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Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?
I wrote this poem during a violin concert performed by Kasia Sokol (now Kasia Sokol-Borup). Kasia and I taught together at Fort Lewis College, a liberal arts college in Durango, Colorado. Because I grew up in a Russian/ Czech immigrant family, and Kasia herself was an immigrant from Poland, we bonded immediately upon meeting at our first faculty orientation.
When I had a bad day, Kasia called me to her office in the music building, and she would play me Bach Suites for Violin. Her passionate playing, her commitment to her art and our common ancestry stirred my creativity. I made it a practice to attend and to write during her concerts. So, when Kasia played Shostakovich: Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano, I was there in the front row, pen and journal in hand.
Because the music is in five movements, the poem has five sections. I wrote a vignette for each movement. At the outset, I had no plan but to let the music inspire me. The music took me back to my ancestors who were educated lesser nobility. They were potters, painters and writers and were executed by Stalin’s army. Their entire town was razed on Stalin’s orders; everyone in the town was shot and buried in common unmarked graves.
I thought of my women ancestors as well as Kasia’s ancestors, how those tough women persisted and thrived despite their long suffering and overwhelming oppression. What sustained them was passion, spirituality and art. Russia has a long and terrible history when it comes to the treatment of women. Up until the mid- 20th Century, men could legally murder their wives if they displeased them.
Shostakovich’s (Right in 1950) passionate movements settled deep into my bones, my mind, my heart and DNA to bring forth memories of my grandmother, her stories as well as stories...the poem wrote itself.
In each numbered section of the poem, I hope I caught Shostakovich’s rhythms, his musical and emotional intent.
“Gavote” counterpoints “Prelude” and is based on a French peasant dance. The rhythms are lively, sensual, breathless. The images whirl down the page as the dance whirls. This section is much more lighthearted, muscular and expectant that “Elegy,” which follows it.
“Elegy” is dark. The first stanza brings in the feeling and reality of decay and corruption underlying communism. Crops failed; there was hunger. Idealism failed; there was murder. One oppression was traded for another. The second stanza goes into a bit of my family history. My grandmother told me my grandfather killed his father’s manservant with a horse whip.
My grandfather was paid off by the family to emigrate to America, where he became a gangster. By all accounts, my grandfather Vassil was a dandy who loved the finer things in life, but he was an abusive tyrant. Educated, intelligent, he was emotionally unstable with a horrible temper. I never knew my grandfather.
He committed suicide when my father was 15, but that’s another story. I do know my family in Belarus was of the nobility, so they were educated, and some were artists, potters and writers.
“Waltz” is a slower section. The lines are filled with sorrow and the memory of Stalin’s purge of Russian artists. So many were executed or sent to Siberia to labor in inhumane camps.
Most of my Belarus family was executed by Stalin. In this section, I address the violinist who is no longer simply Kasia but a composite of the Anna Ahkmatova and Marina Tsevetayeva and so many brilliant Russian artists destroyed by Stalin.
“Polka” is another lively section based on this peasant dance, common to Poland.
It is the climax, the crescendo of the poem. The poem returns to its roots in sensuality, extolling art, music and the freedom, resilience and power of women, especially my own and Kasia’s ancestors.
There is a sort of orgasm in the passionate images that pour out in this section, a final ignition. The section resurrects also “Shostakovich from the dead/his white lips on fire, this/music, lilies and bullets/devined from our winter souls.”
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. The concert took place during the Durango Chamber Music Festival (http://www.durangochambermusic.com/) that Kasia directed. This particular performance took place in First Methodist Church in Durango, a lovely, sprawling handcut granite church known for its fine acoustics. I sat up front very close to the stage. Kasia was the lead violinist.
From the moment she struck her bow, I was transported into the longing, passion and depth of Shostakovich’s music played by a virtuoso. The audience disappeared. My edges disappeared.
