SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW

Theme: Dramatic Monologue

WINTER ISSUE 2024-25

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Unless otherwise indicated, all art is taken from "royalty-free" Internet sources.

Chief Executive Editor

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

Co-Editors-in-Chief

Terri L. Cummings

Charles A. Swanson

Guest Art Editor

Terri Lynn Cummings

Associate Editor

Clayton Spencer

Frequent Contributors

Terri Lynn Cummings

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

John C. Mannone

Karla Linn Merrifield

Vivian Finley Nida

Howard F. Stein

Charles A. Swanson

Tyson West

Contributor

Clayton Spencer

Biographies of our editorial staff & frequent contributors may be found on the "Our Staff" page.

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A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief

Charles A. Swanson

A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief

Terri Lynn Cummings

Karla Linn Merrifield - A Retrospective

“Visitation”

“I, Urania,”

“Ritual Illuminated”

“Quartet in Late Spring”

“Peace Movements”

“Sonnet of the Owl and the Tortoise”

Featured Frequent Contributor

Tyson West

“Henry Howard’s Last Confession”

“Dutch Jake’s Place”

“Sealed”

Other Frequent Contributors

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

“Inaugural”

Vivian Finley Nida

“Lucie Valore Utrillo: Interview with Biographer”

Terri Lynn Cummings

“To Grey Abbey, N. Ireland”

John C. Mannone

“Dear Human,”

Howard F. Stein

“The Moon Addresses Its Earth”

“No One’s There”

Charles A. Swanson

“Jack Looks Back”

“Over a Stein, the Stepmother Brags”

“At the Beer Hall, the Woodcutter Laments”

General Submission

John C. Mannone

“One Hundred Years Later”

Guest Poets

Featured Guest Poet: April J. Asbury

“The Covenant of Wolves”

“Advice for the Appalachian Writer”

“Trula’s Kitchen”

Other Guest Poets

John Delaney

“Don Juan, Defensive”

Parks Lanier, Jr.

“An Unknown Soldier Speaks of the Death of Saki, 1916”

Chrissie Anderson Peters

“Granddaddy’s Ballad”

Sarah Das Gupta

“Puck’s Confession”

Melanie Faith

“Flora in the Iron Lung and the Mirror”

Piper Durrell

“Musings of a Mussel”

David M. Schulz

“Uncle Gets His Tires Changed”

Merryn Rutledge

“One Night in Winter”

Chris Clemens

“Order Flow from Muskoka”

Wilda Morris

“Abishag’s Lament”

Ann Thornfield-Long

“Martha, the Passenger Pigeon”

Zhihua Wang

“Library”

Guest Poets, General Submissions

Ajla Dizdarević

“Glosa on Anorexia Nervosa”

C.M. Gigliotti

“Soliloquy of the Sound Engineer”

Jayne A. Pearl

“Wild Bobcat”

Frequent Contributor News

Financial Support

Forthcoming (2025 Themes)

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A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief

How wonderful to present so many fine poems this issue! I appreciate the number of voices represented here—and when I say voices, I mean the speakers in the poems themselves.

I had hoped we would hear attitude, as in Robert Browning’s famous poem “My Last Duchess” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess), and we have. I think, for example, of Puck’s self-congratulatory admissions of mischief. I am struck by the unknown soldier who tries to pardon his role in Saki’s death. I dwell on Flora’s too-bright—and perhaps, false—optimism that she delights in making faces into a mirror as she lies confined in an iron lung. I enter into a sacred space—in this instance, a stable—where a horse wonders at the birth of a human baby. I hear Henry Howard’s proud confession (ah, the irony to excuse oneself while giving confession!) before he makes his final penitent prayer and accepts death by the axe. And these are only some of the intriguing voices in this dramatic monologue issue. I have been a lucky reader, and I think you will be, too.

Charles A. Swanson

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A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief

Staff & FC Update

Sadly, we bid adieu to our superb Associate Editor and Contributor, Clayton Spencer. With an overcrowded schedule and new additional responsibilities, Clay must retire from Songs of Eretz Poetry Review and this is his last issue. We wish him the very best in all of his endeavors.

In addition, Frequent Contributor Karla Merrifield is on a break from Songs of Eretz while she recuperates from chemotherapy. To celebrate the last of her chemotherapy, we have featured her work in this issue. Meanwhile, we hold her in our hearts and hope she makes a quick recovery.

Ringing in the New Year

This, our last issue in 2024, focused on dramatic monologue poetry. While searching for what I wanted to say in my letter to you in early ‘25, I re-read T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” If you wonder what Eliot’s soliloquy had to do with 'ringing in the new year,’ let me explain.

T. S. Eliot wrote a poem whose speaker, Prufrock, paralyzed by indecision, expressed his thoughts in ways that often digressed. He questioned his physical looks (a newly formed but “small” bald spot), attire, indiscretions, actions, or inactions. In effect, he trapped himself in a Hell of his own making and possibly Dante’s Hell, too. Prufrock could not escape.

For many, ‘ringing in the new year’ must wait until they mentally check off what they did wrong or right in the previous one. Self-examination is a good thing when not taken to the extreme. For example, My dramatic monologue wasn’t as good as my professor’s or, say, T. S. Eliot’s. But what if it could be? What if it was?

I heard “Auld Lang Syne” sung at midnight to bid farewell to the old year. The lyrics symbolized endings or new beginnings. See where I’m headed?

It is about learning from the poems we wrote (and their writing processes) in 2024 and the stronger poems we will write this year. Together, let’s ring in a year full of new possibilities.

Terri L. Cummings

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Karla Linn Merrifield, A Retrospective

Visitation

For Andrea Watson and Joan Ryan

Karla Linn Merrifield

Among young Reina’s oldest heirlooms, I catalogued

a bulto of St. Jerome, its skull hollowed out

with a crude tool; and where the figure’s cerebellum

would be a mezuzah was embedded.

With latex gloves, I fingered gingerly

the girl’s ancestral talisman of rough wood, filigreed

silver housing fragile sheepskin scroll in Hebrew,

all painted over with the blood of the Conversos.

Here before me was the singular artifact to be

the centerpiece of my exhibit interpreting the short-lived

Jewess who died of breast cancer and was buried

in the Catholic habit of a novice.

Deo! Elohim! Here is the virgin’s living proof:

The Inquisition has been survived. Amen. Amain.

Editors' Notes: Merrifield weaves religions into her own poetic artifact. TLC

What a poem! Love the twists and turns. The image of a Catholic totem as a secret mezuzah is breathtaking. SWG

--first appeared in SOE 2021 Fall Issue, Theme: "Religion"

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I, Urania,

Karla Linn Merrifield

say this is so: that I, a celestial body,
neither angel nor goddess, but a simpler spirit,
traveled improbable distances to this planet
to take a woman’s form.  I, Urania, followed
a single cone of night to arrive in time
on Honey Island.  I found myself floating
from a tussocked prairie just east of the source
of Bee Creek, to arrive on shore inevitably
in the groin of the prehistoric Okefenokee.
The quaking earth awoke to my quick tracks.

You awoke, trembling.  By starlight, I, Urania,
lay with you.  By a sliver of moon reflected
in the waxy leaves of a dahoon holly –
your Ilex cassine – by the Milky Way, a sheen
on the watery corridors beyond the lip of land,
we rested.  You sang to me of your home;
Taxodium ascendens, Taxodium districum,
you intoned.  Mine was more the music
of the spheres.  You folded your body
around mine.  You named my breasts, named

my hips, named my thighs.  All of the strange
human shape I had taken was flesh.
Oh, so this is what it is to be warm-blooded.
Here are my bones; burn them.  Like one
among the flora of that swamp, you knew me.
Later, I, Urania, remember dreaming with you
of cypress domes and blackgum coppices.
And you, my beloved, dreamed the birth
of the universe.  Together, we slept.
It was I, Urania, who gave you a memory

in return as I was supposed to do, so that
the next morning, when you returned
by foot, by canoe, in full sun, destined
downstream on the Suwannee River
to the estuary at the Gulf of Mexico,
you could bring back with you our fantasy.

Poet’s Notes: This poem was inspired by friend and poet Beau Cutts, sadly now gone to the great beyond. He was a veteran stargazer who helped me find my way across the night sky on many a night in his native Georgia, opening my eyes to the wonders of our Universe with stories as well about the naming of stars, planets and galaxies. Those tales led to these lines.

Editor’s Note: The lucid and eloquent depictions of the natural world are artistically matched only by the intense eroticism of the verses. Who would not want such a celestial visit amidst Southern swamps? JFWR

--first published in SOE Spring 2020, Theme:  “Fantasy & Fairytale”

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Ritual Illuminated

Karla Linn Merrifield

Rimming Casa Rinconada,

fifty gathered

totally New Age dude, bearlike,

thick-bearded, thick way hair to his butt

in road-worn jeans, chatting up

a Navajo bro of like do

the nouveau riche duo gone hippie

in their idle years, his pony tail

knotted as he blankets his squeeze

in his grungy serape

two little girls with their mother

and a grandfather with his knee-high

granddaughter out for a morning

stretch and history lesson

the long-distance old girlfriend,

Atlanta-Santa Fe, treehuggers both,

still crunchy in peasant wear

after all those years since grade school

among many long-married pairs, a Latvian

couple alongside the New Yorkers, seniors

obviously lovers, cuddled in fleecies

to their chins and each other

and Ranger Cornucopia,

priest in shades of green wool

and cotton, straw-hatted,

officiates the moment

we watch Sky God shed

His solstice light through the eastern

window and march that glowing golden square

into its proper kiva niche

the honorary Chacoans

in a grand circle

honor their Anasazi ancestors

and are dusted by the ancients

Editors' Notes: Brava! Nicely crafted beat poem with excellent imagery and use of language. TLC

My rarely seen hippie side delights in this Kerouacian trip Karla has sewn together here. The nod to the Pueblo Indians is a nice touch. SWG

-- first published in SOE Fall 2021, Theme: Religion

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Quartet in Late Spring

Karla Linn Merrifield

I am the one called declensionista,

bending, sloping, moving downward;

my body a land eroding with gentle,

but inevitable declension toward the sea

through eons of indigo nights, I promise.

~~~

I am one gingerly decompressing

in northern spring’s chilly slow

leafing out of maples and gingko, late-flowering

weeping cherries, forsythia’s delayed yellow mantle;

but, half-past lilac time when iris bloom, find me rooted.

