May 2014

FEATURED POET: Jenifer Browne Lawrence is the author of One Hundred Steps from Shore from Blue Begonia Press. Awards include the Orlando Poetry Prize, the James Hearst Poetry Prize and a Washington State Artist Trust GAP grant. Recent work appears in Bellevue Literary Review, Los Angeles Review, Narrative, North American Review, and Rattle. Jenifer lives in a seaside community west of Seattle, where she is co-editor of Crab Creek Review. Jenifer Browne Lawrence


Speaking of the Crab Creek Review!

Seattle-based literary journal Crab Creek Review is in its 31^st year of publishing the best writing from the Northwest, and beyond. New Editors-in-Chief Ronda Broatch and Jenifer Browne Lawrence have just sent off to press the spring issue, featuring a host of marvelous poets and writers including Judith Barrington, Wyn Cooper, Tom C. Hunley, Tina Kelley, Bill Neumire, and Diane Seuss. The results of the 2014 poetry contest, judged by Sarah Vap will be announced in July. Visit Crab Creek Review at www.crabcreekreview.org or find them on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/crabcreekreview

CANDLING

Say that it bloomed, put down roots, lodged

like an egg in a nest, snow in a cleft, wedged

for a winter’s nap, say it

turned three times round, curled up

with its nose toward the door.

Say myometrium. Say wand. Say gel,

neoplasm, adenoma. Say benign.

Benign.

Put a light bulb behind it and watch it

tumesce.

Say the raven is growing

a new planet in your body.

Should the nascent body bloom, say

is this the beak, that the beginning of legs.

(first published in North American Review)

― Jenifer Browne Lawrence

SACRAMENT

You can’t swallow

the moon without changing

your shape. Sugar

moon, you called it,

but I opened my mouth

and knew it was salt,

hanging in the east window

above the topmost branch.

Let it in and your heart

will list to the west, headlong

into the Pacific, hard waves

scattering your light.

(first published in Cab)

― Jenifer Browne Lawrence

WRITE YOUR POEM

Poets, regardless of vocation write for love, politics and observation.  On his way to becoming a prominent physician, Oliver Wendell Holmes senior wrote this to commemorate political strength.  He was the first and only dean of Harvard Medical School (until 1945) to advocate for a woman to be admitted to that major of study.

Do we observe, love or advocate?  Write your poem.  Han Shan would paint then on mountains for the weather to mock and erase.  Holmes wrote this one for patriotism. 
Paint yours on a wall.  Send it in an email.  Scribble it on the back of a recycled paystub.
Just get it down.  The world needs more doctors who write poetry.  

Old Ironsides

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar; —
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee; —
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!