Synkroniciti is excited to welcome poet Jonathan Fletcher, a fresh new voice with promise. We feature two of his poems, “Cub” and “The Amazons,” which are both about his mother–he has one of those superhero moms. In these poems, courage is associated not with men, but with women, and society’s expectation of gender is not what experience reveals or reality requires. The first poem is a grateful acknowledgement of his mother for taking the place of his father and accompanying him to Cub Scout camp, even though he was too embarrassed by the absence of his dad to appreciate it at the time. His affirmation that it is the mama bear who raises the cubs is poignant even as it is sweet. The second is a battle hymn to the women who fight breast cancer and their strength in the face of death, rejoicing that his mother survived and mourning those who fell. Jonathan is adept at allowing the reader to see his vulnerability. On the other hand, he has a talent emerging for oratory, for stirring the emotions with a songlike voice. We can’t wait to see where these talents will take him.
Read Jonathan’s thoughtful poetry in our “Empowered” issue of our online magazine, available here. You can subscribe or order the issue, which debuted September 1, 2022.
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher currently resides in New York City, where he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He has been published in Arts Alive San Antonio, Clips and Pages, Door is a Jar, FlowerSong Press, Lone Stars, OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review, riverSedge, The Thing Itself, TEJASCOVIDO, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Voices de la Luna, and Waco WordFest. His work has also been featured at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.