SAMANTHA TERRELL - POET / EIC, SHINE Poetry Series
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ELIZABETH CASTILLO

7/19/2023

 
Poetry lovers, I'm turning the spotlight, now, on British-Mauritian Poet Elizabeth Castillo. Today, Elizabeth shares two poems from her recently released book Not Quite an Ocean (Nine Pens Press). I'm certain everyone will enjoy this sample! Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing your emotive work.

Origami

Fold myself up like an apology scribbled on a scrap of paper. 
Like a receipt wrapped around a loose credit card you thought you’d lost.
Like a nervous thumb into a tight fist. A phone number, tucked into your back pocket.
Like the linens you forgot to hang out in time, and now stink of neglect.
Like your hand around a child’s trusting palm. 
Like a Paris restaurant, and its cloth napkins.
Like the end I have brought upon myself.  
Like a delicate, paper swan.

Waves

Have you ever stood inside the ocean?
Toes curled. Shaky purchase on the seafloor. 
There is a lesson to be learned, if you will stand
and defy Poseidon inside his own court. Waves, 
they travel single file. To hide their numbers. 
Waves- they suffer neither fool nor survivor. Waves-
they just keep coming. The moon-
she has no care for the divisions of you life, for these
tiny boxes you amass and fill. Compartments overflowing, 
still she stands, looming as her soldiers consider their 
onslaught. Waves- breaking neither themselves nor each other. 
Waves- at every side, there is no path outside of them. Waves-
exiling you back to the shore. 

How long have you been standing here?  


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Elizabeth M. Castillo is a British-Mauritian poet, writer & indie-press promoter, and a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She lives in Paris with her family and two cats, where she writes different things, in different languages, under different pen names. Her writing has been published internationally, and her bilingual, debut Cajoncito is on sale now. Her new chapbook Not Quite an Ocean can be purchased from Nine Pens Press. Follow her on Twitter @EMCWritesPoetry.

JUDE MARR

7/5/2023

 
Today, please join me in shining the poetry spotlight on Jude Marr, who writes with a gorgeous alliterative style and meaningful content. Here are "As We Art" (with first publish credit and thanks to TheShore) and "Boating for Lovers at the End of the World" (first publish credit and thanks to Leavings). Be sure to check out Jude's Bio that follows. Thank you, Jude, for sharing your words!

As We Art

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Boating for Lovers at the End of the World

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Jude Marr (he, they) is a Pushcart-nominated trans and nonbinary poet. Jude’s full-length collection, We Know Each Other By Our Wounds, came out from Animal Heart Press in 2020, and his work has appeared in journals on both sides of the Atlantic. After ten years of living, learning, and teaching in the US, Jude is now back in England, working as a freelance editor and writing coach, and putting together a new collection. Online at:  https://judemarr.com/

    SHINE - International Poetry Series

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    From the international poetry community, we have a "luxury of stars," as Sylvia Plath might say, and it is my honor to provide a home for their words through SHINE Poetry Series.
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    NOW IN PRINT!

    Stars Over the Dordogne
    BY SYLVIA PLATH
    Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy
    Picket of trees whose silhouette is darker
    Than the dark of the sky because it is quite starless.
    The woods are a well. The stars drop silently.
    They seem large, yet they drop, and no gap is visible.
    Nor do they send up fires where they fall
    Or any signal of distress or anxiousness.
    They are eaten immediately by the pines.

    Where I am at home, only the sparsest stars
    Arrive at twilight, and then after some effort.
    And they are wan, dulled by much travelling.
    The smaller and more timid never arrive at all
    But stay, sitting far out, in their own dust.
    They are orphans. I cannot see them. They are lost.
    But tonight they have discovered this river with no trouble,
    They are scrubbed and self-assured as the great planets.

    The Big Dipper is my only familiar.
    I miss Orion and Cassiopeia's Chair. Maybe they are
    Hanging shyly under the studded horizon
    Like a child's too-simple mathematical problem.
    Infinite number seems to be the issue up there.
    Or else they are present, and their disguise so bright
    I am overlooking them by looking too hard.
    Perhaps it is the season that is not right.

    And what if the sky here is no different,
    And it is my eyes that have been sharpening themselves?
    Such a luxury of stars would embarrass me.
    The few I am used to are plain and durable;
    I think they would not wish for this dressy backcloth
    Or much company, or the mildness of the south.
    They are too puritan and solitary for that--
    When one of them falls it leaves a space,

    A sense of absence in its old shining place.
    And where I lie now, back to my own dark star,
    I see those constellations in my head,
    Unwarmed by the sweet air of this peach orchard.
    There is too much ease here; these stars treat me too well.
    On this hill, with its view of lit castles, each swung bell
    Is accounting for its cow. I shut my eyes
    And drink the small night chill like news of home.

    ~~~

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  • ABOUT
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • SHINE Poetry Series
    • SUBMISSIONS
  • PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
    • CONNECT
  • SHOP
  • POETIC TRINITAS