There was only the music moving through me and my hand moving across the cream-colored paper. There was beautiful, tall, lithe Kasia making love to her instrument and to each one of us listening. When Kasia plays, music electrifies each cell of her body as she dips and sways side to side.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? I wrote this poem in late fall 2009.
Kasia grew up under communism. When I read the poem to Kasia the next day, she wept understanding at the genetic and historic level the truth of the imagery.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? It’s important for me to relate the story of my ancestors. They are a source of wisdom and inform my identity. In my imagination, my grandmothers carry tradition, courage and grace. Although all too human in their failings, they were resilient women who withstood deprivation, disease, war, fear and cruel tyranny. I hope their stories and strength will inspire my readers to with- stand tyrannies in their lives.
Bullies and dictators never go away. They are shape shifters—Putin has installed himself as a dictator-czar. Whether the tyrants are the Russian aristocracy or our own President with a history of bullying and misogyny or an abusive husband, employer or boyfriend, these dictators must be dealt with. I hope my readers can draw parallels between the characters in my poem and people in their own lives that will help them resist tyranny and thrive. On this level, all stories of oppression share the same roots.
I also hope my poem replicates Shostakovich’s rhythms and movements, so that readers can feel the music in their bodies as they read the poem or as the poem is read to them. Music, in this case, the music of Shostakovich transforms tyranny and deprivation into art. My images ride that music.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? The entire poem was emotional for me because it allowed me to channel my ancestors, especially my women ancestors who suffered so deeply the deprivations of war and the cruelty of patriarchal dictators. Writing the poem helped me purge ghosts from my past. Writing the poem also connected me to my musical past. As a teen, I played French Horn in symphony. That training allowed me to hear the music of the poem as I was writing it. It was highly gratifying for me to write this poem as a small symphony.
Has this poem been published before? And if so where? This poem won the 2010 New Millenium Poetry Award and was published in New Millenium in 2011. Don Williams, the editor, along with Marilyn Kallet, were the judges of the contest. This poem also appeared in my full length poetry collection, Blood Flower, published by Wings Press, San Antonio, Texas in Spring 2015.
Anything you would like to add? On several occasions, I’ve written poems during a symphony. I let the music take me deep into myself then explode outward to the stars and back. It’s interesting to me that I cannot write to music with singing. The lyrics get in the way of any images that might come through.
Although I know several poets who can write to rock or blues singing, I cannot do so. I react emotion- ally, but I can’t create metaphors, at least, ones that move me. While I am writing, I am fully engaged with my imagination. I go to another part of myself, that liminal dream state where creativity flourishes. Poetry allows us to expand old knowledge deep in our cells, to draw on memory alive. Classical music can be a catalyst for me in that way.
PRELUDE
GAVOTE
ELEGY
WALTZ
POLKA
I wrote this poem during a violin concert performed by Kasia Sokol (now Kasia Sokol-Borup). Kasia and I taught together at Fort Lewis College, a liberal arts college in Durango, Colorado. Because I grew up in a Russian/ Czech immigrant family, and Kasia herself was an immigrant from Poland, we bonded immediately upon meeting at our first faculty orientation. 
Because the music is in five movements, the poem has five sections. I wrote a vignette for each movement. At the outset, I had no plan but to let the music inspire me. The music took me back to my ancestors who were educated lesser nobility. They were potters, painters and writers and were executed by Stalin’s army. Their entire town was razed on Stalin’s orders; everyone in the town was shot and buried in common unmarked graves. 
Shostakovich’s (Right in 1950) passionate movements settled deep into my bones, my mind, my heart and DNA to bring forth memories of my grandmother, her stories as well as stories...the poem wrote itself.
“Prelude” is the beginning short section, one stanza setting the scene and the tension.
It recalls the great poverty and deprivation (physical and psychological) of the Russian people after the revolution. They were physically, economically and spiritually no better off than before the revolution. This section introduces Stalin. “There was never enough grain/in winter for the horses or mothers/without coats...”
