I feel like this poem’s story had been inscribed in my bones, and as I read it, I was doing so from the inside out. Such is the power of your work, and the universality of your truth. It boggles the mind how so much promise and so much betrayal are chronicled by the photosphere’s watchful eye. The notion that it will always rise from the night, with or without us offers mean comfort, but then again, resignation does often seem preferable to futile protest… For my part, I am immensely grateful that you defied that night, and that the sun saw fit to grace my days with your spirit and friendship.
Thank you, Ms. H. When I was young I avoided writing about the personal. Of course I had not much going on back then, hadn’t the breadth of experience that survival imposes. I can’t say that i’m more interested in writing about personal matters nowadays, but I am persistent in questioning what they mean to me, whether in context or not. Hence these “palinodes,” which reveal, perhaps as if through funhouse mirrors viewed through smudged telescope lenses, bits and pieces of a life reviewed yet still in process.
To me, that process of sorting out, replaying, reseeing, and reassigning meaning to experience, is the lifeblood of poetry. Avoidance of experience stops its breath, and presuming experiences to be discrete, non-integrated events with meanings that are finite and static, sells it short. Your palinode is the unfolding of possibility in the form of a will to life — your “resignation” in the face of betrayal is not a value judgment on the quality of the action/passivity survival required. And now, in contemplating the nature of that survival and connecting to its meaning, you are doing nothing less than inhabiting your god-self. The result is poetry that sings to the very depths and will of others. Hope springs eternal.
The search for the infinite, the universal, in the particular and deeply personal, may indeed unearth buried, unheard music, or at least make it slightly easier to hear.
The poem is breathtaking. It sent me on a sad morbid journey. But I am easily made to cry, so maybe that wasn’t your intention. Not to many people know how to use poetry to make me emotional though. Thank you.
O at the Edges 
Great way to start the year, Congratulations
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Thanks, Michael. It is, indeed.
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Congratulations!
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Thank you, Randy. A good way to enter 2017!
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Yup! With a bang!
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Well, I may have whimpered during the process. 🙂
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heh-heh-heh-heh-heh….you.
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A magnificent achievement!
I feel like this poem’s story had been inscribed in my bones, and as I read it, I was doing so from the inside out. Such is the power of your work, and the universality of your truth. It boggles the mind how so much promise and so much betrayal are chronicled by the photosphere’s watchful eye. The notion that it will always rise from the night, with or without us offers mean comfort, but then again, resignation does often seem preferable to futile protest… For my part, I am immensely grateful that you defied that night, and that the sun saw fit to grace my days with your spirit and friendship.
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Thank you, Ms. H. When I was young I avoided writing about the personal. Of course I had not much going on back then, hadn’t the breadth of experience that survival imposes. I can’t say that i’m more interested in writing about personal matters nowadays, but I am persistent in questioning what they mean to me, whether in context or not. Hence these “palinodes,” which reveal, perhaps as if through funhouse mirrors viewed through smudged telescope lenses, bits and pieces of a life reviewed yet still in process.
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To me, that process of sorting out, replaying, reseeing, and reassigning meaning to experience, is the lifeblood of poetry. Avoidance of experience stops its breath, and presuming experiences to be discrete, non-integrated events with meanings that are finite and static, sells it short. Your palinode is the unfolding of possibility in the form of a will to life — your “resignation” in the face of betrayal is not a value judgment on the quality of the action/passivity survival required. And now, in contemplating the nature of that survival and connecting to its meaning, you are doing nothing less than inhabiting your god-self. The result is poetry that sings to the very depths and will of others. Hope springs eternal.
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The search for the infinite, the universal, in the particular and deeply personal, may indeed unearth buried, unheard music, or at least make it slightly easier to hear.
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Good news.
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It is, Ken, made doubly good by having mentored one of the other poets included in the issue. 🙂
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あけましておめでとうございます!
Great start to the year. Nice to see you are still kakan-ing away… showing us seito-s how a sensei does things!
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Thanks, Daniel. Still kakan-ing away, and working on a henkō plan, little by little, but steadily.
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Sore wa ii ne… ganbatte! Sensei wa cho-inspiring dess!
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😬
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Boku wa Japlish daisuki na shito dess, soshite sonna mitai na kotoba wa “very like”!
“Proper Japlish” is an amazing language and I wish more people spoke it!
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I wish I did, too!
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Congratulations!
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Thanks, C. They trickle in…
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Interesting.
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Thank you.
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coming in thick & fast the past month or so, good to see.
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Likely the storm before the lull, or something like that. I never take. publication for granted. 😬
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Robert, so beautiful my friend Happy New Year my friend! May 2017 bring you much joy and peace. xoxo
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The same to you, Candice. Thank you.
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Super picture and congrats
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Thank you. I can’t take credit for the photo – it’s from morguefile.com.
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The poem is breathtaking. It sent me on a sad morbid journey. But I am easily made to cry, so maybe that wasn’t your intention. Not to many people know how to use poetry to make me emotional though. Thank you.
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Thank you. My hope, in writing poetry, is to elicit an emotional response of some sort, to offer connection, if only in this elusive way.
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