Lance Larsen: “When my daughter’s high school friend went missing, I found myself in deep denial: how could she be gone, she was just in my house? I wrote this poem to explore the magical thinking that filled those days of waiting. If I rehearsed certain details (street names, colors, freckles, etc.), maybe she would come back. Of course, I was also trying to cast a spell on my own daughter and keep her safe forever. I consider this a poem of prayer, a poem of preparatory mourning, even if Deity is never invoked directly.”
Gina Tranisi: “Another heavy news week in America, and I find myself wishing I lived in a country that loved me back. I want a soft life. I want to dance. I want to sing. I want to buy my groceries. I do not want to fear being swallowed by the mouth of a gun. Because of my girlhood. Because of my sexuality. America loves putting our lunches in bowls. I wish we could order bowls of gun reform and LGTBQ+ rights, have them delivered to the doorsteps of Congress. Since that’s not possible, I collected all of these wishes of mine and put them in a bowl, I mean, a poem.”
Amira Antoun Salameh, from Damascus in Syria, has published and won awards for her poetry, children’s stories, and puppet theater; as well, she writes theatrical scripts and directs plays for the Cultural Center in Latakia. | Jennifer Jean & Yafa al-Shayeb: “Jordanian writer Yafa al-Shayab and I have co-translated Amira Salameh’s poem for a bilingual anthology that I am co-editing along with poet Kirun Kapur—which is tentatively titled: Other Paths for Shahrazad: Contemporary Poems by Arab Women. This is a project of the Her Story Is collective. HSI is led by independent women writers and artists from primarily Iraq and the United States; it promotes projects aimed at expanding linguistic, artistic, and cultural boundaries in response to global conflict, with a focus on centralizing the experience of women. We believe our process transforms established power structures, creates new grounds for learning, and builds a community of equals across borders.”
“Fault Lines” by Margaret MalochlebPosted by Rattle
Image: “Ballet Above the Bay” by René Bohnen. “Fault Lines” was written by Margaret Malochleb for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the artist, René Bohnen: “I had quite a job selecting a shortlist from the shortlist and eventually my favourite. In many of the poems I found beautiful imagery, as well as poignant moments and situations. I let the spirit and definitions of ekphrastic verse guide me in my final decision. I chose ‘Fault Lines’ as the poem which in my opinion amplifies and expands a core idea. The poet has cleverly used the different meanings of a geological concept to develop parallel perceptions in the reader’s mind. The poem becomes much more than mere description of the picture provided. Oxford Dictionaries offers this definition of fault lines: 1) a place where there is a long break in the rock that forms the surface of the earth and where earthquakes are more likely to happen, and 2) an issue that people disagree about and may, as a result, lead to conflict. Already in the first stanza we find the darker questions of devotion linked to the quest of going inside a mountain. Geology and emotional danger in association or perhaps juxtaposition, the reader has to read to find out. Judging technically, I enjoyed the sound effects in the poem. Without becoming clumsy or heavy, the little echoes, assonance and alliteration drive the action along. A line such as ‘littered with thistle’ tickles the mind’s eye and the poetic ear. In the last stanza, the b-alliteration (‘borderless boundary that can never be breached’) emphasises the profound wisdom that is presented as the poem’s closing viewpoint. Details and specifics anchor the narrative (‘bindweed, cheatgrass’) while also alluding to unpleasant situations or events between two people. The couple is hungry and thirsty, they pull each other up. They negotiate out croppings. This is no vague journey. The last stanza returns to the ‘mountain’ that appeared in stanza 1. The arching that is thus created echoes the shape of the arms in the artwork. The emotion of dismay, surprise, horror or despair that may be implied by the artwork, is subtly prompted by the openendedness of the last stanza, when the mountain waits for realization to dawn on the two tired people. I can write much more on this poem, but will leave the other readers the opportunity to analyse and enjoy an intricate poem that reads so effortlessly, one is initially mislead to think that it is simple.”
Ron Koertge: “In the Midwest, people live for basketball. NCAA stuff, of course, but also high school ball. Stats filled the pages of local newspapers. Fans drove hundreds of miles for away games. Identification with a local team and a local hero was standard fare. ‘Things and How They Work’ chronicles a period of madness, both March Madness and generic basketball madness. The boys in the poem see how things work as they watch Terry’s star rise and quickly fall.” (web)
Endre Ruset lives in Molde, Norway. He has written six collections of poetry, including both elegies and poems after the veteran Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai. His latest collection Deretter (Thereafter) was a Dagblaget Book of the Year 2021. (web) | Harry Man: “On the 22nd of July, 2011, two attacks took place in Norway, the first a bombing in the Government Quarter of Oslo that killed eight and injured a further 209, followed by a mass shooting, the worst in European history. An extreme right-wing terrorist armed with a hunting rifle, a pistol, and jerry cans filled with diesel took a ferry to the remote island of Utøya where a summer camp was taking place. There they opened fire on children, teenagers, organisers, and volunteers, killing 69 people. The senselessness of the attacks shook Norway and Europe to its core. For the past five years I’ve been working with the Norwegian poet Endre Ruset to translate his poems. These are poems that not only commemorate, but that also look to ask deeper questions about the enduring effects of such tragedies on survivors, the bereaved, local communities, and how this ongoing process of PTSD treatment, grief counselling, taking part in studies, workshops, group and physical therapy for so many is profoundly a form of second survival.” (web)
“As the World Population Surpasses 8 Billion, I Purposely Misremember a Line from Anne Carson’s Sappho and Hear in Its Utterance the Song of the Humpback Whale” by Dante Di StefanoPosted by Rattle
Dante Di Stefano
AS THE WORLD POPULATION SURPASSES 8 BILLION, I PURPOSELY MISREMEMBER A LINE FROM ANNE CARSON’S SAPPHO AND HEAR IN ITS UTTERANCE THE SONG OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE
More of us than ever before walk
the Earth at once. All over the globe more
men and women fall in and out of love,
and open windows frame more rain-facing
faces than ever before in the history of
storms. There are more children learning the sad
math of growing up than ever before,
more dead goldfishes flushed down toilets, more
middle schoolers unlearning the bass
guitar, string by string. There are more old men
eating canned peaches beneath olive trees,
more family trees scrawled by red crayon
in the script and meter of ancient seas.
Strikingly beautiful gray-haired women
bow over raised beds of roses with much
more frequency than in any other
era. There are more mothers and more kisses,
more eyelashes fluttering mascara
butterflies, more desires, more hands both slapped
