#connotation press

If rising is a sin,

I think I came to poetry originally as a way of telling what I couldn’t quite tell, which I think is a common experience. I have tried to become more clear and blunt recently, but I think part of the beauty of poetry in general is how it lets you come to its ideas mostly on your own, how it gives you breathing room.

Depression has no vanishing point. Instead it spreads out, until the horizon itself is defined by fog. You touch yourself but not even an ache, or a pulse arises. You not only feel nothing; you’ve become nothing. Sensationless, mouthless. Your ear buzzing with flies.

It took time, but I learned I am the entire forest.

I think much of my poetry has come from what I’ve needed to work through—has been a sort of reclamation process, a way to be able to shape and control my narrative.

The poet does not forget or forgive: she haunts. She is unafraid of her anger, understands it as love. For herself.

                  I am not the prayer                                 bracketing your breath

“Book Review: Footnote, by Trish Hopkinson” - by Janeen Pergrin Rastall via Connotation Press