e c l e c t i c a
s p e c i a l f e a t u r e
e c l e c t i c a
s p e c i a l f e a t u r e
In an ongoing series, the editors, former contributors, and readers of Eclectica have been invited to write a poem containing four pre-chosen words. The words for this issue are last, held, find, and town.
If you would like to participate in the next special poetry assignment, the new words are gnaw, let, house, and same.
(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole piece!)
the yokes i held to myself. what have i made of it now; now
i know of the tangibility of my body.
Skyler Arden Barnes
scientists whoop and holler, high-
five each other, marveled at images
Nathanael O'Reilly
When I left I shifted / east to stand
in the City Beautiful, / community less so
Emily Rose Miller
Anatomy of a Storm-Weathered Quaint Town
On the foot of our disheveled home,
tides nibble, light leans for a look inside
Mandira Pattnaik
All this I missed in a town near a city called Milwaukee, myself renamed Mary,
which cannot counteract the newly earned headscarf
hooding my face or English struggling to fall from my tongue.
S.Y. Chen
The last time I saw Dan in person
he'd just pulled a knife on some guy
Beau Lee Gambold
as if the snake wasn't made in his image too
Jayant Kashyap
Church held me
with its harmonies. But my savior
was my uncle
Bob Bradshaw
