Friday, September 13, 2024

"FALL ISSUE: "Something you can hold in your hand" 2024

SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW

Theme:  Something you can hold in your hand


FALL ISSUE 2024


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Unless otherwise indicated, all art is taken from "royalty-free" Internet sources. 


 

Chief Executive Editor

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

 

Co-Editors-in-Chief

Terri L. Cummings

Charles A. Swanson


Guest Art Editor

Clayton Spencer 


Associate Editor

Clayton Spencer

 

Frequent Contributors

Terri Lynn Cummings

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

John C. Mannone

Karla Linn Merrifield

Vivian Finley Nida

Howard F. Stein

Charles A. Swanson

Tyson West


Contributor

Clayton Spencer

 

 

Biographies of our editorial staff & frequent contributors may be found on the "Our Staff" page.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   


A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief 


Charles A. Swanson



Featured Frequent Contributor

 

Vivian Finley Nida

“Circus Equestrian”

“Circus Bareback Rider”

“Summer with Eggs”

 

Other Frequent Contributors

 

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

“Beretta”

 

Howard F. Stein

“In My Grasp”

“A Flower in My Hand”

 

Tyson West

“My Private Idaho Huckleberry”



John C. Mannone

“I Am a Poet”

“Hands”

 

Charles A. Swanson

“Wild Gatherings: A Hard Nut to Crack”

“Art Speaks: Measuring Stick”

Alessio Zanelli
(former Frequent Contributor)
"Sand"

Terri Lynn Cummings
"The Cross"


General Submissions:


Karla Linn Merrifield

“.###”

“Bruce the Plant Sighs ” 


 

 

Guest Poets

 

Christie Taylor

“Peach”

 

Jean Janicke

“She gathers stones to keep her daughter safe”

 

John Guzlowski

“My Hands”

 

Wendy A. Howe

“Lazarus”

 

Mantz Yorke

“The Bergen University Umbrella”

 

April J. Asbury

“inventory of daughters without mothers”

 

Frank William Finney

“Zen Salon”

 

Piper Durrell

“To Hold Beauty in My Hand”

 

James Penha

“Forest Ashes”

 

Llewellyn McKernan

“The Long and the Short of It Is”

 

Susan R. Morritt

“Amulet”

 

Lorraine Jeffrey

“In the Antique Shop”


 

 

Frequent Contributor News 


Forthcoming



  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief



 

  

       For the theme of “Something You Can Hold,” a few questions arose as I read submissions.  As poems about small things came to us, I wondered, Must a hand appear in the poem, and I decided, No.  A corollary to that question, What if the poem is about hands themselves, arrived with a poem where the hands were not holding anything, and I thought, Surely, such a poem has to qualify.

       Thus, as with any theme, a poet can push the elusive boundaries of a loosely defined set of parameters.  Then, the editor determines if he (she) can agree with that interpretation.  Therein lies the risk.  The safest course for a poet who wishes to have a poem accepted is to stay close to the theme.  But safest doesn’t always thrill.

       In short, write your best work.  Send us your best work.  And, whether we accept your poem for a particular issue or not, take joy in your best work.  And keep sending us work, for we value you and what you are attempting to do.  We are writers, too, and we want to be your cheerleaders.  


Charles A. Swanson  


 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Featured Frequent Contributor




Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando),1887/88 painting, public domain, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 


Circus Equestrian

ekphrastic sonnet

Vivian Finley Nida

 

In Paris, France, at Circus Fernando,

Monsieur Loyal, sharp eagle eye of ring,

cracks whip to spur on steed for trick in show.

A female, riding bareback, waits to spring.

Gray horse with spots on stolid rump keeps pace.

His head points down, left hind leg’s raised—fast clip.

No saddle, just a blanket takes its place.

Ringmaster focuses.  Nothing can slip.

The rider’s red lips press.  Her dark eyes stare

at Monsieur Loyal, waiting for his sign.

When clown holds paper hoop high in the air,

she’ll stand on horse, leap through.  Both must align.

Equestrian’s bold act reflects her style.

The audience sits still.  They dare not smile.

 


Poet’s Notes: Toulouse-Lautrec and I share an attraction to circuses.  My hometown is the winter headquarters for several, and I went to school with Lucy Loyal, a sixth-generation member of the Loyal-Repensky family.  They came to America from France in 1932 and were one of the best bareback riding acts in America. “Loyal” was a common name in France, so the ringmaster in this painting might not be her relative, but her family is related to a Loyal who trained horses for Napoleon.  After successful campaigns, Napoleon rewarded these men because horses were critical in winning a battle.  That relative requested canvas, made a tent, and started the Loyal family’s bareback riding act.*       

            Knowing the performers makes the circus more exciting.  Toulouse-Lautrec’s painting, Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando), includes people he knew—the famous ringmaster, Monsieur Loyal, who holds a whip, and the rider, Suzanne Valadon, a painter, and former circus performer, who agreed to model for the painting.  A clown in the ring is partially cropped, so the hoop he holds is not shown, but it was a standard part of the act. The artist captures the fast motion of the horse in the ring, which is this sonnet’s goal also.   Iambic pentameter mimics the sound of the horse’s hooves, the rhyme scheme rounds the curve that horse and rider follow, and the set number of lines completes the act in the brief time allotted.

            *For interviews with Lucy, search online for Luciana Loyal interview conducted by Tanya Ducker Finchum and Juliana M. Nykolaiszyn, June 30, 2011, Library of Congress (loc.gov). A second interview was conducted with her on September 19, 2011 (See: afc2012003_00288). Luciana Loyal was born in 1949 and passed away June 23, 2012.  

