Publication Alert: The Syzygy Poetry Journal

Dear Reader,

I sit and write to you with clicks of rain at the window and an oboe trilling robustly at me from across the table. The world is right again with the simple pleasures of sounds and glances trembling in lovesickness, with loved ones home and home made lovelier than ever.

It's in the midst of such happiness that I write to inform you of another happy announcement: on Friday, no less than six of my poems were published in the maiden issue of The Syzygy Poetry Journal -- a far-reaching, starry-eyed, celestial-inspired online publication that is, in many ways, a poem in itself. The creative arrangement of poets into constellations creates a feeling of journey through this issue, as though each poet and poem were a beckoning star or planet with some gift of exploration to offer you. This is certainly a beautifully crafted publication that I'll be spending some time exploring myself, and I hope you'll do the same.

You can read my poems -- in Constellation Metaphorum -- here.

About the works: While there are quite a few poems in this publication, each one is very meaningful to me, so I find it worth sharing a brief note on all of them.

1) "absurdity has grace" -- a poem I wrote this summer, so that's another independent-writing victory for me. It's inspired by an actual moment I experienced at the piano one evening, touching upon the poeticism and meaning one can draw from the tiniest, awkwardest, simplest objects in everyday life.

2) "apparition / lost" -- a short poem I wrote for my Writing Poetry course last year, describing the simultaneous dread and thrill of having one's identity obliterated by one's surroundings.

3) "moonface" -- a shape poem depicting a lonely but resigned acceptance of slowly losing a sense of self.

4) "Faith Enough, Adam" -- yet another poem written independently this summer, which attempts to capture the loving and heartbreaking desire to express this world accurately in my awkward little words.

5) "A Child's Letter to the Sun" -- a fun, silly poem that was the first piece I wrote for my Writing Poetry course, in an assignment meant to explore different kinds of diction and voices; in this case, child's breathless, misspelled, rambling examination of the sun contrasted with sophisticated and esoteric praises. (Some of the formatting got a little off in the page layout, but it still works.)

6) "Koev halev, Sanctum somnium" -- a poem very close to my heart, as it is dedicated to my beloved beau and captures the distances we had to cross to find our way to one another. For those wondering, "koev halev" is a beautiful, obscure Hebrew phrase for which there is no proper English translation, but the closest translation is: "identifying with the suffering of another so deeply that one hurts oneself, that one's heart aches." (Definitely a future tattoo.) Meanwhile, "Sanctum somnium" is Latin for "holy dream." (Unfortunately, quite a bit of the formatting for this poem was off from its original appearance, too, with many lines right-adjusted where they should have been indented. Hopefully you can still draw the same emotions from it.)

I hope you enjoy the heavy reading today. Grace and peace to you.