~~~

I am one quoted as saying,

Grief is grief. Ye tho’ Roget’s slings synonyms,

one growled syllable suffices to express

oceanic turbulences of loss—but you listen, ably

hear between my lines a benthos moaning.

~~~

I am the chanteuse singing

Tout est possible, tout est permis,

while earthily dancing with myself

a samba’s swaying promise of life.

I slip into a mighty stream in hope.

Poet’s Notes: This poem recalls springs remembered from the twenty-six years I lived on the south shore of Lake Ontario in Western New York (pictured) before I became a snowbird wintering toward spring in Florida. Due to ice build-up on the lake, spring comes tardy to the shoreline; patience is required. But, oh, the joy, when it does arrive, blossoming with hope for another season of fertility and growth. Returning in my imagination to that place, those many springs, felt especially healing now, during the COVID pandemic, and my hope greater in recollection of those late-arriving blooms.

-- first published in SOE Winter 2020 “Spring” Issue

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Peace Movements

Karla Linn Merrifield

This will not stop the tanks

in Ukraine but bounces on wings

of early butterflies, dragonflies

off Army steel, olive, camel flanks

of decommissioned armored vehicles

come to an artificial halt

at Georgia’s Memorial Veterans

State Park. It does not deflect

the bombs into Andromeda from

surgical trajectories toward insurgent

strongholds near Kyiv, being

as it is of catbrier tendrils, spider

silk as it glides off the fuselage

of a B29 Superfortress parked

behind barbwire just beyond

twin howitzers my husband

was taught to repair during

the first war after the war

to end all wars of his boyhood.

It merely flutters, darts, twines,

spins away from commemorative

military grounds, battlegrounds

half a planet away, into the

longleaf pinewoods to stitch

a peaceful morning after.

Editors’ Note: Great message! The threat of war is what preserves peace. The demand for peace usually does little to stop a war already in progress and has about as much influence as the distant stars. SWG

-- first published in SOE Summer 2022 Issue, “Special Charitable Fundraising Invasion of Ukraine”

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Sonnet of the Owl and the Tortoise
modern sonnet
Karla Linn Merrifield

There’ll be no more pooh-poohing
the clues. I’ve dropped them
everywhere in this baker’s dozen
of primal psalms for owl amusement.

The shape-shifting empathy
we call the moon is my familiar.
The totem tortoise smiles in my light.
Wild constellations of wisdom shine.

You admit myth. Admit mystery.
Admit now armadillos grubbing
the forest floor for anthill stories.
In the beginning was sand, in the end water.

How many animals need to tell
you to submit to their presence?

Editor’s Notes: This poem brings to mind a visit to Cherokee, North Carolina, and to the myth about the earth on turtle’s back. In that age-old story, at first, there was only water over all the earth, and a bit of soil brought up from the sea’s bottom was set on the top of a sea turtle’s shell. What a small beginning for a continent! Our recent hurricane, Idalia, which flooded streets and washed out embankments, testifies to the power of water. As Merrifield intones, “in the end water.” CAS

And perhaps, in the end, tears. Merrifield admits beauty into this small poem with a large message. TLC

--First published in SOE Fall 2023 Issue, “Form Poetry”

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Featured Frequent Contributor

Tyson West

Henry Howard's Last Confession
blank verse
Tyson West

Good Father Warwick, bless me―I have sinned.
But not so heinously as rogues at court
who vilely twist as treason unversed words.
If Jesu and our sick king bid me lay
my noble neck upon the block it's best
be soon to spare me bitter winter's chop.
I've much to pray about and ponder while
my arms embrace the damp of rough hewn stone
of tower walls compelled to hold my flesh.
Still cold is not so cruel as winter's dark.
These cross-shaped arrow slits will just emit
sufficient light for but a third a day
to lave my eyes with gifts of coloured sight.
So blest I rolled onto our earthly plane
of noble pedigree indeed two kings
do grace my ancestry, but I digress.
I'm grateful that our jealous king at least
allows me leave this veil beheaded not
a traitor's death―hung drawn and quartered. Yet
his agèd peevish brain must know I die
full innocent of treason, but condemned
for quartering my arms with five gold birds
surrounding on a field of blue the cross
of Edward Confessor and England's King.
More royal blood boils in my veins than his.
Yet I'm beheaded facing eyes and jeers
of commoners surrounding Tower Hill.
Queens Anne and Kate's blood watered Tower Green
well cloistered from the mob of putrid churls.
Aye Father, I agree my heart would beat
for mickle years ahead had I sought things
that cause a quiet life, not clout and rank
in court―that nest of vipers and deceit.
Why, yes, I spoke words harsh and poorly timed
offending toadies who wipe the King's ear.
To keep my head I should have grokked the plains
of Mars stand safer than court feasts and silk
sustaining our fat King who lost his edge
but counts now joy in commoners he hanged
and noble blood spurt on the axman's block.
Since birth, no one denied his slightest whim
save death. I've heard his sharp regret for loss
of Wolsey, Cromwell, good Queen Anne, and More.
No matter how loud his royal command
none can our prince's pout return to life.
As you forgive my sins Good Father sure
am I my soul will find eternal peace,
but will unborn minds come to know my wit?
I know the scribes will mark my place at court,
record my feats of arms and gallantry.
My quiet verse is destined to devolve
to quaint and curious forgotten lore.
My sonnets and Aeneid will soon pass
as parchment giving them their life be burnt.
I hope dear Father more than my kinfolk
recall my place. The time has come for me
to speak my deep contrition's final prayer
before I ponder heaven's beat and rhyme.

September 2024

Poet's Notes: I've long been intrigued with England's Renaissance. Thomas Tallis composed Spem in Alium as a commission from Henry Howard's son. Hans Holbein the Younger, the court's painter, created the masterpiece The Ambassadors, and two nobles, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, introduced revolutionary poetry forms. Although not thought of as such at the time, Howard and Wyatt were major poets. Howard translated some books of Virgil's Aeneid, in blank verse, a form Shakespeare would use in his plays, and invented the English Sonnet. Wyatt brought many French forms across the channel. Howard was the last person executed under the orders of Henry VIII. Although Howard's father was sentenced to die the next day, Henry VIII died first, and those in charge felt it wise to end executions. Howard's main crime fell on the wrong side of a political court clique. Howard is most remembered today not for his position as warrior or politician, but for his contributions to literature.

Editor’s Notes: A confession before death of a penitent to a priest strikes me as a superb setting for a dramatic monologue. I cherish the history West weaves into the fiction of this riveting account. CAS

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iStock Credit: RockingStock, Spokane, 1916

Dutch Jake's Place
To be recited in a thick German accent.
free verse
Tyson West

Harry, were these not the first virginal minutes of 1916,
we would not climb together to the roof of our hotel
to welcome this year and the change from those who
tiptoe into temperance to test their
dream of shaving and washing clean loggers, miners, and farmhands
whose raised schooners of beer fuel their heavy lifting
to refine the prairie surrounding us into city.
The ladies of Brown's Addition would have no coachmen or grooms
to convey them to the parlors of the lower South Hill.
No crisp calling cards would fall upon
a butler's polished silver tray without the brew and bacon we provide.
Now, this new year the old men in Olympia
like Greek gods on the mountain that gave that city its name
prohibit sale of beer and wine and spirits, one of the four pillars, Harry,
you and I climbed to raise our establishment from canvas tent carousal
to red brick respectability in this rough world.
Just a boy from Germany I came bearing no book learning or fine graces but
an eye to watch workers around me and guts to serve this swarm of single men westward
to rough railroad camps and high mountain mines.
God gave me you, as great a partner as any a man.
Harry, you had the sense let me plan the picnics
slop the suds and raise up an Oompa band when needed.
We gleaned more than enough silver dollars back
through roulette wheels and slot machines of our
gaming patrons but we two chanced tall as the greatest gamblers of all.
We laughed at the funds we sank into this hotel
our easy winnings from the grubstake we set
for the boys who found the gleaming galena ledge
that became the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines.
We wisely never wandered from
bed, board, booze, and betting, the trade we knew.
Doubling down into something more we took our winnings from
the Coeur d'Alenes to erect a fine hotel
in this fresh city Spokane, built
from forest, hard rock, and soil surrounding these river falls.
Our final furnishings ready not yet uncrated
for workmen's hands to smooth into place as if caressing the chips
on the green felt before them.
Fate swept flames from a random tenement flat
brought us a bad beat to reduce this monument to a pile of ash.
We cried and laughed, then raised a fresh canvas palace―
forever proprietors keeping the flow of suds, steaks, and sleeping places spiced
with aces and duces to our patrons and their silver, gold,
and greenbacks returning to us.
We bought more bricks and cracked a keg for the masons, carpenters
and plumbers to raise our dream again.
Now Harry, we will put on our
jackets and ties, check our
pocket watches and open our doors
tomorrow serving our patrons breakfast,
lunches and suppers the once and future innkeepers.
And should a patron tip a flask into his cup
who are we to interfere?
My charged cannons await the big hand and the small
of my Waltham pocket watch meeting at twelve o'clock high
while we ponder this new world of 1917
where our resilience will roll us to roll out the hospitality
and keep rolling in the gold.
God bless this West
where a man can leave behind his boyhood village
and roll high at a hot table
to reinvent himself.
KA BOOM.

Poet's Notes: Jacob Goetz was an early pioneer in Spokane, Washington. Just as the Comstock Lode built San Francisco, the Silver Valley in North Idaho built Spokane. When I came to town in the 1970's, a residue of Jake's time remained; some taverns functioned like a bank, cashing checks for workers, keeping the money at the bar, and running a tab for food and drink. Many of the men who came West gambled on quick riches from a lucky strike in prospecting for gold and silver. Although wealthy, Jake and his partner, Harry, lived in a working-class section of Spokane where a few large houses are scattered among the 40-foot lots and boarding houses where workers lived. Perhaps Jake and Harry were more comfortable among the people that they knew, rather than the fine ladies and gentlemen of Browne's Addition and the South Hill. Jake was famous for his parties. When he married his wife from Germany in 1886, Jake invited every miner in the Silver Valley to his wedding, and 687 of them showed up. When Washington State adopted an early form of prohibition in 1916, he fired cannons from the roof of the hotel. He and Harry morphed from barkeeps to pure hotel and restaurant proprietors.

Editor’s Notes: A warmth of camaraderie exudes from this poem, especially every time Jake addresses Harry. I like the energy of the time period that this poem evokes. West seems to be writing from inside this poem although he is not a character, and although he is not of that era. CAS

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iStock: Credit andipantz

Sealed

Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde speaks with her husband, Orson Hyde, on the occasion of their 1858 separation, leading to their 1870 divorce.

free verse

Tyson West

Farewell Orson and the walls of our Salt Lake City house.

The casements on my son's house seal

far tighter than the grease paper of the Ohio log cabin

where you left me for missions which the Prophet bade you undertake.

God destined so many of our children to die there from north wind's

killing kiss across Lake Erie.

At least with you afar, I did not conceive

a new babe to die in the cold and dark.

In those lonely walls where our babies and I shivered,

my youth and innocence decayed as those logs

have rotted by now under the bountiful eastern rains.

I am pleased God has given these new-fangled kerosene lamps

which glow brighter than tallow candles

that illuminated that hovel where I once had hope.

As the Prophet, my father, and you preached, life is not forever.

