Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome back poet Pamela R. Anderson‑Bartholet of Ohio, whose work has graced our Vulnerable and Belonging issues. She opens Expectations with two luminous poems that usher us into the emotional weather of the theme.
The first, “Damson Plums,” anticipates spring, leaning toward the moment when white blossoms surrender to fruit, when sweetness forms around a stone.
“with their hard stones clinging/ deep inside the fruit./ They are little gods,/ rediscovering the way back. Believing/ that there will be rain/ and sunshine.”
Pam invites us not just to witness but to participate in this new unfurling, leading with language full of action and motion. Life emerges in small repetitive gestures, a single word looping, like a spell cast in rainfall and soft light. The poem asks us to trust that there will be new growth and deliciousness in our lives.
The second poem, “Expectations,” one of our poetry contest finalists, was inspired by an inquiry–“Is there fog in Ohio?” This question seems superfluous at first–surely fog happens in many places–but musing on weather, Pam observes that nothing is constant, that there is a rhythm to it.
“Yes. But only in the morning/ when thistles of mist/ hug the ground. Brooding. Lingering./ The one thing to remember/ is that sunshine burns it away./ Foggy mornings turn into blue sky days./ Sky so blue you could stitch it/ into a pair of pants.”
This external weather hints at weather inside each of us, our seasons of haziness and obscurity cycle with those of pure blue joy, sunlight suffused. With such illuminated and nuanced imagery, once again, Pam has invited us to be part of nature in a more present and visceral way. More than that she reminds us to take care of one another, to be there to hold a hand out in the fog. Engendering thoughtfulness and kindness feels natural in Pam’s work; she shows us how wonderful they feel.
Read “Damson Plums” and “Expectations” in Synkroniciti’s Expectations issue, Vol. 8, No. 2, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Pamela R. Anderson-Bartholet (Pam) is a traveler, blues music lover, yoga practitioner, and former (retired) public radio fundraiser. Her Holocaust book, Grabbing the Beast by the Throat, recently won the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Contest and will be published by Michigan State University Press in early 2027. She also is the author of three poetry chapbooks, including Just the Girls (Poetry Box) and Widow Maker (Finishing Line Press), and several of her book reviews have appeared in The Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She graduated from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts program, which awarded her a Bisbee, Arizona Travel and Study Fellowship. She has never seen Bay Watch, nor has she ever owned (or worn) a red bathing suit.