Please join us in welcoming back poet Jonathan Yungkans. Synkroniciti is excited to present two intriguing poems about human nature and its eccentricities, “You Don’t Learn the Cancan at Obedience School” and “Make Nice, Like You Really Cared.” The first, which was part of the inspiration for the theme of ritual, follows the snaky trail of the spirit through three street-side manifestations: a procession on Dia de los Muertos, a guitarist strumming tunes on a corner, and wind through the leaves and across the city landscape. Jonathan muses over the way these things intersect with us, inviting us to observe their differences and the commonalities. The second poem centers on a curious work of art, Sugababe by Diemut Strebe, an ear grown from Vincent van Gogh’s DNA. How does humanity’s obsession with celebrity, with gruesomeness and with imitating creation intersect with our search for meaning?
Experience these fascinating poems in Synkroniciti’s “Ritual” issue, Vol. 4, No. 1, available now. Subscribe or purchase the individual issue here.
Jonathan Yungkans is a Los Angeles-based writer and photographer who earned an MFA from California State University, Long Beach while working as an in-home health-care provider, an occupation he still practices. His second poetry chapbook, Beneath a Glazed Shimmer, won the 2019 Clockwise Chapbook Prize and was published in 2021 by Tebot Bach.