What about love?

Some of our dead Prophet's gift must have rubbed off against my flesh,

under his fingers' caress—

I see his slick smile and the choices you and I both made against

the chaos of our living God's destiny.

We were so convinced, me nineteen and you not yet thirty,

God bestowed the gift of revelation on his Prophet Joseph,

who claimed I be sealed to him for all heaven's eternity.

Were we both enthralled with Joseph's teaching

God sanctioned our taste of forbidden fruit?

Once I left the eastern forest shade for the dry expanse

of the Great Plains and fully felt the huge horizon of this new world

as the big sky lifted up her skirts,

I could more clearly calculate the consequences of my coupling.

So many a time I stirred cornbread, swept floors, and offered my breast

to a babe's lips and to each husband of mine under clean sheets

and mended your suits so you projected

the propriety of God's favor, I am left to wonder

did I in the end please the God who constantly chastises us with His love?

Were those years the Prophet sent you, like Uriah, on missions

to the Old World, even to the Holy Land

where you pretended to consecrate the soil where once stepped our Savior,

nothing more than opportunity for our passionate Prophet

to kiss my dusky nipples, and caress my long dark hair?

In your absence, Joseph provided flour and cloth then honored me with his seal—

once you learned of our bond, you accepted its implications.

After your return, he joined to us Martha who divorced you as well and to Mary Ann.

Yet I could never forgive you for bringing new wives into our curtilage

without my consent. Ann Eliza, even at sixteen,

was wise enough to approach me first for my blessing

she stood by my direction―in turn I stood by her birth bed as my daughter―yet

add more wives you did until I felt you had no need for my dominion of our household.

Brigham ordering your care to his flocks in Sanpete County

blessed our family with a convenient schism between wives and children.

Once Ann Eliza seasoned to harried mother of many,

joined by a sorority of new mothers,

I left them to clean your kitchen and prop up your old man's ego.

I did not travel all those tortured miles through great plains dust storms

and pass graves of the cholera dead

for you to not honor me first in our old age.

Male feet may have strut on the hill at Golgotha to watch his end,

but women took down our Savior's corpse from the cross.

Male tongues may eject words that command families into tribe

but in the end your sad hairy flesh, inadequacies and all, will kneel naked

and beg she alone who has the power to raise your manhood.

Perhaps my love for long dead Joseph seems the more divine for I never darned his socks.

If that young preacher's daughter, raven hair glistening and lean in love of the Lord,

counted the hours of boredom and worry, like so many Bible verses

I'm sure she could reconcile her fervor

with my decision to leave you aground on the reef of your weakness

now the tide of my respect for you has forever receded.

Perhaps our need for faith in God's eternal love decays

just as the unwrinkled delusion love burns forever.

That angel who compelled us chance forward,

cross a continent and bid us beget babes destined to die

seems also to have lost his vim.

My wisdom swells as desire for a man's touch and order fades.

Save for the gift of children, how much of my life did you,

Orson, and the Prophet really alter?

I'll accept Joseph's seal and salvation should heaven open to me

so long as I no longer have to sleep in your intermittent bed.

March 2020

Poet's Notes: I am acquainted with a great-great-grandchild of Orson Hyde by his fifth wife, Ann Eliza. Orson, one of the 12 original apostles of Joseph Smith, married Marinda, who was 19 at the time. Ultimately, Orson married eight wives and had 32 children. Some of his marriages did not stick. Early polygamist Mormons were wise enough to provide for divorce to prevent dysfunctional households from festering. As a source, I used a family published biography of Orson. Joseph Smith had numerous wives he was sealed to, including Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde. Orson was upset to learn, although he and Marinda were to be married on earth, Joseph Smith and she were destined to be together in heaven. In my research, I sensed early Mormon polygamy was more an institution run by the women in the household. If a bride does not get along with the other wives, she may not feel welcome and stay.

Editor’s Notes: I would never claim to be a psychologist, but I am intrigued by human nature, and by how passions can rule a person’s life. Marinda’s words reveal much about her choices and her regrets, her anger and her hopes of consolation. I seem to hear Marinda’s voice, even though I know West is acting as the amanuensis. CAS

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Other Frequent Contributors

Inaugural

By Big Steve

free verse

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

It has been four years since I have served as your president,

And I am honored that the great American people

Have once again chosen me for this hallowed office.

The past four years have been rife with corruption and

incompetence

And have seen the Sword of Justice wielded as a weapon

While Her Scales were tossed to the winds of partisan fury,

Our precious freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly

Spat upon by a regime hellbent on intruding into every aspect of

our lives

With the obvious goal of eventually taking over all means of

production

And reducing our noble citizenry to abject poverty, dependence,

and shame,

Our once abundant virtues of thrift, prudence, charity, duty, and

honor

Thrown upon a trash heap, our people treated as garbage.

Within our borders, bands of non-citizens have been allowed to

run amok

When they should have been dealt with in an entirely different

manner,

With dignity, fairness, forbearance, and compassion, for certain,

But with strict attention to our national security and enforcement

of the law.

The worth of the common working man has been cheapened

But the price that he must pay to sustain himself and his family

Has been inflated to the point where he has no choice but to look

The bloated federal government for aid at the expense of his

dignity.

Now I, with the blessing of the Great Architect of the Universe,

And not without the advice and assistance of like-minded men

Whom I shall appoint to positions of trust within our federal

system,

Will put these repeated injuries and usurpations to right

And, together, we will Make America Great Again.

This I most solemnly and sincerely swear, so help me God.

Poet’s Notes: The speaker is Democrat Stephen Grover Cleveland, who served as president of these United States for two non-consecutive terms. Five generations ago, he faced essentially the same issues that confront these United States today.

Everything worked out well in the end when Cleveland assumed the presidency for the second time, and everything will work out well now, too, when Donald Trump does. No matter who one supported in the recent presidential election, we may all take solace in this enduring historical truth.

The source of inspiration for this poem was taken from Cleveland’s second inaugural address, made on March 4, 1893. He was known to his friends as “Big Steve.”

Editor’s Notes: I’m glad that Chief Executive Editor Gordon tells us in his Poet’s Notes that Grover Cleveland was “known to his friends as ‘Big Steve.” I think of Steven Wittenberg Gordon as “Big Steve” myself, for we owe the formation and continued existence of this journal to his guiding hand. CAS

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Lucie Valore, Self Portrait

Lucie Valore Utrillo: Interview with Biographer
Rhyming couplets
Vivian Finley Nida

A gifted actress, had I not bowed out,
you’d know me as the greatest. There’s no doubt.
But Robert Pauwels, a banker, took one glance
declared his love, and married me in France.
In 1915, given this new part,
we moved to Paris to invest in art.

When I met Suzanne Valadon, I knew
she’d be my friend. An artist, she’d pushed through
doors closed to women and she’d taught her son,
Maurice Utrillo, how to paint. He’d won
success. His landscapes were a goldmine, but
his alcoholic rages kept him shut
in sanitariums. Work soothed his ails.
His art made family wealthy through its sales.

We still were friends in 1933
when my dear Robert died. Maurice sent me
a note of sympathy, heartfelt and true,
assuring me that he’d miss Robert too.
But what was I to do? I’d lost my love,
my handsome, educated, wealthy love.
A single woman, fifty-four, I cried.
My body trembled. I was terrified.

Alone and anxious, I went to someone
to read my palm and cards. When she was done,
she said, In two years you will wed again,
and he’ll be one of France’s greatest men.
But like a child, he’ll need strict boundaries.
You know him now. He loves you silently.

Months passed. Suzanne fell ill and came undone
with worry for her son, age fifty-one.
He’s tortured and needs help from a great soul.
That moment offered me my greatest role.
I’d be the wife of Maurice Utrillo.
That day, I got a letter Maurice wrote.
He asked if I was still my same ‘suave’ self.
Epiphany confirmed, I told myself.

We married, April 1935.
Suzanne lived three more years. After she died,
I took care of Maurice, and thought I might
try painting—figures, flowers, something bright.

At exhibitions of Maurice’s art,
mine, too, were shown. Of course, I dressed the part
required to show off fame, prosperity.
But that does not affect mortality,
and after being married twenty years,
Maurice passed from this earth, left me in tears.

I will perpetuate his legacy,
his mother Suzanne’s, too, for history.
They both are praised, but the future will tell
how great I’ll be. The future will choose well.

Poet’s Notes: I first learned about Lucie Valore when I read Catherine Hewitt’s biography, Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret life of Suzanne Valadon. Lucie married Suzanne’s son, Maurice Utrillo in 1935. In 1963, eight years after Maurice’s death, Lucie founded the Maurice-Utrillo Association, a documentation center in Paris. Lucie Valore died in 1965. She is buried next to Maurice Utrillo in the Saint-Vincent cemetery in Montmartre. To learn more about her life, consult this French Wikipedia site. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucie_Valore

Editor’s Notes: I admire much in this poem, but what I admire particularly is how well the story is told. The narrative unrolls in a cascading and chronological way, and the speaker invites me to listen. The “biographer” only had to take down the words Lucie Valore Utrillo spoke. CAS

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To Grey Abbey, N. Ireland

free verse, apostrophe

Terri Lynn Cummings

In 1300 AD, monks, stoneworkers,

and artists built you, a Cistercian abbey,

to last. You have done so longer than

time was meant to house.

Even now, your cold stone

walls hold intricate carvings

naming proud patrons.

I waited ‘til death to find mine

chipped into a stone that leaned,

then collapsed like an exhausted

sentry guarding my plot

outside your sainted walls.

What clarifies your story

is what the congregations did

or did not do in your community.

You learned who cared

for those in need, who paid taxes,

committed murder, more.

Such knowledge, held tight

inside your sanctuary,

made the once-pillared arches

slump (to the ground) like tired

elderly shoulders. Perhaps

this is why my fractious neighbors

moan at the moon and claw you

into ruin. They want you to believe

what little remains after death

is all that matters.

Time is not my concern, but it is yours.

It’s sad how much of what you prayed

would protect your parish has perished

since King Henry Tudor’s reign.

A pitiful moon shines down on your remains

but cannot find my presence in a gated grave.

We lag behind--two worn, unfinished souls

that met when separate chambers grew into one.

O friend, O muse, must you sit by the wayside,

lament the peal of bridal bells from a crumpled

tower, or weep over the fortunate ones

who sleep in my dark meadow?

Earth rules the dead the same as the living.

Besides, I like to watch decay unfold.

My white bones, your blocks of stone,

are helter-skeltered props in our universal play.

Editor’s Notes: Poem forms can inhabit other poem forms, or, perhaps better said, co-exist. I like to see a narrative in a sonnet. I like to see a soliloquy in heroic couplets. The combination of forms can increase tension. I had not thought that an apostrophe and a dramatic monologue could rest in the same space (in this case, in a church and graveyard), but I believe they can, as Cummings shows. CAS

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Dear Human,

prose poem

John C. Mannone

Please listen.

