Four stoops gather. 
No houses. No people. 
Only echoes. 

Those tumbleweeds will soon 
scurry through Manzanar. 

The Sierras just shrug. 

—After the photograph Four Stairs by Chuck Kimmerle:

Four Stairs (B&W photograph) copyrighted © by Chuck Kimmerle.
All rights reserved. Appears here with artist’s permission.*

* Publisher’s Note:

The image above is from Chuck Kimmerle’s Manzanar gallery of 113 photographs, which were shot at the Manzanar National Historic Site (Independence, California), “a former incarceration camp which imprisoned more than 10,000 innocent people of Japanese descent, mostly American citizens, during WWII” (source: www.chuckkimmerle.com).

Also from the Manzanar gallery, Rainbow and Dead Tree, which inspired Rosin’s poem of the same name in Issue 15 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (September 2022).

Chuck Kimmerle

is a U.S. based, fine art, landscape photographer who prefers to work in the reticent and quiet areas located in-between the popular, overcrowded, and over-photographed destinations of grand beauty.

While his style is rooted within the foundations of traditional landscape photography, his observations and interactions are both contemporary and introspective.

More details at: www.chuckkimmerle.com

You can also follow his work on Instagram and Facebook.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Photographing in Black and White: Seeing Beyond Color, an article by Chuck Kimmerle at PetaPixel (17 September 2021), courtesy of ELEMENTS Magazine.

⚡ Cemetery and Moon (Gebo, Wyoming), a photograph by Chuck Kimmerle which inspired Gary S. Rosin’s poem Cemetery and Moon in Issue 9 of MacQueen’s Quinterly

Gary S. Rosin

is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. His poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary reviews and anthologies, including Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press, 2023); contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022); Concho River Review, Sulphur River, Texas Poetry Calendar; The Ekphrastic Review; and Visions International.

Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008). His poems “Black Dogs” and “Viewing the Dead” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga with photograph by George Digalakis and poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 8, June 2021); nominated for, and selected for publication in, Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022)

⚡ Featured Poet: Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 7, March 2021)

⚡ Crossing Kansas in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of Rosin reading his poem

⚡ Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Gary S. Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014).

See also Black Dogs here in MacQ (Issue 12, March 2022), which was nominated in October 2022 by MacQ for the 48th annual Pushcart Prize (2024 edition).