It recalls the great poverty and deprivation (physical and psychological) of the Russian people after the revolution. They were physically, economically and spiritually no better off than before the revolution. This section introduces Stalin. “There was never enough grain/in winter for the horses or mothers/without coats...”
There was only the music moving through me and my hand moving across the cream-colored paper. There was beautiful, tall, lithe Kasia making love to her instrument and to each one of us listening. When Kasia plays, music electrifies each cell of her body as she dips and sways side to side.
How many drafts of this poem did you write before going to the final? (And can you share a photograph of your rough drafts with pen markings on it?) I am sorry, but I do not have access to any my rough drafts. They are in storage in Colorado.
This was a lucky poem and did not require many drafts to finish. The changes I made to it after I wrote it were minute. This poem felt dictated. I physically wrote it, but it was an inspired piece. The craft flowed from Kasia’s violin to my pen. But, the writing of the poem took a huge toll on me emotionally. I finished writing the poem just as Kasia finished playing the five pieces. It was an amazing synchronicity. At her final note, I was shaking and nearly keeled over from exhaustion.
The end lines are not the same as the ones I wrote in that stone church in Durango. I worked hardest on the ending of the poem, but after a few false starts, the poem found its perfect exit.
Bullies and dictators never go away. They are shape shifters—Putin has installed himself as a dictator-czar. Whether the tyrants are the Russian aristocracy or our own President with a history of bullying and misogyny or an abusive husband, employer or boyfriend, these dictators must be dealt with. I hope my readers can draw parallels between the characters in my poem and people in their own lives that will help them resist tyranny and thrive. On this level, all stories of oppression share the same roots. 
Although I know several poets who can write to rock or blues singing, I cannot do so. I react emotion- ally, but I can’t create metaphors, at least, ones that move me. While I am writing, I am fully engaged with my imagination. I go to another part of myself, that liminal dream state where creativity flourishes. Poetry allows us to expand old knowledge deep in our cells, to draw on memory alive. Classical music can be a catalyst for me in that way.
SHOSTAKOVICH: FIVE PIECES
PRELUDE
There is never enough grain
in winter for the horses or mothers
without coats. Even while the samovar
empties the weak tea of party loyalty
into cracked glasses, there is one lump of sugar
written by the hands of the composer
who creates true notes blue
as damp woodsmoke
choking St Petersburg, notes Stalin
slaps at with his iron fist.
GAVOTE
It's the Russian in me that charges out
in my dark velvet skirts, heart
as blood-gorged as Anna's watching
the train gain speed for her leap, when I hear
what your violin remembers
so that troikas pulled by those
wild-muscled Siberian stallions
rip through my snowy birch woods, nearly
trampling me to the death I need.
ELEGY
There can be no poetry
or music without lilies or bullets,
the frail lace of birch bark peeling
under a tyrant's arthritic hands.
This is the history of my people, the hope
of barley going gold on vast steppes
and the underground arteries
of potato vines sacrificed to worms.
In my greatgrandfather's house,
the ghosts of brushes and oil paint,
a potter's wheel, leather-
bound books of poems black with mold,
broken tea glasses, a balalaika's
grief, a bent samovar, and somewhere
under dust, the whip my grandfather used
to kill the servant that angered him.
WALTZ
Did Stalin long for water or the shore?
For leaves or waves to fill
the boat that would carry him
from his insomnia, his terror
of surgery, his temper smashing
every glass in his tower?
This waltz crawls up the violin's throat
while your wrist flexes
graceful as the neck of the Phoenix
regarding ashes. Who understands
the Firebird better than
those who have been betrayed?
Lean into the arms of these whole notes,
bury your lips in the neck of what would devour you
as you sashay away from the noose.
POLKA
Nothing understands the ecstatic wine
of this music like your body
dipping its oar into dark currents
then stretching on toe tips
to suicidal high notes.
Some music is wind, some
cherrywood flames fed
by blonde sticks of birch
cracking a St. Petersburg stove.
