August 15, 2024
TRIOLET FOR CAROL
So many things that still feel new
are old, and that’s the way it goes.
This is what always happens to
so many things that still feel new.
I think of how I have loved you
all these years, and that just shows
so many things that still feel new
feel new because of the life we chose.
—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
Tribute to Love Poems
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John L. Stanizzi: “The poem is from a manuscript in progress called Hallelujah Time! based on the albums of Bob Marley—specifically Burnin’, Exodus, Confrontation, and Survival. The poems are loosely inspired by Bob’s songs, and when it’s appropriate the biblical inspiration Bob used to get to the writing of the song. The poems in the book appear in the same order as the songs on the albums. Completion of Hallelujah Time! is about two years ago. Jah Bless!”
Releasing in December, 2009, issue #32 celebrates the “little song,” poetry’s most enduring traditional form. Shakespeare and Petrachan sonnets, a backwards sonnet, free verse sonnets, blank verse sonnets, clean sonnets, dirty sonnets, invented sonnets, sonnets that praise sonnets, sonnets that mock sonnets, a sonnet that uses only one rhyme-word fourteen times…all capped off with a full heoric crown of fifteen sonnets by Patricia Smith. The variations are limitless—there’s nothing more liberating than a little restriction. T. S. Davis introduces the special section with a personal essay on his journey into form.
Releasing in December, 2010, Rattle #34 turns its attention to another intimate vocation, spotlighting the poetry of 26 mental health professionals. These psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counselors, and case-workers dive inside the mind daily and come home soggy with the muck of dreams. Many of them write about their careers, but the scope is broad, and all of their poems are informed by years of training and unique insights on the human soul. The section is highlighted throughout by the stunning abstract portraiture of art therapist Mia Barkan Clarke. As psychoanalyst Forrest Hamer writes, “so much depends on what’s under.”
Rattle #43 focuses on the love poem, with new work by 40 poets. From sonnets, triolets, and villanelles, to free verse, letters, and lyrics—we spent a year looking for love, in all the ways a poet can slice it. Old love new love, red love, blue love. Mean love, green love, thick love, lean love. In one poem kissing is a religion, another’s love is for a chicken. The issue is a strange brew, but love potions often are. To help make sense of it all, we interview poet and philosopher Troy Jollimore, author of the non-fiction book Love’s Vision.