Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome back midwestern poet and photographer Jeannie E. Roberts. “When the Forced Adoption Goes Awry, or Does It?” is a clever villanelle connecting the Pip of “Great Expectations” with Monotropa uniflora, the ghost plant. Jeannie handles this tough form (repeated lines and limited rhyme scheme) with aplomb and virtuosity, creating a feisty, metered poem that honors Dickens’s beloved work. “He grew in dark places, snatched the estate,/ hit the jackpot, lucky fortune of eight.” The second poem. “Starry-Eyed Woman with a Sweet Tooth,” relates a moment of imagination in the dentist’s chair. “As the dentist chipped away at the old cement,/ white specks, streaks, and swirls/ fluttered across my inner lens/ as whorls, spirals, and tinseled wreaths of gold/ vibrated beside celestial orbs of silver./ From the eddies of luminosity,/ my family emerged…” The effect is musical and full of a lilting sense of delight and humor. Jeannie has illustrated both poems with her beautiful photos.
Read Jeannie’s captivating poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Family” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Jeannie E. Roberts is a Midwesterner with Minnesota and Wisconsin roots. She has authored eight books, six poetry collections and two illustrated children’s books. Her most recent collection is titled The Ethereal Effect – A Collection of Villanelles (Kelsay Books, 2022). An award-winning artist and poet, she serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs and is an Eric Hoffer and a two-time Best of the Net award nominee.