We survive snow to eat pear blossoms
on a gray April evening when the bow
smokes through each chord
that would sink our houses in grief.
Kasia, since you were sixteen, your violin
has been compass, tormentor
and lover. Tonight your strings
raise Shostakovich from the dead,
his white lips on fire, this
music, lilies and bullets
divined from our winter souls.
Translated into more than a dozen languages, her work appears in over three hundred journals and anthologies worldwide, including Poetry, Ploughshares, Agni Review, Parnassus Review, Gargoyle, etc.
Among her awards are the War Poetry Prize from winningwrites.com, New Millenium Poetry Prize, Best of the Web, the Struga International Poetry Prize (for a theme poem), the Dorothy Daniels Writing Award from the National League of American PEN Women, the King’s English Poetry Prize and prizes from Ascent, Iris, and AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.
Uschuk is often a featured writer at the Prague Summer Programs and at Ghost Ranch. She was the John C. Hodges Visiting Writer at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She’s been awarded a writing resididency retreat at Storyknife Women Writers Colony in Homer Alaska for the month of September 2020. 
#pamuschuk1 cutthroatmag@gmail.com www.pamelauschuk.com www.cutthroatmag.com Pam Uschuk on Face Book and Instagram
BACKSTORY OF THE POEM LINKS
001 December 29, 2017
Margo Berdeshevksy’s “12-24”
002 January 08, 2018
Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “82 Miles From the Beach, We Order The Lobster At Clear Lake Café”
003 January 12, 2018
Barbara Crooker’s “Orange”
004 January 22, 2018
Sonia Saikaley’s “Modern Matsushima”
005 January 29, 2018
Ellen Foos’s “Side Yard”
006 February 03, 2018
Susan Sundwall’s “The Ringmaster”
007 February 09, 2018
Leslea Newman’s “That Night”
008 February 17, 2018
Alexis Rhone Fancher “June Fairchild Isn’t Dead”
009 February 24, 2018
Charles Clifford Brooks III “The Gift of the Year With Granny”
010 March 03, 2018
Scott Thomas Outlar’s “The Natural Reflection of Your Palms”
011 March 10, 2018
Anya Francesca Jenkins’s “After Diane Beatty’s Photograph “History Abandoned”
012 March 17, 2018
Angela Narciso Torres’s “What I Learned This Week”
013 March 24, 2018
Jan Steckel’s “Holiday On ICE”
014 March 31, 2018
Ibrahim Honjo’s “Colors”
015 April 14, 2018
Marilyn Kallett’s “Ode to Disappointment”
016 April 27, 2018
Beth Copeland’s “Reliquary”
017 May 12, 2018
Marlon L Fick’s “The Swallows of Barcelona”
018 May 25, 2018
Juliet Cook’s “ARTERIAL DISCOMBOBULATION”
019 June 09, 2018
Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “Stiletto Killer. . . A Surmise”
020 June 16, 2018
Charles Rammelkamp’s “At Last I Can Start Suffering”
021 July 05, 2018
Marla Shaw O’Neill’s “Wind Chimes”
022 July 13, 2018
Julia Gordon-Bramer’s “Studying Ariel”
023 July 20, 2018
Bill Yarrow’s “Jesus Zombie”
024 July 27, 2018
Telaina Eriksen’s “Brag 2016”
025 August 01, 2018
Seth Berg’s “It is only Yourself that Bends – so Wake up!”
