Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chiwenite Onyekwelu | Rattlecast 313

3

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 1d

This week's guest on the Rattlecast is Nigerian poet and pharmacist Chiwenite Onyekwelu—don't miss us live at an early time, 2pm ET!

And bring your own prompt poems! This week's prompt: Write a poem about a time you were haunted and how you overcame the experience.

YouTube video by Rattle Poetry

youtube.com

Epitaph for an Unpublished Poet by Tangerine Bell - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 1d

So do not sing your songs to rouse my head.
Sing mine; sing mine. Sing mine instead.

—Tangerine Bell

No resurrection hymn can budge from dead The one whose pungent verses rot unread.

Ice Dance by Ingrid Jacobsen - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 2d

proof in the negative sticking to him
like any other stain are you who
you say you are

jason …

—Ingrid Jacobsen

jason said it was all just light from windows just light that had fallen and had stained the ground ground […]

The Underside by Ben Berman - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 3d

but what an impotent word—resides—
just hearing it makes me long for nude
photos of his wife.

—Ben Berman

My friend confides in me how his wife cheated— well, not cheated, but sent racy photos of herself to other men—how she created some online profile with a phony name—Lady Falcon—

Art History by Susan Auerbach - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 4d

A delicate dance, he called it.
The height of intimacy.

How much did I want to know?

—Susan Auerbach

In the picture he sent, a naked young woman hangs trussed in a tangle of red rope, legs tied in mid-leap, crisscross-bound breasts and thighs gaped at by salarymen with cameras.

Bunga-Bunga by Quincy R. Lehr - Rattle: Poetry

4

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 5d

Each woman’s in your harem.
Each man’s a catamite,
an entry in your ledger
that shouldn’t come to light.

—Quincy R. Lehr

A leisure-suited mogul. An extra bit of skin. A dealer at the back door. They’d better let you in.

If We Knew Then by Gil Arzola - Rattle: Poetry

1

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 6d

if we knew then what we know now then
the teacher would not have been angry or
shaken Richard awake …

—Gil Arzola

what we know now then Ernie would never have paid attention in math class, he would have lived inside a daydream and counted the birds outside the window instead of calculating angles.

Broken Seashells by José Enrique Medina - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 7d

I brought you to the retreat of this page
to ask you: What if we’re born already wounded?

—José Enrique Medina

Since you got sick, I’ve been turning over the word retreat. It can mean a sergeant barking, Retreat!, and a bombed-out regiment fleeing— or a spa weekend for a fabulous gay boy getting a pedicure at ...

Haunt Me by José Enrique Medina - Rattle: Poetry

4

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 8d

Mother, where are you?
Even the twins, who were never born, are here,
tossing big-headed mums, each one
a soft grenade of memory.

—José Enrique Medina,
Tonight's guest on Rattlecast 312

Against the greenhouse he built, the soul of Tío Arturo leans, smelling faintly of brillantina. Abuela drifts beneath cherry blooms, thumbing her rosary, whispering prayers.

José Enrique Medina | Rattlecast 312

3

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 8d

Tonight's guest on the Rattlecast is 2025 Rattle Chapbook Prize winner José Enrique Medina! You know his poems from Haunt Me, now get to know the poet himself. Join us live at 8pm ET!

youtube.com/live/Nm7gb9l...

YouTube video by Rattle Poetry

youtube.com

1 3

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 8d

My son’s sons
will be suns
to their own sons.

—José A. Alcántara

Grandfather Ascending a Staircase by José A. Alcántara - Rattle: Poetry

My son’s sons will be suns to their own sons.   My daughter’s daughters will be laughter and more laughter. […]

Two Mass Shootings, Same Day, Michigan by Ron Riekki - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 9d

the night is angry and eating
the entirety of the world and it’s quiet,

no crickets, the moon afraid to breathe …

—Ron Riekki @rriekki.bsky.social
www.rattle.com/two-mass-sho...

The half-burned wreckage of her last cigarette, —George Bilgere, “Blank” I went to two locations of mass shootings this week. […]

Dissonance by Jenny Qi - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 10d

The woman is the one who loses
when a relationship ends, warns my father ...

—Jenny Qi

The woman is the one who loses when a relationship ends, warns my father, my father who had never been with a woman …

A Bowl of Fruit by Stephen Dunn - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 11d

Jeanne, I have spent days arranging
this bowl of fruit, all for you ...

—Stephen Dunn

Jeanne, I have spent days arranging this bowl of fruit, all for you …

After He Left by Jeanie Tomasko - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 12d

Lonely in the rain,
the spirit is beautiful.

—Jeanie Tomasko

When the children were small and sleeping, the night warm and raining,   I would go out to a place […]

About a Lady by Brandon L. Williams - Rattle: Poetry

2 1 10

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 13d

She looked like a Lady.
So Lady is what I called her.

—Brandon L. Williams

i   … found her with a mangled wing, Six legs up, desperately swimming in a zephyr. She accepted my […]

Weathering the Storm by Colleen Farrelly - Rattle: Poetry

4

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 14d

Two systems might clash or combine or canoodle until bursting apart like twin flames.

—Colleen Farrelly

The Fujiwhara effect suggests that storm systems in close proximity feed off each other’s energy unpredictably. Two systems might clash […]

Isabella DeSendi | Rattlecast 311

3

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 15d

Tonight's guest on the Rattlecast is Isabella DeSendi. She was a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist in 2023, and the two poems we published from that entry are now apart of her new book, Someone Else's Hunger. Join us live at 8pm ET!

YouTube video by Rattle Poetry

youtube.com

Touch by Matthew Thorburn - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 15d

How tender,
the way she cups her hand to keep
warm rinse water away from my eyes …

—Matthew Thorburn

No, no, I did it already, I want to say, but then just give in, follow the tall older lady to the back of May’s Hair Salon so she can wash my mop before she cuts it.

TIVE by Gray Davidson Carroll - Rattle: Poetry

Rattle Poetry @rattlepoetry.bsky.social · 16d

No one wants to look at a dead terrorist.
No one wants to hear a terrorist’s sobs.

—Gray Davidson Carroll

I wake up in the morning and I am a terrorist. I wash the dishes, I read the news. My hands are a terrorist’s hands.