oh my darling

My friend Rebecca Myers and I co-edit an online journal named Clementine.

Our third issue went live yesterday and we are excited about it. With every issue, it's a pleasure to compile great poetry and photography by up and coming and established artists. One of my favorite poets, David Trinidad, is in the latest issue with two beautiful poems on death. It also features Chris Roberts, Lisa Newhouse, MRB Chelko, Sharanya Manivannan, Rachel Marie Patterson, Kaethe Schwehn, and Andy Stallings.

The gorgeous photography included is by Rick Herron (who took the picture here) and David Wright.

Compiling all of the unique perspectives has been fun and it's exciting to see Clementine blossom. It's also fun to work with Rebecca who is a very talented poet.

Our mission with Clementine are to give a space to poems that tackle or adopt ideas about the persona. Here's one of my favorite poems that Becca wrote from her chapbook Greener. The poem is in the voice of Maria von Trapp.

Maria Von Trapp, on the 25th Anniversary

Re-release of The Sound of Music on Video

They sugared and screened my life, made me

Julie Andrews, finder of comfort in brown

copper kettles, climber of mountains, settler

in unfamiliar territory. I went from hills to curtained

kids, yodeling all the way. Oh there's the whirling

dervish now, the how-do-you-find-a-

word-that-means-the-how-do-you-solve-a-

problem-like-Maria. Say it loud and it's almost

like praying. Maria. Sweet singer, second

mother, former nun turned able-bodied Edelweisser.

Christopher Plummer tired to make surrender

film worthwhile, but how, chin scar

like an either/or? Pick your poison,

your puppeteer. Will it be God or Captain,

abbey bells or seven children screaming?

Favorite things do nothing for fear. I hear

my well-kept songs wanting out, personal

refrains not fit for any festival chorus but voiced

Leisel-like at night, gazebo hidden. I sneak away

for secret ballads, strum chords crisp as abandoned hills,

wonder if when I wandered long,

afternoons by the high stream, through audience-

less and still a nun, I sang better.

I rewind the final scene, watch again and again

as my Julie Andrews legs trudge towards an unseen

inn in Vermont. A family fleeing war,

hands so full of Gretel, who can carry

a guitar?

-Alicia Rebecca Myers

I do hope you enjoy our latest issue!