Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming back North Carolina poet and writer Jill Crainshaw, who begins the “Haunting” issue with three poems. “Ties That Bind” is an homage to creative community. There is nothing quite like the writer’s circle, or any place storytellers and poets gather to share their creations in a welcoming atmosphere. “Then stories./ Spider-spun out,/ connecting us limb to limb/ soul to soul.” Friends and memories made there remain with us for a lifetime, haunting us in the best of ways. Jill’s poem is an invitation to connect with the creative spirit, complete with soft alliteration, rhythmic vitality and an active energy that springs forward over the line breaks by means of enjambment. For this reason, “Ties That Bind” was one of our poetry contest finalists. “Mending Things” tells the story of scattering a loved one’s ashes when a unexpected puff of wind blew them into her face. This fit the personality of the deceased, who was both a free and nurturing spirit. “But we knew who had the last laugh—/ growing ghosts from winter ground/ that was her specialty.” In “Tombstone Tales,” a trip to visit her mother’s grave presents some vague creepiness. “I went to see her new headstone/ and the gate was open, just a crack./ Did someone sneak in// or out—” This culminates in the realization that the headstone has been placed without death dates being engraved. Sometimes it seems as if the dead are playing jokes on the living, or at least we would like to think so. Jill’s sense of fun and imagination create an atmosphere where reverence mingles with playfulness.
Read Jill’s lovely poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Haunting” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Jill Crainshaw is a poet and professor who lives and works in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. When she is not teaching at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Jill and her two pups, Bella and Penny, look for poems in their backyard. Sometimes, Jill writes them down.