Maria Mazziotti Gillan: “Poetry is my passion—writing it and sharing it with others through my books, setting up readings for other poets, editing a magazine and anthologies, and organizing prizes. My mother always said, ‘The more I gave away, the more I had to give,’ referring to food, and I have tried to do the same thing with poetry.” (web)
Amit Majmudar: “I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland filled with Eastern European Jewish immigrants and their descendants. I was always fascinated by the histories that lived in the accents and eyes of my friends’ grandparents. This poem was prompted by my memory of a classmate’s grandfather who survived the Holocaust by hiding in Europe’s last old-growth forest and died in an Ohio winter many decades later, while shoveling snow. The image of the shovel connected, for me, Josh’s grandfather’s past and his end, for he had been forced, when a child, to help dig a mass grave.” (web)
Image: “Night Train” by Gerrie Paino. “Tracks” was written by Matthew Murrey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the artist, Gerrie Paino: “The evening I came upon the solitary train car that is the subject of my Ekphrastic Challenge photograph, I felt a sense of fascination and mystery. What stories would that deteriorating hulk tell, should it be given a voice? The opportunity to have so many talented poets share their answers was both a delight and a challenge, but, ultimately, I kept returning to ‘Tracks,’ as the one that felt absolutely right. ‘It is the last night,’ begins this poem, begging the question, ‘Last night for what?’ From that point on, we are offered deftly-rendered fragments of memory which include a ‘mother’s soft skirt’ being clutched by a child afraid to go to school, a gruff father, and, most striking to me, ‘… a pair / of shoes, a funeral, a bed / on the floor, and two horizons.’ The final stanza, with its sense of longing and resignation, seems to summarize everything that might be contained in that deteriorating behemoth as it crumbles, inexorably, beneath ‘stars forever out of reach.’”
Danielle Lisa: “At the age of two, I had a bad fall. I cried and cried. Nothing my mom did was calming me down until, in her attempts to say something comforting, she happened to use two words that rhymed. The crying stopped instantly, as I repeated the words back in awe. She knew in that moment that her daughter was a poet. Now at 26, poetry doesn’t get me to stop crying; it makes me start. It has been a lifeline. My dream is to write full-time, but for now, I will continue to work office jobs and sneak off to the bathroom whenever an idea strikes.”
David T. Manning: “I’m fascinated by birds for their beautiful alien lives and intelligence, so different from ours. Once, in Wrightwood, California, a green-tailed towhee landed on the toe of my shoe to check me out. Later, a nuthatch hopped to within my hand’s reach and virtually commanded me to leave his feeder alone. The world is stranger than my wildest imaginings. I fully expect a cardinal to land on my wrist and drink from a hose someday.”
Michael Jones: “I am the middle child of 12 siblings from three marriages. I grew up in gang-infested neighborhoods around military bases in Southern California. After high school, I broke the cycle of young black men perpetuating street violence and enlisted in the Army. This career would show me the world in many spectrums: The beauty of different cultures, the splendor of nature, and the horrors of combat. After the service I attended 2 HBUs, Bowie State and Howard. Though experienced in life, I learned my history through academia and gained a greater sense of pride in my past and more hope for my future.”
Christine Potter: “I have been especially disheartened by the news lately—and it’s hard to pin it down to just one story. The war in Ukraine is going poorly. But the New York Times Magazine story about extremist Israeli settlers twisted my gut the hardest; I’m a New Yorker with lots of Jewish friends, and I used to work for a school with a branch in Tel Aviv. I love Jewish people, but I see the brutal actions of the far-right Israeli government echoed in the far right here in America, who I fear would be equally violent, given the chance. I support the kids protesting on college campuses but worry about the consequences on the Presidential election in the fall. And then yesterday, my husband and I were driving to the local bakery when we ended up about half a minute behind a young man flipping his car. But everyone survived! I believe in American democracy more than most things. I hope for the best for my country, too.” (web)
