Synkroniciti is stoked to welcome back Kansan poet Robert L. Dean, Jr. in collaboration with photographer Jason Baldinger. “Luna Pier,” paired with Luna Pier, Michigan, is one of our poetry contest finalists. Filling the empty scene of Baldinger’s photo with imaginary family, the narrator laments “can I miss what I never had? Possession// is nine-tenths of the law. I had the other tenth./ I had a ghost, a dream, a few words strung// like cloud-bellies in air.” We feel the grief for hope unrealized and the chill wind of being alone in life’s winter. Dean’s rhythmic music hypnotizes, pulling us forward by means of enjambment then, as we come to expect it, the enjambment ceases, leaving us time to contemplate solitude and loneliness. “A Blossom Fell” is a seductive poem paired with Mouth of Wilson, Virginia, a photo of a vining shrub clinging to an old building. Dean personifies the building and vine as lovers, “unnatural/ for such as us/ to say/ I love you// yet// one caresses/ one doesn’t move/ how dare it continue,” showing how the tenacity of this love belies and exceeds its opportunistic beginnings. Love can surprise us and relationships are seldom simple.
Read Dean’s delicious poetry alongside Baldinger’s haunting images in Synkroniciti’s “Haunting” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Robert L. Dean, Jr. is the author of Pulp (Finishing Line Press, 2022); The Aerialist Will not be Performing: ekphrastic poems and short fictions to the art of Steven Schroeder (Turning Plow Press, 2020); and At the Lake with Heisenberg (Spartan Press, 2018). A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, his work has appeared in or will be appearing in MockingHeart Review; October Hill Magazine; Flint Hills Review; Midwest Quarterly; I-70 Review; Chiron Review; The Ekphrastic Review; Sheila-Na-Gig online; Shot Glass; Illya’s Honey; Red River Review; KYSO Flash; MacQueen’s Quinterly; Thorny Locust; River City Poetry; Suisun Valley Review; Synkroniciti; and the Waco WordFest Anthology 2022.
Dean studied music composition with Dr. Walter Mays at Wichita State University before going on the road as a bass player, conductor, and arranger; he was a professional musician for 30 years, playing with acts such as Jesse Lopez, Bo Didley, Frank Sinatra Jr., Vic Damone, Jim Stafford, Kenny Rankin, B. W. Stevenson, and the Dallas Jazz Orchestra.
Dean is a member of The Writers Place and the Kansas Authors Club. He lives in Augusta, Kansas, midway between the Air Capital of the World and the Flint Hills.