POEMLINK No. 3: Routines & Rituals
Welcome to POEMLINK, a poetry roundup which promises to be a not-so-infrequent curation of pieces that have caught our attention in literary journals and magazines online. POEMLINK aims to provide an eclectic selection of pieces we find special, innovative, or simply amusing. Let us scour the world of internet poetry so you don’t have to.
Routines and rituals can help keep us grounded, as well as offer potent spaces for creativity. Whether it’s casting a witchy spell, skincare, listening to music, walking, or making an offering, routines and rituals can mark our days in small but meaningful ways. They can help jumpstart a day or work as a closing activity. Here are some poems that move through beginnings and endings, finitude and infinitude, as mediating moments for inspiration, self-hood, power, and potential.
—PL
1. Consider the “manifest of now” as a meditative exercise in Oana Avasilichioaei’s Chambersonic (I) an experimental translation exercise in sound, orality, poetry, and visuality. Listen or read the “sheet music” here and ground yourself in the poetic moment.
2. How does one begin? Rone Shavers’ “Crônica of 13 Beginnings” reflects on the poetics of commencement in thirteen fragments. To return to the origin, to return to resurrection, is sometimes not without violence and sometimes not without hope: “And when we found ourselves lost, we would find our way home with a statement that was part realization, part secret, path-finding prayer.”
3. If the routine care of your plants is something you find centering, listen to Glück’s poem, “Witchgrass,” while doing so. Or read her poem, “Vespers.” Sometimes one just needs a good weed or plant even if it can end in failure: “You who do not discriminate / between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence, / immune to foreshadowing, you may not know / how much terror we bear.”
4. If you counted frequenting the museums and galleries as one of your staple routines, you’re invited to live through Callie Garnett’s “Inspiration” that takes us through the Met: “What did I do to get this needs? / Today I got a squeaky nut”
5. Moving homes can encapsulate both routine and ritual. We see who we are or were, discard aspects of ourselves, and make room for new selves. What happens when we pack up now faded desires? What happens when one “put[s] an entire nation into a cardboard box”? Find out in Liselle Yorke’s “in need of.”
Prathna Lor
Prathna Lor, the poetry editor of Shrapnel, is a poet, essayist, and educator currently living in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). Their writing has appeared in DIAGRAM, C Magazine, Jacket2, and Canadian Literature, among other places.