“Leaving my homeland means carrying these uncertainties with the knowledge that a phone call, an email, a single test result can change the shape of a life we thought we knew. But like sea glass, we are shaped by what we endure, softened by time, and held together by the stories we share across miles and years.”
Read moreThe Wisdom of the Pomegranate: A Reflection on Poetry and Mothers by Sina Foroutanjazi
The void, the empty feeling of loss; this is perhaps what connects Ceren Ege’s Dictum Wisdom (Intima, Fall 2021) and Pomegranate Protocol (Intima, Fall 2021) above and beyond their chronological relationship.
Read moreOn Fathers, Love and “Exit Wounds” by psychiatrist and essayist Greg Mahr
I regularly attend a poetry critique group in Ann Arbor, MI called the Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle, named after the bookstore and tea shop where we used to meet before the pandemic. The experienced poets there have come to accept the sad and overly personal poems and flash pieces I write and help me craft them into something that sometimes almost sounds like real writing. One of them once told me, “You always write from a place of longing. That’s a good place to write from.” I realized he was right. I find it hard to share what I write with the people I love. When I am in a good relationship, I write about bad ones; when I love someone, I write about missing them.
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