THE YEAR OF YELLOW BUTTERFLIES
The Year of Yellow butterflies (The Blog)
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"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

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Red Turtles

1/26/2015

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It was the year of the red turtles. 
It was the year of the crashing moon. 
Like a phantom cosmonaut, 
the moon ricocheted into 
vacant hemispheres.

In the dark children flew kites, 
cheering as the jolts of light
 cruised down swings and slides.
No one cared that the children
 might disappear into an air
as dry as saltines. Everyone
was afraid they’d forget to feed the turtles.

The Russian almanac declared them the pet en vogue, 
the pet du jour. So rare and divine,
you could shake them like magic eight balls.
A black market for them thrived. 
Haven’t you seen those faded tattoos?

It was the year of renaming--
Our father taught us endangered languages
that stuck like pennies in the throat. 
My best friend sailed a paper airplane 
through the wisteria montage of my window
 at night with the blood type of the boy 
she’d love the next day. 

It was the year teenagers were found circling
 on rooftops trying to suck in the sky
like Whip-Its only to find their knees
 were tar-stained and their mouths tasted like clouds. 

Rebecca Watkins has an MFA in Poetry.  She has taught literature, writing and English as a Second Language at the college level for over six years and has created and lead poetry workshops for all age groups. She has been published in The Promethean, The Red Mesa Review, SN Review, and Poetry and Performance among other literary journals.  More of Rebecca’s poetry can be found at www.rebeccawatkinspoetry.com.  

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    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
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