By OPHELIA HU
Shick-a-shawing down Linea A, three stops from Cipro, Rome, I overheard a violin poorly played. Now and again, I curse my perfect pitch. A quarter tone drawled between D and D#, pulled headlong from a heavy-held bow like a dead rabbit from a hat. It was a nuisance. But I looked over to behold a blue-eyed boy crowned with thick brown hair and matching freckles.
When we first moved to Ludington we spent days on the beach wandering along the sandy shores that stretched north to Manistee, south to Pentwater. Even in winter, when all the Fudgies (as tourists are known up north) had left town, having migrated to points south, we got out and hiked the hard-packed frozen beach, which provided a firm footing rather than the summer’s soft, fatiguing sand. But we had to cut against the strong gusts off Lake Michigan, and sometimes it was all we could do to walk upright, gripping our woolen caps over our red, nearly frostbitten ears. We spit grains of sand out and hunkered down, pushing against the wind.
Looking back on a year of dispatches, I’m proud to report that we’ve had essays from five continents. I heard from writers in places both famous and obscure, as well as some remote areas that were unknown to me. More than once, I found myself zooming in on Google maps, trying to get a glimpse of the locations described. My hope is that some of this year’s dispatches inspired the same curiosity in you. Here are a few highlights from throughout the year, ones you may have missed the first time the around:
Samantha Ender confronts a snake in Rwanda;
Aaron Gilbreath forages for vintage bottles in the Californian desert;
Noreen McAuliffe dissects fish in Mongolia;
Elizabeth Abbott inspects a war zone in Balad Ruz, Iraq;
and finally, Julian Hoffman finds a birding bridge between Greece’s Prespa Lakes and Ottawa, Canada.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons
This week, as we look back on the year, I’d like to highlight the work of some of the poets featured in Dispatches. It’s sometimes hard to pin a location to a poem, and at the same time, a poem can often take readers more accurately to the heart of a place than a reported dispatch. This year’s poems took readers all over the world, from sleepy American towns to European cities to remote forests and islands. Here are a few of my favorites, all worth a second look:
Yvette Christiansë’s haunting “Uneasy Sleep”, which takes readers to a tiny island in the depths of the South Atlantic;
Cralan Kelder’s spare painting of Bali, “Bring ‘Em Home”;
Krista Leahy’s late night in a small town, “Redressed”;
Brian Simoneau’s view of the Pacific, “Poem With Snowy Plovers”;
and finally, poet Kobus Moolman’s moving essay about teaching poetry in prison.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons
Greece’s fortunes were down, but ours were up, so between the May 6 and June 17 elections, my husband and I made our way to the remote Mani Peninsula in the Southern Peloponnese. If the Peloponnese is a lowered hand, joined to the Greek mainland at the slender wrist of Corinth, then the Mani, south of Sparta and famous for its blood feuds—the only region never conquered by the Turks—is certainly its proud middle finger. The Greek struggle for independence began there, in Areopolis, a town named for the God of War.
And the sun was behind his head
And it was much later than he thought
And he thought that he had nothing more to say
Over the echoing Skype line my parents mention seeing a northern harrier on the outskirts of Ottawa. Perched on a post as they drove along, it had leaned into the air to sail off across the fields, a pearl-gray ghost slipping away. Still speaking, I pull The Sibley Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America from the bookcase beside me. I leaf backwards through the waders and rails, overshooting the raptors to land amidst ducks and geese before paging my way forward to find the harrier. I then press the illustration up to the webcam, trying my best to keep it steady. “That’s the one,” says my father, smiling back at me on the screen.
This is the second part of a three-part dispatch. You can read Pt. 1 here. The final installment will be published in January.
We were still night owls then, seldom rising early, but after the night we spent in Duluth, we wanted to enjoy as much time there as we could before hitting the road again. We woke at first light, dressed without showering, and drove back to the waterfront. The sun was rising on the lake, and we walked to the end of Canal Point where the lighthouse stood silhouetted against the water turning gold with the new day. It was it was in the low 40s, and we took turns posing, shivering and smiling while the other took a picture.
By JUNE GERVAIS
We see the first one in Bellport, eight o’clock at night, and we don’t know what it is. We’re driving along a two-lane highway on the south shore when we come upon it: a caravan of cars idling in the shoulder, taillights scarlet in the dark. “Should I be driving in that lane?” my husband says. Seeing no construction signs, we drive on. We pass a mile of cars. Then we see the gas station at the head of the line. It’s been three days since Sandy hit.
By ROLF YNGVE
I told Christopher, the wall passed through here. We stood on the sidewalk and looked down at a plaque set into chic, new cobblestones.
Berliner Mauer 1961–1989.
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