 

Editor’s Notes: Although I associate sonnets with love poems, I don’t expect them to be limited to love between lovers.  Here, love does fill the poem: the love of performance, the love of the circus, the love of capturing a moment—both in painting and in poetry—come through.  CAS

This poem took me back to my childhood, sitting in a circus tent and watching a daring young lady perform that trick. Thank you for the journey, Mrs. Nida! TLC


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *




At the Circus: The Bareback Rider (Au Cirque: Écuyère), (1888), public domain, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 

Circus Bareback Rider

ekphrastic haiku

Vivian Finley Nida

 


Leap from horse through hoop,

then back on horse, nerves jangling

like a tambourine.

 


Poet’s Notes: On a tambourine, Toulouse-Lautrec painted At the Circus: The Bareback Rider (Au Cirque: Écuyère).  The painting shows the moment after the bareback rider has leapt from the horse through a hoop and landed on the horse once more.  The circular tambourine allows viewers to imagine they are looking through the hoop.  The painting was made to complement Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando), which shows the moment before the bareback rider leaps.  Both paintings are on view at The Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Editor’s Notes: A repeated slogan on a reality television show is “expect the unexpected.”  I know the canvas for the painting is a tambourine, yet I don’t expect the last line of the haiku to contain the image of the tambourine.  The tambourine should not have been unexpected, but because I am surprised, I am also pleased.  CAS

       I imagined the jangling sound of the tambourine in Nida’s haiku. It's a nice use of the senses. TLC


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    

Summer with Eggs

free verse

Vivian Finley Nida

 

Before air conditioning,
commercial fans clatter
like crashing dishes,

 

as Sheila, teenager,

works at family’s

egg processing plant.


She stands close to

a conveyor belt with

a flat of thirty-six eggs,

 

sees them washed,

then scrutinizes them

candled by bright light.

 

Hands go crazy,

pull cracked eggs and

fertile ones with dark spots

 

She deftly puts them on shelf above.

Conveyor does not stop. 

Eggs roll into single line.

 

Scales weigh, tip, sort into bins—

small, medium, large, extra-large.

Each hand dips down, lifts three,

 

puts in carton, repeats,

secures lid, builds speed.

Her mother, supervisor, clocks time.

 

Five seconds a carton.

Thirty cartons a case.

Four hundred cases a day.

 

Sixty days of summer with eggs

comes to an end,

but Sheila’s hands still go crazy.

 

Dexterity proves essential

to twirl, toss, and catch a baton. 

Stadium cheers do not stop. 



Poet’s Notes:  The poetry prompt, “Something you can hold in your hand,” reminds me of my friend Sheila, who worked summers in her family’s egg processing plant.  She had to be fast to keep up with the conveyor belt, and she could put 12 eggs in a carton in five seconds.  The training came in handy when school started.  She was a majorette, grades 7 through 12, and had no trouble twirling a baton!

 

Editor’s Notes: The world deserves a poem about candling and crating eggs.  I am also pleased to have a poem about something a person can hold in her hand, and that something be a thing held almost like a hot potato, held just for an instant.  This is a poem about the hands’ dexterity.  CAS  

      This poem features an unusual story, at least in my mind. A perfect way to show the hands’ dexterity. TLC

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 



Other Frequent Contributors






                     Beretta

                     free verse

                     Steven Wittenberg Gordon

 

                        I hold the clip

 

                        Insert the bullets

                        Feel them click into place

 

                        Fifteen rounds

 

                        Cold

                        Smooth

                        Shiny

                        Sexy

 

                        I hold the pistol

 

                        Insert the clip

                        Feel it lock in place

 

                        Safety engaged

 

                        I rack the slide

 

                        One in the chamber

 

                        I eject the clip

                        Add a bullet

                        Reinsert

 

                        Fifteen plus one

 

                        I hold the pistol

 

                        Snug

                        Sure

                        Comfortable

                        Comforting

 

                        I align the sights

                        Dot dot dot

 

                        Safety disengaged

 

                        I move my right index

 

                        From guard

 

                                                        To trigger

 

 

Poet’s Notes: I learned my way about the 9mm Beretta when I was a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force. Most doctors are barred from carrying a firearm, flight surgeons being the exception. I was allowed to use it only to defend myself or to defend a patient. Many, many things would have to go wrong for a flight surgeon to have to draw a pistol in war.

 

Everything about a pistol is cold and hard. Everything about handling a pistol must be methodical, cold, and hard. I used short lines and stanza breaks to create a sense of method and foreboding, cool calculation, detachment and dread.

 

The above notwithstanding, there is an undeniable sexiness to handling a gun. I tried to capture that strange feeling with words such as insert, reinsert, snug, and of course, sexy.

 

Editor’s Notes:  Guns can be quite triggering. I am not proficient with a gun although I spent many hours in the eastern woodlands of Virginia hunting deer.  The care required in keeping the weapon clean, ready for service, and safe was not lost on me.  Neither lost on me was the love of guns, not just for their usefulness, but also for their quality.  A fine gun is like a fine pocketknife is like a fine guitar.  Each becomes a cherished companion.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

            In My Grasp

            free verse

            Howard F. Stein

 

            At the base of a tall mesa, *

            I noticed a small,

            Inconsequential rock,

            Bent over, picked it up,

            Then gently clasped it in my hand –

            Why, I cannot remember,    

            As I was so seized    

            By the scale of this

            High desert place.

 

            I leaned my head as far back

            As I could without falling,

            Stood face to face with

            A ruddy sandstone cliff

            That dwarfed hikers

            Upon its flat top.

 

            What a dizzying escarpment

            In this land of giants!

            Buttes, canyons, and pinnacles,

            Formidable neighbors

            In a community I could not

            Hold together with my eyes,

            Let alone encase in words.   

            Who needs speech,

            When awe is quite enough?

 

            I had found my

            Good enough forever –

            Grateful even for 

            The relentless

            Work of water and ice

            That had given me,

            After all, the gift

            Of the minor stone

            I claimed for myself.