026 August 07, 2018
David Herrle’s “Devil In the Details”
027 August 13, 2018
Gloria Mindock’s “Carmen Polo, Lady Necklaces, 2017”
028 August 21, 2018
Connie Post’s “Two Deaths”
029 August 30, 2018
Mary Harwell Sayler’s “Faces in a Crowd”
030 September 16, 2018
Larry Jaffe’s “The Risking Point”
031 September 24, 2018
Mark Lee Webb’s “After We Drove”
032 October 04, 2018
Melissa Studdard’s “Astral”
033 October 13, 2018
Robert Craven’s “I Have A Bass Guitar Called Vanessa”
034 October 17, 2018
David Sullivan’s “Paper Mache Peaches of Heaven”
035 October 23, 2018
Timothy Gager’s “Sobriety”
036 October 30, 2018
Gary Glauber’s “The Second Breakfast”
037 November 04, 2018
Heather Forbes-McKeon’s “Melania’s Deaf Tone Jacket”
038 November 11, 2018
Andrena Zawinski’s “Women of the Fields”
039 November 00, 2018
Gordon Hilger’s “Poe”
040 November 16, 2018
Rita Quillen’s “My Children Question Me About Poetry” and “Deathbed Dreams”
041 November 20, 2018
Jonathan Kevin Rice’s “Dog Sitting”
042 November 22, 2018
Haroldo Barbosa Filho’s “Mountain”
043 November 27, 2018
Megan Merchant’s “Grief Flowers”
044 November 30, 2018
Jonathan P Taylor’s “This poem is too neat”
045 December 03, 2018
Ian Haight’s “Sungmyo for our Dead Father-in-Law”
046 December 06, 2018
Nancy Dafoe’s “Poem in the Throat”
047 December 11, 2018
Jeffrey Pearson’s “Memorial Day”
048 December 14, 2018
Frank Paino’s “Laika”
049 December 15, 2018
Jennifer Martelli’s “Anniversary”
O50 December 19, 2018
Joseph Ross’s “For Gilberto Ramos, 15, Who Died in the Texas Desert, June 2014”
051 December 23, 2018
“The Persistence of Music”
by Anatoly Molotkov
052 December 27, 2018
“Under Surveillance”
by Michael Farry
053 December 28, 2018
“Grand Finale”
by Renuka Raghavan
054 December 29, 2018
“Aftermath”
by Gene Barry
055 January 2, 2019
“&”
by Larissa Shmailo
056 January 7, 2019
“The Seamstress:
by Len Kuntz
057 January 10, 2019
"Natural History"
by Camille T Dungy
058 January 11, 2019
“BLOCKADE”
by Brian Burmeister
059 January 12, 2019
“Lost”
by Clint Margrave
060 January 14, 2019
“Menopause”
by Pat Durmon
061 January 19, 2019
“Neptune’s Choir”
by Linda Imbler
062 January 22, 2019
“Views From the Driveway”
by Amy Barone
063 January 25, 2019
“The heron leaves her haunts in the marsh”
by Gail Wronsky
064 January 30, 2019
“Shiprock”
by Terry Lucas
065 February 02, 2019
“Summer 1970, The University of Virginia Opens to Women in the Fall”
by Alarie Tennille
066 February 05, 2019
“At School They Learn Nouns”
by Patrick Bizzaro
067 February 06, 2019
“I Must Not Breathe”
by Angela Jackson-Brown
068 February 11, 2019
“Lunch on City Island, Early June”
by Christine Potter
069 February 12, 2019
“Singing”
by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
070 February 14, 2019
“Daily Commute”
by Christopher P. Locke
071 February 18, 2019
“How Silent The Trees”
by Wyn Cooper
072 February 20, 2019
“A New Psalm of Montreal”
by Sheenagh Pugh
073 February 23, 2019
“Make Me A Butterfly”
by Amy Barbera
074 February 26, 2019
“Anthem”
by Sandy Coomer
075 March 4, 2019
“Shape of a Violin”
by Kelly Powell
076 March 5, 2019
“Inward Oracle”
by J.P. Dancing Bear
077 March 7, 2019
“I Broke My Bust Of Jesus”
by Susan Sundwall
078 March 9, 2019