I bow to the sun, thankful for the light that lets our plants grow for the benefit of all creatures, great and small. And for the trees, with a different kind of blood, chlorophyll green, that helps make the air, which you need to breathe. Listen to their whispers in the rustle of wind. For they also give you breathlessness: the verdant garden, the flowers whose scents are sweeter than prayer, the after-rain petrichor, the low-angle light spilling through raindrops offering rainbows, and perhaps a sense of hope, too.

Listen to the oceans, lakes, and streams, and rain that rivers back to the seas—they sustain, feeding the needs of every living thing—they too gurgle a plea, and the waves will roar. Long before you humans were here, ancient seas and rivers carved the hills, shaped the land to make homes for all terrestrial flora, fauna, and to give you awe, too—the handiwork that the Creator has fashioned, whomever s/he may be.

You were given stewardship, not reckless tyrannical rule. With freedom always comes responsibility. Even your nonbelieving philosophers have reasoned that. We, meaning all of us living here on our planet, must all do our part, which includes you, dear human. This place is not a globe, a mere sphere for your greed, for you to commandeer. We are collectively, a planet. And since much has been given to you, much more is your portion of responsibility.

So, just as you feel burdened, your faith lets you share it with whomever you choose: your fellow man, your country, your God, who promised to make your burdens light. Will you make our burdens light? Don’t overburden our streams with waste and the sloping mass of blasted rock and pulver. Isn’t it bad enough that you decapitate our mountains for a handful of coal? Stop polluting our waters, hear the murmur of air. Be thankful the sun doesn’t take our air away, ablating the atmosphere until it is gone. Thank someone outside yourselves for those magnetic fields that shield the air and stay the solar wind.

Some say that we, all of Nature, are indifferent. Indeed. Some of us are solely governed by the laws of physics, others were given understanding through adaptation and instinct, others yet, by some level of intellect. But a very few in all the biomass, like you, were also given hearts, so you would care about all of us.

Sincerely,

Your Planet

Poet’s Notes: In my opinion, letter poems are de facto monologues, because there is a clear speaker and clear audience; and if it has a serious tone, it’s arguably a dramatic monologue. This eco-poem is a call-to-arms for humanity to defend our home and become good guardians of the environment. Giving voice to the inanimate might be a good way to get our attention.

Editor’s Notes: In setting forth this submission call, I had hoped we would receive some letters as dramatic monologues. I had not expected one from our planet, but I believe in the stewardship of man, and, therefore, I applaud the opportunity Mannone gives Earth to complain about her treatment at our hands. CAS

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The Moon Addresses Its Earth

free verse

Howard F. Stein

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth's sleep at all?

Wilfred Owen, “Futility”

For 4 ½ billion years

I have encircled you,

My planet, my companion,

My friend – only for you

Now to come to this? –

Extinguish your own life?

Ever since you birthed me

When some alien planet

Crashed into you,

I have observed you,

Doted on your every change,

Thrived on the life

To which you gave life.

I’ve seen your earth’s poles

Reverse before my own eyes,

Tropics become deserts,

A frozen continent

And an ice cap.

I have watched

Your continents form

And drift, your mountains

Rise from the sea.

I have watched over you

Before life began –

When fiery volcanoes

Gave way to steady rain.

Oxygen replaced methane,

Oceans formed, and the first

One-cell creature emerged

From your chemistry soup.

I was there when chlorophyll

First appeared, and

Your land’s surface

Burst into green.

I saw the first curious fish

Try out its fins for feet

As it climbed out of

The ocean onto land

And stayed.

I witnessed mammals

Proliferate and great

Reptiles go extinct from

A giant asteroid collision.

I saw four-footed primates

Begin to stand on two legs,

Make tools,

Hunt and forage,

Settle and grow crops.

Build cities and empires,

Slaughter each other

Over boundary disputes,

Compose symphonies

And write dramas.

I have reveled in human

Ingenuity and resilience,

Grieved their brutality.

What a journey

You have taken me on!

Surely you can see

Your old moon is not dead! –

I have just never been alive

The way you call life.

It has been you, my earth,

Who have given me life.

And now? At your pinnacle?

What kind of homo sapiens

Is this who brings on the Furies

Of fire, flood, hurricane,

And drought?

Do they repay their debt

To you with scourge?

Do they know they’re

Throwing away

4 ½ billion years?

In their merciless frenzy,

Do they ever consider me,

Your devoted companion?

Could they try to imagine me,

Your moon, condemned

To orbit a barren earth,

Forever alone?

Poet’s Notes: All my life, the moon has been a welcome presence for me, no mere inanimate object encircling the earth (more accurately, both orbit a common center of gravity), irrelevant to living. Although the moon is not a person (no “man in the moon”), it has always been personal. I have calibrated most of my years by its movements. In recent decades, the fate of the earth, our only home, has deeply concerned me, and has been the subject of many poems.

In this poem, in which I clearly personify and anthropomorphize the moon (and the earth), I imagine the moon as having been in a personal relationship with the earth for billions of years. With the increasing ravages of global warming and prospects of nuclear war, life on earth is threatened. In this shadow, the moon lives in dread of losing its beloved celestial partner, not as an object but as a living being.

The moon already grieves in anticipation, and cannot bear to conceive of how lonely, desolate it would be in the company of a dead earth – and with it, feelings of abandonment and fathomless mourning. What, the moon wonders, would it be like to live forever with a corpse? This is my fantasy that compelled the poem into being, in light of the Review’s theme of “dramatic monologue.”

Editor’s Notes: I am particularly interested in the tone each writer chooses for his or her speaker. Here, the moon seems almost parental, and though I find the moon austere and distant, I also hear chastisement and scolding. Even notes of self-pity come through. The more human the tone, the more the moon’s sorrow wakens me. CAS

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No One's There

After Franz Kafka, “Before the Law” (1915)

free verse

Howard F. Stein

This voice, a Presence I cannot identify

Within me, addresses me without cease.

“You keep knocking upon

Door after door, hoping

Someone inside will answer,

Open it, and let you in” –

“You insist on thinking

That doors are meant

To be opened, at least

Some doors, for you.

So you mistakenly keep

Knocking – surely some

Defect in your character,

Psychiatrists might call it

‘Narcissistic injury’ to your

Expectation, maybe entitlement,

That someone would be home

To welcome you in.”

“Cannot you recognize

Your impossible conceit?

You reach for explanations.

You persist in asking ‘Why?’

When here, there is no ‘Why?’ *

It just is what it is.

You are the one who

Refuses to accept it.”

“What will it take for you

To accept that, although

Many people are at home

Inside their doors, there is

No one home behind

The doors on which you knock?

Why can you not relinquish

Your illusion and simply

Give up your pursuit?”

“You look so puzzled,

So forlorn, as if there

Is a mystery to why no one

Is at home where you knock.

I am sorry this is

So difficult for you.

But there is no mystery;

It is all so simple:”

“The only door you

Can knock on where

Anyone is at home

Is your own.

Then it will open

And let you in.”

*SS guard to Primo Levi, inmate of Auschwitz, “Hier ist kein ‘Warum.” (“Here, there is no ‘Why’?”)

Poet’s Notes: Over the years, many poetry editors and poets have warned me never to write a poem about subjects such as roses and knocking on doors. Not only are they cliches, but only a Robert Browning or Elizabeth Barrett Browning would dare take on so commonly addressed themes. So, here am I writing about a Voice within me, admonishing me to cease knocking on doors, with the hope that someone will open one.

Yet, with the Muse of Franz Kafka as my guide, I have written this poem about hope, dread, abandonment, perseverance, futility, stupidity, and the insanity of “doing the same thing over and again, expecting different results.”

I confess that the subject for the Review’s theme of “dramatic monologue” came naturally and immediately, with little thought that I might be falling into the pothole of cliché. Yes, it is a personal, autobiographical poem. Perhaps, though, the poem is not entirely admonition. Could it also be an encouraging reminder that I might be obsessively looking outside myself for answers that I need to find within?

However, the tone of the Voice addressing me is one of scolding, not encouraging, me. So, I come away from the poem with a foreboding sense of hopelessness – but at least I have placed those horrible thoughts and feelings outside myself, in the form of a poem, so they would not poison my life entirely inside.

Editor’s Notes: I find myself in a redundancy, such as when a mirror faces another mirror, and the images repeat. The search for self in this poem, and the address to self, a reproachful and mocking address, takes me further in, but further away, from what seems concrete and solid. I would label this a thinking man’s poem—but, maybe, I’m overthinking it. CAS

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Jack Looks Back
Shakespearean sonnet
Charles A. Swanson

Now gather round, chaps. You want my early days,
when rowdy giants roamed, some with two heads,
some with three. And you beg for how I played
them tricks, cut off their heads. How I wed
such pretty girls. I’ll help you to a start,
you need to talk kindly, you need to share
your vittles, whether spare or fat. A good heart
shows. You might meet angels unaware.

Back in my days, days of magic and witches,
I acted simple-minded, I played the fool,
but you don’t act bigger than your britches,
you just don’t brag, that’s not the mountain code
I’ll tell you this. I couldn’t dwell on dread.
If I’d lost my head, I would have lost my head.

Poet’s Notes: I’m a bit of a Jack myself, although the giants I’ve fought are more prosaic than Jack’s. I understand his humility, whether it is donned because of his culture or because it is bone deep. I also appreciate his adherence to such Biblical teachings as humility, even though he doesn’t quote Scripture. Modesty and kindness and hospitality and a gentle answer work well, even when facing giants. I might also add, that in my part of the American South, “chaps” is sometimes used as a word for children.

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Over a Stein, the Stepmother Brags
Italian sonnet (with English sonnet ending)
Charles A. Swanson

I watched. When his first wife died, I bided a while,
long enough for him to feel his lack,
his loneliness. I knew he wished her back
into his bed, so then I knew my wiles
would work the charm. He couldn’t notice guile
with heart so sad. I did it shrewdly, cracked
the whip against his children behind his back,
and spoke to him sweet nothings. How I smiled!
They were sweet nothings. They meant naught to me.
I stinted the brats every chance I took.
I was so cruel, I hoped he wouldn’t see
how they cowered every time I spoke.
He didn’t. I tortured them every single day.
My smile was biggest when they ran away.

Poet’s Notes: The stepmother often gets a bad reputation. In her defense, another’s children are harder to love than ones she has borne herself. The Hansel and Gretel story may use a stereotype (as is customary of fairy tales), but the narrative is not amiss in underscoring the dysfunction in many families. Every seismic change in a family’s life (death, illness, a special child, divorce, remarriage, an adopted child, etc.) brings change that the family, or the marriage, might not survive.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the Beer Hall, the Woodcutter Laments

Shakespearean sonnet

Charles A. Swanson

My first wife died. The house was not a home.

The children, boy and girl, they needed care,

a mother’s touch. I couldn’t be alone.

Perhaps I chose too fast. Or she was there,

just waiting. Hard to them she was, so hard,

with curses leaping off her bitter tongue.

She kept the housekeys under her close guard.

She ate the best we had. I said the young

need nourishment, but she said we should shed

ourselves of them. If we but forced them out

we’d have enough. Again, again, she said,

“You love them more than me, you selfish lout!”

I really did, but I couldn’t find my voice.

She battered me until I had no choice.

