RockPaperPoem

 

RockPaperPoem

Issue 4
December 2022

 

Editors' Note

 

Hello again from the RockPaperPoem team! We are very grateful that you have taken the time to find us, and to enjoy the poetry we present for your reading pleasure.

As we begin our second year, we have curated Issue 4 from a wide variety of poets, locations, and perspectives. During the end-of-year and beginning-of-year holidays, we often think of family and friends who surround us, and those who have passed. Several of the poets in this issue put the heartache and love that accompany loss into beautiful language and imagery: Laura Foley’s “Sketching”, Lynn Finger’s “The White Bat”, and Ellen White Rook’s “Oh Brother” are just a few of these poignant elegiac poems. But humor lightens the season, too, in Michael VanCalbergh’s poem about a pesky ant, and Susan Blackwell Ramsey’s take on male mammoths that mixes matter-of-fact lightness with serious overtones.

We hope you will peruse all the works of these fine poets in Issue 4 and select your own favorites. For now, know that 2023 will bring more of what we love to do: give you the gift of the finest poetry we can find in future issues of RockPaperPoem.

Happy reading!

The Editors

 

Image Credits:

Oh Brother - https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1055964
Indianapolis Contrapuntal - Nathan Rupert https://www.flickr.com/photos/nathaninsandiego/2994739796/
Asleep at the Wheel - Nicholas A. Tonelli, “Sluggish” https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholas_t/2285423249
Sketching - https://pxhere.com/en/photo/992463
Elegy on a Subway Platform - https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1607534
The Very Short Memoir of an Ant - “A Bathtub Curiosity” illustration
by Deborah Goschy, ©2022. All Rights Reserved
“Male Mammoths Died in ‘Silly Ways’ More Often Than Females, Study Says” - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woolly_mammoth_model_Royal_BC_Museum_in_Victoria.jpg
The White Bat - Derek Keats https://flickr.com/photos/93242958@N00/48966808522
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Natal_long-fingered_bats_%28Miniopterus_natalensis%29_in_flight_%2848966808522%29.jpg
John Has Dementia - https://pxhere.com/en/photo/924660
Augusta Savage - https://picryl.com/media/archives-of-american-art-augusta-savage-2371-5297df
https://www.aaa.si.edu/
Graveyard Shift - https://www.flickr.com/photos/glaciernps/51956579388
Nomenclature - https://picryl.com/media/list-of-archaic-names-and-new-scientific-names-to-standardize-nomenclature
http://www.loc.gov/
Autumn Leaf, Yellow Raincoat - Robert Couse-Baker https://pxhere.com/en/photo/393517
Headscarves - Orrling https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Hijabs.jpg/800px-Hijabs.jpg?20100109094711
Music from Big Pink - https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/220000/velka/killer-whale.jpg
Journey - https://pxhere.com/en/photo/660633
Angel of Edges - https://theorbital.co.uk/invisible-disabilities-autism/
Dancing With My Brother - Curran Kelleher https://www.flickr.com/photos/10604632@N02/1379789986/in/photostream/g

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