tree at the far end of the parking lot, I keep a collection of things that have been lost or left behind: a post-it note with a 209 phone number, a brass key, a conch shell charm, a souvenir penny from Yosemite, a lipstick, the wing of a swallowtail butterfly, the promises of my childhood.
 
*
 
Things that are more important right now: planning my spring break trip, sponsoring a voter registration drive, working at In-N-Out, pretending to be vegan to impress a girl, sleeping in, sleeping around, photographing treetops, playing D&D, disappearing, losing twenty pounds, gaining twenty pounds, vaping in the bathroom, hiding my eating disorder, solo kayaking the Green River, memorizing the capitals of every country in the world, learning to surf, sneaking out after curfew, raising money for Syrian refugees, walking the dog, dyeing my sister’s hair blue, breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma, planting succulents and ponytail palms, writing a screenplay, lying about why this is the best I could do, re-learning how to dream.
 
*
 
They keep telling me to find my passion. My voice. My story. But none of the adults in my life have even done that, so how am I, at seventeen, supposed to? I keep having a dream where I’m ice skating on a pond, and a dragon appears, sets a ring of pines ablaze. The flames melt the ice, and I fall in. I flail in the water. The fire closes in on me. Unable to save myself, I let my legs go limp and say goodbye. But my skates bump up against something in the water. I realize I can touch, that I could have been touching the whole time, and walk right out. On the shore, the fire from the dragon keeps me from freezing, and I watch the stars spell out my most intimate questions in the sky. I lay there for a long time, listening—
 

from Poets Respond
October 3, 2023

__________

Alison Davis: “I’m a high school English teacher, and I’ve been helping students with their college essays for many years. I go to great lengths to de-emphasize the commodification of identity, and especially of suffering, and I hope it matters.” (web)

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October 2, 2023

Caitlin Buxbaum

WOLF

I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break
or barter but my life.
—Diane di Prima

So when 
you
 
ask for
more
 
I lie
down
 
in your 
forest
 
full of
chance
 
and say
OK.
 
Take it
all.
 
I want 
nothing
 
but your
teeth
 
against my
neck
 
and your 
howl
 
in my 
ears.
 
 
 

Prompt: “This poem was written for Poetry Postcard Fest 2021, in response to the image of a wolf on the front of a postcard, and lines from that year’s featured poet, Diane di Prima. It is also written in a form called the dyo, invented by Jimmy Pappas.”

from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
Tribute to Prompt Poems

__________

Caitlin Buxbaum: “Prompts have a way of pulling poems out of me, like the needle that pushes a splinter from the skin; the further the prompt is from the ideas I most need to express, the more likely it is to get those words on paper. I don’t know if any of that makes sense.” (web)

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October 1, 2023

Stephen Abney

NIGHT VIEW, BASE CAMP, EAST OF KYIV

There aren’t as many stars tonight
As once there were before;
I’ve watched a hundred of them fall;
I’m certain there were more.
 
There aren’t as many soldiers now
As once there were before;
I’ve seen a hundred good men die;
I’m sure that there were more.
 
And yet, the stars keep shining
Bright, blazing as the sun.
For every one that fades away,
A new one has begun.
 
Soldiers, too, are like the stars.
I guess they’ll always be
Expendable, replaceable,
Unto the last draftee.
 

from Poets Respond
October 1, 2023

__________

Stephen Abney: “This poem concerns the ongoing war in Ukraine. Its message applies to many other conflicts, past and present.”

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September 30, 2023

Rose Pone (age 11)

WHEN THE MONSTERS COME OUT

Nighttime is when the monsters come out,
With their claws and their jaws
That gnash all about.
 
They watch you sleep,
All peaceful and deep,
 
But maybe they’re not as bad as you think.
 
Maybe they’re sad
And too scared to blink.
 
Maybe they like to roam in the dark.
 
Your small room
Is their
Amusement park.
 

from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Rose Pone: “I enjoy writing poetry for multiple reasons. First of all, I’m simply a creative person, but writing poetry also requires knowledge and intelligence. This causes both sides of the brain to work in a manner that can only be described as satisfactory, or thirst quenching. As well as this, I enjoy the effortless escape from reality. In poetry, you can incorporate things from your life, but tamper with them however you may wish.”

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September 29, 2023

John Brehm

SEVEN HAIKU

 
 
 
 
     coming unstitched—
even the fake flowers
     grow old
 
 
 
 
 
      the pain is still there
weeping willow
      my father cut down
 
 
 
 
 
      regretting something I said 
I turn the lampshade 
      to hide the seam
 
 
 
 
 
     scattered crocuses 
as if someone had planted 
     birdsong
 
 
 
 
 
 
      cold spring morning—
close the window
      or listen to the warbler?
 
 
 
 
 
 
      not so different
veined spring leaf
      and my ancient hand
 
 
 
 
 
      fifty years ago: seeds
before that, nothing—
      oak trees outside my window  
 

from Rattle #81, Fall 2023

__________

John Brehm: “I write poetry for many reasons: to get beyond what I think I know, to pay attention, to experience flow states of consciousness, to delight in the music and texture of language, to connect with something larger and more mysterious than myself, to remember my true nature. But mostly I do it for the money.” (web)

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September 28, 2023

Seamstress by Lily Prigioniero, oil painting of an elderly woman sewing by a window

Image: “Seamstress” by Lily Prigioniero. “To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew” was written by Bradford Kimball for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

__________

Bradford Kimball

TO THE CHILD WATCHING HIS GRANDMOTHER SEW

The whir of the sewing machine fades
Like a faltering metronome.
 
If you can imagine each stitch
As a note,
You can hear a lone melody.
 
But you don’t know that yet.
You are too young, and it is too dark.
 
She’ll wait until the lights burn out,
And when she thinks you are asleep,
She’ll play that tune again.
 
One day, you’ll hear
Some love song on the radio
And understand.
The music crescendos—
 
The lights burn out, one by one,
And you remember
The needle’s steady hum:
The first love song you ever heard.
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2023, Editor’s Choice

__________

Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There is a profound sense of warmth, both emotionally and visually, in this beautiful image, which is reflected in ‘To the Child Watching his Grandmother Sew.’ The simple yet extraordinary idea of a grandmother’s sewing as a child’s first music is elegantly executed, never overdone or heavy-handed. I also love the way the poet uses light: The grandmother waits until ‘the lights burn out’ to run the sewing machine so she doesn’t wake the child, which for me conjures a picture of the child listening to this ‘music’ while in a dreamlike state in another room—a deeply resonant image. There is a great deal of love in this poem—it makes me miss the ‘steady hum’ of my own grandmother.”

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September 27, 2023

Caitlin Buxbaum

SPEAK

However difficult a door may be to open,
once you find the key it becomes easy.
—Enta Kusakabe

The lock
on your battered mouth
is not
its only weakness;
every door has hinges.
 
 
 

Prompt: “This poem was written in response to a picture of a door posted to Instagram by the poet Adam Clay.”

from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
Tribute to Prompt Poems

__________

Caitlin Buxbaum: “Prompts have a way of pulling poems out of me, like the needle that pushes a splinter from the skin; the further the prompt is from the ideas I most need to express, the more likely it is to get those words on paper. I don’t know if any of that makes sense.” (web)

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