Myrna Stone
Robert Frost in the Making
At Six
San Francisco, California, 1880
It is not his father, but his mother, Belle,
who looms large in his life, the raspy tenor
of her voice, harsh or soft, redolent still
of Scotland’s Central Lowlands, its burr
most pronounced at night as she recites
by heart the lyrical poems of Robert Burns
while he and his sister, Jeanie, lie quietly
enraptured abed. It is a spell she weaves
about them, their sleep so full of lilt they
dream in verse. Thus, even after they wake,
they hear her cadence at work in the play
of their own words, rhythmic and archaic,
and although her darkness also inhabits
them, as children they cannot yet discern it.
At Eleven
San Francisco, California, May, 1885
Daily now he flees their two small rooms
for the garden shed behind the apartment,
though even here, as he tends his chickens,
there is no respite from his father’s dying,
his purges of bloody sputum and loosened
bowels at once both horrific and alarmingly
regular. If he but could, he would escape
further afield, as he did last summer atop
Nob Hill, or the great rocky escarpments
of the Bay where far below seals lounged
on the watery margins, comical and almost
human in their society, the boys he ganged
with there his own society, until his mother
put a stop to it. As if conjured on cue, she
appears at their single window in a lather,
her tone thick and emotive as she calls
him in. His chest tightens, but he lingers
nevertheless, for imprinted in him too well
are the scenes he recently witnessed, first
woken in the raw hour before dawn to find
his mother, apparitional, beside their bed, fist
pressed against her pale brow as his father,
cursing, twists to-and-fro in it. Later, woken
again, he narrows his eyes to slits and feigns
sleep as his father struggles to rise and fails,
his terror like a dark beast at last unleashed,
his breath harsh and glassy and fully agonal.
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| AUTHOR BIO |
| Myrna Stone is the author of six full-length books of poetry, most recently The Resurrectionist’s Diary (Dos Madres Press, 2021). Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and Every Day Poems, and have appeared in such journals as Poetry, Ploughshares, Boston Review, TriQuarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Nimrod, River Styx and Southwest Review, among many others. Her work has also appeared in thirteen anthologies, including Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse. Stone is a founding member of The Greenville Poets, a well-published group established in 1985, and lives in Greenville, Ohio.
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| POETRY CONTRIBUTORS |
 Grace Bauer
Hilary Biehl
Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas
Julia Griffin
A. A. Gunther
Katie Hartsock
Ruth Hoberman
Babo Kamel
Jean L. Kreiling
Lavinia Kumar
Jenna Le
Marjorie Maddox
Mary Grace Mangano
Kathleen McClung
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
T. R. Poulson
Richelle Slota
Linda Stern
Myrna Stone
Gail White
Amanda Williamsen
Joyce Wilson
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| Anna Lee Hafer is a studio artist based in the Philadelphia area whose work is heavily influenced by such famous surrealist painters as René Magritte, Salvador Dali, and Pablo Picasso, all of whom strove to build their own realities through small glimpses into a particularly confusing, but utterly unique worldview that dictates its own specific set of instructions. With references to the laws and physics of Alice's Wonderland, the artist challenges the audience's inherent understanding of perspective, reality, and universal order.
In her work, Hafer pours and layers paint to create dimension and texture, mixing different styles and colors onto each other until they produce a 3D effect. Through marker and pencil that create shadow, she further enhances these forms and separates them from the background. Heavier layers and thicker brushstrokes in the foreground of her work push the painting toward the viewer, whereas the thinner layers and small brushstrokes in the background, elongate the space and push away from the viewer. By juxtaposing interior and exterior elements, Hafer makes the audience question whether they are looking at something inside or outside.
For additional information, please visit www.hafer.work.
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