Poet’s Notes: The Hansel and Gretel story is ripe ground for a retelling. What particularly intrigues me are the points that intersect with modern society. I’ve met many men (some family members) who cannot be alone. A grieving man may seek comfort, companionship, or gratification from a poor source. If there are wicked stepmothers, there are also spineless fathers.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

General Submission

One Hundred Years Later
free verse
general submission
John C. Mannone

Having been accustomed to wooden
floorboards, this interesting alehouse
appears a bit unusual with its hardened
floor made of some material foreign
material. Yet there is some familiarity—
on the counter by the door a blue & gray
porcelain bowl holds several crisp Autumn
apples, dark red with yellow streaks.
They could be my favorite, the red
Astrachan. I grab one, polish it on my
vesture, and sink a hefty bite through
the thin skin into the juicy and tart flesh,
while catching my reflection in the tall
ornate glass I came through. My beard
is well-trimmed, but my garb is altered.
Nevertheless, the blue overalls suit me,
gives me recollection as a young man,
an axe in my hand with the scent of fresh
chopped wood on my palms. My Baltimore
friend and I take a seat in the corner, curious
eyes falling on me that I pay no mind to.
What captures my appetite is spelled out
on the menu— corned beef and cabbage.
But it quickly loses savor by the ten-fold
increase in price! My friend says not to worry
about it, he’s got it covered. Funny thing,
I don’t remember where I met him,
but something inside my countenance
tells me that it’s quite okay. I’ve learned
how to be accommodating, just as
my sweet wife taught me. I smile
a huge smile, and settle down for
good conversation with my new friend.
But before I do that, my eyes drift
to where a calendar shows the day,
the month, and … the year. Flummoxed.
It’s a bit brisk and the chill is battling
my bones—November 19, 1963.
My mouth agape, my tongue tries
to ask my friend about the perplexing
sight but not before the sounds
above our heads louden over casual
talk among the patrons. There’s
a strange box held up by brackets
and chains. It speaks a cacophony
of riotous sounds with pictures
that move, the tumult with clubs
and angry words. Some people run.
and I am moved, my unsettled spirit
wants answers about the horrors
I witness. Again I turn to my friend,
ask out loud, and all the eyes turn
upon me. Men quiet with their mugs
of beer on their tables, foam sliding
down the glass, The women, too,
silence their chatter. “What has
happened these last hundred years?”
My throat seizes as my voice cracks,
the words once spoken now lodge
in my throat. With all my strength
I utter “our forefathers brought
forth on this continent, a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated
to the prospect that all men are created
equal.” The place remains silent
except for the black and white
turmoil spilling from that box, which
my friend has whispered in my ear
is a television—to see from afar,
not something from the past, but
captures this very moment. My eyes
glassy, I raise my arm, stretch
my finger pointing to the unrest,
a tear falling, “What has ever happened?
Was all that blood spilled for nothing?”

Poet’s Notes: I apply a genre of creative nonfiction called Imaginative Nonfiction to this poem. The structure is one continuous verse to give a sense of a monologue, which begins as internal thoughts of a famous historical figure resurrected to the present (which in this case is Baltimore 1963). I bring Abraham Lincoln from the past to the present with this subdued text: the tall/ornate glass I came through. Specifics are not necessary.

Baltimore was suffering from the race riots, despite the Emancipation Proclamation 100 years earlier. When Abraham Lincoln restates a portion of his Gettysburg Address in the same year, his tangible audience clearly are the customers inside the alehouse. But I hasten to add that those same people could tap into his internal monologue by implication. Because (at least subconsciously) when one would see a person resembling Abraham Lincoln, they wouldn’t be able to not reflect, however short, on that dark period of our history.

Editor’s Notes: Over the years, I’ve learned that I can access a poem (or other literature) more easily if I keep reading. If I stop where I am confused, I may not find the thread that untangles the skein of meaning. When I learn in this poem that I am reading about time travel, sense enters, confusion exits, and I’m immersed in the story. CAS

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Featured Guest Poet

April J. Asbury

The Covenant of Wolves

. . . it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.

Charles Perrault, 1697

rhyming couplets

April J. Asbury

We gentle wolves shall not harass

Nor whistle, but comport with class

Both in the street and taverns fine

By sun or moon or lamplight’s shine.

We shall not pinch nor slap nor grope,

But hide our basest instincts’ hope.

You need not fear an errant claw:

We bend our knee to Church and Law.

And if our eyes begin to gleam

For tender throats and bloody dreams,

In public, we remain composed;

You’re safe—until the door is closed.

Editor’s Notes: For every poem submitted for the theme of dramatic monologue, I’ve asked myself, “Who is the speaker? Who is the audience?” I’ve found the answer to the first question more often than the answer to the second. In this poem, the audience seems to be missing, until I realize the wolves are speaking to me. The poem is an adult version of a children’s creepy fairytale. CAS

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David Huddle

Advice for the Appalachian Writer

Notes from a class with David Huddle,

Highland Summer Conference, June 2005

free verse

April J. Asbury

Put yourself into your writing:

no holding back

no tricks

no shortcuts

no hiding

Even if you’re Appalachian—

told to be humble

told not to complain

told to dismiss the serious

put on a happy face

deny emotion

never put yourself first

Do it all, or as much as you can:

follow where the writing takes you

even if it scares you

even if it hurts—you will find

emotion in unlikely places,

clarity in the strange

Editor’s Notes: This poem is also subtle in declaring the speaker and the audience. The title gives both. The speaker is the teacher, and the audience is the classroom of students. As an Appalachian writer myself, I feel as though the poem is addressed to me. CAS

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Trula’s Kitchen

free verse list poem

April J. Asbury

The secret to good fried oysters is crackermeal.

Save the wrapper from your butter. When the biscuits come out, rub the paper over the tops while they’re still hot. That makes them shine.

Don’t touch your eyes after you handle those dried red peppers.

Nothing like Vidalia onion cut up on top of your beans. Put a little butter on there too.

I can’t drink milk. Had it warm too many times. Just turns my stomach.

I hated killing chickens. Hated the way they’d flap and run around, blood everywhere if you don’t do it right. But I always got them clean. Never left the pin feathers. I can’t abide a dirty kitchen or pin feathers on chicken.

They didn’t tell me to put a lid on the frog legs. When they hit the hot grease, well, they jumped right out of the pan. The legs hit the floor, still jumping, and I started screaming. Everybody laughed. I wouldn’t touch a one, and I never cooked them again.

My sister Tick and her husband Frank brought a load of fresh shrimp back from Florida. They were going around offering them to everyone, until they hit Grandmother. No thank you, Grandmother said, I don’t eat grubworms. Now I can't eat them either.

You said your first full sentence at this table. You were just a baby sitting there in your highchair. You looked at me, and you said, Mamaw gave me a cookie.

I never will forget it, not as long as I live.

Editor’s Notes: Asbury places this poem in italics, and the italicized script gives one more clue that the voice I hear is not that of the poet, but of another person. As the poem concludes, the discovery that the poet is the audience rather than the speaker is quite a nice surprise. Trula’s voice wins me over. CAS

Poet's Notes: I love the power and possibility of writing in different voices. "The Covenant of Wolves" features the predator from Charles Perrault's "Little Red Riding Hood" as he elaborates on the original moral. The second, "Advice for an Appalachian Writer," was more "discovered" than written; I found some notes I took during David Huddle's class as part of the 2005 Highland Summer Conference at Radford University. When I looked at my notes, I was struck by how they already looked and sounded like a poem. I hope he'll forgive the small changes I made to free his voice from my notebook.

"Trula's Kitchen" also grew from a day at the Highland Summer Conference, this time in 2024 with guest poet Annie Woodford. After discussing Crystal Wilkinson's Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, we took a few minutes to remember our own "kitchen ghosts," the voices that still sang in us from our past. Trula is my grandmother, Trula Craig Aust, whose stories and guidance remain the richest legacy of my childhood.

About the Poet: April J. Asbury is a writer, teacher, and editor from southwest Virginia. She earned her M.F.A. from Spalding University and M.A. from Hollins. Her poetry collection, Woman with Crows, is available at apriljasbury.com.

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Other Guest Poets

Don Juan, Defensive

villanelle

John Delaney

Well, I can take no for an answer—

it’s better than no answer, even though

you make it sound incurable, like cancer.

Luv, I was never the preying prancer

the media portrayed, who’s gone tomorrow.

So, how well could you know your answer

before I asked the question? By fate, chance or

luck, I really believed our love could grow

undaunted and daring, like, like curing cancer.

Never to hold you close as a dancer

is the thought that makes me saddest now. Oh

well, I have taken no for an answer

so many times (the risk of a romancer!),

despite my reading of the stars: Virgo,

you know, is quite compatible with Cancer.

Yes, freedom failed me as a freelancer.

I sought to be your partner, not your beau.

Banishment sounds like Stage 4 of cancer.

Haven’t I taken it well? [no answer]

Poet's Notes: This villanelle began with building on the first and last lines. I liked the way the same words were used in different ways. The difficulty was finding enough words that rhymed with "answer" and that still made sense in Don Juan's argument.

About the Poet: After retiring as curator of historic maps at Princeton University Library, I moved out to Port Townsend, WA, and have traveled widely, preferring remote, natural settings. Since that transition, I’ve published Waypoints (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions (2019), a chapbook, Delicate Arch (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments, and Galápagos (2023), a collaborative chapbook of my son Andrew’s photographs and my poems. Nile, a chapbook of poems and photographs about Egypt, appeared in May 2024.

Editor’s Notes: Don Juan makes the best appeal he can as he knows his reputation proceeds him. For this particular bewitching figure, he spins his shrewdest arguments to no avail. Don Juan’s tempting banter comes across nicely in Delaney’s villanelle. CAS

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An Unknown Soldier Speaks of the Death of Saki, 1916

free verse

Parks Lanier, Jr.

You had to be here, sir, to know the 'orror of it,

The blood and death, and noise of shelling.

I had no sleep for days and was glad for the quiet

That came suddenly. It was a moonless morning

When Munro and I were resting in the shell-hole,

Enjoying a breeze from the Ancre Valley.

We could not see that tree over there, sir,

Where the sniper was. That's him hanging

From the lower limb. Blanton got him.

You can see him through your glass easy.

I know it was careless of me, but I was tired.

"Put that bloody cigarette out," Munro said.

I have nothing but regret that's broke my heart,

For me alive and him so sudden dead.

Who knew there was a Boche hid so close?

Three on a match is unlucky is what they say,

And it so dark we could not see the tree.

Munro had been telling me a story 'bout a boy

Who kept a dreadful creature penned up,

Something wild and vicious that he loved.

It had an awful name, something like a Hindoo,

And he said the boy used it somehow to kill

His 'orrible guardian, sudden and vicious,

Like this war killing us not seeing it coming

And God laughing all the time as we suffer.

Do we deserve it, sir, do we, this dark?

Poet's Notes: "A soul in crisis" defines the dramatic monologue. My speaker fears he will be implicated in a fellow soldier's death. Of course, he has no idea that soldier was already a famous writer. "Sredni Vashtar" is the tale Saki had been telling his comrade.

