Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming poet and writer Fran Schumer. We are delighted to publish three poems in our “Curiosity” issue which range in mood from the wistful to the whimsical and back again. “R.I.P.” speaks of Ezra, “who went to Caltech but/ not to Los Alamos/ not to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem/ he practiced herbal medicine instead.” After a cancer diagnosis, “he googled do it yourself and built his own coffin.” Intelligence has its limits and sometimes it binds with other elements of personality to make us vulnerable. In “Self Portrait,” we see the poet reflected in the photos and eyes of her husband. “My mother said don’t marry a man who’s good looking.” As she has aged–“boy/ did/ I/ let/ things/ slide”–the depth of his love has become more apparent and cherished. Finally, “Market Hill Road” describes and contrasts places that had formative powers in her life: an aunt and uncle’s place in the country, a town in the Rocky Mountains, the subway on the way to Manhattan… Our imaginations and possibilities are shaped by our interaction with the places and people around us. Fran’s conversational poetry is full of lively imagery and paradox which draw the reader into her experience.
Read Fran’s inviting poetry in the newest issue of Synkroniciti, “Curiosity,” now available for purchase and digital download here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Fran R. Schumer’s poetry, fiction, and articles have appeared in various sections of The New York Times; also, The Nation, The North American Review, One Art, and many other publications. She won a Goodman Loan Grant Award for Fiction from the City University of New York and in 2021, a Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing poetry fellowship.
In 2022, her poem, “Memento Mori,” was a winner of the Martha’s Vineyard Poet Laureate’s 2022 Contest. Her Chapbook, Weight, was the first runner up in the Jonathan Holden Poetry Chapbook Contest and was published in 2022 by Choeofpleirn Press. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., she studied political science at college but wishes she had spent more time studying Keats.