THE YEAR OF YELLOW BUTTERFLIES
The Year of Yellow butterflies (The Blog)
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

"Terrible to dress in the clothes
of a period that must end."--Frank Bidart 

"You must remember that certain things die out for a while/ so they can be remembered with affection later on." --John Ashbery

​

Button Text

It Was the Year of the Enchantments

4/20/2015

0 Comments

 

It was the year of the mental wipers and the invisible architecture.
+

I asked the street scientist, for the design of behavioral etiquette; and nocturnal heat, for the price of discovery and hope.  He thought in such a stripped-down nothing, that I felt tinkered with and plain-slighted.  

That year, I held a contest of rituals, but everyone resisted. The rebels classified the questioners.  My wolf ran from my side. [He is such an improved hope]

+
In the year of the enchantments, a passage opened between sky and night, Circadian, cyclical and feral. I was a sucked-out bone. But, the moon was star-struck.  Eclipsed.  I was in orbit; earth-bound; electro-feeling.

A burst.

A flame

A tearing at the darkness and the night bent back, withdrawn.

+

Instantly, I knew the mechanical bluebird from the headbird of dreams

The feltbook from the metalback.

The electroduck from the yellow-scented.

It was the year of the violets and the pretending and I pretended the drift was nocturnal and the best possible day was yet to come.

--Leah Umansky 

Leah Umansky is a poet in NYC. Her Mad Men-inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream was published by Kattywompus Press in 2014.  She is host/curator of the COUPLET Reading Series and is presently at work on her third book of poems.
(Some of the poem was appropriated from ideas in this book review.  Hanna Roison's book review on 4.12.15  )

0 Comments

    Author

    Hi. I'm Joanna Fuhrman. This is a prose poetry/flash fiction blog in conversation with my  serial prose poem "The Year of Yellow Butterflies" (The Year Of Yellow Butterflies, Hanging Loose Press 2015). I had fun writing these poems about fads and trends from imaginary pasts. If you would like to add your own section, write me and I can post it (along with a short bio). Start with "It was the year...."  
    "In this extraordinary book, Fuhrman seamlessly oscillates between illusion and reality, childhood and maturity, the animal kingdom (a "babbling...walrus," a "creaky bird," a "bunny rabbit") and technology ("a baby's rebooted brains," "Virgil's internet").  She gives new life to the prose poem.  The Year of Yellow Butterflies is killer--not only Fuhrman's best book to date, but her most poignant.  "--Noelle Kocot

    "With the impish charm of an illusionist and the dazzling patter of a tummler in a Borscht Belt resort, Joanna Fuhrman suspends our expectations in The Year of Yellow Butterflies, sending us head over heels into zones of cosmic and technological bafflement and sudden parabolic grief....in this book full of brilliant predicaments and pleasures."—Rachel Loden
    SPD link
    Amazon link

    Categories

    All
    About Book
    Adeena Karasick
    Bob Kerr
    Boni Joi
    Cat Tyc
    Children's Poetry
    Christine Hamm
    Christine Reilly
    Danielle Adamowitz
    David Shapiro
    Diana Rickard
    Donna Hunt
    Eileen Tabios
    From Book
    Gina Inzunza
    Gregory Crosby
    James Harvey
    Jean-Paul Pecqueur
    Jill Grunewald
    Joanna Fuhrman
    Jodie Corngold
    Joe Pan
    Karen Hildebrand
    Kate Lutzner
    Lauren Russell
    Leah Umansky
    Liz Axelrod
    Maria Garcia Teutsch
    Martine Bellen
    Maureen Thorson
    Nada Gordon
    Nicole Callihan
    Olivia Grayson
    Rebecca Watkins
    Robert Thompson
    Ronna Lebo
    Ruth Lepson
    Sarah Sarai
    Sharon Mesmer
    Sheila Maldonado
    Shelley Marlow
    Susan Lewis
    Suzanne Osborne
    Toni Simon
    Vincent Katz

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.