Nimrod International Journal – Winter 2018

There is so much poetry in Nimrod every issue, it’s like bathing in words. This is the Awards issue, and I love the first poem by the winner: “Dry Season,” by Emma DePanise. “In the swamp, bald cypress roots globe / like curved fingers learning to play / piano” Having seen cypress in a swamp, I know exactly what she means, and the metaphor makes me eager to learn which way she will jump. “We scour the green… hoping to see our first / gator.” So, tourists? But instantly there is a recasting of this idea: “How, after a diagnosis, / there is a searching, a cataloging / of bruises.” There are so many resonances already early in this poem. A hurting narrator, a quiet spot in nature, but danger lurks under the water. A moving juxtaposition of images. “How after, Dad tells her / to put Ovaltine in her milk…” We want comfort, but things must change, now. Things have already changed and we must adjust. A wonderful poem, deep and thoughtful and sorrowful.

Another wonderful poem, deeper in the issue, is “If I Say My Body Is Grieving,” by Susan Nguyen. “Is it American or Vietnamese? … My father said: In our language, the same word means green and blue, xanh” A sort of dialogue between two traditions. “My mother said: Don’t translate me / My grandmother said: Don’t speak lest your tongue rush like a river” We feel the narrator trying to absorb it all, make sense of who she is in this world, find her own place. Very powerful, and much to think about.

Caroline Berblinger gives us, “Interviewing My Grandfather / Lincoln County Kansas (1938).” “I was seven or eight… when the rural electrification admin / came to our town.” The narrator lays out the anticipation of the family. “They wired our house in a day. My father sent / us out into the night.” We await alongside the family for the moment the lights turn on in their house, watching from the cornfield. “My father stood at the door, all the lights on / illuminating his body.” Almost a religious experience. Very moving.

Josephine Yu has a poem, “Dog With Cataracts,” that exposes the ambivalence, the lack we can all feel inside that may lead us to tiny cruelties, needing our own redemption. “Tonight I leave the kitchen light on… so she can see her water bowl — small apology for when I crossed the park today to wait in shade.” What the narrator does, such a small thing, we can imagine anyone doing, as much out of hesitance as cruelty. It’s a simple poem in words, but raises all sorts of deep resonances and regrets; a rueful recognition.

Finally, Kelly Michels presents us with “What I Mean When I Say He Went Peacefully,” which starts, “When I say there was no pain, what I really mean is:” The narrator tries to unpack and decode so many feelings and impulses at the dying of a grandfather. It’s not a gentle poem. “the day I saw him cry, the day a drug dealer left / a death threat on his answering machine.” And oh, suddenly this poem isn’t really about the grandfather directly, or entirely, but instead confronts the ambivalence and troubles when one has a drug addict in the family, the dealing with thefts, and dependence, lies, the pain, the cost to everyone. Such a beautiful, sad poem.

So many of these poets actually have multiple poems in this issue, which gives the reader a chance to see various sides of the authors. Very nice.

Peace in Poetry,

P M F Johnson

My book of poems, Against The Night, a wry look at a love that builds through a long marriage, is available on Amazon, and at other fine e-retailers.

Related blog posts:

The New Yorker – Feb 11 2019

Convergence Online Journal – Winter 2018

Missouri Review – Fall, 2018