After the Squall by Elise Paschen

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 8, 2016   After the Squall   Elise Paschen

In need of air, she unhinged every window, revolving ones downstairs, upstairs skylights, mid-floor French doors, swept into the house the salt-brine, the cricket chirp, the osprey whistle, the sea-current, sound of the Sound, but had not noticed the basement bedroom window shielded by blinds, screen-less. Later that night when they returned home, lights illuminating the downstairs hall, insects inhabited the ground floor rooms. She carried handfuls of creatures across a River Styx— the katydids perched on lampshades, beach tiger beetles shuttling across floorboards, nursery web spiders splotching the ceiling—trying to put back the wild fury she had released.            Copyright © 2016 Elise Paschen. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "When I first drafted 'After the Squall,' I had, in the back of my mind, the myth of Pandora's jar, a container filled with bottled-up emotions. This modern-day Pandora, on a sultry summer night, unleashes the Furies by accident (or maybe not). Only after it was finished, did I realize that the poem is an ars poetica." —Elise Paschen   Elise Paschen is the author of The Nightlife, forthcoming from Red Hen Press. She teaches in the MFA writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and lives in Chicago, Illinois.   Photo credit: Susan Aurinko  Poetry by Paschen   The Nightlife (Red Hen Press, 2017)  "The Thousand Somethings of Someone" by Forrest Gander "I am Like a Desert Owl, an Owl Among the Ruins" by Noelle Kocot "Prologue of the Earthly Paradise" by William Morris Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038