 

            Eventually, I had to leave –

            A mere temporary

            In this seeming permanence.

            What home could beckon

            With voices like these?

 

            Still, I did not depart

            Entirely bereft.

            In the small rock

            I took with me,

            I could at least hold

            250 million years

            In the grasp of my hand.

 

*Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico, US.  “A mesa is a flat-topped mountain or hill. It is a wide, flat, elevated landform with steep sides. Mesa is a Spanish word that means table.”  Mesa (nationalgeographic.org)https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/mesa/  

 


Poet’s Notes: The poem is a fantasy steeped in cherished reality. For over 25 years, I have attended at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico, the annual fall retreat of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology.  It has remained the most spiritual place I have ever been. I do not require Aristotle, Anselm, and Aquinas proofs. Presence is the essence of the place. Each time I leave, I long to return. Every leave-taking rends my heart.

 

Early in 2024, as I began to anticipate the retreat, the fantasy came to me of finding a small stone at the foot of a giant mesa, picking it up, holding it in my hand, and putting it in my pocket. The poem took me the rest of the way – from presence and beholding, to absence and loss, and finally to a tiny imaginary symbol of continuity amid rupture. I could at least take with me a reminder of my sense of awe.

 

Editor’s Notes: The line “Good enough forever” speaks to me.  The paradoxical quality of being only good enough, yet being supremely good enough, so that no other “good enough” needs be found—that is an intriguing and somewhat unsettling thought.  I think, indeed, of our nation’s (USA) settlers who looked for that spot of land that seemed “just right,” but perhaps settled for a place that seemed “good enough.”  Perhaps they then grew to love that land so much that the “good enough” became a forever love. CAS

       In this poem, Stein shows us that presence is the essence of a poem. TLC

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

            A Flower in My Hand

            free verse

            Howard F. Stein

 

            I nest a flower

            In my open palm –

            A dainty buttercup,

            A scrubby chamisa,

            A tender daylily,

            A sensual orchid.

            I savor their full

            Bloom of fruition. . .

 

            All my forevers

            Are so short-lived,

            My eye must catch them

            More swiftly than

            A butterfly net,

            Before they depart

            For places they never tell.

 

            Oh, cruel flowering!

            If only I could hold you

            And entice you to stay! –

            Help me remember, at least,

            That once you were here.

 


Poet’s Notes:  The theme of transience or impermanence is a bane of poets’ creative life.  Who dares approach it!  Clichés are lethal.  Yet I seem to be drawn to trying to revive the dead!  In early 2024, when the image of a flower gently resting in my open palm came to me, I wondered how on earth to make it into a fresh poem. 

 

Over my lifetime, I have held many flowers in this way, examined them, even cherished them.  Somehow my mind wandered to a kind of story-arc of receiving, holding on, letting go, and remembering. Whether a flower or anything else I think I “have” or “possess,” its days are numbered. In grieving its departure, I can at least hold onto its memory. Writing the poem about a flower led me toward this unfolding.

 

Editor’s Notes:  Great beauty can sojourn in ephemeral things—such as in flowers and in butterflies’ wings and in the web-woven orbs of the garden spider.  We see the ephemeral all around us, and, gradually, we come to realize that we, too, are ephemeral.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *





 

My Private Idaho Huckleberry

free verse

Tyson West

Just as I cannot lick an ice cream cone
without bemoaning my first communion wafer,
so I cannot savor a huckleberry
without mourning Mary.
We once hiked jagged edged August afternoons
gaining altitude on rutted logging roads
above Priest Lake's boat wake braided waters
seeking ancestral berry patches
at the edge of decades' old wildfire scars.
When we reached the leaning larch where her father
had carved once a heart and not her mother's initials,
we lingered and leaned into our limits.
To me, post solstice sun forever diminuendos
in scents of balsam and lodgepole pine―
bear bell jangles in sun glare
on bright green bushes
concentrating flavor into tight blue balls.
My legs no longer climb granite steps cut
of jet stream storms whose wind gusts
scatter all ashes.
Worrying our return before moonrise,
her sister―jam brewer and pie alchemist―kept watch below at the lake cabin
too timid to chance broke back mountain cliffs
or risk a mother grizzly.
Mary's long legs forged furiously forward
as my neurosis radared any rustling ahead.
Her fast fingers filled pails for me
to pack out our sweet and tangy treasure.
And, if alone, our blanket spread in light checkered shade
from the firs and larch breeze blushed
to concentrate our sweet berries of time sweeping our souls past
cubist light blocks and ghosts of children we would never share.
Our intimacies of sustenance, flesh, and wildflowers
ferment to fill dreamtime left
between a berry the color of the night sky
and icy cirrus clouds astride the jet stream―
heralds of looming fall tempests.


Poet's Notes:  When this poem began, I was contemplating huckleberries, something that can be held in one's hand, from several different angles. I wrote three different poems, of which this is the first, and planned to put the three together in a suite, but my edit angel intervened. Huckleberry Finn, the phrase "I am your huckleberry" from Doc Holiday in the movie Tombstone, and the song “Moon River,” each speak to the multifaceted symbolism surrounding huckleberries. Berry growers have been unable to domesticate huckleberries, so they can only be picked wild. My huckleberry friend about whom this poem was written and who also was never domesticated died in 2019.

 

Editor’s Notes: I’ve picked huckleberries many times, and I’ve reached as far as I could reach, but I didn’t lean into any other limit.  West takes us into a wild, western range of emotions, climbing a little higher and yet a little higher.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

I Am a Poet

free verse

John C. Mannone

 

         ποιέω τó ποιηµα

 

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

—Billy Graham

 

I can always do the hard work of words with the back

of an envelope, and a pen to plow and plant something

that might grow. But if I fail

 

to think about it, I would be not better than an artificial

intelligence, a straw man on a yellow brick road. The best

I could do is mimic rapidly.

