Works by JEN JABAILY-BLACKBURN and DIANA KEREN LEE
Table of Contents:
- Jen Jabaily-Blackburn: “Archeological, Atlantic” and “Velvel”
- Diana Keren Lee: “Living Together” and “Living Alone”
Archaeological, Atlantic
By Jen Jabaily-Blackburn
A morsel of conventional wisdom: Never use the word
boring in a poem because then they
can call your poem boring. The boring sponge can’t
do everything, but can make holes in oysters, & for the boring sponge, it’s
enough. I miss boring things like gathering mussel shells
for no one. I miss being so bored that time felt physical, an un-
governable cat sleeping over my heart. I have, I’m told, an archaeologist’s
heart. I have, I’m told, an archaeologist’s soul. An archaeologist’s eye, so
it’s either time to build an archaeologist or seek out a bigger
jar. Choosing kitchen backsplash is boring, or learning lists of
kings. Most people believe the Atlantic isn’t named for any
lost city & that’s so boring. Mystery once had currency: Roanoke;
Minoan script; what we thought people did with no clothes. On the
North Sea, near Hull, there used to be a port town, Ravenser
Odd, which existed once & not for very long, like a pet or paper crown. Like
people, it ran into trouble in a storm having misplaced its
quays. Its name came from hrafn’s eyr, Old Norse for
raven’s tongue, poking out to sea. I like to think it had a few bored children
sulking at the horizon. My home was by another Hull over land & salt; I miss
traipsing the length of Nantasket in pony beads & calendrical
underwear. Nantasket means low tide place. It, too, will
vanish. Grote Mandrenke, the Great Drowning of Men, was the name of the
wave that ended Ravenser Odd’s time as a place, making it a no-place,
X-es on a map of semi-salt water. A wave doesn’t know what it does, the way a
young child helps in the kitchen. The wave might have insisted it only meant to fill the
Zuiderzee, which is itself, these days, all different now.
Velvel
By Jen Jabaily-Blackburn
What do I know
about us? One of us
was called Velvel,
little wolf. One of us
raised horses. Someone
was in grain. Six sisters
threw potatoes across
a river in Pennsylvania.
Once at a fair, I met
a horse performing
simple equations
with large dice.
Sure, it was a trick,
but being charmed
costs so little.
I have so many
debts I have no interest
in paying. I’m sorry
I’m not more sorry.
I’m sorry I’m no
creature you could have
dreamed of. I dream of
horses, too, but they
only ever bring me
joy. I only ever
bring them sugar,
& my horses always do
just what I tell them,
which is nothing.
Living Together
By Diana Keren Lee
The orchid buds are pistachios
coming out of their shells,
fists uncurling. Mouths open
one by one along the stem,
butterflies hanging on for dear life
light growing in a new room.
My love grinds coffee like ashes
that bloom in this cup
cracked but holding so much.
Living with you is living twice,
the same person born again
lying side by side in the womb.
For a moment we only hear each other —
not the cars passing on the street
not even the hyenas below us.
Your hand laced with mine,
ears pressed together
like wings, halves of a heart.
Living Alone
By Diana Keren Lee
An ant crawling across my keyboard: Are there others?
Shaped like an ear, the question mark takes up so much space.
How do you meet people? I ask having lasted this long knowing
the answer, by joining a club that would have me as a member.
I get a drink at the bar, stools to my left and right ellipses
waiting to be filled. Everything’s dependent on something.
Day and night, the pause of long lines, stop signs,
the drama of sunset, which is free and never fails.
Along the road, trees sing to themselves.
Paying the bill at the restaurant
I close the faux leather check holder,
two padded walls becoming one.
Jen Jabaily-Blackburn’s first book of poems, Girl in a Bear Suit, was selected by Christopher Citro as winner of the 2023 Elixir Press Annual Poetry Prize. She is the winner of the 2024 Louisa Solano Memorial Emerging Poet Award from Salamander, selected by Stephanie Burt. Her recent work has appeared in or is coming soon from SIR, Arkansas International, Palette Poetry, Salamander, Fugue, Banshee, On the Seawall and Couplet Poetry, and her poems have twice been selected for Best New Poets. She is at work on a series of mixed-media blackout poems, hem, drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Originally from the Boston area, she now lives in Western Massachusetts with her family. In 2024, she joined the advisory board of Perugia Press, and she is an associate editor of Nine Syllables Press, housed at Smith College, where she is the Program & Outreach coordinator for the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center.
Diana Keren Lee was awarded a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. A National Poetry Series finalist, her work has appeared in Boston Review, The New Republic, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, Witness, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Austin, she lives in the Front Range of Colorado.
