The fall issue of Nimrod contains the award winning poems for the Neruda Awards, and as usual they were a good batch this year. Chelsea Wagenaar won first place for her poems, “Penance IV,” “Penance V,” and “Sonata Pathetique.” My favorite of these was the first: “There are times when the heart demands a poverty // of anyone who would look on…” My wife and I saw a woman with her two children begging on the street today, so this poem resonated with me especially. Then she explains with an image: “a hand-sized bruise gripping her upper arm.” Most abuse/abuser poems I find bring out the sledge hammer, but this one created power through misdirection, images of nature and the ordinary.
Judy Rowe Michaels was a finalist, and again this seemed a good choice. In her “This Morning I Wanted To Tell You” she starts: “that when Chekhov died…he was packed in // ice in a refrigerated car…You would have wanted to know this…” an elegy, with an especially powerful ending. Limpid and straightfoward. And her “August, 1967,” “new prickle of brown grass piercing // my skin…” with its dual ways to read the last line. Just creating that possibility in a work of writing renders great power, but it is not easy to do, and not often done.
Bradley Harrison has a short, semi-non-linear work that works for me very well, “Medicine Man Addresses The Weather.” “morning whereon I’m stretched amazing…” If the lines are interesting enough, they can carry the poem, but in this case, the stringing together of the images also created frisson and intrigue.
Another favorite poem for me was Brandi George’s “Blackfoot Belly Dancer.” “Because my mother lost a child more than once a year, // I played alone most days…” …For each //miscarriage, I named a doll and soaked it // in a puddle.” What a haunting poem.
Rafaella Del Bourgo was another finalist, and I very much enjoyed the poem, “Dear Father.” “Look at the cat lifting her head, // love-eyes half-closed. // She’s lying on our couch, // painted in sun.” It is so easy to see this image, to get a deep satisfaction from it, a pleasure or contentment.
Melissa Reider was also a finalist, and has marvelous poems in here – I can’t choose between “A Clean Thing,” and “Pain Has A Memory,” as my favorite of her work.
Honestly, there are poems in the magazine that don’t work as well as the ones I have mentioned here, but I found the vast majority worth digging into, even if there were flaws here and there. Anyway, they stuff so many poems into each issue it’s hard to name them all, or to describe all the delights. Maybe you’ll just have to go see for yourself. ;->
Peace in poetry,
P M F Johnson