Looking back over the past few months, I realize I’ve done a lot of things I don’t – or at least I didn’t – know how to do. After doing a number of those things one day, I was chuckling and shrugging to myself on my way home because life seems pretty surreal after a day like that. And then I had a flash of a memory from high school. Above one of the water fountains was a sign, just a printed piece of paper, that read something like, “According to physics, an insect with the weight and shape of the bumblebee cannot fly. However, the bumblebee doesn’t know this, so it goes ahead and flies anyway.”I’d always thought of the bumblebee as being ignorant but admirable all the same. But, after my long day of doing a number of things I didn’t know how to do, it occurred to me that maybe “knowing’ is a more active verb than I’d given it credit for in the context of our metaphoric bumblebee. That is, maybe it’s not just that we do things because we’re ignorant of the fact that we can’t, but that we should try to do things unless we absolutely know for certain that we cannot do them. We only progress, after all, by actively pushing the boundaries. And there is a lot that we don’t know. I’m not advocating doing stupid or harmful things, but life gets so much bigger when we just flap our wings and see what happens. Life in flight takes courage, but it’s worth escaping the drag of gravity. So, I say, hover, even soar with the bumblebees and birds. It can be exhausting and frightening, but the view is amazing. And who doesn’t want to shape the air the way a bird does?
This month, we have poets to share with you who truly soar. Associate Editor JP Reese brings us our feature this month. Ms Reese writes,
Treasure Shields Redmond studied with me a decade ago at The University of Memphis. Her spoken word poems were so powerful and her readings so compelling that all of us wanted her to be the person to read our work aloud during workshop. She made our poems sing in a way only a true artist of the spoken word could do. Redmond has enjoyed ten years of growth and success since that time, and her work reflects that growth. We offer three poems this month by Treasure along with two video readings of her poems “oath:1957” and “caveat.” Her poem “oath: 1957” is a prime example of her power and expertise with both the written and spoken word.
Next up is Katherine Soniat, whose poetry feels both mythic and personal. It navigates the wonder of life and the pain of separation and loss in a way that feels like we share at least the basics, including the feelings, of our own journeys with everyone in the world. Rarely have I seen poems this concrete and chock-full of feeling – and rarely have I been able to relate to poems – when the context is left nearly entirely up to the reader, as here. These poems tap into archetypes, at least of a type: archetypal, cyclic experiences and feelings. These poems surrounded me like water before I even realized what was happening.
Editor-At-Large Mia Avramut brings us the work of two great poets this month. Ms Mia writes,
Colin Pope is an iconoclast. He fights and gambols his way through poetry, as if attempting to annihilate the very soul of the decorative winged “amorini” who once might have tempted him. “A flurry of gold coins” sprays from their wounds, “like a celebration”. It’s the euphoria of painting a new world, and retouching the essence of living in it, all in bold, subversive strokes of which Goya would be proud.
To read John Riley’s poems is to contemplate a tranquil, melancholy sea, knowing all along that tenacious, bewildering submarine rivers wage war against oblivion beneath the undulating surface. This unique poetic voice springs from the American South, to achieve universal appeal. Immersed in Riley’s poems, the reader encounters brilliantly revived creatures and landscapes of the past, entire life stages condensed in subtle sense memories or poignant moments of truth, familial conflicts partially resolved in solitude on a remote shore, and even loves, beautiful loves, as deep and painful as Tesla’s attachment to his pigeon.
Associate Editor JP Reese brings us two more wonderful poets this month, too. She writes:
Burgess Needle’s poems are always fresh and offer a unique interpretation of the world around us. The poems are often situated in exotic locales, but teach us that human beings are very much the same no matter where they live, whether in a Thai hut or a New York skyscraper. Needle has a wonderful sense of the ironic as well and a gentle touch as his poems encourage readers to take another look at the human condition. “Lessons Beneath His House” takes us to a place “Where it’s fun to watch the American write / Watch him get thinner and thinner / on spicy food and Mekhong whiskey…”
J Divina Erickson’s prose series poem “Ugly Origami” is a misnomer. The imagery is lovely and the surprising connections the poet makes between the delicate figures the speaker shapes for a beloved other, who seems to reject them, speaks to the danger of desire when it is one-sided and the rejected lover becomes “A stickman … rooting himself, ready for collapse.”
Nance Van Winckel joins the column this month with a piece from her series “Book of No Ledge.” Ms Van Winckel explained to me that to create this art, she made alterations to an old encyclopedia page, including replacing some of the old text. I love the interplay of old and new in this piece. What really drew me in is its recognition of the value of history but also of the need to let the new experiment and grow – and the damage that results from demanding conformance, specifically with the past. I also love what I understand to be its subtle dig at criticism.
Editor-At-Large Doug Van Gundy shares the tender work of one poet with us this month. Doug writes,
These poems from Jennifer Jackson Berry are quiet. They are also brutally honest, particularly about the regrets that we all accumulate, like barnacles on the hull of ship, as we move through our lives. Take her masterful sestina, “Post Miscarriage: Day 55”. I read/about the danger of artificial sweeteners… reads one line of the poem, but there’s no danger here from that, or any other sweetener for that matter. The poems are dark and a little bitter, and I read them again and again.
Come inside, meander through some wonderful poems. Then strap on your wings and take on the air!