This month has been a busy month of poetry publications! Sweet Tree Review has published two of my poems, a concise prose poem called “Drying Tatami,” and also “Failed Adoption,” which is based on how I experienced our family’s failed adoption of two children in the 1990s. (This experience left such a strong impression, in fact, that my twin sister and I went on as adults to adopt — thankfully without the same heartbreaking result.)
What’s coming: In August I am anticipating several essay publications and at least one poem. I’m also hard at work on drafting a new novel set in mid-19th century rural Japan during the peak of Buddhist persecution. I expect to be working on this novel for the next year or so, but I’ll be sharing some of my research on the blog. There were moments during the 19th century when it appeared Buddhism might be scrubbed from Japanese identity. Sometimes I’m amazed at how it not only survived but even experienced a bit of a renaissance during this fascinating moment in Japan, when the country was opening up to the outside world for the first time in hundreds of years (or, more accurately, when Japan was becoming something that could even be called a modern “country”).
Drying Tatami
You lay out the rice straw on the suspension bridge to bind it. Every three
years, replace the wisteria. When the bridge sways, sag vine—slice…
Failed Adoption
It was snowing in Chicago when the plane landed,
must have been the time taken for the father
to walk two toddlers across a terminal
the same hour bitter-cold in Idaho,
and a pack of dogs in the sheepfold
It was intestines ballooning over wool, it was red on black gums
It was the ewe bleating against the cinderblock wall while the dogs tore while the mother stood for the tender thing
when she made for the door and for the propped gun…
Thank you, as always, for reading my work! You can read the full Summer 2017 issue of Sweet Tree Review here. I especially enjoyed the luminescent “Loss of Mass” by Steven Pan: Scientists once believed they / could weigh the human soul. / In the beginning, you were a / flush of frenzy and copper. / Now, time has decolorized / your fever.
Photo credit: “Iya Valley Vine Bridge,” © Karl Baron.
Cassandra Farrin 