DOCK Contributor Muriel Nelson shares the secret behind the delicious final stanza in her poem, "On Silent Haunches"
KJB: The line from Psalm 19:2 seems to be a perfect companion for the way in which you respond/pay homage to Sandburg’s, “Fog”. Did you find any of the rest of the Psalm informing the poem, or did the line just spring out to you organically?
Read MoreRuth Baumann’s chapbook, wildcold, opens with Rilke’s instruction, “Listen to the night as it makes itself hollow”. Here, I must admit my hesitance to dive into any work that prefaces itself with an oft-quoted (and often misquoted) poet. And here is where I am glad to say my literary-prejudice had its teeth kicked in.
Read MoreA surprising take on the dance of continents, Trever Ketner's poem Erode is one you're not soon to forget. He is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2015, we're just happy we got to him first.
Check out the interview between Kyle Bassett and Ketner below, then head over to The Dock for a fresh catch.
Here's a mini Q and A with our poetry editor, Jackie, and Angela to get you excited. Read the piece here.
JB: The poem is based on a real event which I heard about from someone, who had heard from someone, who had heard from someone else. Some details, such as the setting, are factual: I knew what the weather was like that day and I was familiar with the creek and the dam. The omniscient speaker, I think, was born of my struggle to imagine what everyone in this unimaginable situation was feeling. Mortality and weakness were both the inevitable conclusion and discovered through the process. I think that’s why that line, “you see where this is going,” got in there—there was no other conclusion, no other way for the story to go.
Read MoreRead Andrew's poem over on The Dock and check out an interview between poetry editor, Jackie Balderrama, and Andrew below.
JB: I am very attracted to the parallels this poem draws between physical and mental disease. It calls to mind an awareness that suggests pain can be both visible and hidden to the observer. I think the piece especially resonates with the events of this past year's Ebola outbreaks. How did you decide to describe these diseases with the address of "you"?
AE: Beyond being a type of list, this is also a persona poem, so the second person is reflexive, conversational. I imagine this poem in the voice of someone in captivity.
Read MoreTina Barr begins her latest collection of poems, Kaleidoscope (from Iris Press), with a perfect sonnet, “In the Kaleidoscope’s Chamber,” which ushers the reader into her colorfully patterned world. But, rather than using the kaleidoscope as a mere toy or object of whimsy, Barr’s speaker sees it as a truth device:
“The chamber fills with purple,
blue bruises, the open jaw of a dead father,
multiplies the tight eyes of liars, orange tubes
of trumpet vine, pink-tipped brushes of mimosa,
filaments sweet as what I concocted in bottles
from a perfume kit as a kid.”
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