About the Poet: Parks Lanier, Jr., studied the dramatic monologues of Robert Browning for his master's thesis at UT-Knoxville. Dr. Kenneth L. Knickerbocker, noted Browning scholar, was his director. Parks went on to teach 37 years at Radford University in VA.

Editor’s Notes: On accepting and discussing this poem, Parks Lanier gave me much food for thought. He knows more about the dramatic monologue’s form and requirements than I do, and I found his knowledge to be wonderfully enlightening. He is one of my cherished mentors. CAS

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Granddaddy’s Ballad

ballad verse
Chrissie Anderson Peters

Granddaddy, Granddaddy, why did you pull a gun
On the father of your sister’s daughter and son?
What did he do to vex your temper so,
That, on the day of Christmas, you would have him go,
Go to meet his maker or feel the flames of hell,
Heaven or damnation, right there where he fell?
Granddaddy, Granddaddy, why have you killed
The husband of your sister out there in the field?
Did you treat him friendly or kill him straightaway,
And why did you have to do it on Christmas Day?
Two little children, their dear daddy gone,
With nothing to remember, save this sad little song.
Grandaddy, Granddaddy, did that bullet dart
Because your sister had an unfaithful heart,
Or did the man defile her, harm her in some way
To warrant you should kill him on Christmas Day?
Granddaddy, Granddaddy, when he met his end,
Did he know that rifle belonged to your friend,
A friend of the family, of your sister, too,
The next to be her husband, if he only knew
Her next husband’s rifle would shoot him down dead
In a field full of snow that would be his last bed.
Granddaddy, Granddaddy, what can you say
To the man you killed on a cold Christmas Day?
Two tiny children, their father is no more,
Were you looking out for them, or evil to the core?
Granddaddy, Granddaddy, why was that your goal?
Dear God, Almighty, have mercy on your soul!

Poet's Notes: This poem is based on real-life events and was conceived from a prompt given by Annie Woodford at the Highland Summer Conference in Radford, VA, this past summer. I'd never tried my hand at a ballad, but was encouraged to keep working with it, and so I did. My own great-grandfather, Jesse Abner Vance, is the "Granddaddy" addressed in the ballad. All of it is true. When I was a young girl, he used to play banjo for me and ride me around on his horses. He was a much different man once he quit drinking in 1964, but the atrocities he committed lived on.

About the Poet: Chrissie Anderson Peters lives in Bristol, Tennessee. She holds degrees from Emory & Henry College and the University of Tennessee. She has been published in Still: The Journal, Women of Appalachia Project, Red Branch Review, Untelling, and Salvation South, among others. Read more about her work at www.CAPWrites.com.

Editor’s Notes: I sat beside Chrissie Anderson Peters when she first penned this ballad. At that time, I had the ballad of “Little Omie Wise,” the words and music, running in my head. I once encountered the question, “When is a ballad not a ballad?” The answer given was, “When it’s not set to music.” Peters’ ballad is just waiting a melody (preferably in a minor key) to become even more mesmerizing than it already is. I can hear the fiddle and banjo already. CAS

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Puck's Confession

free verse

Sarah Das Gupta

You, country folk, know me as

Puck, Hobgoblin, Robin Goodfellow,

even foul fiend

when my Mistress is truly vexed

by my mischievous tricks.

Remember, in the cool dairy,

the milk turns sour;

yes, I am hiding in the shadows,

bewitching the butter churns.

At twilight, in the mothy gloom,

not one of you sees me as

I pick fennel, parsley, thyme and

scatter the withering leaves,

confusing you, foolish kitchen scullion.

At harvest in the summer sun,

you pretty maids, I’m hiding

in your straw bonnets.

Or in dusty barns where motes

dance in rays of light,

I steal grain

from you, careless winnowers.

In the mill stream I tangle

the fishermen’s lines.

The rose- spotted trout escape you

to hide in cool green shallows.

In autumn, I sit on your horse’s back,

as you plough, turning the dark soil

into earthy waves.

I pull the beast’s ears so he tosses his head;

You lose your footing, clumsy ploughman.

In midwinter, I polish the ice in the farmyard

as Mistress carries branches of red-berried holly

and dark- brooding ivy to bedeck the hall.

I fill lovers’ ears with tales of deceit.

Ah, now you begin to doubt each other!

At last, I sleep in the breathy warmth

of the murmuring sheep fold

Poet’s Notes: As an English teacher, I have produced many Shakespeare plays in UK and abroad with young students. A Midsummer Night's Dream is always popular, especially the character of Puck. In the Sixteenth Century, fairies were seen as powerful, even malign, spirits. Too often modern productions favour the sentimental, Victorian interpretation.

About the Poet: Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK, who has also lived and taught English in Kolkata and Tanzania. Her work has been published in over 20 countries from New Zealand to Kazakhstan. This year she has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Dwarf Star.

Editor’s Notes: Puck’s mischief is delightful, although I know I shouldn’t enjoy his confession so much. CAS

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Flora in the Iron Lung and the Mirror
free verse
Melanie Faith

I don’t want to be a complainer. It’s good,
it’s exceedingly good that you’re here. You
came all this way. You look well. You look
so handsome, but then, you always did. I wish
I could reach out of this machine and touch you
after all this time. I wish… well,

let me dwell on something
easier. Let me tell you something nice
Sister Mary Joseph, the afternoon nurse, did.
She’s the young one who wrote to you. Yes,
her penmanship is impeccable. Well,
she sat reading to me. One day,
out of nowhere, she stopped
mid-sentence, and she looked over

and something like sunlight broke over
her face: You know, I see no reason why
we couldn’t jimmy-rig a mirror
right up here. She put the book
upside-down on her seat. That’s how
my machine grew this mirror. She left the room,
came right back.

Sister Mary Joseph’s the tall one—
you haven’t met her—
it didn’t take much for her to reach up and
add it to my machine. You could call it
a fancy modification for my entertainment,
my instant twin and constant company.
I make faces at myself now
into the long hours when there’s nobody
and nothing else.

You’d be surprised on
an endless stretch of days, how many faces
you can pull—butterfly-pinned as I am
inside this darned machine—with just a nose,
two lips, a tongue, and two eyes that
never stop seeing.

Poet’s Notes: This poem is a part of a recent collection I’m working on writing about (among other things): an iron lung, a librarian, and a love triangle. This poem explores polio patient Flora, whose childhood flame, Harry, visits her sickbed. This visit sets off the conflict between Harry and his current love, Helen (the protagonist librarian).

Researching the 1940s and early 1950s polio outbreaks, treatment, research for a vaccine, and inoculation in later times, I read a very brief reference to a patient whose caregiver attached mirrors to the lung, which sparked my imagination. It led me to want to put Flora into this situation and climb into her mind to see how she would feel about the mirror and how she might explain her health situation, reassure others, confront her own fears, and point out her mirror to a visitor.

Sister Mary Joseph as Flora's nurse and Flora making faces to amuse herself during tedious, isolating treatment were details in the scene that appeared while drafting, seemingly of their own accord, and both felt exactly right in both my writer mind’s eye and heart. More often than not, that quiet “yes” feeling is an informed intuition I lean into as a writer. I plan on working on this collection and tuning into these characters for a few more months to see what they’ll reveal next.

About the Poet: Melanie Faith enjoys old-school film cameras, ASMR videos about maps and books for relaxation, reading, and teaching creative writing. In December 2024, she’s finishing a year of daily doodling in a journal. Does It Look Like Her? is her most recent narrative poetry collection (and her first self-published book) that explores a protagonist developing as a creative artist at middle age and features a painting, an artist and new teacher, and a son. Vine Leaves Press has published six of Melanie’s writing craft books for authors about such diverse topics as publishing, flash fiction, poetry, photography, teaching online, and writing a research book. She has also written a Regency novella and several other narrative poetry collections. To learn more about Melanie’s writing, teaching, and photography, please visit: www.melaniedfaith.com or Instagram: frompromisingtopublished99.

Editor’s Notes: A scene, so understated, but so poignant, shows how emotions are won by good description. I don’t know Flora, and, surely, she is fictional, but I long to say words of comfort to her. CAS

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Musings of a Mussel

free verse

Piper Durrell

Endangered I be.

You understand why

my habitat: fresh water

as you meander north in your ancient path.

Have you noticed that humans never take a sip

while admiring your beauty and power

or frolicking in your calmer waters?

Well, it’s not like I have a choice

I can’t swim and I certainly can’t fly.

Nor can I see. But I do

thanks to mother nature and evolution

have my own talents and peculiarities.

It all works out quite fine. Or did until now.

Humankind sure likes creating chaos.

Do you remember they used to hunt

the generations before me so

our shells could be made into buttons?

I worry about the future generations.

Here is my talent- I survive.

Here are my peculiarities- everything else.

As an embryo, if luck be with me

an enchanting lure brings a fish, a sexy swirl begins

I land in their gills, then another swirl until

I am swallowed. Tricky indeed.

This is no random shack-up

my breed, my kind of fish, we go together

like rapids and kayakers, a perfect match.

I enjoy my time

in this indoor pool, surrounded by my siblings, until

I am spit out into your cold dark waters.

My home-a beautiful shell casing-

Is made from calcium

I make it myself

it is smaller than the mansions

of my salt-water cousins.

I am built for my destiny

water in, water out,

a siphon for each purpose so that

particles are filtered out.

I get oxygen,

River, you get cleaner water.

You might call me, in fact, please do

an ecosystem engineer.

I deserve that title.

Here I am

stuck at the bottom of you, my River

living in a shared mussel bed

for sixty years or so

stabilizing the sediment

removing pollution

cleaning water

feeding myself

with my only concerns being

who might come seeking me for food

and what humans might do to my home.

Roll on River, roll on.

Poet’s Notes: Piper Durrell was intrigued by the idea of writing a poem from the perspective of a river creature after taking a LLI course on local streams and rivers. That's how poetry works for her—an experience, an expression, a song lyric, and off she goes to play with words.

About the Poet: Piper Durrell has written poems since her childhood in Connecticut. Even her early poetry was concentrated on nature—the beach where she spent her summers, the forest where she went to escape her four rowdy younger siblings, the flowers in her mother’s garden. Since moving to the mountains of Virginia over 45 years ago, she has spent many hours hiking and writing about her experiences both where she lives and where she has travelled. And, now in retirement, she has found more time to write and more time to travel.

Editor’s Notes: I could not help but wonder, “With whom would a mussel converse?” I didn’t ask the bigger question, “Can a mussel talk?” I was willing to employ suspension of disbelief for the delight of the poem. I found the answer. The mussel would talk to her home—the river. CAS

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Uncle Gets His Tires Changed

blank verse

David M. Schulz

Have you seen my new November poem?
I know I had it with me when I walked
through the door. Behind the service counter,
you glanced from your computer screen and raised
an eyebrow at us, coughed into a fist.
My November poem was perched on my
shoulder like a giant bird made out of
folded white paper. I thought it would look
cute and help me make friends, but something must
have startled it, or maybe it was just
the filial allure of fresh popcorn
caused it to fly that direction. I thought
it would return to my lap a paper
bag full of buttered and salted little
doves. It couldn't have gone far. The wind is
whipping out there. It's definitely that
time of year. That's why I'm here to get my
tires changed. It was so busy earlier.
In the bustle, I'm afraid my little
treasure might have flapped away and gotten