 

I might be a smart man, waving my hands to the cadence

of the words, but if they only touch your ears, what good

are they? Who cares?

 

However, what I hold in my hand is not merely the pen,

not just an almanac of words. But I hold your heart

in my hands. And I pray.

 

Poet’s Notes: This poem arose while I was searching the Internet for quotes about hands (and I admit, I might’ve had a Cento in the recesses of my mind). Almost right away I found Billy Graham’s quotation, which in turn led me to the Greek New Testament because I marvel at the depth of meaning in the original languages that gets lost in the translation or at least not conveyed with additional words. I vividly remember St Paul speaking of the Christ that we are his workmanship (Eph 2:10). The insight the Greek provides is the word translated as workmanship is (transliterated) poiema. Clearly, this is the etymology of the word poem. The epigraph can be translated as “to make a workmanship.” The infinitive form of the verb “to make” is ποιέω (phonetically pō-aý-ō).  However, there is a wide semantic range of that word, so “to craft” or “to fashion” fits better when the noun, ποιηµα (phonetically poi-aý-ma) is translated as “poem.” (τó is simply an article). When I think of that passage in Greek, I can’t help to feel that I am a piece of poetry fashioned by my creator, so the translation of the Greek in the epigraph that I prefer is “to fashion a poem.” All of this led me to think about creating poetry by my hands, and what is needed. That’s how this turned out to be an ars poetica. The translation of the title, I think, works better in a note like this. The added mystery also adds a little tension, or at least curiosity.

 

Editor’s Notes:  I hear echoes of I Corinthians 13 in Mannone’s Ars poetica.  As scripture stretches language’s limits on a spiritual scale, poetry stretches language also, and sometimes speaks to the spirit as significantly as it does to the nerves and the heart.  CAS 

       An artist speaks in this poem. TLC


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Hands

free verse

John C. Mannone

 

         After a photograph of a sculpture (Clay Hands)

         by Heshani Sothiraj Eddleston

 

 

The artisan charcoals

a grisaille of our hands

 

then sculpts our fingers first,

carves stone away, leaves

only touch, a trace of pulse

before my heart crumbles.

I am pulver in his hands.

 

Imperceptible movement

of my fingers over yours,

me, in the palm of your hands,

lifelines intersecting in clay

layers. We, etched into each other.

 

Stone of my stone, carved from

my heart, how could the Sculptor

know that stone is softer than flesh,

each heartbeat still creviced in rock?

I rise out of dirt

 

that once was a grave, but you,

                you were fashioned for me.


 

Poet’s Notes: There is something sensuous about holding one’s lover’s hand, each person ever so gently moving fingers over the other’s. This is what informs the poem, the creator, giving life to stone, which in turn acts as a metaphor for lovers in the flesh. The narrator is one lover to the other. The poem braids the concepts of a human sculptor and the Creator Sculptor, the ambiguity at times is intentional but is no more demanding in suspension of disbelief than animating a stone sculpture. One could even read it as the Sculptor inspiring the sculptor, or simply an allusion to Genesis and the Creator-God of fleshly humans.

 

Editor’s Notes:  What can poetry do?  What can it not?  Not every poem reads like a map to meanings.  Sometimes, blurred lines and liminal spaces open potential territories, landscapes, human sculptures, if you will.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *




 

Wild Gatherings: A Hard Nut to Crack

Shakespearean sonnet

Charles A. Swanson

 

The greenish hulls, a darkening yellow brown,

stained shoes and fingers.  Scores of walnuts plunked

like tiny cannonballs as they came down.

The drive was full of them.  They spun and clunked

against car tires, but friction battered free

their hulls.  My mother raked them into heaps

and let them cure.  Now, I see the leafless tree,

the black-grooved nuts.  These are things I keep.

I keep as well the rough, corrugated shell,

the way it felt.  The way it pressed against

my fingers when I gripped it tight.  I held

the hammer handle firm, and muscles tense,

I tried to crack the thing.  Like many thoughts

the nut freed once I beat the hard shell off.

 

Poet’s Notes:  This poem about black walnuts is one in a small poem cycle about gathering wild foods.  I forage a bit, and I enjoy the variety that nature offers.  Each wild food presents its own challenge, from difficulty of harvesting to difficulty of preparing.  Perhaps one might claim that little tension exists in these events, but I find that every episode of gathering has its own battle—whether small or large. CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

            Art Speaks:  Measuring Stick

                        --a Stick Figure Man poem

            free verse

            Charles A. Swanson

 

            I have no rights.  He can use me,

            and he can abuse me.

            Here I am on a T-shirt, my trunk

            in another man’s hands,

 

            and that man says, “I’ve got your back.”

            Now, what am I to do

            without a back?  And then he draws

            me sarcastic, a wise ass,

 

            and then a dumb ass, and he doesn’t

            ask if I like the word.

            I don’t, by the way.  Just saying.

            Where’s the respect for art?

 

            I could be so much more, and am,

            when I’m in noble hands.

            I sing.  I dance.  I kneel.  I pray.

            I lift my arms in praise

 

            to my maker, and I don’t mean him,

            the one who trashes me.

            There is a holy ruler. A yardstick.

            I want to measure up.

 

Poet’s Notes:  I keep writing Stick Figure Man poems, and in some of the poems, the artist talks about art, and about how stick figures can be artful and evocative.  In other poems, the Stick Figure (the art) talks back to the artist.  As Stick Figure Man begins to emerge from the page, a bit like Pinocchio, he finds his own words.  Sometimes, he speaks with sensitivity, sometimes with irritation. 

