WHO
—from Poets Respond
October 22, 2023
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Susan Dambroff: “‘Wh0’ is my attempt to speak to the complexity and context of the Israeli-Hamas war, with all of its absolute heartbreak.”
WHO
—from Poets Respond
October 22, 2023
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Susan Dambroff: “‘Wh0’ is my attempt to speak to the complexity and context of the Israeli-Hamas war, with all of its absolute heartbreak.”
THAATHAA
—from 2023 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
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Why do you like to write poetry?
Divya Venkat Sridhar: “Poetry helps me believe in myself. It is the best feeling in the world—to know that I can create something honest, using words in a way that nobody has done before, and speak my truth.”
BESTIARY
for Liz Tapp
Prompt: “My neighbour Liz said, ‘All my life I’ve wanted to knit an aardvark,’ and I said, ‘That would be a great first line for a poem.’”
—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
Tribute to Prompt Poems
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Kai Jensen: “I like to (paradoxically) liberate my writing by placing constraints on it (a form, a process). A prompt line narrows and focuses, a bit like a starting block for a sprinter. From this fixed point, how far/wide can I range?”
Image: “Yellow Flowers” by Carla Paton. “For a Robot” was written by Alison Bailey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
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FOR A ROBOT
—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2023, Artist’s Choice
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Comment from the artist, Carla Paton: “‘For a Robot’ is intriguing and evocative, melding together the realm of human experience with the concept of machine cognition. What makes it so captivating is its detailing of poignant, sometimes mundane moments that cumulatively shape a human life. The poem ponders on the prerequisites for authentic creation, suggesting that a robot must undergo a multitude of sensory and emotional experiences before it can truly create something as intimate as poetry. The assortment of events, from the whimsical refusal to eat blue M&M’s to the somber note of watching the wind weep at a funeral, emphasizes the vast spectrum of human emotions and experiences. It also subtly hints at the idea that even with sophisticated technology, certain depths of feeling and understanding will likely remain exclusive to humans. The poem’s fragmented structure, jumping from one scene to the next, mirrors the fragmented nature of memory and experience, offering a powerful meditation on what it means to be sentient, to live, and to create.”
TO THE WOMAN WHO SHOPLIFTED MY BLACK DANSK CLOGS
—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
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Bija Gutoff: “It’s not as if I think right away, ‘This experience needs to be a poem.’ But when it shakes me, and keeps echoing, and won’t let me go, the words begin to fall, ripe, ready to be sliced like apples into a pie. Then I have to work it, bake it, share it. Reader, can you picture this? Can you taste it? Have you felt it? Moments of grief, wonder, compassion, the realizations of aging and loss, bring me to my knees, and then to my pen.” (web)
THE BITTERN AT ABBOTT’S LAGOON
—from Rattle #36, Winter 2011
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John O’Reilly: “Lorca said he wrote poetry because he wanted people to like him. For a long time, I was charmed by his candor. I’ve come to think of it as poetic candor, with a riddle inside. I write in part to solve that riddle, while I paper the door of my refrigerator.”
IN MY HEART
after E.E. Cummings
Prompt: “Write a poem after E.E. Cummings’ ‘[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in].’”
—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
Tribute to Prompt Poems
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D. Dina Friedman: “Prompts open a pathway to new perspectives, whether it’s a shortcut to my own subconscious, or simply an alternate way of seeing.” (web)