Tag: The Wardrobe

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: A Concerto for an Empty Frame: Music for Survival by Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from A Concerto for an Empty Frame: Music for Survival by Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios (Kelsay Books 2023).

The First Year Without You (Winter)

    Lento

the first grace of snow
I move ceremoniously
transparent  starless

among my slow fires

.

new year’s first blizzard
endingsandbeginningsblurred
sky and earth reversed

.

in last summer’s pond
under twelve layers of ice
frog hearts beat    hang on      hang on

Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios’ (she/her) award-winning chapbook, Special Delivery, was published in 2016, her second, Empty the Ocean with a Thimble in 2021, and her third, Concerto for an Empty Frame by Kelsay Books in 2023. Nominated four times for a pushcart prize, twice for Best of Net, she has poems published in numerous anthologies and journals. A Professor Emerita from American University, she has performed as a singing artist across Europe and the United States, is editor of the Writers of the Mendocino Coast Anthology, artistic director of the Redwoods Opera and a member of international Who’s Who of Musicians. Her website is Kirkpatrick-Vreniospoet.com.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger (Sea Crow Press 2024).

Mystical Woodpecker

        Talthybius malomen

my binoculars are covered in pollen
—so it must be summer at last
and here comes that Woodpecker,
the mystical one,
the one i invented, for times like these

his feathers are made of steel
his beak is neither gold nor hope
pure bone on flesh
brings a sort of peace
in heat, dust, and sorrow

i saw him again today
when with trembling hands
i raised my ringing phone
that hideous Talthybius
i could not answer

i no longer listen
let time rip my bones apart
for now,
i’d rather watch my imaginary bird
through yellowed lenses

Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s (she/her) poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books of poetry. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger (Sea Crow Press 2024).

A Gannet Named Nigel

        Morus serrator
                                     —The Washington Post by Karin Brulliard, February 6, 2018

should i be sad for Nigel
maybe bellow his loss?

he loved a cement
Gannet for all of his life

she was a decoy
a lure to bring more of his kind

and yet, for years he was faithful
he gave her fish and renovated their nest

she was everything for him season after season
his silent companion on an empty rocky shore



while her paint faded and no other gannets met
he waited by her side

for the sound of her and others
was his song different then in this void?

did he sing his throaty vibrato?
or did he wait to be far at sea to screech?

i don’t know these things
but i know something about his seclusion

too afraid to venture far
now i live with decoys—images that talk inside of boxes

where i share a few fragments
in the safety of these flat screens

like Nigel—

i feed my solitude the best i can
try to find faith in a setting sun

while i cling to this hope—
a world full of Gannets and their full song

Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s (she/her) poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books of poetry. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger (Sea Crow Press 2024).

Sparrow Hawk and The Nester

         Fálco sparvérius

I nearly reached the water
the longest and shortest
journey— even if I have a thousand
legs in all

mornings were full of dew
at first, I didn’t perish,
so many died before
my brothers and sisters
did they climb the grasses
to take a drink?

the thirst in my pinchers
was deep, but I wondered
what a full swig of water
be? Would it be green
and taste of pollen?

thinking these water thoughts
pierced the worry of the Kestrel
—that Sparrow Hawk
flying so close by me day by day
I thought of those droplets
and imagined collecting each one
if I could burden the big water in me

the rest came in a mushroom
it was hollowed by age’s decay
just a moment for a dream
of currents and rain and joy
the fullness of lichens
bathed in moisture
and tiny spiders that taste of glory

now my body waxes and wanes
others will get there first
so I settle to watch that kestrel
finally take her requite

Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s (she/her) poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books of poetry. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger (Sea Crow Press 2024).

Brewer’s or Grackle

          Euphagus cyanocephalus or
         Quiscalus niger?

i’m always home, but wistfulness follows
me as tail feathers on a bird––Brewer’s blackbird
they cluster on the wooden broken fence
near our reeds––males with their curious yellow eyes

that seems to shift lost crevices inside of me,
their iridescent heads––that purple shimmer
an oil stain green, these lushness takes me back
to a childhood of tropical rain, Fichus trees,

and a plaza filled with the chinchilín song
of his cousin––an ecological equivalent––
the Antillean Grackle
could i beg for a similar fortune?

if my wish were granted, the child in me would run
unabashed after that long tailed chango
the perfect name for a silly bird that shows off
his large family––a gatherer full of mischief,

but the Grackle is not here in this colder climate
here the aloof Brewer’s, secretive but for singing
his own cacophonous song to his immediate brood
i can sense he doesn’t feel the loss of home

unlike me, his home is home––where the nest rests
its twiggy cup near brothers and sisters
a loose colony of familiar ancestry––my jealousy
at least for this summer, for this breeding season

Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s (she/her) poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books of poetry. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger (Sea Crow Press 2024).

Winter Bird

        Ave testimonia

You have seen the leaves of autumn drop
—so, you know how my love has been
not in the tumble, but the branches

which turn their naked fingers to catch
your weight with the frost that is sure to come
the vulnerability of it makes me shudder

i see the cold in how you fluff your body
how you turn your gaze towards me
our landscapes going light and fruitless

You and i can go back
to another season, another turn
— why does it have to hurt?

