It's much too good a story not to tell

[sovay]

My poems "אש לבנה חרותה באש שחורה" and "If it will help you think of me as Sappho" are now online in the debut, queer-themed issue of Blossomry. The Hebrew means "white fire engraved with black fire" and is one of the traditional rabbinic (Shimon ben Lakish, c. 200 CE) descriptions of the Torah which in characteristic fashion I discovered through the science fiction of Phyllis Gotlieb. The antecedents of the second poem should be present in the title. Both are one-line poems, which I had never written before this summer.

The rest of the issue is small and excellent, featuring both usual suspects and strangers to me. I am totally in favor of a tradition of Halloween-published poems, although having just watched something of a cautionary tale about poets in between running downstairs to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters (whom I have been mostly spotting from my office window, lights on and shades up so that they can see that someone is home, since the front stoop light is on a motion sensor and therefore cannot be left on like a lighthouse for roving packs of children dressed primarily as superheroes this year; this system has been working, but it totally makes me feel like some sort of silhouetted recluse), I am perhaps a little more mordantly amused than the occasion directly warrants.

"You're a poet. You'd have to put it in a poem. It's much too good a story not to tell."

Comments

[moon_custafer]

totally makes me feel like some sort of silhouetted recluse

How is that a problem?

[sovay]

How is that a problem?

Fair point.

[gwynnega]

I like both these poems a lot, as well as the rest of the issue! It makes me want to write one-line poems, although I haven't yet.

[sovay]

I like both these poems a lot, as well as the rest of the issue!

Thank you!

It makes me want to write one-line poems, although I haven't yet.

You should! With any luck there will be a second issue.

[davidgillon]

Elegantly concise.

[sovay]

Elegantly concise.

Thank you.

[cmcmck]

Even in translation it sounds beautiful.

[sovay]

Even in translation it sounds beautiful.

I have always found it a powerful image.

[drwex]

I _love_ that second one. You may recall that I'm shite as a commenter on poetry - I can't say much more than "like it" or "didn't like it" so there you go.

Mentally I've come up with at least four ways to punctuate (and thus change how I say) the second title. Is there an intended set of emphases?

[sovay]

I _love_ that second one.

Thank you.

Mentally I've come up with at least four ways to punctuate (and thus change how I say) the second title. Is there an intended set of emphases?

I am afraid it is intended to be punctuated/emphasized just as it is, as the first half of a conditional. I hope that does not spoil it.

[drwex]

Not at all. I sort of expected that, but sometimes poetry has a cadence that isn't explicit in the punctuation.

[brigdh]

Oh, these poems are excellent. I've also been unfamiliar with one-line poems, but these really pack an impact in so few words.

[sovay]

Oh, these poems are excellent. I've also been unfamiliar with one-line poems, but these really pack an impact in so few words.

Thank you!