lost back there in your warehouse full of new
tires and brushed metal wheels. If you could help
me look for him, or her. You know? Never
really gave much thought about whether my
poem was a boy or a girl. We don't
get out often, and well, I thought it might
be cute to see looks on people's faces
noticing us together, two thin birds,
one made out of paper feathers and the
other smiling like a fool, wondering
where the time went and about the quickest
way to get through this part of the day and
back home without offending anyone.
Yes. I can wait while you look. Thank you. Does
that television seem a bit loud to
you? Who reads these magazines? I'm afraid
to touch one. My nephew went to school with
you. I'm delighted to see you doing
so well. My car's ready? No charge? Thank you.

About the Poet: David M. Schulz is a writer working in the northeastern corner of California, where he owns and operates Wonderstone Gifts, an approved source digital farmstand. His recent writing credits appear in Young Ravens Literary Review, Shooter Literary Magazine, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, and Eye Contact: The Literary and Art Magazine of Seton Hill University.

Editor’s Notes: I find something comic in this poem, something pitiful, and something endearing. The poem verges on magical realism—or so it strikes me—but I read it instead as a deep desire for human interaction, even when the speaker’s mind is beginning to betray him. CAS

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One Night in Winter
free verse
general submission
Merryn Rutledge

The woman limped in,
snuffling softly at first, then moaning.
The man bent over
and gathered hay into a heap.
We stood by,
night cold steaming our breath.
He spread his cloak.
She knelt, rocked to and fro,
began to whimper.
All this was nothing like the stray men
who sometimes slip in
to stay the night, huddling
and gobbling their crust of bread
when we stretch our necks to sniff.
Nor like the musk of men
after they walk a whole day
behind the yoked oxen.
Even so, we had a sense of what to do—
move close to warm her,
wait for her to pant, rest, pant again,
through the quaking ache
we ourselves knew from foaling.
Finally breaking the night,
the scent of marsh grass and tang of blood,
the new one cleaving the air with a cry.
The spent woman lay back
and let me lick the little one,
bare—so unlike us—
to clean and warm it.
The thin limbs flailed—
not like us—it didn’t try to stand.
Some new, surprising thing.
All this happened once, long ago,
just once.

Poet’s Notes: “One Night in Winter” reflects my effort to unlearn a perspective that is people-centered, where we humans are apart from and more gifted than “nature." The narrator has consciousness, including empathy. His/her singular experience is her/his participation in and contribution to the birth. That sharing and caring are what is sacred about the event, not (or not necessarily) that the baby himself is special as Christians have assigned meaning to the story.

About the Poet: Merryn Rutledge won Orison Books’ 2023 Best Spiritual Literature poem prize. Find her book, Sweet Juice and Ruby-Bitter Seed at Kelsay Books. Recent examples of Merryn’s widely published work are: Amethyst, Julian of Norwich commemorative anthology; Synkroniciti, 2023 Best of the Net nominee; two Life Span anthologies. Merryn teaches poetry, reviews poetry books by women, and works for social justice. She taught literature and writing at Phillips Exeter Academy, NH, before earning a doctorate in leadership and running a national leadership development consulting firm.

Editor’s Notes: I like the surprise in this poem. Poems give assent to a wide range of creativity, and dramatic monologues aid the diversity by allowing for unexpected speakers. Fantasy and reality can complement each other in poems such as this. CAS

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Order Flow from Muskoka

prose poem

Chris Clemens

Hi, Brad. Can you hear me? I’m on the dock with the girls, reception’s not great, I still need to call - listen, let’s make a few moves before market close. I know it’s almost the long weekend, but I need you for a few more minutes. No, still no smartphone. They’re confusing. Are you ready? I said, ARE YOU READY? Let’s buy Apple calls. A few months out, thirty percent-ish is safe, right? Down, Nike. No, that’s our new puppy’s name. SIT, NIKE. Let’s - no, you can’t have Mercedes’ apple. You have other options. Dog food. Leave her alone, she’s crying you stupid - what? Brad, I can’t … alright, that’ll be fine, and maybe hedge this Canada Goose earnings swing with an iron condor, too. Got it? Oooh, look at the loons, girls. There’s birds on the lake, a swimming spread of loons, it’s beautiful, Brad, you really should get away to the cottage this summer, but also grab some Mercedes cash-secured puts. This weekend they’re dropping - Nike, STOP - Mercedes, PUT your apple down if - Oh! Everyone fell in the lake. Gotta go, Brad, but looking forward to being much richer on Tuesday. Chat soon!

Poet’s Notes: I love how deceptively silly stock market language can be; trading big money using options strategies with ludicrous names like 'naked put' or 'long straddle.’ This poem is about that goofy financial hyper-realism, living large on Ontario's swankiest lakes.

About the Poet: Chris Clemens lives and teaches in Toronto, surrounded by raccoons. His writing was nominated for Best Microfiction 2025, and appears in Invisible City, JAKE, The Dribble Drabble Review, Apex Magazine, and elsewhere.

Editor’s Notes: This poem may be a work of the imagination, but it captures wonderfully the nature of phone calls in our modern world. Poor Brad, on the other end of the call, has quite the job of disambiguation before him. CAS

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Abishag’s Lament

free verse

Wilda Morris

Ah, harem sisters,

you two who welcomed me

when I was brought here,

you who share your secrets

with me. Only with you

dare I share mine.

Would that I had fallen

on my father’s sword

rather than let them

drag me from Shumen

to blanket the incontinent

old king, half dead and slobbering

on his royal pillow.

The warmth I brought

to the palace fell victim

to his loveless, bony touch,

the long hours cleaning,

feeding and nursing

the ancient potentate

under the scrutiny of Bathsheba,

jealous that I lay cooing in response

to half-senile stories, snatches

of old songs spilling like wine

from his cracked lips.

You know what she is like!

But do you know what a tale

Bathsheba told

the befuddled monarch?

She convinced him he’d promised

the kingdom to her son—

a clever ploy that worked.

Rumors say Adonijah

is asking for me. What a risk

he’s taking! You know as well

as I that the new king will inherit

this harem. He wouldn’t give

any one of us to his brother.

Better I die with Adonijah,

whatever his motives,

than live another year

beneath Bathsheba’s thumb,

unloved

in this miserable harem.

Poet’s Notes: In the Biblical history, when the people asked for a king, the prophet Samuel told them how kings behave once they had power. It is likely that Abishag and many others in King David's harem were not there by choice and would have preferred another life. When the king died, the new king became the owner of the harem and could do what he pleased with the women who were kept there for the king's enjoyment. I find Abishag's story tragic and wanted to give her a voice.

About the Poet: Wilda Morris, past president of the Illinois State Poetry Society and of Poets & Patrons of Chicago, has published numerous poems in anthologies, webzines, and print publications. She has published three books of poetry, Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant (RWG Press), Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick, and At Goat Hollow and Other Poems (both from Kelsay Books). Current projects include haiku and related forms, and poems riffing off quotes from books and articles related to science. Wilda’s grandchildren say that she lives in a library.

Editor’s Notes: I’ve long thought of Abishag as King David’s hot water bottle. She warmed him when his body was so old he shivered in his bones. I find Morris’s imaginative look into Abishag’s life compelling. Surely, Abishag had thoughts about her ignominious role. Perhaps, she felt honored to provide the king comfort. Perhaps, but it doesn’t seem likely. CAS

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Martha, the Passenger Pigeon

prose poem

Ann Thornfield-Long

I am the last of my kind. Stare at my stuffed corpse. I haunt your dreams, curse your weapons, your need to dominate.

We were five billion strong making the sky dark for ten hours at a time. In scarcely an hour of roosting, we picked your crops clean. Landing on each other's backs, leaving a foot of guano to fertilize your land.

In Wisconsin in 1871, our nesting ground covered 850 miles square. Our iridescent orange necks and gray backs brightened your sight. The kee-kee-o of our cries gave melody to your nights. We sped through the dark as fast as the trains that bawled their loneliness across the plains. But there is no loneliness like mine, the last of my kind.

You called up a thousand "pigeoners" with rifles. We were five billion strong! In the Great Killing in Michigan in 1878, you sent 300 tons of birds as cheap meat for the poor of New York. Wasn't that enough? Couldn't you let some of us live?

In only 36 years, I was the only one left, caged in a Pagoda at the Cincinnati Zoo. The children throwing sand at me to make me move. I was dumbstruck with grief. September 1, 1914, I fell from my perch, finally free? No. Not to be. I was frozen in a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian, my mausoleum. Now you can see the husk of my body.

I never thought you could extinguish our light. We were so many. We flew so high. But be warned, the thirst for blood is insatiable. The end can come like a flood when the reins of history are out of your hand and the zugunruhe* makes others uneasy. How many of you are there now? Only three-hundred and thirty-five million? There is no sadness like being the last of your kind.

*Zugunruhe: the restlessness of animals before a migration.

Poet’s Notes: I became interested in the story of the Extinction of Passenger Pigeons after listening to the music of Christopher Tin, The Lost Birds: An Extinction Elegy. I would love to hear Martha’s cry, ant it was my goal to hear her speaking to me and also doing what I can to protect endangered species.

About the Poet: Ann Thornfield-Long is a retired nurse and first responder, and a former editor/publisher of her hometown newspaper. She has fiction and poetry in Artemis Journal, Still: The Journal, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, and Dog Throat Journal, among others. Her interests include Marcus Borg, driving across the US, and everything else.

Editor’s Notes: This dramatic monologue is also a powerful elegy. I find the reversal intriguing, that the one who has died is the one speaking of loss, and intoning such a deep cry of sadness for what is gone. CAS

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Library

free verse

Zhihua Wang

Since you open your hours and your carrels,

I open my heart. The bookshelves I pass by

remind me of a realm to which I aspire.

Among the rows, I search for a better view,

a better me. The time I spend with you

is solid and solitary, like a cell

for the ascetics, a temple of temperance.

I almost see the full road map

for the rest of my days, a constant
of searching for you and coming back.

Every journey leads to the distant
and the unfamiliar. Every path

a pilgrimage, whether the road is bestrewn
with sunshine, rain, or a thick layer of snow.

About the Poet: Zhihua Wang received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Arkansas and is currently a Ph.D. student in Creative Writing at the University of Rhode Island. Her work has appeared in Across the Margin, Eunoia Review, Salamander Magazine, Not One of Us, and elsewhere.

Editor’s Notes: In this case, a poem addressed to a library is a poem addressed to the power of books. A library’s open door is an open door to both the familiar and the faraway. I read the poem as a love letter. CAS

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General Submissions

Glosa on Anorexia Nervosa

“To be aggressive is to be valiant.

To retreat is to be wretched.”

—King Senusret III

free verse

general submission

Ajla Dizdarević

In my mouth, something frightening: a golden

tongue glazed with hard, honeyed sugar carved out.

Caramelized candy stuck like a shout

between the frictionless glottal folds in

my throat. I do not swallow this molded

sweet. Besotted with numbers, their massive

toll on the body. Call me obsessive:

I obsess under duress. I know thoughts

are passing whimsies, something to be brought

to trial, unswelled, to be aggressive

to the body. My body. A cloven

contradiction where water starts my drought.

I become holy carving out devout

cravings, devouring nothing but swollen

