fall 2021
Table of Contents
Return to Home PageIntroduction
Somewhere within Kostanay, Kazakhstan Justin Timbol
No One Knows How to Be Good
Emily Kedar
She's a Pretty Bird
Susan Zimmerman
Upon Watching the Rotation of the Earth
Charlotte Vermue Peters
The Graveyard Metaphor for Euphoria Kaye Miller
When I See Lake Water
Kristin LaFollette
Say It Delicious
Berry-Picking
Laura Cesarco Eglin
i decay, bro
erica hiroko isomura
Boy With Orange
Phillip Watts Brown
latchkey fragments
Frances Boyle
What We Carry on a Pilgrimage
Granada, Take Three
Elena Johnson
Swans at the Golf Club
Ruth Daniell
On the Straightaway to the Rockies
Great Grandpa's Grain Elevator
A Nova Scotian Night Light
Ryan Smith
Between Then and Then
Millicent Borges Accardi
A wrist, a wren, a small knife
Ellen Stone
Making the Most of Our Voices
Ken Victor
Late August at the End of the World
Bren Simmers
Introduction
Welcome to the Fall 2021 issue of The Maynard!
This is Volume 14, number 2, the eighteenth issue of The Maynard produced and published since 2012, when then editor and web designer, Moss Whelan, introduced the orange as The Maynard’s totem fruit and mascot. This may seem unbelievable, given the status of the orange at The Maynard, but until now we have not published one poem with an orange appearing in it.
Of the 28 poems in the Fall 2021 issue, dear reader, an orange appears in three! In “Say It Delicious,” Laura Cesarco Eglin has “assigned magic to oranges / the belief that anything can be / improved with its juice or rind.” The boy in Phillip Watts Brown’s “Boy With Orange” “peels, the bright fruit / shifts sun to moon / / which soon will wane / to a single wedge of light. And, in Elena Johnson’s “What We Carry on a Pilgrimage,” a pilgrim walk[s] around Mojácar la Vieja / / with an orange in [her] pocket.” Imagine our delight at the jackpot: Orange Orange Orange!
The Fall 2021 issue of The Maynard features our customary 24 poets and their 28 poems, 23 of which are also offered in voice recordings.
The 24 poets: Michael Boccardo · Millicent Borges Accardi · Frances Boyle · Laura Cesarco Eglin · Ruth Daniell · Sonya Gildea · erica hiroko isomura · Elena Johnson · Emily Kedar · Rahat Kurd · Amy LeBlanc · Kristin LaFollette · Kaye Miller · Bren Simmers · Ryan Smith · Dana Sonnenschein · Ellen Stone · Justin Timbol · Charlotte Vermue Peters · Ken Victor · Phillip Watts Brown · Erin Wilson · Wendy Wisner · Susan Zimmerman
Welcome back to poets: Laura Cesarco Eglin · Ruth Daniell
The Fall 2021 cover artist is UK-based Clare Owen. Her Tiger Orange offers the confronting gaze of a tiger—an acutely endangered species—“hiding” in an orange and inquiring as to the implications of “animals forced elsewhere, having to hide in plain sight.” Owen’s serious and direct image, like many of the issue’s poems, acknowledges what we have lost due to climate crises, toxic waste, and species extinction. And, her image is an invitation to focus on what we can save.
Yes, there is still time to save tigers! And, together with the poets and cover artist of the Fall 2021 issue, we at The Maynard are doing our best to save poetry. Join us!
Ram and I bring this issue to you with hope that the poems will be respite from the great uncertainty and undoing all around all of us. The Fall 2021 issue’s 28 poems were selected from a field of about 1500 (from 300 poem batches). These 28 poems are those that haunted our minds, wormed our ears, and sank our stomachs. These 28 poems are the ones which, when we read them aloud to each other, held and stood up to the pressures of our imaginations. That’s why we selected these 28 poems!
Read the poems in the Fall 2021 issue and see which stick to your ribs. Press the little speaker in the upper right corner of the page to let the poets read to you. Happy reading and listening!
We send you our very best wishes for your safety, health, and creativity,
Jami Macarty & Ram Randhawa, Editors
Fall 2021 issue | The Maynard