“My Mother at 19”
by John Guzlowski
079 March 10, 2019
“Paddling”
by Chera Hammons Miller
080 March 12, 2019
“Of Water and Echo”
by Gillian Cummings
081 082 083 March 14, 2019
“Little Political Sense” “Crossing Kansas with Jim
Morrison” “The Land of Sky and Blue Waters”
by Dr. Lindsey Martin-Bowen
084 March 15, 2019
“A Tune To Remember”
by Anna Evans
085 March 19, 2019
“At the End of Time (Wish You Were Here)
by Jeannine Hall Gailey
086 March 20, 2019
“Garden of Gethsemane”
by Marletta Hemphill
087 March 21, 2019
“Letters From a War”
by Chelsea Dingman
088 March 26, 2019
“HAT”
by Bob Heman
089 March 27, 2019
“Clay for the Potter”
by Belinda Bourgeois
#090 March 30, 2019
“The Pose”
by John Hicks
#091 April 2, 2019
“Last Night at the Wursthaus”
by Doug Holder
#092 April 4, 2019
“Original Sin”
by Diane Lockward
#093 April 5, 2019
“A Father Calls to his child on liveleak”
by Stephen Byrne
#094 April 8, 2019
“XX”
by Marc Zegans
#095 April 12, 2019
“Landscape and Still Life”
by Marjorie Maddox
#096 April 16, 2019
“Strawberries Have Been Growing Here for Hundreds of
Years”
by Mary Ellen Lough
#097 April 17, 2019
“The New Science of Slippery Surfaces”
by Donna Spruijt-Metz
#098 April 19, 2019
“Tennessee Epithalamium”
by Alyse Knorr
#099 April 20, 2019
“Mermaid, 1969”
by Tameca L. Coleman
#100 April 21, 2019
“How Do You Know?”
by Stephanie
#101 April 23, 2019
“Rare Book and Reader”
by Ned Balbo
#102 April 26, 2019
“THUNDER”
by Jefferson Carter
#103 May 01, 2019
“The sight of a million angels”
by Jenneth Graser
#104 May 09, 2019
“How to tell my dog I’m dying”
by Richard Fox
#105 May 17, 2019
“Promises Had Been Made”
by Sarah Sarai
#106 June 01, 2019
“i sold your car today”
by Pamela Twining
#107 June 02, 2019
“Abandoned Stable”
by Nancy Susanna Breen
#108 June 05, 2019
“Cupcake”
by Julene Tripp Weaver
#109 June 6, 2019
“Bobby’s Story”
by Jimmy Pappas
#110 June 10, 2019
“When You Ask Me to Tell You About My Father”
by Pauletta Hansel
#111 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Cemetery Mailbox”
by Jennifer Horne
#112 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Relics”
by Kate Peper
#113 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Q”
by Jennifer Johnson
#114 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Brushing My Hair”
by Tammika Dorsey Jones
#115 Backstory of the Poem
“Because the Birds Will Survive, Too”
by Katherine Riegel
#116 Backstory of the Poem
“DIVORCE”
“DIVORCE”
by Joan Barasovska
#117 Backstory of the Poem
“NEW YEAR”S EVE 2016”
by Michael Meyerhofer
#118 Backstory of the Poem
“Dear the estranged,”
by Gina Tron
#119 Backstory of the Poem
“In Remembrance of Them”
by Janet Renee Cryer
#120 Backstory of the Poem
“Horse Fly Grade Card, Doesn’t Play Well With Others”
by David L. Harrison
#121 Backstory of the Poem
“My Mother’s Cookbook”
by Rachael Ikins
#122 Backstory of the Poem
“Cousins I Never Met”
by Maureen Kadish Sherbondy
#123 Backstory of the Poem
“To Those Who Were Our First Gods”
by Nickole Brown
#124 Backstory of the Poem
“Looking For Sunsets (In the Early Morning)”
“Looking For Sunsets (In the Early Morning)”
by Paul Levinson
#125 Backstory of the Poem
“Tracy”
by Tiff Holland
#126 Backstory of the Poem
“Legs”
by Cindy Hochman
“Legs”