 

Editor’s Notes: I enjoy Swanson’s Stick Figure Man poems. The reader always has something to take away from them. This one ‘measures up.’ TLC


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


SAND

free verse

Alessio Zanelli – Cremona, Italy

 

Under the feet, through the fingers, 

on the skin, in the eyes, 

what will remain of the bones, 

a result of the aging of living planets, 

born of rock and water, 

the primal parent of dust, 

from one bulb into the other, 

then back, over and over again, 

the time-made maker of time, 

there forever to remind us

how gazillions of grains construct the world 

as the world is contained in one grain.


Editor's Notes: Zanelli’s skillful manipulation of microcosms and macrocosms broadens and narrows the theme and meaning. TLC


Editor's Notes: I like the places the poem takes me--especially to the desert or beach, to outer space, and into the hourglass.  CAS


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The cross

free verse

Terri Lynn Cummings

 

A friend said 

the world he unfolds

is a flat map

easy to examine and probe

between here and there.

 

He highlights a highway 

that splits like two wings

positioned 

where they shouldn’t be

where people shuttle along

without realizing 

that’s what wisdom is--

what is learned 

on a long journey 

to the end of the line.

 

Though I cannot hold

the map of his life

or mark an X where

his journey ended

I stake a cross 

into red earth

near the ravine

where we parted.


Poet’s Note:  This is a fictional poem inspired by the many crosses placed along roads and highways as memorials. Each one I see always moves me.  


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *




General Submissions


.###

free verse

Karla Linn Merrifield


It's like, ya know, fellas,
it's like she smacked
hard into a wall harder
than bricks. I know this;
we veggie bros are
capable of breathing
in her anguish, hear
her profound sigh,
and I do quote in proof:

"Nevertheless,  I feel so
diminished."

Diminished? Among
the saddest words.

"I'm so doubtful I
can survive."

My lordy, oh my, such
a tragic term.

I would like to
inspire my companion,
be able to tell her
to switch gears
into first, reduce speed,
and watch my fave
The King and I.
Yul Brenner would
say in his dishiest
role ever--ever!

"Yo, Bruce, she sez,
"you are my metaphor
for sweet perseverance"

###


Poet’s Note:  FC Karla Linn Merrifield, who is continuing to undergo chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, has unfortunately, had to put her blog (The Muses Refugia; karlalinnmerrifield.org) on hiatus¾but the past four years of posts remain accessible. She’s been astonished how much creating new poems regardless of her health (and very few of the ones she’s written this summer) concern her health. What a marvelous escape and superb medicine.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


                                                               Bruce the Plant Sighs

                                                        free verse

                                                        Karla Linn Merrifield


      Just breathing in
      the ambiance
      of southwest Florida's
      butter hour--it's glow
      so pleasures her
      as evening comes.
      This cross-species
      vegetable/animal
      gig is trippy, my
      friends, sharing
      the same POV .
      My lady is--
      a sentimental 
      cougar poet who
      listens to tree
      frogs and only
      this morning
      a mockingbird
      in full mating-
      season mode
      who performed
      his arias not
      ten feet away.
      She then swam;
      I watched from
      the Condoland lanai.
      But, later, she's sayin':
      "Saturday nights
      are the hardest."
      She breathes of
      her loneliness.

      And the barred
      replies,  "Who,
      who, who

      croons for

                                                              you? I do."                                        


Poet’s Note:  FC Karla Linn Merrifield, who is continuing to undergo chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, has, unfortunately, had to put her blog (The Muses Refugia; karlalinnmerrifield.org) on hiatus--but the past four years of posts remain accessible. She’s been astonished at how much creating new poems regardless of her health (and very few of the ones she’s written this summer) concerns her health. What a marvelous escape and superb medicine.


Editor’s Notes:  How does one speak of her own pain and weakness?  Some do so outright, telling a tale of sorrow, limping along with moans and sighs and woes to me.  Others dress duress in jester’s robes, not letting the mask drop.  A hint, a wink, a play on words serve to let the world guess that all is not as jolly as things seem.  CAS

       Both poems speak of ‘a diminishing’ as the fall season begins to fall in many ways. TLC


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 





Guest Poets



            Peach

            free verse

            Christie Taylor

 

            I hold a globe —a peach in my hand. Continents

            ablaze with wildfires, oceans yellow hot.

 

            Slice it longitudinally | ten times | around the world.

            Then, one cut——————— across the equator.

 

            The Earth falls apart into fiery sunsets.


About the Poet: Christie Taylor lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore after 40+ years owning an art gallery in North Carolina. She stays on the hunt for imagery and resonance in her writing and painting and enjoys romping through fields with her dogs. Recent poems have appeared in orangepeel literary magazinethe tide rises, the tide falls: an oceanic literary magazineStill Point Arts Quarterly; and Milk and Cake Press, Dead of Winter III Anthology. Taylor has been awarded visual artist residences at The Ballinglen Arts Foundation (Ireland), Cove Park (Scotland) and Tyrone Guthrie Center (Ireland). 


Editor’s Notes: The small evokes the large.  Taylor has a peach and the Earth in her hand at the same time.  What is of the earth is the Earth.  CAS

       I enjoyed the image of Earth in her hand and “fiery sunsets.” TLC

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

She gathers stones to keep her daughter safe

              For Aysha

free verse

Jean Janicke

 

Each day’s find: a talisman 

casting a spell of protection

while the other explores distant

terrain. A round rock peeking 

behind a tall blade of grass means

jungle vines will shield from snakes.

A stone glinting on white sand

keeps polar bears at bay in snow,

as if curling fingers around the shiny

orb in her palm narrows the stretch

between Suffolk and Arctic.

Each pebble an elemental message 

from a star written in rare minerals, 

or a small sun warm in her hand

and shining on a mountain peak,

or a bubble from the earth’s crust

gushing up for a shared breath.

 

Poet’s Notes: My sister-in-law told me of the practice of gathering stones that inspired this poem. Starting in the fall of 2024, you will be able to watch the daughter she protected in Secret Amazon: Into the Wild.