You know it does—
You are the witness
to fall—to winters

Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s (she/her) poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books of poetry. She has an MS in Biology and MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage of science and her experience as an immigrant.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Maggie Rue Hess, is from Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner (Kelsay Books 2025).

Little Bird

for Artie

The hottest month of the hottest year
on record. August in Texas. Unrelenting.

Mother had died just the month before.
My mother. The world kept burning.

And on the news, on our phones, all week the photos
of treasonous men, their arrogant mugshots

marring every screen, suffocating each sensible citizen.
How to breathe through the heat, through the spin

& the grief? How to rescue from harm what one loves?
When a red-feathered bird crashed into our window, it fell

like a stone & lay motionless. Little bird, you said
& stepped out to the porch, bent to stroke, to tap tap her still chest,

brought ice, brought tenderness, prayed mercy.
In the morning you spared me

from shoveling parched earth
& gave up the lost creature to ground.

You knew, knew I would not be able to bury her—
one more once beautiful thing.

Robin Turner is the author of two poetry chapbooks: bindweed & crow poison (Porkbelly Press) and Elegy with Clouds & (Kelsay Books). Her work has appeared in Anacapa Review, Pithead Chapel, Rattle, Rust & Moth, Verse Daily, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere. She is a longtime community teaching artist in Dallas currently working with writers from the Cancer Support Community of North Texas. Find her on FB and IG @robinsmithturner.

Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a PhD student living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their crusty white dog. She serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Connecticut River Review, SWWIM, and other publications; her debut chapbook, The Bones That Map Us, was published by Belle Point Press in 2024. Maggie likes to share baked goods with friends and can be found on Instagram as @maggierue_.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Maggie Rue Hess, is from Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner (Kelsay Books 2025).

Keen

—a lamentation for the dead

In the hours just after, someone
said About the obituary, do me a favor.
Someone said Don’t use
her maiden name. Leave it out.

Someone said the dark web.
Someone’s high profile business executive
status. Identity theft! Identity theft!
Identity theft! someone said.

200 words is all we need. All someone’s
friends-in-the-know had said so.
I said 86 years of living. I said
our ancestors. I said Keene.

Keene Keene Keene Keene
Keene Keene Keene times two,
times ten, times twenty. I said
her name. I say it & say it & say.

I count. I wail. I ad infinitum.
Keene Keene Keene Keene. I sing
my mother out of this world.
I sing my mother back.

Robin Turner is the author of two poetry chapbooks: bindweed & crow poison (Porkbelly Press) and Elegy with Clouds & (Kelsay Books). Her work has appeared in Anacapa Review, Pithead Chapel, Rattle, Rust & Moth, Verse Daily, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere. She is a longtime community teaching artist in Dallas currently working with writers from the Cancer Support Community of North Texas. Find her on FB and IG @robinsmithturner.

Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a PhD student living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their crusty white dog. She serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Connecticut River Review, SWWIM, and other publications; her debut chapbook, The Bones That Map Us, was published by Belle Point Press in 2024. Maggie likes to share baked goods with friends and can be found on Instagram as @maggierue_.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Maggie Rue Hess, is from Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner (Kelsay Books 2025).

Water

Make of me an emptiness,
a morning clear & present,

night’s terrors muted,
its details obscure.

Carve me. Crush me. Shadow-
shift me. Make me

a figure shining.

Robin Turner is the author of two poetry chapbooks: bindweed & crow poison (Porkbelly Press) and Elegy with Clouds & (Kelsay Books). Her work has appeared in Anacapa Review, Pithead Chapel, Rattle, Rust & Moth, Verse Daily, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere. She is a longtime community teaching artist in Dallas currently working with writers from the Cancer Support Community of North Texas. Find her on FB and IG @robinsmithturner.

Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a PhD student living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their crusty white dog. She serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Connecticut River Review, SWWIM, and other publications; her debut chapbook, The Bones That Map Us, was published by Belle Point Press in 2024. Maggie likes to share baked goods with friends and can be found on Instagram as @maggierue_.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Maggie Rue Hess, is from Elegy with Clouds & by Robin Turner (Kelsay Books 2025).

For the Swan at White Rock

I visit you at sunset
for weeks on end, memorize

your slender neck, each movement,
slow white grace on our mud-thick lake.

Bright apparition
from the root of dusk,

you have seamed yourself
to the liquid lining of my vision,

dreamed your body into mine.
There in the space between sleep

and waking you float—a wild thing
mute

and unburdened.
Some have seen you fly.

I practice silence,
grow impractical white feathers.

I study the strength of white wings.

Robin Turner is the author of two poetry chapbooks: bindweed & crow poison (Porkbelly Press) and Elegy with Clouds & (Kelsay Books). Her work has appeared in Anacapa Review, Pithead Chapel, Rattle, Rust & Moth, Verse Daily, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere. She is a longtime community teaching artist in Dallas currently working with writers from the Cancer Support Community of North Texas. Find her on FB and IG @robinsmithturner.

Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a PhD student living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their crusty white dog. She serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Connecticut River Review, SWWIM, and other publications; her debut chapbook, The Bones That Map Us, was published by Belle Point Press in 2024. Maggie likes to share baked goods with friends and can be found on Instagram as @maggierue_.