Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming poet Deanna Lernihan, a powerful new voice based in Michigan. “I Called Her Sister” draws on Deanna’s experiences in suicide prevention and mental health. Those who are at risk of suicide are often gifted people who are able to imagine a much kinder world than those around them are able to achieve, natural empaths who have difficulty reconciling what should be with what is. Sensitivity can bankrupt and break them. Deanna’s poetry has a strong surrealistic element, weaving together imagery of bees, endangered and vital to the survival of our world just like empaths; guns; and the human heart. “Her heart had six-sided chambers a fresh colony born/ every 21 days nursed on royal jelly pollen-stuffed/ pillowcases her whole hive muscle was torn swollen/ with love and histamine that was the sister she was”. The poem drives forward in a break-neck rhythm for three stanzas via enjambment, the forth stanza inserts internal spaces to slow the pace, and the fifth is a gorgeous, alliterative couplet that acts as a tribute to this grand, sacrificial soul.
Read “I Called Her Sister” in our September 1st issue, “Broken,” available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/. You don’t want to miss this emerging poetic voice.
Originally from Queens, New York City, Deanna Lernihan is a Michigan-based medical writer and public health professional. Prior to focusing on a career in health communication, she spent several years managing suicide prevention research and implementing mental health services in under-resourced areas.
She spends her free time with her family, including her furry rescues. She also sets aside time to care for her supermarket cactus, which has grown from 6 inches to nearly five feet tall at the time of this writing. Her work has recently appeared in Last Stanza Poetry Journal and CERASUS Magazine.