 

About the Poet:  Jean Janicke lives in Washington, D.C. She works as an economist and leadership coach and finds her creative outlet through poetry and dance.  Her work has appeared in Yellow Arrow JournalMicroLit, and MockingHeart Review.

 

Editor’s Notes: Taylor’s poem (above) strikes me as an evocation.  I see the peach in a new way because she presents the likeness of the peach to the Earth.  Janicke’s poem strikes me as an invocation.  Each stone the speaker picks up becomes more than a worry stone.  It becomes a prayer stone, as her mother’s heart reaches across distances to her daughter away from home.  CAS

       “… the small sun warm in her hand” image stays with me as I look for a stone for my son. Thank you, Ms. Janicke. TLC

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *




                My Hands

free verse

John Guzlowski

 

I open my hands

And see only my hands

 

The lines in my palms

That some say speak of fate 

And love and misery 

And the wonder to come

Some quiet morning in December

When the cold will silence the birds

And the asking in my palms.

 

So I close my hands

And see only my hands

 

The palms lost in them

The fate and love and wonder

Lost in this quiet summer morning

As I turn to watch the leaves 

Moving slowly in the wind

 

The birds are silent

The crows here last week are gone 

Gone to somewhere where they hope 

to find some sun.

 

And me?

I sit and watch the trees

As if they were my open hands.

 

About the Poet: John Guzlowski’s poems about his parents’ experiences as slave laborers in Nazi Germany appear in his award-winning memoir Echoes of Tattered Tongues.  His most recent books of poems are Mad Monk IkkyuTrue Confessions, and Small Talk: Writing about God and Writing and Me (available at snakenationpress.org). His novels include Retreat: A Love Story and the Hank and Marvin mysteries: Suitcase Charlie, Little Altar Boy, and Murdertown, all published by Kasva Press. He is also a columnist for the Dziennik Zwiazkowy, the oldest Polish newspaper in America. A collection of these columns appears in the book Who I Am: The Lives Told in Kitchen Polish.

 

Editor’s Notes: Guzlowski captures end-of-life forebodings in the simplest words.  This poem reminds me of his collection, Mad Monk Ikkyu, a volume of poems that breathe the air of an Eastern world, poems that seem written by a Japanese poet, not one born in a World War II displaced person’s camp.  CAS

       A fine-tuned poem that I wanted to read over and over again. TLC

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 


Lazarus

free verse

Wendy A. Howe

Puppets exist in a state which is both alive and dead at the same time. 

~ Late Puppeteer, Christopher Leith

 

Leaf light

flickers in the Autumn wind

and the motion

in his arthritic hand

transfers to the strings

of the puppet's corpse. 

 

His fingers hold

the splintered cross

trembling as he takes charge

of cords that tie

his wooden doll

to the language of movement,

the gravity of coming alive. 

 

Its carved stutter

eases into a jaunty gait

and character's voice;

the unraveling skein

of his breath that rises and falls

 

while his grasp feels the burden

of goodbye, relinquishing

a craft he has mastered

for decades, The hurt 

 

penetrates deep

(beyond the bone)

like the sound of wind chimes

calling down the last

                moments of a season's gold.


 

Poet’s Notes: When I wrote Lazarus, I was inspired by the life and legacy of Christopher Leith, who had risen to great fame in the world of puppetry. I asked what does such a skilled and visionary person hold in his hand. And after some reflection, I thought he holds the power of life and death, to bring a creation alive and to put it down to rest.  This is the constant cycle of stillness and animation the puppeteer controls.  His craft is more than a craft, a vocation in which he is called to awaken/interpret characters and stories with his own voice, hands, and soul. And in his final days when the flexibility in his fingers was fading from arthritis, he realized he had to relinquish not only his art but an integral part of himself.  The sadness was immeasurable. A bittersweet melody that echoed throughout his mind and spirit, aching more than the terrible pain of his condition.   

 

About the Poet:  Wendy Howe is an English teacher and free-lance writer who lives in Southern California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth, diverse landscapes, women in conflict, and ancient cultures. Over the years, she has been published in an assortment of journals both on-line and in print. Among them: Strange HorizonsLiminalityCoffin BellEternal Haunted SummerThe Poetry Salzburg ReviewThe Interpreter's HouseSilver Blade MagazineThe Orchards JournalIndelible Magazine, and Eye To The Telescope.  Her latest work will be forthcoming in The Acropolis Journal later this year.

 

Editor’s Notes: As Howe plays with life and death, with artistic life and retirement of artistic talent, she dangles me.  I feel suspended at one moment and jangled at the next.  Even the beautiful ending of the poem resonates with the sadness of glorious autumn leaves.  CAS

       /… the language of movement, /the gravity of coming alive./ Howe knows how to move the reader with her dance of words. TLC


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


                The Bergen University Umbrella

free verse

Mantz Yorke

 

Two decades in the trunk of my car:

the umbrella’s become a grubby white

Each time I take it out, you tell me to chuck

this memento of Bergen’s rain, but I like

the connotations of the four Minerva owls

and the spring that jerks it into a spread: 

why junk an umbrella that does its job?

 

Last autumn, I used the handle’s crook

to pull brambles down from the banking

of a disused track. Then, standing

precariously on the steep slope,

I jabbed the point into the soft ground

to make a tripod-leg whilst my free arm

reached upward to pluck the fruit.

 

Overbalancing, I bore heavily down

on the crook, bending and splitting

the tubular shank. ‘Just bin it’, you insisted,

but some wooden dowel in the shank

and resin-toughened fabric round the break

have given me, with luck (and, no doubt,

some further grumbling), another year of use.

 

Poet’s Notes: Some years ago, I visited Bergen University before taking a driving tour around that part of Norway. There was quite a lot of rain, so I bought the umbrella. When I said it would be a memento of Bergen’s rain, I received a rather sour look from the woman behind the counter.

