A shout out to our resident poet and keeper of intellectual musings and deep feels, Jonathan Yungkans! His poetry has been a feature of every Synkroniciti issue except for our first one-we hadn’t found him yet. 
This time around we feature three longer poems: As Darkness and Ships Ruffle the Sky, which explores youthful memories of his mother speeding home on his birthday and achieving liftoff in an Oldsmobile station wagon; Poem With A Question from Neruda (5), which recalls the Redondo Pier Fire; and Not That the Dark World Was Removed or Brightened, which explores night-time anxiety and the music of mockingbirds, Berlioz and Miles Davis.Would you like to share Jon’s poignant and sometimes humorous reflections and ponder the beautiful strangeness of life? We invite you to subscribe or buy an issue.
In his own words:
Jonathan Yungkans is a Los Angeles-based writer and photographer who earned his MFA in Poetry from California State University, Long Beach thanks to copious amounts of coffee and convincing himself that, despite his studies, he had not yet become one of the undead. Love of the ocean and oceans of caffeine continue to sustain him. His work has appeared in Anastamos, San Pedro Poetry Review, West Texas Literary Review and other publications. He has written two poetry chapbooks; the second, Beneath a Glazed Shimmer, won the 2019 Clockwise Chapbook Competition and is slated for release by Tebor Bach Publishing in the near future.
This is “Poem Beginning with a Line by Catherine Abbey Hodges,” an evocative poem by featured artist Jonathan Yungkans from Synkroniciti’s Winter issue (2:1) which debuted last March. Two poems, one on the left and one on the right, come together as a whole, illuminating and dialoguing with each other to create different layers of interpretation and meaning. Try reading only the left, then only the right, then reading across, left to right, left to right…
It seems to have an extra poignancy added by the pandemic, which had not yet made its way into our consciousness when it was published.
I have seen this guy’s writing, here and there. It’s brilliant, what I’ve seen. So I am following you to see more. I don’t do Twitter.
Hi Bela!
Jonathan is brilliant! He’s had poetry in all of the issues of our online magazine except the first one and has also had photography on our cover. Great poet to work with as an editor. If you want to receive our issues, you can subscribe or buy them individually. If you subscribe you can read all of Jonathan’s old poems in our archive (Subscriber’s Site) and get the ebooks coming up. It’s $10 USD every 6 months. He has a lot of poems in the archive and writes with us all the time.
https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/subscribe/
Best!
Katherine McDaniel
Thanks, Katherine! Be well.
You too!