Poetry
Poetic Gatherings: Volume Three
Intriguing Poems Recently Discovered on Medium
I’m late to my task of highlighting and sharing intriguing poems I find across Medium. Certainly not for a lack of poems. But I’ve been reworking my days, and that has kept me busy.
A little personal poetry note: my poem “Bone Song” was published at Strange Horizons in January. A literature journal high on my personal achievement list. I also have a poem coming up in the fall issue of 34 Orchard.
Reading around Medium this week revealed many poems celebrating spring and proclaiming unreserved joy at being alive. While these uplifting pieces aren’t for everyone, there are many readers who need just such positive outlooks on the world.
However, I have little of that sort of poetry in this week’s collection. My selections leaned a little darker than robins and violets in the rain. I can offer no explanation other than these complex, darker themes drew me in.
While Daniela Dragas’s “The Last Bluebird” mentions a bird, her sentiment is not about spring and it speaks for many of us:
“Because sensing the danger didn’t mean you could escape it…”
Likewise, Jenny Blue’s line in “Room of One”:
The one who’s easily pushed into making / decisions that spell f o r e v e r.
These poets confront themselves and us with hard truths.
As I’ve mentioned before, I love intriguing titles. “Satellites like Black Stars” by Amalia Cotovan is a wonderful title, and the poem begins where the fascinating title leaves us:
Cords of hair and eyelashes and seaweed / weave together on my brows / weave a helmet or a blindfold / tenfold darker glued with sea salt / closed the curtain on a flaming sky / Blacker than the slick black feather wing / of the ravens overhead
In “Cash Register Sings the Blues” by Maria Nazos, the container of steel and plastic speaks for all of us:
I want to drink space-alien-dyed martinis on black / leather sectional couches.
But such dreams and desires rarely work out for people or cash registers.
To see my full list of twelve poems, click below:
Until next time, keep reading online and off. But don’t forget to take a walk or something that places you outside in the real world.
