Boy, the states in this country sure have a way of spotting talent and treasure when they choose their laureates.
Just wait until you read the stories that Marjory Wentworth, Poet Laureate of South Carolina, has shared with us this month in her interview and poetry. Marjory has had a fascinating and unique life, complete with armed guards and pit bulls, maple sap and blooming palmettos, inaugurations and risqué collages. Ms Wentworth has so many stories from all that she’s accomplished that I would love to sit down with her and just listen. Read her interview and poems and you’ll see why. Marjory’s been inside places that many of us will never go, and she brings stories out to the rest of us with grace, beauty, and candor.
Monica Mankin brings us two stunning poets this month. When I read these poems, I can feel the writers as people, not just as writers, in a way that is strikingly honest. There is truth here. Ms Mankin writes:Not for the fainthearted, this month’s poetry from Peauladd Huy and Robert Hill Long brings us imagery that is, as Robert Hill Long writes in his poem “A Summons,” “…harsh as a hatchet on green wood.” Capturing the experience of familial loss, Robert Hill Long’s three poems celebrate the simple music of life’s momentum, acknowledging that even “Death observes the rhythm method, / like jokes, like love, like breath.” Long’s poems remind us that much of life’s experience demands that we be well versed in the art of letting go.
Peauladd Huy’s five searing poems and interview share her experiences as a daughter of the Khmer Rouge’s mass slaying, which claimed the lives of her parents in Cambodia. Relentlessly striking the heart of humanity’s monstrous nature, “…like hooves on bones, / like hooves shattering a brain,” Huy’s poems give voice to her inheritance of loss, anger, and pain as well as her hope that such violence will one day come to an end. I hope you will be changed, as I have been, by the raw candor of her work.
Nicelle Davis brings us two great poets this month. I’m touched by the kindness, respect, and intensity that emanate from poet Jim Ferris’s work and from his interview with Nicelle. Ms Davis writes:Anthony DiMatteo and Jim Ferris write poems that challenge our ideas of heroics. In DiMatteo’s poem “The Opening,” Oedipus Rex is being taught in a prison grammar school. Just as this classic play continues to challenge our notions of nobility, Dimatteo’s poem implicates all until prisoner and scholar become interchangeable roles. Ferris too challenges readers to inhabit a larger view of heroics by writing in all the flippant things left unsaid by the stoic doctor in his poem, “What Your Doctor Really Wants to Tell You.” I am proud to have these poems presented in Connotation Press.
There is stunning work here this month, and each poet is a unique witness. I’m fortunate to have been invited into their worlds.