It was the year we discovered

4/5/2015

our faces were never enough. We put on square tortoise shell glasses and tried to read the paper. Fools left their twinkle-bells and pom-poms on the page and we laughed so hard we spit pizza sauce from our red noses. Our parents screamed for us to come home and our friends gave us half a loveseat each and some washcloths. The windows were painted shut. Our hammers and screwdrivers just wouldn’t budge anything open. We slept while the slits of sun warmed our rompers and swore off make-up and sunscreen. With vitamin D deficiency and the bends we woke early, went to work and came home to a dinner of vitamin water and kale. We saved money for plastic surgery and wished for our princes on Netflix. Time stopped as we waited forever for downloads.

--Liz Axelrod

Liz Axelrod received her MFA from the New School in 2013. She is the co-host and curator of the Cedarmere Poetry Series in the home of William Cullen Bryant. Find links and samples of her work here: www.yourmoonsmine.com

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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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"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