Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming writer (and musician) Nerissa Nields from Massachusetts. “Family” features two big-hearted and fiercely intelligent poems about raising children. “Spelunking” exhorts parents to trust their children and support their life choices, even and especially when those choices are unexpected, perhaps even scary. “Soften your eyes, the skin around your mouth/ And say, “Tell me more. I want to know all about it.”” The second poem, “Thoughts After Listening to a Podcast Interview of Tricia Hersey” is an extended prayer contemplating the violence that bubbles and seethes just below the surface of modern American life, built by “the ancestors who made the railroads, killed the buffalo,/ the lives we get to live, riding on the backs of/ Others…” How do we evolve, how do we reduce our natural reliance on violence unless we can acknowledge our heritage? Nerissa’s poetic voice is sharp, yet full of empathy and nuance and nothing less than visionary. She makes us think and she shows us that she has not given up hope in these difficult times. “I am a violent woman choosing, in every moment, to be peaceful./ I am a breaker who has pledged her life to the work of mending.”
Read Nerissa’s enlightening poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Family” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Nerissa Nields is a writer and musician/songwriter living in Western MA. She’s a founding member of indie-rock band The Nields who have released 21 albums and toured North America. Her short fiction, non-fiction and criticism has appeared in Brevity, J Journal: New Writing on Justice, The Maine Review and American Songwriter, and forthcoming in the LA Review. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA (English) from Yale University. She is currently working on a novel about a family folk-rock band.