Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome back Seattle poet Scott Ferry, who won our “Belonging” Poetry Contest with “it is quiet in the house.” He is the first poet to win our poetry contest twice, having won our “Empowered!” contest two years ago with “4/27,” a poem about his daughter. This is a longer poem and impressively built, comprised of couplets which gradually intensify and drive into a thrilling conclusion by means of rhythm, alliteration, and repetition. One morning as he listens for inspiration to turn into poems, his muse tells him “to write down/ all the things i wish i was// and email it to myself.” He lists among those things he wishes for not only health, happiness, good fulfilling work, but the presence of God. He’s startled by this at first, then recalls how he had listened to his daughter sing at mass the day before, mesmerized by rituals he doesn’t espouse. The experience leads him to seek out God for himself, keying into the deep desire for belonging that underlies religion: “so i have made a pact now with the god/ of unlit boiler rooms with cracked bellies// yes even though i didn’t take the sacrament/ at mass i ingest you// i write you as i list of wishes on the weeping walls/ of my hope.” Scott builds to a final crescendo that is chantlike as he works out his own credo. Strong sensory imagery breathes into words abstractions and ambiguities that draw the soul. This is prayer, akin to those of the medieval mystics or sufi poets, drawing upon existing religious metaphors to find new ground in search of a direct connection to God.
You can read “it is quiet in the house” in Synkroniciti’s “Belonging” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Scott Ferry helps Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. His most recent book (his ninth) is a collaboration with Daniel McGinn titled Fill Me with Birds on Meat For Tea Press. His book of prose poems, Sapphires on the Graves, is upcoming from Glass Lyre Press. More of his work can be found @ferrypoetry.com.