IWe are delighted to announce the results of the Poetry by the Sea Book Award: At the Lepidopterist’s House by Chelsea Woodard, selected by judge Jane Satterfield. Chelsea will be awarded a prize of $500 and is invited to read from At the Lepidopterist’s House in May at Poetry by the Sea 2024. As we … Read More
Roughly True by Barbara Lydecker Crane Suzanne Valadon, 1865-1938, Paris What, you haven’t heard of me, despitemy art and stormy life? There’s much to tellof pride and bitterness, of bliss and hell—but not regret. I’ll fill my pen and write. I was born a bastard. Maman worked,a laundress, while I’d roam Montmartre, spying through café and whorehouse … Read More
Calling Hours at the Funeral Home by Jean L. Kreiling He wants to be here—it’s for his Aunt Lou,who baked him cookies, sent him cards and money,applauded his good news from first grade throughthe senior partnership, and called him honeyto her last day. But this grim atmospherecould not be further from Aunt Lou: his nosedetects old carpet, … Read More
DRIVING NORTH FROM FLORIDA IN MARCH by Brian Brodeur I think of you out thereon the sandy edge of things—Anthony Hecht, “Message from the City” On viny medians near Fayetteville,spring in reverse begins un-greening trees.Ryegrass recalls its pollen. Creeks re-freeze.A rumor of itself, the nascent yearwithholds its buds and songbirds disappear.Unsalted roads carved into each … Read More
After The Planets by Matthew Moniz with thanks to Gustav Holst Mars Far after all the planets have expired,we’ll look upon our headstone rocks adriftand back at errant dreams which they inspired—to give ourselves a universal gift. That’s if we leave—our ochre neighbor stainsimaginations marching toward those timesof triumph and prestige as our cremainsrepeat … Read More
The Virgin Learning to Read by Julia Griffin The mother smiles, one finger poised to guideHer daughter’s eyes along a page of wood. The child’s small hands hold up the book: a good Pupil. We cannot see the text inside. How kindly those old sculptors understood: – Behold a girl, her parents’ care and pride,Endowed with a humanity deniedTo … Read More
Gronnets by Julia Griffin My mother’s mother’s father looked like Einstein:So Grandma said, and photos bear it out.Sadly, the likeness stopped there, though no doubtHe had his strengths: finding his prospects fenced inBy dangerous Europe, fearing to be pounced on,He sailed for Liberty, alone, a scoutFor wife and son. They joined him, in aboutFive years: … Read More
The Messenger by Susan Delaney Spear 1.This, she recalls. Mommy piles her Along with friends into the tan Dodge Dart,the ride, smooth on asphalt, and the dustthe car stirs on the lane down to the farm.It is her fifth birthday. Dark purple grapes decorate the trellis. Old Shep’s growlscares her slack-kneed, back among adultscircled up … Read More
An Aging Poet Explains by David Southward The problem is that people are like trees.Although they think and speak and walk around,they’re growths of buried systems no one sees—whose roots, like an inverted broccoli crown,anchor them to the soils of home and school.While summer wraps their limbs in gathered light,this hidden half digests a springtime … Read More
for Davey at 16 As you gaze at the falls, unaware that I’m there,I survey your brow’s drop-off, the bluff of your chin,and the stone that bobs high in your neck, sharp and thin;the bright eddies and riffles that play in the hairthat meanders from temple to earlobe to nape;and above all, your eyes, squinting … Read More
