December 2015, Issue #3
EXTINCTION/DEVOTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial
Lise Weil
Kristin Flyntz
I. EXTINCTION
Debra Magpie Earling
From The Lost Journals of Sacajewea
Melissa Kwasny
After•Word from Ghost Dance: the Poetics of Loss (Debra Magpie Earling)
Naeemeh Naeemaei
Dreams before Extinction
Deena Metzger
Our Radiant Lives
Mary Sutton
Her Body is Burning
Naomi Shihab Nye
My Grandmother Said
Netanyahu
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Arrest
Sara Wright
Tree Holocaust
Beverly Naidus
Curtain Call: Portable Altars for Grief and Gratitude
Marilyn DuHamel
Turning Point
Susan Cerulean
Bear Requiem
Margo Berdeshevsky
Our Safe Word
II. DEVOTION
Mei Mei Sanford
Serach Bat Asher Speaks
Lise Weil
First, a Mother: Interview with Megan Hollingsworth of
ex•tinc•tion wit•ness
Caroline Casey
Beauty from Brokenness: Interview with Lily Yeh
Sharon English
After•Word Our Call to Indigenous Consciousness: Taiaiake Alfred’s Wasáse
Cynthia Anderson
From the Beginning
Nova
Anne Bergeron
Calling out the Names
Julie Gabrielli
Song of the Chesapeake
Nora Jamieson
I am Nothing without my Dead
Patricia Reis
After•Word Nora Jamieson’s Deranged
Rebecca Brams
The Bone in My Yard: a Story-Carrier’s Path
Lise Weil
Listening to Natural Law: Interview with Ayya Santacitta
Courtney Cable
After•Word Kenny Ausubel’s Dreaming the Future
Cynthia Travis
Offerings
Margo Berdeshevsky
Our Safe Word
Notes:
This is a piece I am reluctant to explain too much. It must reach the eye and the mind and the heart—on its own, I hope. I ask and want it to ring loudly, or to whisper, but for itself and for its reader(s.) There are rituals that suggest that there is such a thing as a “safe word.” The montage of the poem with the darkly shadowed bells is one way for me to ask and to say—the bells are speaking now. Aren’t they? They have, before. But now is now. And now is when we live—while we still do. This is not a safe time. Of course, we know that. We know how precarious our time and each life is. We are trying like hell to defend against our breaking. We are nearly beyond any language that will stop what we fear. Or stop the lying. Or the memories. We have been living more consciously, but more tragically, in a time when each event insists that we are beyond breaking. That we are broken. And we want a word, a memory, an action—that says “stop.” Don’t we?? What occasions such a poem is simply—being alive in my time. Our time. And aching for—seeking a word, some word(s) that might bear what we are knowing, and what we are yet desperate for. Desperate for safety? For peace? For better memories? Of course. What word will make our lives safe? I’m trying, as you are—to find it.
Margo Berdeshevsky - born in New York City, often writes in Paris. Her newest poetry manuscript was a finalist for the National Poetry Series, 2015. Her published poetry collections are Between Soul & Stone, and But a Passage in Wilderness (Sheep Meadow Press.) Her book of illustrated stories, Beautiful Soon Enough, received Fiction Collective Two’s Innovative Fiction Award, (University of Alabama Press.) Other honors include the Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America, the & Now Anthology of the Best of Innovative Writing, numerous Pushcart prize nominations for works in Poetry International, New Letters, Kenyon Review, The Collagist, Tupelo Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, among others. In Europe her work has been seen in The Poetry Review (UK) The Wolf, Europe, Siècle 21, & Confluences Poétiques. A multi genre novel, Vagrant, is at the gate. Her “Letters from Paris” may be seen in Poetry International here: pionline.wordpress.com/category/letters-from-paris/ She may be found reading from her books in London, Paris, New York City, or somewhere new—in the world.
For more information, kindly see: margoberdeshevsky.blogspot.com
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