by Cindy Hochman
#127 Backstory of the Poem
“Anathema”
“Anathema”
by Natasha Saje
#128 Backstory of the Poem
“How to Explain Fertility When an Acquaintance Asks Casually”
by Allison Blevins
#129 Backstory of the Poem
“The Art of Meditation In Tennessee”
by Linda Parsons
#130 Backstory of the Poem
“Schooling High, In Beslan”
by Satabdi Saha
#131 Backstory of the Poem
““Baby Jacob survives the Oso Landslide, 2014”
by Amie Zimmerman
#132 Backstory of the Poem
“Our Age of Anxiety”
by Henry Israeli
#133 Backstory of the Poem
“Earth Cries; Heaven Smiles”
by Ken Allan Dronsfield
#134 Backstory of the Poem
“Eons”
by Janine Canan
#135 Backstory of the Poem
“Sworn”
by Catherine Zickgraf
#136 Backstory of the Poem
“Bushwick Blue”
by Susana H. Case
#137 Backstory of the Poem
“Then She Was Forever”
by Paula Persoleo
#138 Backstory of the Poem
“Enough”
by Kris Bigalk
#139 Backstory of the Poem
“From Ghosts of the Upper Floor”
by Tony Trigilio
#140 Backstory of the Poem
“Cloud Audience”
by Wanita Zumbrunnen
#141 Backstory of the Poem
“Condition Center”
by Matthew Freeman
#142 Backstory of the Poem
“Adventuresome Woman”
by Cheryl Suchors
#143 Backstory of the Poem
“The Way Back”
“The Way Back”
by Robert Walicki
#144 Backstory of the Poem
“If I Had Three Lives”
by Sarah Russell
#145 Backstory of the Poem
“Reservoir”
by Andrea Rexilius
#146 Backstory of the Poem
“The Night Before Our Dog Died”
by Melissa Fite Johnson
#147 Backstory of the Poem
“Pileated”
by David Anthony Sam
#148 Backstory of the Poem
“A Kitchen Argument”
by Matthew Gwathmey
#149 Backstory of the Poem
“Insulation”
by Bruce Kauffman
#150 Backstory of the Poem
“I Will Tell You Where I’ve Been”
by Justin Hamm
#151 Backstory of the Poem
“Comfort”
by Michael A Griffith
#152 Backstory of the Poem
“VAN GOGH TO HIS MISTRESS”
by Margo Taft Stever
“VAN GOGH TO HIS MISTRESS”
by Margo Taft Stever
#153 Backstory of the Poem
“1. Girl”
by Margaret Manuel
#154 Backstory of the Poem
“Trading Places”
by Maria Chisolm
#155 Backstory of the Poem
“The Reoccurring Woman”
by Debra May
#156 Backstory of the Poem
“Word Falling”
by Sheryl St. Germain
#157 Backstory of the Poem
“Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup of 7,000 Jews Detained in an
Arena”
by Liz Marlow
#158 Backstory of the Poem
“Why Otters Hold Hands”
by William Walsh
#159 Backstory of the Poem
“The Invisible World”
by Rocco de Giacoma
#160 Backstory of the Poem
“Last Call”
“Last Call”
by Ralph Culver
#161 Backstory of the Poem
“ALIVE”
by David Dephy
#162 Backstory of the Poem
“Mare Nostrum”
“Mare Nostrum”
by Janice D Soderling
#163 Backstory of the Poem
“Winnipeg Noir”
by Carmelo Militano
#164 Backstory of the Poem
“Needlepoint Roses”
“Needlepoint Roses”
by Jason O’Toole
#165 Backstory of the Poem
“Singing, Studying on Whiteness, This Penelope Strings”
by Jeanne Larsen
#166 Backstory of the Poem
“How To Befriend Uncertainty”
“How To Befriend Uncertainty”
by Prartho Sereno
#167 Backstory of the Poem
"Shostakovich: Five Pieces"
by Pamela Uschuk
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2020/04/pamela-uschuks-shostakovich-five-pieces.html
by Pamela Uschuk
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2020/04/pamela-uschuks-shostakovich-five-pieces.html
