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| Issue 26: | 1 Jan. 2025 |
| Poem: | 96 words |
| Collaborative | Rengay |
| Publisher’s Notes: | 124 words |
By Kathryn J. Stevens and Harriot West
murmurations
wild nights wild nights beneath a blackbird moon sea changes star-littered beaches the soul selects her own society his castle beyond the reach of waves forever is composed of nows a selkie shakes spindrift from her hair oh sumptuous moment more golden light she slips into the soul he left behind ah—to drink a glass of sea-brewed moonshine much madness is divinest sense
The italicized line in each stanza above is by Emily Dickinson.*
Stanzas 1, 3, and 5 are by Kathryn J. Stevens, and
Stanzas 2, 4, and 6 are by Harriot West.
* Publisher’s Notes:
The italicized lines in the poem above are from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Back Bay Books; Little, Brown & Company, 1960):
- “Wild Nights — Wild Nights! —”: First line of poem #249
- “The Soul selects her own Society—”: First line of poem #303
- “Forever — is composed of Nows —”: First line of poem #624
- “Oh Sumptuous moment”: First line of poem #1125
- “more golden light”: From Line 2 of Stanza 4 in poem #5
- “Much Madness is divinest Sense —”: First line of poem #435
For reference, full text of this book is available as a PDF from UERJ (Rio de Janeiro State University in Brazil); link confirmed on 12 December 2024:
https://uerjundergradslit.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/the-complete-poems-of-emily-dickinson.pdf
Kathryn J. Stevens
worked in marketing communications with IBM and before that with one of the divisions of The State University of New York at Albany. Her poems have been published in cattails, Contemporary Haibun Online, Frogpond, Haibun Today, The Heron’s Nest, KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Modern Haiku, Narrow Road, Ribbons, and Scarlet Dragonfly Journal. She currently lives with her husband in Rochester, New York.
Harriot West
After many years of teaching ESL at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Harriot West began writing poetry as an antidote to academic writing. Her primary interests are haibun and tanka prose. She is the author of two award-winning collections, Into the Light (Mountains and River Press, 2014) and Shades of Absence (Red Moon Press, 2018).
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