 

About the Poet: Mantz Yorke is a former science teacher and researcher living in Manchester, England. His poems have been published internationally. His collections Voyager and Dark Matters are published by Dempsey & Windle.

 

Editor’s Notes: I like poems about useful objects.  Here is a poem that shows me the owner’s idiosyncratic feelings about an umbrella that many others would consider only trash.  I am drawn into the world of the speaker, as if his life were both propped up by and expanded by the tattered umbrella.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


 

inventory of daughters without mothers

free verse

April J. Asbury

 

cookbooks with split spines

                  moth-wing shimmer on gray bulbs

saucers with no cups

                  cups with no spoons

 

tea leaves dried hard and dark on porcelain

                  spice patterns scattered on stained tablecloth

dusty strings of red peppers from the ceiling

                  blackened onions knotted in hosiery

 

cracked cutting boards, scarred and gray

                  knives worn thin and curved as fishbones

wet lashes stuck wishless, finger and thumb

                  shush dolls with smeared marker smiles

tongues turned to stone at the root

 

Poet’s Notes: This poem grew out of a writing workshop hosted by Melissa Helton during the 2023 "Appalachian Writers Workshop" at Hindman Settlement School. While experimenting with form, we studied Danez Smith's heartbreaking and transcendent poem, "alternate names for black boys." I love writing with lists--the potential for rich detail, the wonderful play and music of words, the surprises of what is included and what is not. I began with my own grief, webbing images and memory together. I wanted to describe grief beyond words in sensory and personal ways.

 

About the Poet:  April J. Asbury teaches writing and literature at Radford University. She earned her M.F.A. from Spalding University and M.A. from Hollins. Her poetry and fiction appear in Artemis JournalStill: The JournalGyroscope Review, and The Anthology of Appalachian WritersWoman with Crows, her first collection, is available on apriljasbury.com.

 

Editor’s Notes: Each poet who earns her way into this journal with a fine poem becomes, as it were, a new-found friend.  In April Asbury’s case, I welcome a friend of many years.  I’m glad to present one of her many remarkable poems in this issue.  CAS

       I, too, am pleased to welcome Ms. Asbury’s poem into this journal. TLC

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Zen Salon

free verse

Frank William Finney

 

Snip by snip

the locks

drop down

 

to the sound

of one hand

                                                                snipping. 


About the Poet: Frank William Finney is a retired university lecturer based in Massachusetts. A recipient of the Letter Review Prize for Poetry, his work has appeared in numerous publications in print and online.  Recent work appears in Blue UnicornPersephone Literary MagazineThe Wise Owl, and elsewhere. His chapbook The Folding of the Wings was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022.

 

Editor’s Notes:  In the quietness of this poem, I am transported to a hair salon.  I’m also caught by the kinesthetic images of the hand’s deft movements and the strands of hair slipping off the scissors and down to the floor.  CAS

       Nice use of the senses here. TLC

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

To Hold Beauty in My Hand

free verse

Piper Durrell 

 

I leaned down to pick up

a small object, translucent

edged in pale blue

still against the asphalt.

Peering closely, then squinting, with my old woman eyes

I saw a leaf, a feather, a flower,

wilted by the sun? melted by the rain?

No, a wing, a glassy wing, an insect wing

veins and lines and spots no longer in motion

now inert delicate filigree layers

like handmade lace still pinned on a wedding dress.

Yet with nature’s subtle precision,

flawless both in construction and purpose.

 

Name it magic, call it science, label it beauty

whether a sliver on the ground

 a flicker in the air

or a childhood memory.

Why this slice of color? 

A hue as vibrant as a robin’s egg

 as calming as the sky on a perfect day.

Is this stripe your calling card?

A badge of honor, of age, of clan-

without it, would your mate

not recognize the Morse code of your garb?

A tint meant to allure innocent bystanders to gaze at

and desire the grace of your lost wing?

 

Nothing haphazard in this pattern-

Dots and dashes, the weight of veins-

the symmetrical back and forth stroke

of a hovering insect requires its own

equation to explain the flow of fore and hind.

A sequence of numbers cannot express

the lightness of this wing in my hand

or long-ago evenings when you arrived right

before my eyes -fairy dust meant to be chased

across green grass and rocky driveways but

never to be touched because your destiny was to

fly up and down, backwards, forwards

side to side and linger where you choose.

 

One solitary wing was in my hand

the mere pressure of my fingers needed to

place the wing into the open palm of my hand

had left an imprint that I dared not touch again.

Beauty is fleeting, desire remains…

And, suddenly, my hand was empty.

 

About the Poet: Piper Durrell fell in love with the mountains, rivers, and music of Appalachia when she moved to Blacksburg, Virginia, in 1977 to begin her career as a Legal Aid attorney.  Poetry is her way of expressing the joy she finds in the wonders of the natural world.  Playing with words has been a lifelong hobby and, as long as she is able, she will continue to hike, explore, travel, and try to reflect what she sees/feels in her poems.

 

Editor’s Notes: “Nothing haphazard in the pattern,” Durrell claims.  She convinces me! She also convinces me of substance in the most fragile of life’s creations.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 


Forest Ashes

haiku

James Penha

 

I raise my hand full 

of forest ashes and ask:

who will pay the bill

 

About the Poet: Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems American Daguerreotypes is available for Kindle. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry. Xwitter: @JamesPenha

 

Editor’s Notes:  I am not bothered by “forest ashes”—or, not at first.  I see them as the natural decomposition of leaves.  Suddenly, by the turn in this poem, I’m jolted awake to the aftermath of raging wildfires.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

The Long and the Short of It Is

free verse

Llewellyn McKernan

 

The pencil's

the rough tough good luck

a tree leaves

for the human hand to touch

just enough for

an invitation to dream

and tell

what's already there

in the sweet salty sweat of thumb

and fingers

digging deep down

into the blood-red, red-hot

drumming organ-deep

(yet fathomless) universe

of the heart, budding

and bursting wide open in

words that provoke,

evoke an early everlasting

spring-green growth

in thought and feeling

in the reader.


