Category Archives: Poetry

Sunday Compulsion: Devi S. Laskar (Why I Write)

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Welcome to “Sunday Compulsion,” in which creatives answer one question: Why do I create? Poet Devi S. Laskar kicks off this new weekly feature.

I’ve been writing poems since I was 9 years old. It’s who I am: a poet. I write nonfiction and I write short stories and novels and I do so because I have this desire to communicate. I am interested in all kinds of forms. And I love to read, which is probably why I live to write. I’m trying to write the stories and the poems I haven’t read yet.

Devi S. Laskar is a native of Chapel Hill, N.C. She holds an MFA from Columbia University in New York, an MA in South Asian Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BA in journalism and English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former newspaper reporter, she is now a poet, photographer and artist. Her photographs include the cover of The Florida Review; and in the pages of Tiferet Journal and Blue Heron Review. Her art can be found currently on the cover of L.A. based Las Lunas Locas poetry anthology. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Blue Heron Review, which nominated her for Best of the Net 2016 & The Raleigh Review, which nominated her for Best New Poets 2016. She is an alumna of both TheOpEdProject and VONA/Voices, and served as a Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project poet in December 2015. She is also an alumna of Hedgebrook, and poetry workshops at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. In 2016, she won first prize in poetry at the 27th Mendocino Coast Writers Conference contest. Finishing Line Press published the first of two chapbooks, “Gas & Food, No Lodging” in March 2017; and will publish “Anastasia Maps” later this year. She now lives in California.

You can get Devi’s book Gas & Food, No Lodging at Finishing Line Press and Amazon,
as well as Bookshop Santa Cruz and online at Barnes & Noble.

Read this review!

Read and listen to her poem “Unanswered, Untranslatable”

To learn more about Devi, visit her website, which includes links to her artaday, essays, and various publications her work has appeared in.

And this podcast.

 

 

Recording of “Scarecrow Remembers”

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I’m still experimenting with recording. Here’s “Scarecrow Remembers,” which was first published at The High Window in December 2016.

 

Untitled from the 80s

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Another untitled poem from the 80s…

wood and water
the wave of
fragrance so perfect

we seek to
obtain it as
if we could

be windows open
to a light
the gentlest cloud

would obscure still
spreading like one’s
final exhalation which

travels only to
disperse and become
at last another’s

You are the Name

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You are the name
I whisper
to clouds.

Excerpt from “To the Light Entering the Shack One December Evening,” in From Every Moment a Second, available for prepublication order via Finishing Line Press. The poem first appeared in Shantih, in December 2016.

Two Cranes on a Snowy Pine

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snow

Two Cranes on a Snowy Pine (after Hokusai)

Who knows where bird
begins and tree

ends,

which branch shifts
snow, which bears

eternity. This, too, will share

joy,
elusive green

and breath,
with no thought

of flight

and night’s
fall.

This first appeared in Panoply in summer, 2016, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Many thanks to editors Ryn Holmes, Jeff Santosuosso and Andrea Walker for this honor, my first such nomination.

It also appears in my forthcoming chapbook, From Every Moment a Second.

See the woodblock print that sparked this poem: Hokusai

crane

Political Haibun

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Political Haibun

The wind knows impermanence but does not trust it.
Dependent upon atmospheric pressure, absorption
and rotation, who can blame the wind? We, too,
lend ourselves illusions, only to barter them away.
Three miles for a beer. Seven seconds for a fresh look.
A dollar extended for every five stolen. Empathy,
but only for the wealthy. Electing liars to office,
we justify our actions with more untruths. Nothing
improves. Even the quality of lies diminishes.

yellowed grass bending

under the sun’s weight

god’s will, they say

Cover Art for Robert Okaji’s New Chapbook!

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Check out Stephanie L. Harper’s cover art. Awesome!

stephanielharper's avatarSLHARPERPOETRY

Cover_Okaji

Not only was I deeply honored when Robert Okaji enlisted me to be the cover artist for his new chapbook, From Every Moment A Second, but the task proved to be one of the most inspiring and rewarding creative endeavors of my life.

I call this piece, “Dream of Flight,” after a line from a poem in Bob’s stunning collection, entitled, “Mayflies.” I hope it offers readers a small sense of the ways in which my life will never again be the same for having read this magnificent little collection of poetry!

Click HERE to order Robert Okaji’s beautiful new chapbook:

FEMAS Mock cover

available for pre-publication purchase from Finishing Line Press between now and August 11, 2017, and scheduled to ship on October 6, 2017!

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Knots

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knot

Knots

Who you are not seldom rises
beyond midnight’s

sum: one strand thrown over
another, looped through

and pulled taut, achieving
tension and a sour taste

at the back of your throat.
Everyone believes this

doesn’t bleed. I lock the
windows, draw the shades,

twist the cord. Even distracted,
nothing comes undone.

modern light MGD©

“Knots” first appeared here in June 2016. It is not included in my forthcoming collection, From Every Moment a Second, available for preorder here.

Excerpt from My Forthcoming Chapbook

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…Red, like your favorite sky,
the in-between, the misplaced one.

From “I Have Answers,” in From Every Moment a Second, available for prepublication order via Finishing Line Press.

 

Recording of “Magic”

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tophat

 

I’m experimenting with recording. This is a slightly revised version of the one I posted a while back, with a little music added. It’s not quite where I want it to be, but hey, I’m learning.

“Magic” is included in my forthcoming chapbook, From Every Moment a Second (prepublication orders taken here), and was first published in Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art.