—with a line by Marguerite Yourcenar The candle isn’t bothered by the flame, light doesn’t complain when swallowed by dusk, pebbles don’t mourn the mountain they’ve crumbled from, mountain lions fatten on feral burrows that are wrecking wetlands, the Australian crocodile that makes a fine meal of feral pigs doesn’t know it’s endangered, the pigs don’t know they’re invasive, we’re all ravenous, cascading tragedies, dipping into glimmers of relief, gripping the flywheel, trying to get by, sorting angels from villains, poachers from preachers, loners from shooters, all of us wreathed in this sorry mixture of blood and lymph. I mean, look at me, shelling invasive Asian tiger shrimp for dinner, tearing off the soft swimmerets that once streamed seaweed and brooded eggs, slitting the fleshly crescent with a paring knife as my thumbnail scrapes the thin white vein that once carried the colorless blood.
Wendy Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her fourth collection, Notes from the Column of Memory, was published in September 2022 by Terrapin Books. She’s been the poet-in-residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club.
There is still time to apply for a 2024 SWWIM Residency! Enjoy a four-day, three-night stay at The Betsy-South Beach Hotel while you participate in poetry events with local poets and the #SWWIMEveryDay Editors! View guidelines and apply by July 15th through Submittable.
SWWIM Every Day will be on a publishing and Shout Out/Weekly Spotlight hiatus throughout July and August while we apply for grants and read residency applications. However, we will still be open for submissions and poetry with feedback responses. Please note that response times might be slower than usual.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter for more updates—and visit our website to see past, present, and future readings & events.
**We do our best to preserve the integrity of each poem; however, due to programming limitations, some poems may read differently on a mobile phone and in certain browsers. For best viewing, use Chrome on a desktop/laptop.
Wonderful visceral rollicking poem by Wendy Drexler!
Every bit vivid with good blood-flow through-out; the energy of the poem builds and shapes through the language, here, coursing along...in a way where the language and content become so good and close, sculptural, necessary AND lavish (without losing anything of the edge). The leaps of imagination are cogent; both, unpredictable at content level shift and yet justly anticipated in the listener 's ear who hears words coming a split second before they arrive...because preceding words call to words coming-up...this, in a good way. An enjoyable way, where the language gets to enjoy being language and the content of the poem is invited into that, to be splendid and to provoke strong reflection on points and deeper consideration.