About the Poet:  Llewellyn McKernan has a Master's Degree in Creative Writing from Brown University.  She has authored seven books of poems for adults and four for children.  Her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies and has won over one hundred prizes in state, regional, and national contests.  Her writing mantra is based on a statement by the French novelist, Colette: "Look long and hard at what gives you the greatest pleasure, but look even longer and harder at what gives you the greatest pain."

 

Editor’s Notes:  Were McKernan to give us a lesson on the positive effects of music in poetry, she could show us this poem.  I read poems I would describe as flat because the playfulness and the vibrancy of language is missing.  Here, the play is part of the poem and intrinsic to the message.  CAS  

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



Amulet

occasional rhyme / free verse

Susan R. Morritt

 

September sky

steeped in Isle of Wight blue–

My private amulet, gold vein

for the shrinking realm, chic salon

which so tenuously remains.

 

Each passing day a threshold crossed

with inward-swinging doors,

multiple floors to navigate.

 

Exhumed cache of love and hate,

so fine the line between.

 

September sky is seeping

into blue—oh, Isle of Wight

in my pocket, just out of view.

 

Poet’s Notes: This poem was inspired by a few days I spent visiting Isle of Wight while on a backpacking trip through England and Scotland. I vividly remember the incredible colour of the sky, and even now, on a sunny day, no matter where I am, I find myself looking at the sky and remembering those days in Sandown, with the white cliffs, and gorgeous sky over the water.

 

About the Poet: Susan R. Morritt is a writer, visual artist, and musician from Waterford, Ontario, Canada. Her work appears in numerous journals including 34 Orchard JournalDoes It Have PocketsThe Speckled Trout ReviewPictura JournalUnorthodox StoriesCosmic Horror MonthlyThird Estate Art Decapitate Journal, and Bronze Bird Books Love Anthology. Susan is a former racehorse trainer who has worked extensively with livestock.

 

Editor’s Notes: An amulet can be more than a piece of jewelry.  I think of the amulet Dr. Strange wears, of how that amulet opens doorways.  In Morritt’s poem, the amulet speaks for more than what it is.  CAS


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


                In the Antique Shop

free verse

Lorraine Jeffrey

  

What is it? my grandson asks

as he surveys the seven wheels

and hefts the blackened iron that

weighs over a pound and a half.

He assumes I will know.

 

I point to the heart shaped

décor of the largest wheel and

the three metal prongs, in a

tight circle.

 

It’s an apple peeler I say

as I reach to turn the

wooden handle.

The entire device twists,

turns, and contorts

like a dying animal.

 

I wonder why it took

seven iron wheels

to accomplish the task,

when my current apple peeler

has only one worm screw

and a suction cup.

 

My grandson moves on

but I stand

holding the cold metal;

remembering wooden tables,

aproned women, pies,

canning jars and laughter.

 

On the shelves I survey

Jello molds, Pyrex bowls

egg separators and bread boxes.            .

Is there room for me

on that shelf?

 

About the Poet: Lorraine Jeffery earned a library degree and managed public libraries for twenty years but learned more about life from raising her ten children (8 adopted, two bio) than in any university. She has won numerous prizes in national and state competitions and published in various journals. Her first book titled When the Universe Brings Us Back was published in 2022. Her chapbooks were published by Kelsay Books. Tethers, in 2023 and Saltwater Soul in 2024.

 

Editor’s Notes:  Every time I browse an antique store (which I did only yesterday), I think of the things that speak to me from a distant generation (a generation of which I am a relic).  I like the list of artifacts in Jeffrey’s poem, and I identify with her pang of nostalgia.  CAS

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 


Your Support



Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is a for-profit entity that operates at a loss of up to $7,000 per year. It is sustained entirely by donations of time, talent, and treasure from our editorial staff, loyal readership, and family of poets and artists.  


Our four quarterly issues take hundreds of man-hours to produce. That is what it takes to offer our readers a quality experience and our featured and guest poets and artists a place where they may be proud to publish their work. 


Please consider making a modest gift supporting our purpose, “to bring a little more good poetry into the world.” Those interested should use PayPal.com with Donations@SongsOfEretz.com as the receiving address.


Please note that contributions are not tax deductible.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 




 

Frequent Contributor News

 

Vivian Finley Nida looks forward to presenting poetry from her book, From Circus Town USA, to an Oklahoma City PEO Club in September. In October, she will present ekphrastic poetry to a local book club and will partner with Terri L. Cummings to present ekphrastic poetry to a second local book club. 

 

Charles A. Swanson participated in the Writers Workshop at Radford University in July. This annual event, the Highland Summer Conference, met at the Selu Retreat Center.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 



Forthcoming

Winter Issue Theme

A Dramatic Monologue

 

       A dramatic monologue is a poem delivered by a single character (rather than the poet) to a silent listener (usually not the reader). The speech reveals the character’s personality, thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Inspiration may come from mythology, literary or biblical characters, past or present leaders, an unnamed (or renamed) friend, or a beloved pet. Be creative!

--------------

(Please note the new submissions' address, both here and on our Guidelines page.  The correct submissions' address is

submissionssofe@gmail.com) 

 

    Season           Theme                          Submission Period

 

    Spring            Holding your breath              Feb. 1-15

 

    Summer         Respond to Keats's                May 1-15

                          “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

 

    Fall                Something you can hold        Aug. 1-15

 

    Winter            A dramatic monologue          Nov. 1-15


 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


 

 

SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW