2nd place winner of the Streetlight 2017 Poetry Contest My Grandmother Kills a Chicken The hen house her grocery, she strode the aisles of cluck, straw, and feathers for eggs reaching under each bird for breakfast. Vegetables canned in summer did not freeze in a closet lined with newspaper in the barn heated by a single naked lightbulb. A rural palace and grounds made from a white clapboard farmhouse, a ribbed metal garage, the one-room wide long building, a hen house with flaps that rolled up on each side, and a small barn with … Continue reading My Grandmother Kills a Chicken by Guy Terrell→
3rd place winner of the Streetlight 2017 Poetry Contest Witness It seemed an unlikely spot for a prophet, the annual library book sale in a dim warehouse on a summer day, but there she was, rocking side to side, the skirt of her lavender shirtwaist brushing pale shins above white socks and sneakers. Her fingers toyed anxiously with the clasp of her patent purse. “God came to me when I was at the Dollar General,” she said to no one in particular. “He told me to come down here to the book sale, He … Continue reading Witness by Priscilla Melchior→
The Blue Shirt As the doors close on 2016 we may find ourselves casting a backward glance, not only on the past year but back over our entire life as well, especially if we’ve reached a certain age. For many of us those very mundane experiences from our childhood remain vivid and profound throughout our adult life. They seem to hold some secret, some meaning that eludes us but that we are always reaching for, reaching back into memory to bring them to life again, trying to hear what they are saying to us now. … Continue reading The Blue Shirt→
Mount Fuji My friend always wanted to see the mountain with its eternal snow, but she never crossed the ocean to Japan. Instead, she bought a small reproduction of Hokusai’s “Boy Viewing Mount Fuji” and hung it on her bedroom wall. Every morning it greets the daylight: the boy with his back to her as he faces the mountain and plays a flute, his body perfectly balanced on a thick tree branch that seems to slice Fuji’s heart with a rugged abandon. “In another life,” she vows, “I’ll come back as that flute, the … Continue reading Two Poems by Linda Nemec Foster→
Dazzling Dinoflagellates We gather when the moon is hidden in earth shadow, stand in a group to hear facts, take advice, don life jackets that cover our lungs, our hearts. We drive toward a cove at the salt sea edge where the plankton proliferate, persist in a small shallow bay with its twisted neck to the sea, its reef a wall that holds them in. These bright, tiny organisms, single cell, simple we call them, beckon us to witness their wonder. Under wisps of night light we load into kayaks, follow one dim beacon. … Continue reading Dazzling Dinoflagellates by Martha Snell→
Art History “A book ‘manuscript’ should be understood as a form of sacred space: a temple in microcosm, not only imbued with divine presence but also layered with the memories of many generations of users.” My mother was obsessed With early Buddhist palm-leaf Manuscripts, their gilded edges, Lush, inky script – every morning She would pore over them, lay them In a row on her desk and hunch With a magnifying glass, pencil Notes on things like richness of color, Simplicity of line. She measured, Translated, stopping only to write Or gulp lukewarm, tannic … Continue reading Art History by Gayatri Surendranathan→
Water Not all water is silk, not a curtain closed against a mountain. Not every rivulet runs to a river. Not every rainstorm beats fists against the pavement or hammers umbrellas. It doesn’t even tap a tango on a tin roof. Original element of my birth— I swam through you and into this world. Cold from the pump, metallic taste of rust, gift of the earth after a day in the desert. Water sloshes in a jug, ice clanks, a balm and treasure, better than black gold or coal. Joan Mazza has worked as … Continue reading Water by Joan Mazza→
I often use this poem, The Summer Day by Mary Oliver, in my poetry workshops to demonstrate the importance of paying attention in the writing of poems: Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale … Continue reading A Hidden Glimmering→
Wedding in Richmond they’re roasting a pig at Tuckahoe Plantation crowds gather on the grounds where little Thomas Jefferson once lived sweet jasmine tangles in the garden banjos play on the hill barbecued pork scents the air the bride with promises on her lips wears rosebuds in her hair a small schoolhouse still stands and the original kitchen butter churn in the corner pewter pitcher on the hearth a place out of time long skirts sway to the music newlyweds dance across the grass and the road has lost its edge thick with overgrown … Continue reading Wedding in Richmond by Carol Was→
Snow Falls Off Bare Branch At a reading, the poet responds to the art of the Japanese woodblock. But I only see the man’s head blocking my view, white hair combed counterclockwise, hiding terrain where grass no longer grows— pale heart of a lone chrysanthemum. As the poet cites Hiroshige’s cobalt skies, that mum becomes lotus on the bald pond at Shinobu. By the time she references Wild Geese Flying Across a Crescent Moon, I migrate to the edge of my seat, glimpse the side of his face. Hair parted at the temple, it … Continue reading Snow Falls Off Bare Branch by Diane DeCillis→
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