Page 102 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

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:

http://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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