First Light Journal Issue #2 is out!
Issue #2 is a garden of verse blooming with all the colors of reminiscence, remembrance and heartbreak.
The issue opens with a nod to elusive titles, a perfect beginning to a collection of poems with some of the most striking titles we’ve seen. We amble through a mother’s impassioned tribute to a departed son, a granddaughter’s memories hidden away in her Nonna’s oak chest, a deep, deep breath of blue juniper and the twice-blessed flowers in hands longing to be touched again.
We rest briefly at the oasis where love prevails at our behest before sipping at simple yet profound coffee metaphors for life. A tight starry night quatrain escorts us straight through a moving anhedonic supplication into more spring-time metaphors housed amid rambling rivulets, pale cream roses, fresh fields of parsley, skunk garbage complete with awe in the oo of June.
You know you’re past the halfway point of the issue when you encounter the fall-time dance of leaves and a reminiscing sweater. Soak in the unpolluting intoxication of a higher love. Sit down for the Glass Beads that come up on Bearsdale Road and step into the shadow of Tokyo Tower by Shiba Park. There is homage paid to critters gone and those coming. There is the raw metaphor of reaching out despite loss. There is longing for the ocean’s call. There is a father’s fixation on his late wife’s cooking pot.
Five lovely couplets describe an idyllic barn scene. A son shaves his father, thinking back to his toddler years when he had last touched papa’s face like this. The issue wanes with waning time in some hard-hitting introspection and closes out with spring awakening even as the world is coming alive again.
Splendid verse all around. The issue also includes a feature article that raves in great detail about Lucy Montgomery’s Anne series. There is an essay that exhorts us all to pay attention to The Flashing Check Engine light of our health. The Poet Spotlight section includes a conversation with Chris Reid, our Contest Judge for the season. We are extra privileged to include in this issue her late father’s poem, The Stranger, which is a treat from the past.
We produce print publications at Starboard Press, and that includes issues of First Light Journal. Order Issue#2 today. These gems are perfect for reading over and over again.
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