parotid glands and the juice that loosens

from their lobes. I am my own battalion:

I stall nowhere, receive no medallion

for the holes in my bones or the culottes

slipping from my legs. I must not be fraught

with misery: strength is to be valiant

to stand in front of food like a Roman

soldier, long-nosed and without any doubt

of the turn one must make to become proud

of the vessel. My vessel. A broken

bestiary in which all that’s stolen

is tissue. I am eaten with no eat,

a frenetic poem with no repeat,

an asphyxiated mind with no thought.

I have not helmed my hips to become caught

in netting like a fish or to retreat

to the depths of what I was, emboldened

to feed like the others and drink from spouts

trickling fuel. A match, a flame, then fallout

too great for heart to stomach. Abdomen

eroding—this decrepit and motioned

way to live. All I fear is the dreaded

day I become healthy and unwedded

to all I have held in my heart and taught

myself of discipline. Let me stay lost:

to lose what I gain is to be wretched.

About the Poet: Ajla Dizdarević has worked as an editor and educator in the United States and Europe. She was a finalist for the 2023 PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship and received an honorable mention for a 2024 Academy of American Poets Prize. Additionally, two of her poems were shortlisted for the 2024 Bridport Poetry Prize. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Southword; The Iowa Review website; The Fantastic Other; Plainsongs; and We the Interwoven, an immigrant anthology. She is the recipient of a David Hamilton Prize, a scholarship from the Department of Cultural Affairs, and a Fulbright grant.

Editor’s Notes: Eating disorders are associated with obsessive-compulsive behaviors. This poem does justice to the thinking and to the bodily reactions concurrent with anorexia nervosa. I particularly like Dizdarević’s employment of the “out” rhyme, both for its symbolic significance and for the strong gut reaction the sound evokes. CAS

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Soliloquy of the Sound Engineer

sonnet

general submission

C.M. Gigliotti

He’s got some nerve, this kid who sings for us.
What makes him think we’d give him a baton
And let him have a field day with the band
That costs this place a pretty penny? Why,
He’s never had lessons—no counterpoint,
No cueing, much less his vocalizing—
No one less trained has ever stepped inside
This studio. I’ve half a mind to make
A formal complaint to someone in charge;
That is, if someone were around. Instead
I stand behind the soundboard watching them
Watch the city kid raise those twin batons
That he calls arms and the whole orchestra
Raise heads and bows, anticipate his down.

Poet’s Notes: In the sound engineer I found a knowledgeable yet anonymous perspective from which to consider my subject: a young Frank Sinatra. This was one of a series of poems I wrote around the centennial of Sinatra's birth in December 2015, an occasion of great importance to my Italian-American family. It was also before I had taken a conducting class, which taught me what a demanding practice it is for even the most sensitive musicians. Sinatra would conduct his share of orchestras and exhibit a knack for knowing just how to get the desired sound out of them. I tried, here, to imagine a time before all that.

About the Poet: C. M. Gigliotti is a multi-hyphenate artist with degrees from Central Connecticut State University and the Writers Institute at Susquehanna University. Her poetry has appeared in the 2024 Spring issue of Songs of Eretz, as well as in publications including CommuterLit, The Twin Bill, Prose Poems, and MEMEZINE. She writes on Substack at Così faccio io. She has lived in Germany since 2019.

Editor’s Notes: Gigliotti names this poem as a soliloquy, and so it is. It stands as a good contrast (as does Rutledge’s “One Night in Winter”) to the dramatic monologues we feature in this issue, thus we labeled it as a general submission. In a soliloquy, the audience is not identified. In a dramatic monologue, through one means or another, the audience is either named or implied. CAS

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Digital Rights to Photo Purchased by Jayne A. Pearl
and SOE. Source: Mark Ylen (photographer). Albany
Democrat-Herald. Associated Press. 11 September 2020.
File Photo

Wild Bobcat
—Wild fire in Oregon, 2020
free verse
general submission
Jayne A. Pearl

What’s left:
a burned out, rusted frame;
wheels stuck in muck;
handlebars too hot to handle;
spokes poking out;
pedals MIA.

Brakes broken, but superfluous
nowhere safe to ride:
roads cluttered with debris
buildings bloated with smoke
everything, everyone smoldering.

Those in homes still standing,
packed and ready
to leave if and when
perpetual evacuation alerts

turn to orders.
Where would they all go?
How would they get there?

Poet’s Notes: I’d written this poem early into COVID lockdown, at one of many online writing workshops I attended during lockdown. The workshop presenter provided the image that inspired my poem. It seemed to capture and conjure so much pain, not only for those who lost much or all during the Wild Bobcat wildfire in Oregon in 2020, but also the world’s isolation due to the pandemic lockdown. And now, with the more recent wildfires in California, this poem feels even more timely.

About the Poet: Jayne Pearl has been writing poetry since she was a melodramatic and temperamental early teen. She won several poetry slams at the Northampton (Massachusetts) Poetry group, and enjoys participating in poetry workshops, open mics, and critique groups. Professionally, Jayne is a freelance writer and editor. She authored Kids and Money (Bloomberg Press) and co-authored Kids, Wealth and Consequences (Wiley) and Keep or Sell Your Business (Dearborn), as well as two self-published children’s books, Dog Days of Summer: Fun with Cliches! and Funny Money: More Fun with Cliches! She has ghostwritten and edited a dozen other books. She has appeared on PBS, CNBC, NPR, and CNN, and published in Forbes, Family Business magazine, Inc., Parenting, and US News & World Report. She keeps her hands dirty in the garden and clean in the kitchen.

Editor’s Notes: Jayne Pearl, in searching for the digital publication rights to the image, received help from Bobby Corser, the online content producer for KATU in Portland, Oregon. Corser interviewed Jayne by Zoom, and he plans to air the interview after we release this winter issue. At that time, he will include a link to Jayne’s poem here. Many thanks go to Jayne for the leg work she did in procuring rights to the picture, and for striking up conversations about Songs of Eretz. CAS

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Frequent Contributor News

Associate Editor and Contributor Clayton Spencer announces the publication of his first chapbook. The manuscript was a contest winner last year through a magazine and press called Beyond Words, based in Berlin. More details will follow.

Vivian Finley Nida and Terri Lynn Cummings will present ekphrastic two-voice poems to four book clubs in February.

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Your Support

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is a for-profit entity that operates at a loss of up to $7,000 per year. It is sustained entirely by donations of time, talent, and treasure from our editorial staff, loyal readership, and family of poets and artists.

Our four quarterly issues take hundreds of man-hours to produce. That is what it takes to offer our readers a quality experience and our featured and guest poets and artists a place where they may be proud to publish their work.

Please consider making a modest gift supporting our purpose, “to bring a little more good poetry into the world.” Those interested should use PayPal.com with Donations@SongsOfEretz.com as the receiving address.

Please note that contributions are not tax deductible.

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Forthcoming

"Artifact" theme -- what we are looking for

2025 Themes and Deadlines

(Please note the new submissions' address, both here and on our Guidelines page. The correct submissions' address is submissionssofe@gmail.com)

Some Guidance for the February "Artifact" Submission Call (What We’re Looking For):

Consider these definitions of the word “artifact”:

“a usually simple object (such as a tool or ornament) showing human workmanship or modification as distinguished from a natural object”; “something or someone arising from or associated with an earlier time especially when regarded as no longer appropriate, relevant, or important.” And consider as well these words: “One of the things that make humans unique is their ability to make and use tools, and ever since the first rough stone axes began to appear about 700,000 years ago, human cultures have left behind artifacts from which we've tried to draw a picture of their everyday life. The roots of artifact mean basically "something made with skill;" thus, a mere stone that was used for pounding isn't an artifact, since it wasn't shaped by humans for its purpose—unlike a ram's horn that was polished and given a brass mouthpiece and was blown as part of a religious ritual.” (Merriam Webster).

Therefore, as I think about artifacts, and how they might be represented in the shape of poetry, I’m thinking of objects (and, maybe, people) that are invested with meaning because of how the objects have been crafted and/or used.

One of the ways to think about an artifact is through the comic strip, B.C. Peter, one of the characters, writes a message on a rock and sends it out into the ocean. After a period of waiting, he receives a return message, written on the other side of the rock. The message reveals a glimpse into the culture on the other side of the waters. The rock and the message—even despite the unlikely event of a rock floating—give a glimpse into the world on the opposite side of the ocean.

I remember reading about the message in a bottle, as explained through New Historicism. The message comes from a place and time distinct from the moment of the reader who finds the bottle. The one who makes the discovery of the message then attempts to decode all that the message conveys—not just what it means, but what culture it represents, and what are the tastes, preconceptions, codes, and ethics of the writer. So much can be guessed. So much remains a mystery. The message, for all that it does not reveal, yet becomes a key to another way of seeing the world.

Ron Rash, in his short story, “Yard of the Month,” tells what the narrator and his father find in their yard, a yard left untended for years: “a rusting Schwinn bicycle”; “an alarm clock”; “a one-armed teddy bear”; “six rotting newspapers with rubber bands still around them”; “a skeleton of a large (non-human) mammal”; a hot-water bottle”; “a blue hula hoop”; “a hubcap”; “over a dozen soft drink bottles”; “two baseballs”; “an unopened can of Luck’s Blackeyed Peas.” The list is very specific, but, more importantly, it is a list of concretes that carries with it the strong whiff of a particular time and place. Every one of these items might be identified as an artifact, and not just because it emerges from the overgrown weeds and grass (as if it has been unearthed). The item is an artifact because it was made and used by humans (except for the skeleton), and the presence of each artifact is invested with the potential of remembered significance.

Therefore, write into memory using an artifact as the talisman to bring forth significance. Help us, the readers, to know what the object means to you—why it is loaded with so much memory and meaning.

2025 Themes & Deadlines

Season Theme Submission Period

Spring Artifacts February 1-15

(objects that carry history, memory, identification, such as message in a bottle from the past, etc.)

****

Summer In the Kitchen May 1-15

(foods, customs, kitchen talk, preparation, teaching, etc.)

***

Fall Digging August 1-15

(literal or figurative)

***

Winter Tension November 1-15

(literal or figurative, life situations, the push and pull, tension within the poem itself, the complexity of situations, etc.)

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SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review

Thursday, January 16, 2025

WINTER ISSUE 2024-25: DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW

A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief

Forthcoming

"Artifact" theme -- what we are looking for

2025 Themes and Deadlines

Some Guidance for the February "Artifact" Submission Call (What We’re Looking For):

Total Pageviews

Thursday, January 16, 2025

WINTER ISSUE 2024-25: DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW

A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief

Forthcoming

"Artifact" theme -- what we are looking for2025 Themes and Deadlines

Some Guidance for the February "Artifact" Submission Call (What We’re Looking For):

Total Pageviews

"Artifact" theme -- what we are looking for

2025 Themes and Deadlines