Myrna Stone
Each of the Dead
Stoneman Douglas High School,
Parkland, Florida, February 14th, 2018
Again they fall, each of the dead animate,
spastic for a moment more in the bullets' path
in a hallway now become their own abattoir.
Again they fall, each of the dead animate
in our sorrow as if grief alone negates
the shooter's free rein and monstrous wrath.
Again they fall, each of the dead animate,
spastic for a moment more in the bullets' path.
Upon David Buckel's Protest Suicide by Self-Immolation
…my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves
—from his explanatory note, Brooklyn, NY, April 14th, 2018
To the cause for which he suffered, agree
with it or not, we give such cursory sway.
Shun or embrace his words as we please,
what the eye sees the mind replays:
the sweep of piney bough against the gray
char of his pyre, tapes and tarps and hoses,
and at the borders of the burn's disarray
safety cones bearing yellow roses.
Now he will forever be among the marked
for his unwonted act and its smoky script
in the dialed-down dark of Prospect Park
just before dawn. And if the writ
he left speaks volumes, what will you or I
make of it in light of his mortal sacrifice?
|
|
 |
|
| AUTHOR BIO |
| Myrna Stone is the author of five books of poems, the most recent being Luz Bones, released by Etruscan Press in 2017. A two-time Ohioana Book Award Finalist, her work has appeared in over fifty journals including, among others, Poetry, Southwest Review, The Massachusetts Review, Boulevard, Nimrod, and River Styx. Among her awards are three Ohio Arts Council Grants, a full fellowship to Vermont Studio Center, the 2001 Ohio Poet of the Year award, and the 2017 New Letters Prize in Poetry. Stone is a founding member of The Greenville Poets, based in Greenville, Ohio.
|
|
| POETRY CONTRIBUTORS |
 Michelle Blake
Jane Blanchard
Barbara Lydecker Crane
Lee Ann Dalton
Susan de Sola
Michele Leavitt
Lynn Levin
Marjorie Maddox
Carolyn Martin
Bernadette McBride
Susan McLean
Kamilah Aisha Moon (Featured Poet)
Sally Nacker
Patrice Nolan
Katy Rawdon
Leslie Schultz
Myrna Stone
Gail Thomas
Nell Wilson
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Megan Marlatt:Looking like large puppet heads, it was "anima", the root of "animation", that led me to the making of the big heads, (or "capgrossos" as they are called in Catalonia where I learned the craft.) Anima is the soul or what breathes life into a being and to animate an inanimate object, an artist must insert a little soul into it. However to bring attention to what is invisible, (the soul), I chose to mold its opposite in solid form: the persona, the ego, the big head, the mask. Nearly every culture across the globe has masks. They allow performers to climb into the skin of another being and witness the other's world from behind their eyes. While doing so, the mask erases all clues of the performer's age, gender, species or race. In this regard, I find them to be the most transformative and empathic of all human artifacts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
