Winter Poems/Jan 2021

Woman on Woman

By Y.A. Suh

Leave me to dream that curve of skin,
curve of lip. For a woman is a woman

only in dangerous land—parts hardened
by gaze, coaxed open by teeth. I realize

all along I’ve been waiting for a mistake.
This mistake—asking after origin. It never

came—it just was. Like a mountain was, like
a woman was. Umber & sloping.

Y.A. Suh is a student from New Jersey whose work appears in Half Mystic and Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and has been recognized by YoungArts, UK Poetry Society, and The New York Times, among others. She aims to foster love for speculative fiction in the emerging writers’ community through her publication, Wintermute Lit.

Reaching for Nature

By Christina MacCorkle

This work began as a still life. As I began to work on the plant sprawling out of the vase, I felt a kind of emotional connection to the shape of the leaves– the way they twisted and curled until reaching the flower, almost like they were reaching out to something. This personification of leaves is what inspired me to add hands to my composition. I intended for the gesture of the hands and the positioning of the fingers to express grief, longing and desperation. It felt like these emotions were pervasive amid quarantine, racial unrest, and a turbulent political climate.

As a viewer, I thought this composition was visually interesting because there’s so much going on with the hands and flowers nearer to the outskirts of the painting, but you’re drawn to the center. You have to make that effort to try to comprehend the full picture by darting around the piece, but the gravity of the focal point tethers you to the center, despite the fact that most of the ‘action’ is happening elsewhere. In this way, the process of viewing my piece serves a reminder that disparate subjects, people, and systems share a core.

This idea spurred me to think about evolution– the way we all share a common ancestry.

The titles of the books on the bottom left-hand corner are meant to provoke the viewer into thinking about the relationship between race and nature. Specifically, Darwin’s On The Origin of Species and the golden ratio– 1.16– are intended to communicate our common origin. So, I wanted to have this idea of unity, but also have the hands ultimately face different directions, signifying disparateness.

Usually, my creative process goes something like that– starting with one idea, then weaving current issues on my mind into the composition.

Christina is a junior at the Thacher school. In her spare time, she enjoys drawing, tea and podcasts.

Editor’s Note: Winter Poetry January 2021

By Molly Hill

Editor’s Note
Winter Poems/January 2021

Dear Readers and Writers:

This week twenty-two-year-old poet Amanda Gorman became the youngest person to read a poem at the inauguration, when she stepped up to the microphone with The Hill We Climb.

When day comes we ask ourselves
Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

We’ve always believed in the power of the written word as a means of connection, and a vehicle to discover our shared humanity. In our going-on six-years of online publication, we’ve showcased a few hundred poems from student writers who’ve impressed us with their ability to shape life experiences into art that is relatable, and meaningful.

…even as we grieved, we grew,
…even as we hurt, we hoped
…even as we tired, we tried

In our Winter Poetry Issue, we’ve selected poems about love, loyalty, Covid, identity, summer yearning, grammar, and polyester. As always, it’s a privilege to publish these students, and we’re delighted to do so in the same week that poetry shines on the inaugural stage.

Hope you’ll take the time to listen to Ms. Gorman’s incredible poem, and scroll through our most recent issue as well. Youth + creativity wins every time.

Happy New Year—

Molly Hill
Editor

ash looks like sugar through swollen eyelids

By Mia Golden

dreams continue to wither & fade behind
gloomy paint-peeling doors; will you succumb to
your own consternation?
the honey is laced with poison, so
stir in covert fructose imposters–
they’ll drink your stomach acid &
splatter it against the walls in the
shadows: beset with the throes of
femininity, you bleed once more
into your open palm: tea dripping
into porcelain saucer.

ii.

silent dissension seems tangible in
the dark, saccharine uneasiness
vying for your tastebuds’ attention:
the cloying smell of your vitreous humor
set aflame. hope owes you no favors–
she leaves you suffocating in the night,
acid in your uterus, ash on your
tongue, concrete filling your rib cage.

iii.

optic struggles, neurotic mindset:
& you gasp as nitric oxide floods your trachea.
vaseline in your salivary glands, sweat in your
follicles, hands on the doorknob, desperate
to burst into the light– & tenebrosity grabs your
ankle, shoving you back into the filth that is
the time after sleep but before streetlights
ignite. witching hour paints constellations on
your hammering chest: your blood, your tears,
your pigment, your penumbra.
cadaver girl, living husk; your heart thrums,
but your aorta is rubber: a charlatan beneath your lungs.
your irises dim, your pupils dilate,
& you’re left in the dark with smoky green tea,
unsweetened and ashen, just as you despise.

Mia Golden (she/her) is a teen writer from California with a passion for activism and love for all things chocolate. She is an editor at Interstellar Lit. Mia is published or forthcoming in Indigo Lit and the Trouvaille Review, among others. She hopes you have a great day!

Hoverfly

By Nick Newman

Sunsets feel – like skylarks –
as if they have always been there
draping around you, remaking the touch
of hand in hand, arm around shoulder.

The cold makes us talk in staccato,
short syllables we bite down on and share
drinking in that playground
in the still Scottish air

now, we watch hoverflies on the buddleia
tracing its purple into the coming dusk —

the last ray of light flecks
the gold of your cider onto skin.

In the dark, the clink of buckles
as Orion’s belt braids your hair in silver
braids your heart in stars.

Nick Newman grew up in China and Scotland, and studies English Lit at the Uni of Leeds. His work appears in Marías at Sampaguitas, Stone of Madness Press, and Riggwelter Press, and you can find him procrastinating on twitter @_NickNewman

Flotsam

By Oluwafisayo Akinfolami

Joy is the prescription of practice
between a body and another
a new anthem plays on the radio
and I am floating
all I want is to dance
till I dissolve into the rhythm.
Without hesitation, I rename my country
& translate my allegiance to love yet
another language,
provocating a new form of survival
I don’t know if I am entitled to this poem.
Of this newness, that has formed
a devotion on my tongue.

Oluwafisayo Akinfolami is a Nigerian poet. Her poems has appeared on Undivided Magazine, Perhappened Mag, Praxis Mag Online, Written Tales, Writer Space Africa and elsewhere.