Annika Ziff Glueck: “I started writing poetry when I was younger, and my grandmother Anne encouraged me to keep going. I love to curl up and read, but for me, writing is hard some days. I love poetry as a way to share my ideas and emotions, and communicate my voice.”
Staci Halt: “I am a writer near Boston and mother of six wonderful humans and several pets. My poems often come through a speaker who faces or reflects on terrifying circumstances; the poems end up serving as a sort of container for something that demands containment or would otherwise be unbearable.” (web)
Image: “Terry’s Keys” by Kim Beckham. “Bigger Than Us” was written by Emily Walker for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Kim Beckham: “‘We ran out shrieking.’ I really like that the poet created characters and a world to fit the scene. They truly captured all of the senses in the images, sounds, and heat of Terry’s day at the beach. It felt really tight with the perfect image to punctuate the ending. Pinky swear!”
Siddharth Dasgupta: “As an Indian writer, to write the ghazal is to follow in a centuries-long tradition—from the ache of Amir Khusrow, the twin longings of Jan Nisar Akhtar and Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and the revered mysticism of Mirza Ghalib, to the more contemporary English explorations of Agha Shahid Ali and Jeet Thayil. This ghazal then is one leaf in a long line of flourishing forests, infused with an ethnic heartbeat and existential ache that keep time to lost cities, bars filled with anonymous jazz, and love that knows no agenda.” (web)
Prompt: Write a poem set in a place you’ve always dreamed of going to but never have. Allude to all the basic senses.
Note from the series editor, Katie Dozier: “When one cultivates the practice of writing poetry, the world can reveal itself in ways it never had before. When I first heard Dick read this poem on the Prompt Lines of the Rattlecast, we were taken along for his morning run in such detail that we could almost hear our own footsteps pounding in his woods. And like any good journey, I was surprised by the last turn, in this case towards a bold, fourth-wall-breaking ars poetica. Aren’t we, as poets, always running towards a poem?”
“Ladies Blouses $2.99” by Cindy GuenthermanPosted by Rattle
Cindy Guentherman
LADIES BLOUSES $2.99
It was the mid-’60s, a time of rock and roll and hippies, yet men still wore hats to work, and ladies wore dresses and pantyhose. Suits were displayed on neat racks and people looking for new shoes were fitted by a professional at Weise’s Department Store in Rockford, Illinois. After years of babysitting, my first summer job at 16 was to take the bus downtown and ride the elevator up to the store office, where I was preparing a new inventory on a manual typewriter. The subject matter was not exciting and every time there was an inventory addition or change, I had to start that page over. It was kind of like the Groundhog Day movie in real life. But for this I was paid a dollar ten an hour, way better than the 50 cents I got for babysitting. Before the summer was over, I would move on to another place for a few cents an hour more.
Cindy Guentherman: “I’ve been making up poems since age five on the way home from kindergarten. I like all kinds of poetry, but haiku has been my favorite for about 50 years. This haibun was written after a Rattlecast prompt—to write a haibun about our first job. I love prompts because they let me write things I would have never considered before.”
Nina Peláez: “This poem was written after reading two articles from the past week reporting on the destruction of two sculptures: Esther Strauß’ “Crowning,” depicting Mary in the throes of childbirth, and Shahzia Sikander’s ‘Witness,’ an allegorical female figure. Within a week, both sculptures were beheaded. I was disturbed to read about the brutal vandalism of these two images, both of which engage with biblical subjects in ways that seek to reframe traditional narratives about female empowerment, particularly around reproductive justice. This poem offers a benediction to the two violated figures.” (web)
