Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming our final Featured Artist for the new “Ritual” issue, poet D.R. James, with three poems: “Rite of Passage,” “New Year’s Resolution” and “Love Buzz.” The first won our “ritual” poetry contest with its depiction of the cruelty that underlies our social order and our understanding of modernity, technology and maleness–this is what I call a “poem with a knife in its pocket,” hiding a devastating truth until the last stanza. The second poem is a pianissimo whisper of promise and hope, even as the world seems to careen toward disorder. The final is a delightful celebration of the enduring joy of love and companionship. D.R. speaks with a gentle restraint that is both elegant and approachable. This distills the emotion behind the verses, making them all the more moving and expressive.
Experience these exquisite poems in Synkroniciti’s “Ritual” issue, Vol. 4, No. 1, available now. Subscribe or purchase the individual issue here.
D.R. James, a small-college prof for, lo, these last 35+ years, splits his time between contemplation in his deck chair and contemplation in his recliner, each while looking out into the woods east of Saugatuck, Michigan. He and his psychotherapist wife, when not working, decking, or reclining, tend grandchildren and cycle the country roads leading to Lake Michigan. His latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres, 2021, 2020); his micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is free, fun, and printable-for-folding at Origami Poems Project.